A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

by Perfect Lionheart

Many people have correctly said much about how dark and hopeless an environment Worm is. But for a serious D&D player, it is simply Tuesday. So no use panicking. Of course, there is that little complication about starting out as a 1st level commoner...

7. Chapter 7

A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

Chapter Seven

by Skysaber

OoOoO

Story Day Five, April 10th 2011, Sunday - Mid Day

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"Jared?" Taylor stepped forward tentatively, figuring he trusted them, and it could not hurt to ask. "What are your powers?"

"Hm?" The boy looked up from the device he was assembling, then his face brightened considerably as he saw an opportunity to talk about one of his favorite subjects. "I am a wizard!"

There came a moment of awkward silence that descended over everyone at the tremendous faux-pas of anyone claiming parahuman powers were in any way magical.

Taylor clarified, hoping she had misheard, or was misunderstanding, "... a wizard? You mean like magic? Witches on flying brooms, and all of that?"

"Yes," he continued brightly. "Do you want one? They're easy enough to make."

"A witch, or a flying broom?" Taylor sounded confused.

"Yes," he agreed. "Although the witch takes considerably longer to create. You'd be the expert on that, as you'd be her mother. But no, all I was offering was flying brooms to any of you that wanted them. They're not the best means of flying, but they have character, and while not fast are solid and reliable for their price."

The girls all shared a look, then Lisa shrugged. "So he's one of those capes who thinks his powers are magic. He's still the best deal we've got."

"Mini-Eidolon?" Taylor asked the other girls.

"Mini-Eidolon," the others agreed, thinking that fit, as he really did seem to have any power he wanted, just nothing in any way as powerful as what had been witnessed out of that member of the Triumvirate.

Although that might change if his claims to be able to raise the dead proved accurate. None of them truly believed that, but it was something to be aware of, because what if it turned out to be true?

That would make him able to do something no other cape on Earth claimed to be able to do, which was a scary thought. Because if an almost-all-Thinker group was an undefended gold mine, what would that power be?

They almost preferred it not be true, so they could avoid worrying about it.

OoOoO

Story Day Five, April 10th 2011, Sunday - Evening

OoOoO

In an abandoned church, Jared knelt before the altar. A cloth had been draped over it, and a cushion placed upon it, both were pure white, as were the clothes worn by the body of Vista, which rested upon the cushion on the altar.

Her body had been repaired. Doing so was easy since his group had ruled that the Make Whole spell applied to corpses, since they were not currently living, so counted as objects. So there were no traces remaining of the injuries that had felled her, nor had the remains decayed at all, as a Gentle Repose spell had been applied by him to her body as soon as convenient, within only minutes of her fall.

Around them, the church was bare, stripped first by looters, then by fire. Jared had been forced to clean and restore the chapel, rebuild the altar, and even reconsecrate the area himself so this would work.

A good Sabbath activity by any standard.

A ritual had to be conducted in a place appropriate to the spell being cast. In this case a church was ideal as a setting, as nothing but divine authority claimed power over death. To keep them from being interrupted, Jared had sealed the doors in and out with Divine Lock, an obscure variant of Arcane Lock. Where Arcane Lock prevented anyone but the spell's caster from opening anything so sealed, without destroying it or using other magic to bypass it, Divine Lock prevented anyone not of the caster's religion from opening anything secured by it.

One of the many effects that he had access to that reacted differently to people according to their religion, and one of the many ways it was convenient to have an adventuring party made up entirely of people of the same faith.

Lisa, Dinah, and Rachel had been unable to open the doors, once he'd secured them magically. However, once he'd explained why, and she'd asked a few questions, Taylor had been able to open it for the rest of them.

This had been quietly freaking Lisa out a little. How any power could be applied to an object, then that object react to their innermost and never outwardly expressed thoughts, upset her enough that Dinah asked the same question, and now it was creeping both of those powerful Thinkers out.

Rachel had just accepted it and was making the necessary changes to her belief structure, unquestioned.

One of Jared's favorite metamagic feats was called Ritual Spell. That allowed a spellcaster to cast a spell as a ritual taking six hours. This ritual also required a number of unskilled helpers equal to the level of the spell. So, seated behind him on a restored wooden pew, and wearing simple church clothes, were Taylor, Lisa, Dinah, Rachel and Alec, who had complained a lot until presented with money, then considered himself hired for this event.

No, he could not open the doors.

But he did his part adequately, and without too much snark once Jared pointed out the whole thing could fail if he did not do his part properly, and if it failed due to his interruptions he would not receive his fee.

Starting after an early lunch, they were finishing up right before 6PM, so getting it done just before sunset. A hearty feast had been laid out for dinner, and they were all eagerly anticipating getting to it after.

Now the benefit to casting a spell as a ritual like this was that, with that feat and under these conditions, the spell takes up a slot one level lower than normal. So a person ordinarily restricted to casting second level spells could, using a ritual, cast a third level one, something that was normally quite beyond his current ability.

But it did not stop there. Useful as that was, that was not the limit of that feat's ability. For if you did the ritual in the right time and place, say for example, on consecrated ground in a church on Sunday, or have an artifact present or other appropriate item of power, the spell could be reduced even further, up to a maximum of three times. In this case, the ritual itself reduced it by one, and time and place reduced it by another, then at the beginning of this ceremony Jared had carefully removed from where he'd stored it a very fancy, classic, high medieval sword in the hand-and-a-half style, with gold and jewels on the pommel and cross guards.

While it looked like any number of fairly ordinary reproductions available (all of which used glass 'gems'), this sword had a presence to it that grabbed the eye, demanding attention, and gave Lisa headaches if she thought too long or hard about it (and Dinah too, once she'd noticed the older Thinker's behavior and asked her own power about it).

One of Jared's hobbies had been reading game books for D&D, and that included adventure modules, some of which had placed as treasure actual artifacts of legend. Knowing where they were, what their defenses were, and everything described in those adventure modules that he'd read as Dungeon Master, running games part-time for his group, trading off with another fellow, it had been a trivial matter to go around collecting them.

So, at Redhurst, Jared had indulged in the hobby of artifact hunting. Some he had recovered were minor artifacts, trivial in power, and others he was afraid to admit he even owned, for fear of igniting the fantasy equivalents of world wars over them.

The Lord of the Rings served as a practical, cautionary tale about what happens when news of a major artifact being recovered gets out.

This was Excalibur, sword of the British Kings, a major artifact by any standard, and it came with a bit of a funny story attached to it, as he'd never really been seeking it, merely pulled it from the sword in the stone in the Disneyland of a different, modern Earth. Turned out there had been far more magic to that place than anyone had imagined, hidden in plain sight. He had been summoned to the place, but he'd gotten out of there, having a ticked off, epic-level Maleficent upset at him, and did not intend on returning.

Ever.

In fact, a good portion of his daily munchkining was directed towards the purpose of her never finding him again, which was a real trick, and something that he prayed daily that he never faltered on. And luckily for him, finding people that she really wanted revenge upon was not one of Maleficent's strong suits. So, so far he had been ok.

That did not mean he intended to slack off on his countermeasures, though, as he highly suspected the woman could bowl over Headmaster Andarlin like the man was a ten pin. A matter of a slight difference in the degree to which each character had been optimized, with the headmaster coming off on rather the shorter end of that contest despite all of the fun stuff he had stolen as ideas from Jared, then adopted for his own personal use.

The good fairies had said that Maleficent's power was far too great for a direct confrontation, and they had not just been whistling Dixie!

But once again, you win some, you lose some.

That event was something he'd never sought out, but it had found him all the same. Whatever. As an adventurer, sometimes the adventure seeks you out, and something you got used to was having enemies. Entire civilizations of orcs and goblins was merely the starter set.

But between the six hour ritual, the consecrated ground, the artifact, and his feat, Jared could ritual up a fifth level spell. In this case, that was a simple one: Raise Dead.

Ok, that spell was not available on any wizard list he knew of. That did not matter, as he had once been in a campaign where, after the party had reached seventh level, the Dungeon Master and his wife had moved half a continent away. But one of the players had taken over, and that player had wanted to try out the rules for Gestalt characters, where one character had two different classes simultaneously, such as a fighter and a rogue, or a barbarian and a monk. In that campaign Jared had been playing a paladin who, under the new rules, also became a sorcerer.

Two classes, full levels of each, overriding the official rules on multiclassing that meant you had to split your character levels between them.

This had proven fun to play.

However, more importantly for Jared's current circumstance, the DM had used an in-game excuse to introduce the new rules, in that a local prince had a magic garden in which grew a tree, and consuming one of the fruits of that tree transformed you from a regular, single-classed character to a gestalt. And all you needed to gain access to that garden was to agree to perform a certain favor for the prince, something appropriate to your level.

Well, the game having become real, Jared had treated it like he had his artifact hunts, adding it as one more place to look for when he had been searching out the locations from those modules, and he had discovered a plane on which the city of Kahim's Jewel was real, and that garden existed, and that prince was still currying favors out of the local adventuring population. So the then-budding, first level wizard had hired an escort for himself, gone there, and done that prince a favor, getting in turn access to the fruit of that garden.

Of course, now that place was one of Redhurst's regular stops, and the school had a standing agreement with Prince Kahim granting their faculty, staff, and students access to that garden. And Jared had recovered a staggering number of favors owed to Headmaster Andarlin in return, almost bringing them even for a while.

But the important part to this story was that Jared was a gestalt of both Wizard and Cleric, so had the full benefits and powers of both at his full character level, and that included spellcasting as a cleric and access to spells such as Raise Dead.

Once again, he'd been living by the standard of, "The only unfair advantage is the one you don't have."

As he spoke the final words of the final prayer, an aura of light surrounded Vista's body and suffused her form, vanishing in an instant as the girl drew her first breath since her death early on Saturday, the day before. The girl's eyes fluttered, and she sat up shortly thereafter.

Seeing the girl she knew was dead for something like thirty-six continuous hours take breath and rise, Lisa dropped the pocket hymnal she'd been given, eyes bulging out, moments before passing out of equal parts Thinker headache and shock. Dinah incautiously asked herself the obvious question and soon joined her. Alec, whose emotions were perpetually numbed, took a long period to look and evaluate the situation, before amending his mental rules to allow for religion possibly having more weight than he'd expected. He even managed to act somewhat respectful as he gathered his pay, a bright pink Heart's Ease potion, and departed to go drink it in privacy.

Taylor was blinking, and blinking, and blinking some more, her hymnal having dropped nervelessly from out of her grasp too, as she endeavored to make a place for this event to fit into her personal worldview.

Rachel accepted this just as she accepted other facts of her existence. The sun rose, water was wet, and her alpha had proven to have powers even over death. So what?

He'd have to spend some time convincing her that dogs generally were happy with their eternal rewards and did not want to return from death, even calling up one of their spirits to answer her, before she would let that issue rest, however. So in most ways her reaction was actually the most trouble for him.

Vista's reaction, however, came as the most surprising of them all.

"No, I don't want to go back to my old life," the young heroine repeated. "My parents are monsters. Piggot is a monster and a pig, and I got shown that the ideals and goals I had been working for were not shared by the organization that employed me. That none of the agencies of the governments of this world are seeking anything but to preserve and expand their own power - and that makes them unworthy of my support."

Her eyes fixed on Jared. Then she deliberately pointed to him. "Jared is the only one trying to improve our world who has any chance of succeeding. Yes, he is mortal, and occasionally frivolous and selfish, but he has not yet allowed power to corrupt him, and might not if he continues to have good people to support him."

Jared blinked, registering that as high praise and not sure that he deserved it. He was planning on a number of pranks, after all, and to tweak the ears of all sorts of people in power for his own amusement as much as anything.

Only those that deserved it, of course, but still.

Vista then approached Jared, and in earnest seriousness, asked, "I want to be a cleric. You are the only one I know of who has divine spellcasting ability on this planet. But you are going to need more miracles than one mortal can expect to achieve. There is more here to do than any one mortal can handle. I want to help. Show me what I must do."

Jared drew forth a Bible, and handed it to her, and said, "First, we read this. Now you know there is an afterlife. This contains information on who runs it, how and why. That's information you need if you are going to wield the power He offers."

OoOoO

Story Day Six, April 11th 2011, Monday - Around Dawn

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Taylor rose from the pile of loose blankets where she'd slept on a mattress dragged in from another room, on the floor of Dinah's bedroom in the Belmont estate, other girls all scattered around her still asleep. But the shift from dark to dawn caused a shift in the activity of her bugs that she was swiftly becoming attuned to, and besides her bladder demanded attention. So she went back to her own room in order to get ready for the day, yawning, and feeling her head had somehow been enlarged by two sizes by what she'd learned the previous day, but that her thoughts were not yet big enough to fill all of the empty space.

After raising Vista, which was mind-blowing all by itself, the former Ward had asked countless questions. Jared had answered her the first few times directly, then increasingly answered by an appeal to the Bible, which none of them had ever heard more than a few lines of before. So, thanks to Scholar's Touch, the entire group had each read the Bible four times yesterday, each time while under the influence of his Comprehend Languages power so neither the flowery language nor the older dialect caused them any problems. Then between each session, Jared would hold a group discussion, where he instructed on finer points, or corrected on doctrine.

Then, because they'd all needed a break to decompress after all of that seriousness, the girls had all united in having a slumber party.

Every one of them had been burning with questions, like: What was it like? Where had Vista been and what did she remember?

Fortunately, she had a lot of answers. In fact, it would take the little warrior long into the night just to take the edge off of their curiosity. Although right up front, before they dragged her away for girl talk, Jared had warned that it was a known and proven fact being raised from the dead was traumatic, and that it did bad things to one's memory, and that Vista recalling as much as she did was rare, and amounted to a specific directive prepared for her to bring back with her, to guide her future actions.

Did not mean the girls had not spent that whole evening and well into the night grilling her for what little fragments the heroine could recall, however.

Before leaving with the others, Lisa had paused to ask one question that Taylor had overheard with her bugs, "How was her power still there? The shard disconnects on death."

This was news to Taylor, and she had to wonder how Lisa knew it.

Whatever Jared's mannerisms had been, Taylor's bugs couldn't tell her. Bug vision was still very much a work in progress, that is to say, it would be, assuming Jared knew how to train that as he had so many other facets of bug senses. But anyway, she had overheard Jared's confident reply of, "I'd like to know how you knew that bit of powers trivia... Ah, I see you didn't. You just asked what your power prompted you to, because it wanted to know. Well, ok. I'll answer anyway. It's really very simple. There is a lot about life that is very complicated, processes to restart, and so on. The connection between host and shard is just one of countless others to reconnect when the aim is to restore a dead body to the functions it had in life."

Taylor smiled. One of the first things they'd gotten to at their slumber party was introductions. After all, Vista had not known them, nor had they known her, really. Only what you'd read of capes generally. So it felt extra-special that Vista had unmasked to all of them and introduced herself as Missy Biron.

Then Missy had asked for all of their cape names and, alright, that was fair.

Taylor felt lucky she even had one: Roxanne. They'd had fun teasing each other all evening over all of the horrible ones they could think up, but would never use, for those completely without, like Dinah, or who had to change, as Lisa and Rachel and Missy did.

But already having a good one, Taylor had been mostly immune. Mostly. Just about every bug-themed name had been brought up at some point, but it was all in good fun.

Of course, the slumber party had been good for her in a number of different ways. For one, it had newly reawakened Taylor to the knowledge that she, as a teenage girl, had certain needs, like gossip, and painted toenails, and braiding hair.

Oh, how she had missed those things!

She went and got her things and got into the shower, Jared having rigged a cistern in the attic as a temporary measure so they would have running water, and placed it high up so they would have water pressure in the pipes. He'd also done something to the water heater so it worked without gas or electricity being hooked up. But sometimes whatever he'd done stopped working, so it was good to get any bathing done early, as cold water in New England in April was... Brrr! Taylor did not like to think on it.

Then she would go down to breakfast. They were learning new skills today, and wanted to make an early start.

OoOoO

Taylor did not even think about it, after cleaning up and leaving her room it was the most natural thing in the world just to go into the house's big kitchen. Nor was she the first one to arrive. Dinah and Missy had beaten her to it, and every countertop, range and appliance nearby the two just happened to be the perfect height for them to work at.

Taylor's bugs reported a dizzying moment when Missy reached out for a jar of honey that was on a shelf thirty five feet away, around two corners, and eight feet up off the floor.

She grabbed it as though it was next to her on her shortened counter.

If Taylor had not been practicing with her powers to expand her capabilities as a reconnaissance cape, she would have missed it. As it was, she could hear snippets of conversation from the two twelve-year olds even before entering the room, but only enough to know they were talking.

Lisa was still asleep on Dinah's floor, giving out little snores from time to time that she'd probably deny, while Rachel was up and primping, her wakeup routine taking substantially longer now that she'd added beauty routines to help her appearance.

It was amazing the difference it made for the dog cape, though. While she was still short-haired and stocky, no one would mistake her for anything but a very feminine girl anymore.

Taylor glanced down at her own pudgy stomach, wishing for her own turn through those programs before heading into the kitchen and heading towards the spot she'd chosen for her own workspace, not too far from Lisa's.

As usual, her bugs were not able to locate Jared until she'd put some effort into it, although by now she had learned that it was not due to some innate quality unique to him or a cape power, instead he applied an insect repellent every morning. She might have been offended had he not pointed out that, while he was sure she would never cause any to bite him, he did not spend all of every day in her presence, and found insect bites annoying.

She had to give him that. She could recall getting her own back before her powers, and they were annoying.

Still, she had used every variety of insect at her command and told them to consume major portions of his brand of repellent. Whatever it was, it was deucedly effective, and she wanted them to recognize the scent. They had consumed half a bottle, but they had succeeded. Her bugs could now recognize the scent of that repellent anywhere!

Except, as it turned out, on him, because apparently he had a minor power that prevented him from being detected by scent under any circumstance.

Rachel had admitted that it annoyed her too.

Still, short of hanging a bell around the boy's neck, Taylor had the best ability of any of them to detect him, so she dedicated a part of her mind to that, while her body was already going through the unfamiliar-yet-sure-and-certain motions of cooking.

They had gotten many skills programmed in the previous day. The various ones dealing with money had been only part of one set of six. Jared was determined that they should learn all sixty as soon as possible. They had picked up the skill for cooking just before lunch yesterday, and it had permanently changed their worlds.

After making their own lunch for the first time and tasting the product Lisa had actually cried, shedding only a few tears but still, hanging her head until the others had questioned her what was wrong.

Then she admitted to being sad that she would never enjoy any of her favorite restaurants ever again.

They'd all frozen stock still as they'd realized that was true. Most people enjoyed restaurants in part because the cooking skill of the staff was superior to their own, so they had a better eating experience than if they'd stayed at home. But in their own case the reverse was now true, that eating out would be like having food prepared by the local kindergarten.

Sure, the food they'd prepared had been wonderful, beyond anything they'd ever eaten, but it had dimmed their joy significantly when eating that lunch to realize they would now be stuck eating food they'd prepared from now on, unless they wanted to taste every error, every cheap ingredient, and every sub-par cooking method in every bite.

And frozen meals from the grocery store would be even worse!

Thankfully, they were so good at cooking now that it was easy, and went fast. They could whip out meals that would have any gourmet in the country swearing off five-star restaurants and the comparative swill they served for life, and do it on autopilot. When they really put the effort in...

... well, there was the dinner last night, to celebrate Vista's return from the dead. Taylor's knees still went weak at the memory.

She had never tasted anything better in her life.

While her body went through the motions of preparing French toast, Taylor went back to focusing on optimizing the senses of her bugs. Already she had found that she really needed the right mix of insects to make out speech reliably, as most bugs were quite deaf, only able to sense vibrations in the same dull way that humans would feel an earthquake. Many of the rest did not hear sounds so much as sense air movement, while most of those who did have some hearing were severely impaired by human standards, with quite a few of those only able to sense along narrow frequencies - chiefly those associated with the approach of their predators.

If you wanted to listen for ultrasound, then she was your girl. She had bugs that could hear so far beyond human ranges that she personally doubted if scientists had yet devised machinery to pick those signals up. But not many bug species were useful for listening to human speech. She was already collecting and breeding those few that were, or could hear useful parts of speech, as she was finding it was a bit like assembling a decent choir - you needed so many sopranos to hit the high notes, so many bases to hit the low ones, but nothing sounded right unless you had tenors and altos to fill up the middle parts.

It was like that, only with bugs. And you needed a LOT more than four different types! Plus, she was having difficulty finding any that could hear in some of the lower ranges, as most insects that had any hearing did so in the range of sounds they produced, which were generally very high.

So far, she was playing with a mixture of mosquitoes and fruit flies, lacewings, cicadas, grasshoppers, crickets and katydids, along with a surprising abundance of moths and butterflies. Almost all species of beetles were deaf, which was a pity as they were so useful otherwise, and she'd had high hopes that because of their larger bodies they'd be able to hear the lower sounds.

If only people spoke in really high pitched, squeaky voices! Then she'd be able to hear everybody, all of the time!

So far crickets, cicadas, butterflies and grasshoppers were her best for low frequencies, and katydids for broadband hearing, but again, getting the right mix was crucial.

It was a work in progress.

Hearing Missy squeal as Dinah rubbed some sticky substance they'd been working on off onto her cheek, Taylor registered that noise from thousands of different directions as she calmly assembled her 'insect ear choir' and fine tuned it, all while getting the butter pats for the French toast just right.

OoOoO

"Good morning, everyone!" Jared called out gladly as he joined everyone else in the kitchen. Until yesterday he had been the group's primary cook, and had been astonishingly good at it.

Now, every one of them was a chef that any king or tyrant would have gladly gone to war or killed people to acquire.

They tried not to let it go to their heads.

Lisa was frying eggs, hashbrowns and toast, while Taylor was handling the French toast, while Dinah and Missy were on the dessert course. Rachel still had not come down from her beauty treatments, so Jared went up to the range and began frying up loads of sausage and bacon.

It was difficult even for experienced chefs to get bacon just right. But in the amounts he was frying all at once? It was a miracle.

"Jared, I've been meaning to ask, how did you get all of the appliances to work?" Lisa queried.

"I've been wondering when someone would bring that up," he grinned, eyes on the bacon. "To give you a bit of backstory, it turns out that I have something of a talent as an innovator. In the world I most recently came from, one of the 'powers' commonly available was a diagram called a Magic Circle Against Evil. Now most people use these on a very small scale to make summoning demons slightly less ridiculously dangerous. Aside from that, they basically got ignored. But one of the properties the diagram grants anyone inside one of them is to be immune to what you would call Master effects. So I convinced the headmaster of the academy I attended to enchant our school's outer wall as one."

He shrugged. "That was my first year. It turned out to be so bizarrely useful, stopping so much and costing so little, that from the moment I'd pointed it out news spread, and in a flash, like plumbing, every settlement that could afford it was duplicating it, either having their existing city walls enchanted, or building city walls they could enchant with Magic Circles Against Evil."

Jared started flipping bacon, and snorted. "Of course, there were concerns that we could not use it on our banking houses, or the entire economy would collapse. But Magic Circles Against Evil only hedge out creatures from other planes of existence, not your ordinary evils like bankers or corrupt politicians. The important part is that it stops all sorts of possessions and mental control. So you know your sleezebag of a politician is a sleezebag of his own volition instead of him being mentally controlled by someone (or something) else. Given the vast array of critters with some kind of dominate ability, it's sort of necessary, unless you want to post signs out front saying 'This brain farm is run by our beloved illithid overlords'."

"Illithid?" Taylor's voice broke through his musings.

"Commonly called mind flayers," Jared instructed, eyes on the bacon. "Their young enter through the ear of a humanoid creature and begin by first devouring the brain. After that, they go through a sort of dormancy period where the rest of the body gets slowly consumed and converted into a psionic being of great power, who live solely on humanoid brains. Each mind flayer must eat at least one sapient brain each month in order to simply survive, and they prefer many more. They also live for centuries. So thousands, or tens of thousands of human beings will be killed by each mind flayer if they are allowed to live out their lifespan. And they have an array of powers making that not only possible, but easy for them to do. Their most infamous power is a mind blast that stuns most people caught in it, long enough for them to be taken prisoner. Then they have an array of abilities that can rewire your thoughts so you think black is white and bond is free and up is down, or anything else they want you to believe, even that they are your very best and most trusted friend, even as you shave your own head and place yourself in the stocks they use as an eating frame, to make their consumption of your own brain more pleasant for them. They are about the same height and weight as a human, are all around super-genius intelligence, and have four tentacles around a leechlike mouth that are quick and dexterous enough to latch onto you even during active combat. Once they get all four attached, they extract and consume your brain, instantly killing you. They are wholly evil, completely sadistic, and feared by virtually everyone. Among the best protections you can have against them are mindless creations like constructs and undead - or insects. Taylor, you would be a wonder at fighting mind flayers, able to detect them before they came within range of their own abilities, and able to use your swarms to devour them before they got to try the same on you."

"Uh... thank you?" Taylor squeaked out, horrified.

"Those things don't actually exist, do they?" Lisa called out hopefully.

Sadly, Jared shook his head, even while collecting freshly fried bacon onto plates. "Sorry, they do. I kept one as a prisoner for years, using magic to sidestep the dietary requirement, and harvesting it for its useful skin. The adventurers I'd hired to bring me one destroyed its mental faculties as part of the retrieval contract, so it was considerably less dangerous than usual. Still, it tried to use its tentacles to harvest my brain more than once. I'd show you the scars, but I don't scar. In fact, one of the better beauty products I sell removes them."

"What do you have that removes scars?" Rachel came into the room to ask, somehow conveying this was seriously important to her.

"Elfhazel," he replied, calmly plating up bacon. "I'll get you a bottle later, after breakfast. It has to be applied to the area for a week, but it eliminates all scarring."

Job cooking bacon done, Jared looked up to see horrified expressions all around him, and Vista taking notes. "What, exactly, does a mind flayer look like, and how do you recognize them?" the little child soldier demanded seriously. "Especially, how do you guard against their young getting in your ears?"

Jared calmly set down the heaping plate of bacon and brushed grease off his hands, telling everyone, "I am going to cast an illusion of one. Think of it like a hologram."

He did, and there appeared in their midst a tall, gangly, spindly creature with a squidlike head and alien complexion. It was a creature of horror by any standard.

"And these creatures regard all humans as food, you said?" the little warrior demanded, still taking notes, after taking several pictures.

"Absolutely," he agreed. "Like I said, they need to eat our brains to survive. It is actually quite common, I am told, for them to strip entire worlds of every species they consider food, then move on to other worlds. They have an innate ability to plane shift, that is hop into different dimensions, and between their voracious appetites, powerful abilities, and incredible breeding cycle, each of them spawning larva each month, I don't doubt in the least their ability to wipe out virtually any human or humanoid civilization within a single generation. So tales of them doing exactly that are completely believable. About their only weakness is they dislike sunlight. It gives them sunburns, and they don't like it, but it does not stop them like you would expect for a vampire, or anything. As for their young? They are wholly aquatic, and as far as I know are only found in the pool surrounding the Elder Brain that forms the center of any mind flayer community. Think of a brain the size of a minivan, floating disembodied in liquid. That brain actually eats most of the mind flayer larva, which is good because each mind flayer spawns thousands of them at a time. Those look like little tadpoles. But I don't know that they can exist outside of the high-psychic energy environment of the elder brain's pool."

"No entering pools where giant brains are floating, gotcha," Vista checked. "Okay, how do you defeat one?"

"Never get within sixty feet of one," Jared explained. "That is the extreme limit of their mind blast, which is their longest range power. Expect the other mental powers to have about forty five feet of range. Other than that? They would be considered minor brutes by your standards. They're not too much stronger than an average man, but they have a capacity to absorb punishment and keep on fighting on par with most horror movie monsters. One bullet won't do it, but a clipful stands an even chance. If you haven't shot one at least seven times, I wouldn't trust it to actually be dead, and they are smart enough to play dead to lure you close. So if you shot one and it goes down, I'd give it another clip just to be sure."

"Brute 3, extreme physical trauma required to put down, got it. Anything else?" the veteran child soldier side of Vista was now on full display.

Jared shrugged. "Like I started out saying, their greatest danger has always been their minions. They are never without some poor bastards hanging out, willing to die for them, lie for them, do anything for them. Also, super-geniuses, if you don't expect everything to be a trap, you're not being paranoid enough. They'll do scams that make any Earth con-artist look dim. But they do love the easy power of government, so it's standard operating procedure for them to take over whoever is closest to power that's easy to grab. They don't need much. A lowly bureaucrat with nothing more than the power to summon people in to deal with minor paperwork irregularities represents an infinite food source, as far as they are concerned. They let their government minion call in other humans, take over their minds there in the privacy of his office, then release them to go back to their homes - as mind flayers are far too smart to let a trail of obvious disappearances lead straight to their door. But that way they'll subtly assemble a network of thirty or forty people rather quickly, and with that many willing, even eager helpers, they can gut any established power structure you'd care to name, placing themselves in command. Then, once they are fully in control, it's chow time. Officially there will be some explanation for the sudden surge of deaths; bandits, wild beasts, an enemy nation making raids, a disease pandemic, because it's always more trouble when the cattle get frightened, and cattle is how they view us. But no matter the excuse, they are lovecraftian horrors eating our brains."

"And you held one of these prisoner, like, for most of a year?" Dinah asked, wide-eyed.

"Almost two," Jared softly smiled. "Headmaster Andarlin based his own containment measures on the one's I'd been using. Only, as he is far more powerful, with friends nearly as powerful as he is, he had access to much greater resources than I do. So his containment measures were more complete, and his people were never in any danger of having their brains sucked out, even by reflex action. That was something I'd overlooked. Even with their minds destroyed, blasted down to vegetative status with no hope of recovery, a mind flayer's feeding reflex is so strong it nearly got me a couple times. After the second time, the headmaster had to insist I turn over my mind flayer to him. But he still provides me with free mind flayer vellum whenever I need a new spellbook, so there is that."

Lisa was shaking her head, trying to fight off a monster headache. She gasped, "I cannot fit any of what you just said into an existing paradigm! Did you really mean it? You think you are a wizard? And you think there are magic schools and monsters, and..."

Seeing she was near passing out, both from pain and her shard's confusion, Jared stepped forward and placed a hand on her forehead, casting the Command spell, "Calm." Which he followed up with a spell from the witch's handbook, "Soothe," taking her pain away.

Kitchens rarely have any chairs. Lisa fell bonelessly onto a seat on a 5 gallon PVC bucket holding rice, staring up at him, mesmerized. "You really think it's true, don't you?"

Seeing her about to spiral out of control again, Jared cast, "Sleep," then caught her as she fell. Lifting Lisa over his shoulder, he saw the other young ladies suffering nearly equal levels of discomfort, each of their shards struggling in vain to understand or dismiss this, unable to do the first and as yet unwilling to do the latter.

Aware of this, he could see that one of his contingency plans was going to be needed sooner rather than later. "Rachel? Dear, I need you to take Lisa to her room for a bit, and watch over her. I'll be there in ten minutes, tops. Okay?"

Rachel, glad to have something to do, and understanding that caring for the weaker members of her pack was one of her primary duties, accepted the burden and was off.

Jared had already knelt before the two smallest girls. "Dinah? Vista? we've stumbled into some unpleasant power interactions. It would speed our resolving them greatly to separate those afflicted, and let them have some rest to reset. Do you want to go to your rooms to lie down a bit on your own, or do you want some help getting to sleep? It should just be a few minutes."

Both girls wanted some help, so Jared escorted them back to their rooms, Taylor trailing along. They'd chosen ones next to each other, so after dragging Missy's mattress back to her room both were soon taken care of with their own Sleep spell each.

Then Jared turned to Taylor. Offering her his hand as they went to her room, he explained, "You have such range and sensory ability, I did not want to frighten you by curing anyone else first, and possibly having you misunderstand something you saw through your bugs. Taylor, do you trust me?"

She gave him a tiny nod of her head, limited by her headache.

"Can I put you to sleep, please?"

"Itsfne, ahl ste 'wke." she answered, still clutching her head.

Correctly interpreting that as, "It's fine, I'll stay awake," Jared sighed. "Okay, I'll let you. But I'd really rather you let me take care of this, for my own sake as much as yours. Your discomfort pains me, you know."

"salright."

"Alright," he gave her a little kiss of the forehead as she was sitting on the edge of her bed. "You will find this disorienting, and possibly distressing. However, it should fix the problem."

Jared took his favorite staff in one hand, gems glittering on the golden wood, and made a gesture, saying "Create Lantern Archon." Instantly a floating ball of light, not very bright, appeared in the room.

Jared presented his wallet to it. "I have need of some pigs. Would you go and fetch about thirty for me? Here is money to pay for them. There is a barn out back to put the rest in, but I'll need the first five in here. Here is a map of several farms with pigs for sale. Can you do this for me?"

There came a squirt of language that Taylor could not understand, that only made her headache worse, then the ball of light vanished. In moments it was back again, and there was a pig in the room.

Taking his staff, Jared pointed with it first to Taylor, then to the pig, after the ball of light vanished again, and intoned softly, "Ability Rip."

Several things happened at once. The feeling of ice picks going repeatedly through her brain vanished, leaving only the ache of former pain behind.

Taylor also felt like she went suddenly deaf, blind, and had lost all sense of touch or orientation. She felt appallingly dizzy, and unable to orient herself at all.

"Peace. It will pass. Soothe," Jared's voice came, how she could not tell as she felt certain she'd lost all hearing, sense of smell, sight, and she could not even name all of what senses she'd lost. But at least his last word took all of the pain away.

Then, at last, she realized that she was not blind, deaf, or having lost her other senses at all. It was merely control over her bugs that had been lost, and their senses were no longer feeding into her mind. She was left with merely human senses.

She felt so helpless it was literally indescribable.

But Jared was not done yet. He was queueing up serious metamagic, loading Transdimensional Spell up for his next casting. A transdimensional spell affected targets lurking in coexistent planes and extradimensional spaces whose entrances fell within the spell's area. It had full, normal effect upon creatures on coterminus or coexisting planes.

In short, planar or dimensional boundaries were no barrier at all to a Transdimensional Spell.

He knew that the shards that gave capes powers held open tiny, microscopic even, holes in the local dimensional fabric to be able to communicate with their hosts through them. The source author had proudly arranged for them to be too small to be targeted. That's fine. It did not have to be targeted. The mere fact of its existence made the dimensions where the shards hid coterminus, and therefore fully vulnerable to a Transdimensional Spell.

Jared fired off a Dimensional Anchor at the shard itself.

Dimensional Anchor prevents a creature from having any meaningful interaction across dimensional boundaries while the spell lasts. On a creature that existed across multiple realities simultaneously, like a ghost, a dimensional anchor spell forced it to occupy only a single one.

The shard known as Queen Administrator exploded.

As a creature existing naturally across hundreds, possibly even thousands of dimensions at once, it was simply unable to compress to a single reality and survive. But the spell left it no other choice. So suddenly deprived of the dimension folding shenanigans upon which it relied for life and basic existence, it could no longer sustain such an existence, and standard physics responded to suddenly having too much matter occupying the same space at once, by releasing that pressure in a sudden blast identical to a really nasty explosion, probably devastating if not outright annihilating whatever planet it was on.

The source author liked to get very silly about the amount of mass he claimed his entities, endbringers, and shards really had. So it was anyone's guess what the actual numbers really were. But it was a fair bet to say the explosion was bad.

That was fine, though, as it was literally occurring in a different reality, it could be as large as it liked and not hurt them. The tiny portal had been closed automatically by the same spell that caused the explosion.

The spell Ability Rip steals a supernatural ability of the caster's choice away from one creature and transfers it to another. The space whales would not accept that their abilities were in any way supernatural, but by D20 rules they certainly were, so the spell had taken Taylor's power and given it to the pig, who had not the imagination to really use it in the short seconds it would have it.

Here is a hint: You never want to steal any ability at all and give it to yourself with this spell. The consequences are too dire. You'll lose too much, and what you gain is temporary. The stolen ability always reverts back to the owner, while the recipient's loss is permanent. So, rather than have his own body, mind, or abilities destroyed, Jared had used a pig, which was going to be slaughtered for bacon anyway. So who cared if it permanently lost a certain amount of life energy?

Being slaughtered for bacon would cost it all, so what harm was losing a little, a little earlier, going to do? Nothing!

Jared dismissed the Ability Rip spell, restoring her power to Taylor, who felt so much relief she passed out from the shock of not being under the strain of having lost anything anymore.

He tucked her kindly into bed, smoothing her hair out of her eyes and ensuring that she was comfortable.

The wizard teleported the pig to the walled yard, then returned wordlessly to go to the next room. He would have to do all of the girls the same way, as their shards had become too dangerous to be allowed to continue to monitor them, or him through them. It was time to cut these girls off from the shard network, before they passed on any more evidence concerning his abilities and something decided to investigate further.

Bad Things happened to whatever the shards deemed worthy of special investigation.

Having done research, and backing that up with divinations beforehand, Jared held a good idea of what was happening using the Ability Rip spell on shard-based superpowers. It removed and transferred abilities. What mechanism was behind those abilities did not matter. Magic was like that. You could steal a lich's ability to restore itself from its phylactory, a dragon's fire breath, or a ghost's ability to phase through walls, or all sorts of things using Ability Rip.

Stealing bug control powers combined with infinite multitasking was easy.

However, the spell did not steal any connections to any extradimensional creatures, space whales or otherwise. But it DID grant stolen abilities to the new, temporary owner. So technically, since those powers were merely lent to the person by the space whale shard, it ought not to have worked at all, and a technological attempt to do this would have failed, as science does not just ignore little peculiarities like that.

However, this was magic, and being magic, by default it ignored certain rules, like how the shock of turning a person into a toad really ought to kill them, instead of just annoy them.

Since one of the things you could steal with Ability Rip was a warlock's Eldritch Blast, which ability was dependent upon the warlock's contract with an extradimensional being, and that Eldritch Blast worked fine for whoever got it, despite the lack of that same contract, the precedent was clear.

Magic made its own situation work, and did what the spell was supposed to do anyway, regardless of what physics might think. So it stole that ability from Taylor, and repackaged it for the pig, and when the pig got it, the ability worked just as well as it had for Taylor, with all of the same limitations, despite having no shard to handle the computations for that power behind the scenes.

Had the shard still existed when the power got returned to Taylor, it was likely that it would have reverted to exactly what it was when it had been stolen. However, as that shard was utterly destroyed and not available to be connected to, and magic had an ability it had to return, it returned the working version it had repackaged for the pig to use.

As Jared's divinations had determined ahead of time it would do.

Taylor's power was now entirely independent of any Space Whale fragments. It was her own, and not communicating with any network of alien bio-computers.

She was safe now.

It was time to do the same for the others.

OoOoO

There was much of offering comfort, and explaining to do once that crisis had been resolved. But at last all hurt feelings, worry, fear and so on had been soothed, and explanations concerning the true nature of powers, space whales, and their shards fully communicated.

It had already been a busy morning, and their breakfast had gotten cold.

Luckily, he had a spell for that.

Prestidigitation was so useful. Even a cold breakfast could be refreshed and made piping hot!

Truly, its powers were wondrous.

As they were about to begin the dessert course of their hearty breakfast, Jared produced six bottles, and placed them on the table, one in front of each of them. What was strange was no one could determine anything about what color the contents of each vial were.

"These are Potions of Safeguard Secret," he introduced to them. "Now we live in a world that is extremely hazardous, where a single misspoken word could destroy one of our most valuable possessions: our secret identities. Also, there are dangers like Coil, who would gladly kidnap any one of us, and torture us for information. The ability NOT to break and divulge our secrets even under duress is extremely valuable. These help with that. You state whatever secrets you want kept, then drink the potion. Forever after, you will then be unable to deliberately communicate those by any means, to any person who does not already know them."

He gave them all a Lockhart smile, "So if you had a crush on someone, it's a bad idea to make that a secret covered by this, as you'd never be able to tell them. What I propose we cover are: the secret identities and powers of everyone here at this table, and the particulars of our equipment and bases."

Lisa had lifted a hand, causing him to break off for her addition. "That would make it impossible to induct new members," she corrected, with a foxy smile, lowering her hand. "What I propose is that we form a group, and promise to keep the group's secrets from any nonmember. That allows us to add or remove members by, say, a two-thirds majority vote, and so bring any new members up to speed, or reveal the information of anyone we cast out, should that be required."

Taylor was nodding, as were Dinah and Vista.

"That is a bit more long-term than I had been thinking," Jared admitted. "But alright, I can see the utility."

"You should name us!" Taylor blurted out, blushing as her eyes fixed on Jared.

The boy shrugged. "I can suggest an option. Then we can vote. But it should be something simple, like Skysaber's Sirens, or..."

"I second!" Taylor called out eagerly, hand shooting into the air.

"All in favor?" Lisa called out, raising her own hand - along with every girl at their table.

"Any particular reason why?" Jared wryly asked, amused that they'd bushwacked him like that, yet fond enough of them he raised his own hand for the sake of their relationships.

"That's the first time you've told any of us your cape name," Taylor proudly announced as everyone lowered their hands. "All we've had so far are your various secret identities."

The other girls nodded along. That had been a hot topic of conversation during last night's sleepover.

"Well, to be fair we've all seen this morning what happened when I shared too much information too early," he defended casually. "But the name my parents gave me is Jared Ornstead. The last name is Swedish. It means: Place of the Eagles, the name used by their kings. You're all lucky I am not named Smith, as for four hundred years my Swedish ancestors down that line were all blacksmiths. But when permanent last names began to become a thing in that country, replacing the previous system of 'Son of' this person, or 'Daughter of' that person, my relevant grandfather snatched up the old, and practically unused royal name, and so we've been called, in all of its variations on spelling, ever since."

"So why Skysaber?" Dinah inquired, beginning to pass out the desserts. With Vista's help shrinking distances this went extremely quickly.

"Lots of little reasons," he admitted. "I rather like the concept of 'sword of the heavens', but that takes rather a bit longer to say. Then I had just recently seen the first Star Wars movie, and the name 'Skywalker' I'll admit, was an influence. Plus, I have always had a fancy for knights and chivalry, the old fashioned fairy tales, the swordplay of old movies like the Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, and the like. So I wanted something noble and chivalrous, put in that blend of influences, and that was what came out."

"Well, that looks delicious!" he slapped his hands upon his thighs, changing the subject. "What's say we finish our business and get to dessert, shall we? Having a group really simplifies things, thank you Lisa. And we could not have a group without a name, thanks to you for that, Taylor. So," he lifted up the bottle containing the potion. "Do we all promise to keep this group's secrets from all nonmembers?"

"We do," they called out, each lifting their own potion.

"Good. Then down the hatch. We can vote on what constitutes our secrets later, after the starter set of our members identities and powers. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

They all drank.

OoOoO

"First thing's first", immediately after breakfast, Jared brought out brightly wrapped presents for each of them, setting them down on one end of the table, before passing them around, each with its own tag. "Go ahead and open them."

They did so, each girl finding they had the same gift. Some kind of computer peripheral. Few of them could identify it. It was just one of those narrow box things sometimes found near computers on desks, or behind or under them, usually with cables running someplace.

"Sixteen port hubs," Jared identified, even as he completed unwrapping his own. Then, on seeing their confusion, he clarified, "This lets all of your computers and other computerized bits like printers and whatnot talk to each other. Think of it like a cell phone tower. All the little pieces of your computer network connect to this thing, then through it talk to each other. The number of ports is how many devices can connect to it at once, and it fills up faster than you'd think."

"Thank you?" Taylor asked, then clarified, "But I don't own a computer, or any peripherals."

"You'll be buying those later today," Jared informed them. "I would have bought them myself, but one guy buying half a dozen sets of computers, plus devices, sets off Tinker alerts. But half a dozen people each buying their own set? That doesn't. The reason you are getting these now, instead of buying your own at the store, is that these are specially enchanted with the same spell that lets my hand act like a phone. So you can dial out to almost anywhere you can think of, but nothing out there can reach you if you do not initiate it. That makes these effectively untraceable. They can still detect your activity on the places you connect to, but they'll never be able to follow that signal back to find you."

"Wow," Lisa felt impressed, then joked, "And I didn't get you anything."

"You gave me your body," he teased, then sighed as if in fond remembrance. "It's a memory I'll cherish always."

They broke up laughing at that point.

Missy and Dinah shared a look, obviously thinking adults are weird.

Vista had been changed by the experience of dying, then being restored to life, but the follow-up Heart's Ease potion had really mellowed her out. She did not have anything to prove to anyone anymore, and was okay with being a kid while it lasted. Plus, she and Dinah had discovered they had lots in common and were already on their way to becoming great friends.

Taylor was finding herself enjoying her older sister role. But her eyes were on Jared.

She sighed fondly, a sappy smile tugging on her lips.

OoOoO

After the breakfast cleanup, washing and putting away of dishes and so on, the group adjourned to the library, where the tinker equipment for learning skills had been set up.

They had learned three different sets of six the previous day, one early, then midday and evening, and it became apparent that Jared was intending to make that their habit.

Missy lagged two sessions behind the rest, but given her competence generally that was not seen as too great a disadvantage, and Jared assured her they could sneak in an extra session per day for her until she was caught up.

"We should learn how to be blacksmiths!" Taylor declared, skipping, actually skipping, into the library. The hole in the roof had since been repaired, as had the one in the floor, the Frankenstein equipment had been removed, and Jared's habitual mending of everything in sight was beginning to show in more ways than just having places to sit that were not moldy or rotted, unbroken windows, or floors that would not collapse out from under you. A delicate crystal chandelier now hung where the hole in the roof had once been, as well as many of the walls and shelves looking sturdy and new instead of dangerously weatherworn.

There was still a lot to do, however.

Jared smiled over Taylor's delight, glad that she was enjoying everything. "While I would love to, that's not in this set," he apologized. "I was making more of a priority of skills a cape needs to survive, like how to properly apply a disguise, or act so as not to break one. That, and the basic mobility skills of climbing, jumping, and so forth. Sixty may sound like a lot, but it runs out sooner than you'd think."

"So order another set!" Taylor blurted, swinging her arms around like she was dancing.

"I already have," he answered, slightly curious why she was so aglow with happiness. Aha! There was Lisa sporting a knowing smirk. So it had to do with him. Taylor was on a relationship high, then. Probably celebrating about knowing his name. "They were strangely reluctant, but agreed. However, Uber & Leet wanted more out of the deal this time, and actually insisted on getting a couple of million in cash, in addition to the same deal they had before. No explanation for why things were different this time, but new skills have been ordered and paid for. Hopefully, they should arrive sometime later today. Then we can learn blacksmithy, if you like. But for now I have a package centered on getting squatter's rights to this place locked in: Computer skills, for all of the hacking we'll have to do. Law skills, for knowing ahead of time where all of the trouble spots are, as well as how best to avoid them. Disguise and Forgery skills, for obvious reasons. Then Visual Arts, for all of the photographic evidence we'll be faking, and finally Farming, because that encapsulates everything we'll need to know about plant growth rates, seasons, effects of the weather, and so forth, all of which are things we'll need to know about in detail if we are to properly fake those things for the backgrounds of our photographs, for them to seem properly authentic."

"Yay!" Taylor cheered. "Then let's get to it!"

OoOoO

It turned out that, as impressive as their new skills were, they would still massively benefit from having a research trip to look up all of the relevant laws, codes, regulations, and so forth, not to mention the documents they would be forging, and so on. So they were not long after gaining their new skills in planning on a trip to town to look all of those needed details up.

After listing off which government offices would have what resources they'd need, Jared observed, "And we can drop Vista off at the same time. She can claim to have escaped from the villain Coil, and..."

He got cut off by Vista insisting, "I'm *not* going back!"

Seeing the depth of her emotion in that statement, Jared decided not to argue about it. "... then we are going to need to do something about that. If you are to disappear completely, then Coil needs to be blamed for it, which means sending new ransom letters in Coil's name, saying the PRT and police missed the drop-off date by marking/watching the payouts all day."

Sensing that he had everyone's eyes on him, the boy explained, "It's an easy claim to make. All kidnappers essentially demand, 'don't try to catch me', and cops automatically respond by trying to catch them anyway. So of course they mark the bills, and record their serial numbers, and put all kinds of tracking devices, and dye bags, and powders, on and around them, because they want to catch the crooks. It's standard procedure to watch the money after it has been left, so we just write a letter supposedly from Coil complaining about that."

This, of course, led to a reveal of the fact that Missy was ignorant of the first ransom letter, and the rest duly informing her of it. To their surprise it reduced her to a giggling fit, and she insisted that she have a part in writing the second.

"Dear Miss Piggy,

"You have not followed my instructions. No matter how many times I checked on the breakroom yesterday, your people were still watching. When you leave a ransom payment, the important part is you *leave*. The deal is that you provide to me money. When you watch it that closely, there is no chance for me to get it. You might as well be keeping it in your pocket, or a safe. Therefore, you have not provided me money, and have not lived up to the deal.

"You did not pay for a phone call, so you do not get it. Instead, you get this picture, so you know that she is still alive, and that we mean business.

"By all rights, I should be mailing you one of her fingers instead.

"By the way, when I said the money should be unmarked, that did not imply permission to photocopy all of the bills, scan their serial numbers, and apply stamps of UV-visible ink. Those radioactive trace elements you added to each bill were way over the top. They could get me sick!

"In return for your attempt to trap me, I have hired The Evil Doctor Whodunit to administer appropriate negative reinforcement.

"So now the amount is doubled. Leave the original million inside the Coke machine, so we don't get anyone sick transporting it - and so none of those marked bills get into my new payment!

"Besides, the gradual breakdown of the radioactive elements might help warm the RC Cola, and it is always better warm.

"Place two million dollars, unmarked for real this time! Underneath the mattress in that miserable little apartment you call your house. If Miss Piggy can't remember her own address anymore (understandable, since she never stays there, just lives out of what are supposed to be visiting VIP quarters on base, and have you seen her cafeteria and medical bills? She's the criminal, not me!), look it up in the employee records. And clean up that dirty laundry hamper while you are at it, the stink is beginning to bother the neighbors!

"Then try not actually watching the money this time! If you camp around it, like you did that vending machine, I might decide instead to sell Vista to The Fallen!

"Affectionately Yours, Coil

"P.S. I have added The Evil Doctor Whodunit's fee to my two million. So instead, make that two million, twenty-seven dollars, and eighty six cents. And not one penny less!"

They spent some while howling with laughter, clutching their guts and rolling around after the brainstorming session that produced that note.

"How did you know about the hamper?" Dinah asked.

"Simple," the former Vista had to wipe a tear from one eye. "A little while back, there came a report of a robbery within a few blocks of there. Standard procedure is to check on the houses of all PRT officials living in the area, to ensure they were not targeted, and you could smell that hamper through the front door!"

The sound of rapid fire typing intruded, and all eyes turned to Lisa, who was working intently on her laptop. "Hang on. I'm busy adding a purchase history of RC Cola to all of Thomas Calvert's credit cards. It'll only take me a minute... There! Ok, now, as far as anyone is concerned, he's been consuming an average of a six-pack per day of RC Cola for simply years."

"We should break into his apartment, fill the kitchen cupboards with cans of RC Cola, and leave empties in all of his garbages," Dinah opined. "But none in the fridge!"

"Where are we going to get RC Cola?" Taylor asked, not having seen any of that brand in her limited excursions around town.

"Kaiser owns a company that does vending machines around town as one of his legitimate businesses. They service most of the government buildings," Lisa offered, as she kept typing. "With all of the money I've just sent them out of Thomas Calvert's credit cards, we could pick up a couple of pallets of the stuff and it would not even be stealing."

"Do you have an address for their warehouse?" Jared asked.

She brought it up on screen, even showed him a picture.

"Create Lantern Archon," he intoned, waving his golden staff. When a little ball of light appeared, he instructed it, "The warehouse whose address and photo you see on that screen there? It holds cans of a beverage called RC Cola. Having just paid for two pallets worth, could you go there and deliver them to this other man's house? Possibly put them away in his kitchen cupboards? But none in the cold box."

Lisa, rather intelligently, brought up another picture, this one of Calvert's apartment.

"What was that?" the former ward, formerly known as Vista asked, once it had vanished.

"A very useful, highly intelligent, spirit of goodness," Jared answered. "Don't ever ask one to do anything immoral. But since they can teleport at will, they have all sorts of other utility. Mostly they can't carry passengers, though."

"Too bad."

The former Vista was thinking. "To put empties in his garbage cans, we'd have to use some, or better yet, pour some out. But where should we do that?"

Jared offered, "It's a great drain cleaner. But you've got to follow it with water, or it will eat the pipes, too."

Lisa was still typing. "Well, whatever your friend was, it hasn't tripped any alarms in Calvert's apartment. Can you teleport us there so we can clean his drains?"

"Sure!" The boy offered, then amended. "You know, we just wrote a ransom letter promising Piggot a picture that Vista was still alive. We can't shoot that photograph here, because their forensics experts will tear every detail of background and everything else in it apart, trying to learn when and where that photo was taken. So how about we shoot that picture in Calvert's place?"

Wicked grins abounded on faces all around.

And a crafty gleam came to Lisa's face, and she said, "Yes! But first we need to take a careful look at all of his windows."

"Why?"

"I'll show you."

OoOoO

Monday morning staff meetings at the Protectorate HQ were normally the sort of dull routine seen in any office building, despite the joyful colors of their costumes contrasting with the joyless atmosphere of yet more bureaucratic drudgery. Yet despite how bad they were, they could be endured, and were infinitely better than any joint meetings they held with the PRT.

This Monday they were holding a joint meeting with the PRT.

On top of the usual petty factional rivalries and power plays endemic in all government institutions, the failures to communicate despite talking endlessly and the stifling paperwork measured in inches, or pounds, depending on how bad the day, there came an extra, added element of constant, low-level abuse in the form of one PRT Director Emily Piggot, who had a natural gift or talent for sucking all cheer from any room she happened to be in.

Bad coworkers could make even a good job suck, and this one wasn't really a good job, seeing as they paid slave wages and did this to their capes while assuming a vast amount of control over their lives, and regularly requiring them to put themselves into deadly danger, for petty, or no, benefits.

Soldiers at least got medals and recognition for meritorious service.

Roman gladiators were slaves in fact, faced death at their master's orders, and got little for it but room and board. Protecorate members were in the same boat and did not get much more pay. They were expected to be on base, in their tiny quarters, whenever their masters called. Almost the same as slaves, and facing deadly danger far more often than the gladiators, who rarely went into the arena more often than once a month, certainly not as often as daily patrols.

Popular gladiators even got lavished with wealth and attention, wine, women and parties, on par with some rock stars, whereas the typical room offered to Protectorate heroes was not much larger than the gladiators' slave quarters. And in their case the organization, whether the PRT or Protectorate or both, claimed all credit and directed all popularity to the institution, inasmuch as possible.

The gladiators also got far more time off from their official duties. Nor did they have to tour the local schools, telling everyone what a great life they led as slaves.

So saying the Protectorate treated their supposed 'heroes' worse than slaves was only a simple statement of fact. Because no class of slaves in history had been forced to not only routinely face death on their master's orders, but also saddled with all of the bureaucratic drudgery that makes office life such a chore.

So, if you want the worst of both worlds, join the Protectorate today! Free torture by Head of Image, Glenn Chambers at no extra charge! Because your owner caring all about image instead of what was effective was the same between the gladiator and the Protectorate.

As usual Assault had to wall himself off, concealing all but a tiny portion of his mind and personality in order to get through it. That today was a joint meeting only made it worse, as he had to wall off more of himself. The last time he had let too many of his real thoughts through Piggot had laden him with fines such that he'd owed the Protectorate more money that year than he'd earned, and was still paying that off.

He was sure that was actually illegal, but all of the PRT lawyers worked for Piggot, not for him.

About the only thing that could be said for these meetings was they were generally fairly short. Between Armsmaster's drive towards efficiency and Piggot's hating spending time around parahumans as much as she ensured they hated spending time around her, nobody dawdled.

Of course, short by any bureaucratic standard was still far too long by any rational one. Assault left these things feeling more beat up than he had from any fight he'd ever been in.

It was just that kind of atmosphere.

At least Piggot began things promptly on time today, demanding with her usual sour expression, "Armsmaster, you have the report on the evidence recovered from the site of Vista's kidnapping?"

The head of the local Protectorate stood as emotionless as a rock. Actually, Assault had to amend that little observation, as the stone heads at Easter Island generally looked far more human.

"Director, the only evidence I can report is that there is no evidence." Armsmaster bit out shortly.

"What do you mean?" Piggot's voice dripped oily poison, shooting a suspicious glare towards the Protectorate lead as if she had just caught him plotting against her.

Assault, once more, idly indulged in speculation that Armsmaster did not attend these meetings, that he sent a robot double in his place, as the local hero who was his boss endured the splash of Piggot's scorn like a wall. It had no effect on him at all. "I mean, judging solely by forensics, we know no one was in that room from the time of the police sweeps after the Teeth's end of occupation, until our own troops entered it on Saturday morning. There is no evidence whatsoever of any occupation at all between those periods. No hair, no blood, no skin. No footprints, no fingerprints. Not a chewing gum wrapper. Nothing."

"So you're saying no one was there?"

"No. We heard them. Clockblocker was subdued, Vista was kidnapped. Doors were barricaded by unknown means, and a team or teams escaped through unknown means. We heard them run away, but there is also no forensic evidence of any kind in the corridors we know they must have run through. Nor did our troopers on standard deployment outside spot anyone leaving the building."

Piggot scowled. Since this was her usual expression, you'd need a micrometer to know the difference. "Fine!" she spat. "Put a Stranger 5 classification in Coil's file. Consider that to cover his troops as well, because whether he obtained it via parahuman support, his own power, or purchased tinkertech, we now know he has the capability, and it extends to his mercenaries."

"Permission for a one-time addition to my Tinker budget to work on better microphones - because we did hear him." Armsmaster smoothly replied.

"Approved. Let's get ahead of this. I want the paperwork on my desk by tomorrow. Any amount up to $100,000."

"Of course."

Both Armsmaster as well as Piggot knew that within hours she would be receiving an itemized list, spelled out with specific needs as well as detailed support for those requirements, that would come within a nickle of that amount.

Armsmaster had long ago mastered how to efficiently manage his budget requests, and they were always within pennies of any amount stated as his maximum, claiming every cent for his budget that he could get away with, or massively over-budget whenever he thought he could get away with that.

It would be itemized down to individual capacitors, if that's what it took. But Armsmaster considered any penny he could have been allotted that did not wind up in his budget to have been wasted - and he had a power that drove him hard towards efficiency.

"Anything else you have to report?" Piggot demanded.

Armsmaster gave a sharp nod. "New ransom letters on the Alcott and Vista cases arrived today."

"Well, let's see them," Piggot commanded sourly.

Armsmaster paused, as if uncertain. "Unfortunately, we do not have physical possession of either one."

Piggot's sour look doubled. "No?"

Armsmaster managed, somehow, to look uncomfortable without shifting his stance or position nearly at all. "No. You see, we received a press release announcing that The Evil Doctor Whodunit was now open for business in Brockton Bay."

"What do you mean? Piggot's scowl grew marginally. "What kind of nonsense are you talking about? What has that got to do about anything?"

Armsmaster, without moving a muscle, oddly gave off the appearance of someone anxiously loosening his collar. "It was accompanied by a letter directed to the editors of the Brockton Bay Bulletin. When we called up that news agency, we discovered they were in possession of a ransom note directed to Mayor Christner..."

"SO THE POLICE RECEIVED OUR MAIL AGAIN, DID THEY?!" Piggot rose up out of her chair, shouting.

"We did, eventually, prevail upon them to send us digital copies." Armsmaster declared soullessly, as if any failings involved all belonged to lesser mortals. "Included was a photograph, proving Vista is still alive as of early today."

He clicked a button and a screen displayed an image.

Among Skysaber's Sirens, there had been some amount of discussion over which clothes Vista ought to wear for the ransom demand photo. Since her heroine costume had been sent back to the PRT, via the cops, to prove her kidnapping was genuine, they did not have that as an option.

First to be suggested was some of Thomas Calvert's clothes. Just one of his white button up business shirts would go down to her knees, and be quite enough for modesty.

Second suggestion was clothes taken from the PRT giftshop, featuring various heroes.

Next up was a white and black striped prison outfit like you really only saw in old cartoons anymore, complete with a little number on her chest.

Second to last, someone suggested they dress her in Dinah's clothes. Dinah herself had made the suggestion as they were discussing what the ransom letter for her had to be and say.

Lastly, it got suggested that since they were pretending Coil had captured her and was treating her like a slave, that she should be dressed as one. This got immediately followed by the suggestion of Princess Leia's bronze bikini from Return of the Jedi, resulting in much laughter, lasting until Lisa asked Jared (who was blushing) why he wasn't joining in...

... and he confessed that no way, no how did he want to take her measurements for one.

Leading to the reveal that he could actually make such a thing, but they required careful fittings.

All this got dispelled by Dinah pointing out that all he had to do was call up that closet thing anyway, so that's what happened, and in the end they had shot photographs of Vista wearing ALL of those outfits in Calvert's apartment. Each time wearing a cheap, PRT issue, disposable paper mask, each time holding that day's newspaper.

In the end, the photo they selected was one of the ones in the bronze bikini, selected not for that, but for the utterly disgusted look Vista was giving the photographer at the time (Lisa), who had only just made an observation over how much Shadow Stalker would taunt Vista if she saw these photos of her wearing that.

The picture perfect 'grumpy cat' expression was what caused everyone to pick it; even, on reflection, Vista.

"Wow, she looks happy," Assault observed sarcastically, when they saw the girl in the photo trying to glare a hole through the camera.

"You're docked ten days pay and confined to quarters until your next patrol," Piggot groused.

Assault got up and left the room without saying another word.

"Anyone have anything useful to add?" Piggot snarled.

"Tough, but fair," a whisper came from one of her sycophants in the back.

"By the book," agreed another.

"So what did it say?" Piggot snarled.

"Nothing important," Armsmaster declared. "I have already forwarded a copy to your email account for you to peruse at your leisure." In other words 'nothing worth wasting meeting time on'. Piggot would be blowing her top later that day when she got around to actually reading it. But her reaction would be nothing contrasted to how Brockton's Chief of Police would verbally flay her alive for the kidnapper being so familiar with her and her house.

But Armsmaster's focus was on efficiency. She could blow her top on her own time. It wasn't worth her wasting everyone's time in a simple, emotional outburst. He continued sharply, "The important thing is this photo got delivered on a digital storage medium matching a popular, if expensive, brand of electronic camera. But the photograph had been heavily edited."

He pointed to a window, seen at a sharp angle in the side of the photograph. In the picture, it was completely blank.

"Kidnapping cases are frequently resolved by waiting for the kidnapper to make a mistake," the Protectorate lead pontificated for those ignorant of such details, including Piggot. "Our culprit appears to have made his first one, for while they downloaded this image to a computer and edited out the contents of that window, they made a basic error once made in the forgery of a famous birth certificate, and forgot to collapse the layers in the forgery before uploading it back into the camera's storage device. So it is a simple matter to undo the change..."

He pressed another button, and the contents of that window filled in, showing outside a residential street, another apartment complex across the way, and further on a street corner with a small convenience store one could almost make out the name of.

Piggot surged to her feet. "Get that to forensics! Have them identify that apartment complex and streetcorner! There is only one place in this city where a photograph taken from that angle could capture those features!"

Armsmaster was completely unmoved. "Yes. We did that, half an hour ago, when we first got this photograph from the police."

"Well?" Piggot demanded, still on her feet, eyes filled with fury, promising revenge upon this kidnapper for annoying her with this crisis.

"When the PRT assault team arrived, we ran into the police, who'd gotten there an hour before."

On anyone else, that comment would have been done dryly. But this was Armsmaster. A toaster had as much personality.

Piggot was trying to kill him with her glare. But so far she had not yet developed any super-powers.

Armsmaster went on, unaffected. "They found it quite curious the ransom photos were taken in the apartment of Thomas Calvert, one of the PRT's senior consultants. But they grew even more curious when they learned that he lived in the same building block, right next door to you, when the next demand specifically requires two million, twenty seven dollars and eighty six cents in ransom money be placed under the mattress in your bed - and directs them to take out your dirty laundry, as it was stinking up the place."

Piggot had turned purple. "Well?"

"The police inform me they had indeed removed your hamper, as it was stinking up the place," he dutifully informed her.

"NO!" She demanded, both fists pounding down on the table before her. "Two million I could see, kidnappers are always demanding more money. But why did the idiot ask for... whatever it was extra, and some cents?"

"His note claimed to be passing on the fee of the professional he'd hired, to get revenge for you not paying him the first time," Armsmaster went on like a robot.

"What stinking professional?"

If Assault had been present, and able to voice aloud his thoughts, that would have been too perfect an opportunity, and he would have invariably made a reference to Piggot's laundry status making her the only stinking professional available at that time.

"Fortunately, we are in possession of the original copy of the press release to the Brockton Bay Bulletin, which announces the professional Coil hired, and provides a link to this post on the Parahumans Online Boards, taken from a thread entitled, 'Doctor Whodunit's Amazing Thread of Extreme Awesomeness, Plot #1'."

He clicked a button, and they all read.

"Mwa! Ha! Ha! Emily Poo-get, Director of the Brockton Bay PRT, believes she can give crap without receiving, so I will incorporate Crap-ulatin molecules into her brain! So that as she gives out, so shall she receive!"

Piggot scowled as if trying to learn how to send laser death rays out of her eyes by sheer force of will. "What parahuman idiocy is this?" she demanded, bellowing.

"We are currently assigning it a low threat priority," the Protectorate lead informed her.

If Assault had still been there, one could have expected a witty rejoinder like "Yeah, because crap-ulation molecules are obviously a load of complete crap."

But he wasn't. So nobody heard it.

The perpetually angry woman continued scowling over the stupidity of everyone but her. "Very well, on to new business. Have Shadow Stalker brought in."

A flunky opened, then leaned out the door to say something, then the recalcitrant Ward was led in by two burly officers. She looked almost as sour over their treatment of her as Piggot did habitually.

"Well, why am I here?" Shadow Stalker dramatically pulled her arm away from the closest escorting officer.

Piggot looked like she had a sour taste in her mouth. But that was nothing new, so it revealed nothing of her intentions, as she said, "It has come to our attention, from interrogations of the ABB gang members arrested at the bank, that you have done something deserving of praise, and might be coming up for a commendation, Shadow Stalker. Now all you have to do is turn over the money, and we can begin planning out the award ceremony."

The violent teenager was stunned. "What?"

"The money you stole from the ABB," Director Piggot replied with badly faked politness. "Our accountants estimate you collected at least two hundred million dollars during various raids on major ABB holdings. Now, once you turn that money over to us, I can guarantee at least 2% will be returned to you, as well as a major commendation."

Shadow Stalker exploded. "I ain't got no two hundred million! I don't even got one!"

There came a loud "Splut!" as a cucumber sized and shaped brown mass appeared in mid-air before Piggot, then immediately fell down onto the table before her, liberally splattering her face, as well as that of everyone around her.

As she'd been caught in the midst of inhaling deeply to shout, her mouth had been open and everything.

She blew her top, literally.

Medics had to be called in.

OoOoO

Elsewhere in the same building at the same time, Clockblocker stood up from the toilet after wiping, turned around to flush, and was surprised to see the toilet empty of the product that he had just delivered into it. But he paid it no mind, flushed anyway, and went back to his new hobby of composing poetry over how much Piggot sucked.

Nothing else to do in solitary M/S confinement, anyway.

OoOoO

Jared was holding a hairbrush taken from Piggot's apartment when they were in Coil's place. "The idea of voodoo, or the ability of a magician to curse from long distances if he has a fleshy token from his target, such as hair or fingernail clippings, is not common in the school of magic I use," he explained. "However, the principle of sympathetic magic those legends are based on is true all the same, and can be learned by a more generalist wizard, like myself."

He gave a happy shrug. "So, of course I learned it."

"You can use your power on people from... how far away?" Lisa asked intently. She wanted to be very sure on this.

"Anywhere that does not cross into another version of reality," he answered confidently. "Now, normally a Bestow Curse would be beyond my ability, as it is a third level spell and I can only cast second. However, from the realm of Ravenloft came the technique of building a Fantastic Device, a sort of elaborate prop that aids in the casting of a single spell. Basically, a machine that does part of the work, greatly simplifying complex spellcasting, that effectively reduces one specific spell by one level. So, just the other day I built this," he motioned to the great, complex machine behind him, containing (just among bits that she could identify) a giant, eight foot wide horseshoe that was broken in the middle, suspended by two ladders over a chair that was in turn surrounded by thirteen broken mirrors, and upholstered in what had to be the fur of thirteen black cats.

There was more, that was just the immediately obvious parts.

Jared was continuing, uncaring of her inspection, "And the Bestow Curse spell is surprisingly versatile. Cursing Piggot, to be literally Poo-get, in other words to cause to be teleported to her the, err, solid waste material of whoever is currently most offended by her, was simple. I could have done so much worse with that spell..."

OoOoO

Author's Notes:

I have lurked through conversations where people debated which character from which cop show they preferred to base Piggot on. There is no more common Worm fanon I am aware of than the OC in a Piggot suit.

The weird thing is, I understand the modern desire to have an authority figure they can kowtow to. It's deeply rooted, and it seems like 90% of the Worm SI stories out there last no longer than it takes the SI character to rush to the PRT with their newfound powers, panting for approval like a dog for a pat on their head by their beloved master after performing a successful trick.

And yes, I have observed, with great sadness, how prevalent it is to find people whose only desire in the world is to have their authority figures pleased with them. Piggot is that authority figure for most characters over much of the story, so naturally the one they idolize.

So they whitewash her as much as they have to, in order to have that figure they can properly submit to.

But Worm was written by a Nihilist, a person who sees nothing of value in anyone or anything, and who believes only in destruction. That is why all of the government institutions of the story are worthless. That's why the adults can't be counted on to do anything but screw things up. That's why no one and nothing works out right, or the way it should.

Most stories anymore will have one character who is a screwed up basket case. Worm's author goes to a conscious effort to give us Nothing Else! The ENTIRE CAST of Worm are so deeply flawed there is no way they could exist in a real world. That is not a strength, or a writing challenge, that is and could only be the reflections of the beliefs of a true nihilist shining through.

A person who believes nothing has any value, writes a story where nothing is truly valuable.

The guy wrote an entire sequel to Worm just so he could crap all over all of the popular characters that everyone liked, and to retroactively make them as unlikable as possible, including nerfing their powers so they could not even do the things we saw them do in the original story.

The Endbringers are not a challenge to be faced. They were put in by the source author so he could get his proper fix of destruction porn. That's why there is no consistency with powers, and why all of the worst people tend to end up with the best, most effective ones. And why, ultimately, the whole story is pointless - because that just reflects the beliefs of a proper nihilist, who believe that life IS pointless!

And frankly, the setting CANNOT be accurately portrayed by anyone who has a brighter view on life than that. But so what? Why would you WANT to accurately portray that crapsack? A world where nothing anyone does is any good because it is all hopeless anyway?

Most of us are not nihilists, and we should not be trying to write as one. So everyone who writes there modifies the story, and they should.

But, all of that said, some characters are brighter than others.

In order to serve as a protagonist, Taylor had to be portrayed sympathetically much of the time. But if you take a step back and analyze the story's structure, the role of Piggot was to be an *antagonist* much of the time!

I really dislike people telling me things about Piggot, like "She's tough, but fair", or "She's strictly by the book". That's fanon. The canon Emily Piggot violated the truce by calling in an airstrike while heroes and villains were still battling the Nine, risking not only the lives of heroes who worked with her, but breaking the Truce as well. Nothing about that action is fair, or by the book. Because if the book allows you to airstrike your own people, then it's a lousy book, and no one would work for you.

Unless forced - which they do. We see many examples of the Gov forcing people to work for them in that story, but we digress.

It has also been pointed out in online conversations that Piggot is unqualified for her position (she got promoted from a simple grunt serving on the front lines straight to a regional director by Alexandria, most probably as a payout so she did not go to the national media with her story of the Ellisburg fiasco), incompetent (after one of the many disasters visited on Brockton Bay, she had Legend there reporting to her for a couple of weeks, and failed to do anything useful with him), and also insane.

Here is an instructive bit on Piggot's sanity I saved from one of those online debates. Sadly, I did not think at the time to save attribution, and have since forgotten where I found it. Kudos to whoever wrote it, however:

Quote:

So, I want to take a moment to examine the mindset of Director Piggot. For added fun, imagine it's being narrated by John Mulaney.

First Sentence of Interlude 13 Piggot said:

It's like the world's gone mad, and I'm the only sane person left.

Last Sentence of Interlude 16 Lady said:

It's like the world's gone mad, and I'm the only sane person left.

"It's like the world's gone mad, and I'm the only sane person left." A decade passed between those two lines, and the Director still thinks that. This is the personal mantra of a person who is tasked with supervising, among other things, traumatised children. I don't know how long she's been in that position, but it was too long in canon, and it's too long here. The woman needs a therapist at least as badly as the Wards, because she has spent a decade clinging to two very harmful misconceptions.

First, she thinks that people that aren't her are insane monsters. This is problematic because not only does it mean she assumes the worst of the freshly traumatised child, I don't think that gets pointed out enough, but it also means she looked at what Sophia did, which I won't be repeating because I want to eat after this, and thought to herself:

"That's a normal thing for these kids to do."

When it isn't! At all!

Which brings us to her second misconception, which is that the Director assumes herself to be sane. She sees how she behaves and views the world as the way normal people ought to be. She does her damnedest to impose her sanity on the insane world around her.

She isn't sane, though.

She's a loony.

She's a soldier trained for combat who got benched by injuries who thinks that traumatised children should be good little soldiers when they aren't forced into publicity events. What's this? A traumatised child doesn't want to be a soldier? Traumatised children love being soldiers! What's the problem?

She doesn't want to be on the same team as the person that inflicted the trauma? Well, then, she shouldn't have broken her jaw! I need more traumatised children to be my soldiers, so suck it up!

It's everyone else that's insane, though.

End Quote.

Now, I can't do a properly nihilistic version of Piggot. I cannot get that mean, sour, hopelessly and pointlessly cruel, depicted accurately to save my life. Nor do I watch cop shows and so do a straight-up replacement of her character with someone more palatable. What I CAN do is make her into a more comic villain. My version is no less mean, but instead of getting down and dirty, nuts and bolts, by the numbers cruelty as she tortures the men and children under her command, I can make her cartoonish and over the top, and therefore prankable and therefore funny.

Asking for anything else is more than I can deliver. If you are a Piggot fan, you may not enjoy this story. I see her as an abuser, and I cannot condone abuse, especially from authority figures. So she gets to enjoy things going badly for her in this, and all of my other Worm stories.

Poking fun at wickedness in power is something that I enjoy greatly.

So Lung, who is an ACTUAL RACIST and performs ACTUAL SLAVERY, is not going to enjoy my story, despite all of the readers out there who have chosen him as an older brother/mentor figure.

What I have planned for the Empire in the end should, I hope, prove hilarious. But that will take some time for a proper buildup.

Beta work by Dogbertcarroll