AN: This is a DND 3.5e epic-level character with 22 levels in Wizard with access to epic-level casting.
The feats he has is Brew Potion, Craft construct, Essence Mastery, Silent Spell, Skill Focus (Knowledge(arcana), Epic level spell casting, still spell, craft magical arms and armor, craft wondrous items, empower spell, forge ring
Epic-level spell casting along with rules for epic-level characters are in the Epic Levels Handbook
Essence Mastery is from Feats book by Alderac Entertainment Group
The adventures mentioned are Savage Tide from Dragon magazine and Bastion of Broken Souls
The other feats can be found in the Players Handbook
Wizarding in Worm
Interlude: First Visit
March 5, 10:00 AM
The room I am led to is odd. I honestly expected to be tied to a chair with someone with a gun aimed at me. I don't know why I expected to be restrained for meeting this Dr. Yamada but I think I should put away the [fireball] tucked into my sleeve. The nurse opened the door for me before walking away. The inside of the room is cozy looking with one of those lounge chairs on one side with another chair a few paces away from it.
The woman sitting on the other chair was writing on the clipboard she had in her hand before she noticed me. Her eyes widen ever so slightly before she smiles at me.
"Hello, you must be Magnus. My name is Jessica Yamada and I am a parahuman psychologist that works for the Protectorate. As you know, you were assigned to once-a-week sessions for 2 months. If you feel comfortable, please sit in the chair in front of me." The tone is pleasant but I think she is nervous. At least, I think she is. I go to the lounge chair and sit on it.
"So how does this work exactly? Do I have to do a task?" she shakes her head as she writes something down.
"Nothing like that, I'm just going to ask you a few questions on a few topics. Besides that, you can relax." Oh. I thought I had to do something strenuous. I lean back into the seat. I should make one that floats.
"To start us off, how are you feeling?"
"I'm fine. Though I have been frustrated with the pillars I am building." Damn thing does not spin the correct way.
"If you don't mind me asking, what would the pillars do?" I kinda want it to be a surprise but I think I can tell her.
"The pillar is charged by the main obelisk with positive energy to the point that standing nearby produces moderate healing effects. The issue is getting the pillar to spin clockwise so it gets the correct amount of charge. After that, I could transfer the pillar somewhere else where it then provides healing to people nearby." I think I need to either reduce the number of sides the ruby pillars have or increase them.
"Do you often have trouble with making these pillars?" I shake my head.
"This is my first time making them. Being in this world allows me to try to create new magical items." As soon as I figure out how to make Wands, I will probably be unstoppable.
"This world? You mean you are from an alternative Earth?" she scribbles something down as I shake my head.
"I'm pretty sure my world isn't another version of this world; the continents are in different spots and I don't think yours has a continent of superfauna. I'm talking about the dinosaurs." She has the same face Jackson had when I told him Chult had dinosaurs.
"I see. Is there anything else you want to share that differs from here and your world?" I nod.
"Well, I have noticed the lack of roving hordes of orcs or Armageddon's happening every other week. I had to deal with at least 2 of them in a year." She stops scribbling. She looks at me with both concern and confusion.
"Could you elaborate on the Armageddons that happen in your world? Are they similar to what happens during an Endbringer attack?" I give her a so-so gesture.
"It depends on what God or Demon or Eldritch horror was being summoned or called. Usually, they are summoned by their followers and start racking up the body count until adventurers like myself show up and get rid of them. Usually, it's either we have to destroy their currently manifested avatar through various means or kill all of the cultists." I know those poor sods who had to deal with Kyuss manifesting went through a lot of cultists and hilarious worm-based monsters.
"You mentioned you had to deal with 2 of them. If you feel comfortable sharing, could you tell me about them?" Ah yes. I get to gloat.
"The first one took a while to ramp up to it. For context, I recently joined a group of other adventurers after our jobs fizzled out on payment. Our first mission was to find our employer's ship that was stolen by pirates. After slaughtering them, we found out her brother was involved with this savage pearl somehow, which led to us having to go out into the sea to find him. After ending up on the Isle of Dread, yes that's its name, we had to carve our way through demons and monsters to end up on a colony of Farshore. And there we had to spend a good while dealing with pirates." I sigh. I kinda miss it all. It was so much more straightforward. She pauses her scribbling.
"You don't have to continue if you don't want to Magnus. It must have been difficult." I snort.
"The only difficult part was the structures I had to help build. The pirates came in waves and we had enough time to mount a stable defense. I was able to sink about a dozen ships before their attack failed and we killed their field commander, who was our employer's lost brother. That led to another 5 months of slaying demons and cultists which led to us having to go to the Abyss to slay the demon prince Demogorgon to prevent him from using the other savage pearls to devastate the planet. We had to deal with demon lords older than most civilizations here to weather him down enough so he could be killed." I think I still have a few things from those days.
"That must have been very harrowing. What would you describe this "Abyss" to be like when you went there?" Ah, they must not have their equivalent here.
"Well, to give you the simple explanation. The Abyss is similar to Hell in the sense of what kind of being manifests there. It's composed of infinite layers, most of which are ruled over by demon lords. Its corruption and perversions upon creation have been the ruin of many, either through its direct influence or through its creations bleeding out into the world. Traveling through the layers was a pain in the ass, mostly due to us having to literally fight every couple dozen paces." She quickly scribbles something down.
"So, adventurers are expected to go above and beyond their missions?" I shake my head.
"It highly depends on the adventurer and the missions; we call them quests. Some quests could be simple like go and find an old family heirloom in an abandoned crypt. Some quests are just to get rid of some monsters bothering the farmers nearby. Some quests are to clear out a thieves' den or bandit camp, usually, you are allowed to kill them as they will no doubt kill you." She pauses her current scribbling and looks at me strangely.
"Is killing creatures or people a common solution for adventurers? Is peace or imprisonment not as effective?" that's an odd question.
"It's common in the sense that most quests of any size usually end up with a few corpses by either the adventurers having to defend themselves or because the quest itself is extermination. The reason why killing someone or something is the common solution is because death usually sticks. It ends the threat permanently while sowing for peace or pushing for imprisonment leaves the threat with the ability to retaliate and escape." She scribbles something before stopping again.
"You said death 'usually' sticks. Could you elaborate further?" I forgot the people here aren't used to the frustration of resurrecting enemies.
"It's the idea that a high-level arcane or divine magic caster could bring someone back from the dead. It is a known thing that can happen to anyone usually excluding those extremely special circumstances. It requires a caster willing to cast it and a diamond of increasing value to bring life to the deceased. Adventurers are in a unique situation when it comes to this. As there is usually a caster in the adventurer group, death for the group doesn't bear as much weight. Hells, even I died once and it didn't do anything to hinder me besides my coin purse." She had this concerned look and she held back a shudder.
"You…..died? How…how did that happen exactly?" Ah. I think I haven't told this to Alexandria. Well, not like I'm beat up about it.
"Decapitation," I shrug, "It was during the second Armageddon I had to help with. To make a long story short, I had to go kill a dragon that was targeting one of my companions because of something her ancestor did. A bunch of fighting and traveling led us to a place that I won't explain because that would take a few hours and a diagram of what it represents. I died when we were fighting these Greater demons and one was able to decapitate me when I was immobilized. I was resurrected after they finished the fight and we continued. In the end, we killed the dragon and prevented its plans from working. I even got access to magic unavailable to a vast majority of Wizards." I think she latched onto something else to move the conversation.
"Magic. You call yourself a wizard correct?" I nod. She didn't sound like she didn't believe me.
"I am a wizard yes. Magic has made me into the man I am today. When I first started, I could maybe defeat a stray dog that saw me as a quick meal. After the first Armageddon, I was considered to be on par with some of the archmages of the current era, the second pushed me to be on my way to being like the arcanists of old. Hells, being here lets me advance my magic by leaps and bounds!" she smiles for the first time in a few minutes.
"I can tell that you really enjoy magic," I nod, "Could you tell me about how magic has helped you?" Oh, I get to talk about magic!
"Well for starters," I gesture to one of my rings, "This lets me avoid worrying about eating when I forget to!" she stops scribbling.
"You forget to eat often? Does your ring do anything else?"
"It also lets me only need to sleep for 2 hours a day to be considered rested but I remembered that I could use a spell to negate the need for sleep as long as I prepare it beforehand. I think the last time I ate was 2 weeks ago. I stopped sleeping after the Nilbog thing because I realized that it wasted time, I could be spending time creating new magic. Honestly, being in this universe is great!"
"Magnus…..how long have you been 'improving' your spells since you got here?" Huh. How long have I been here again?
"I started after the first week, at the time I used a spell to make myself a little base on the moon. Besides that, I did the hero stuff for like 3 hours, and the rest of the day I was on the moon. Building myself a defendable base and making duplicates of myself so I could make some progress even when I was doing the hero thing. Eventually, I made even stronger duplicates so they could speed up the couple dozen projects I had in mind now that I was a bit freer with my magic." Now that I think about it, I should make 2 more clay clones so I can start working on the bigger rituals.
"Have you done anything else besides advancing your magic? Any hobbies or friends? Any at all?" It takes me a second to think about it.
"Not really no. The local things don't exactly excite me after I realized no one else here used magic. I think I have a friend but it's been a while since we spoke to each other. My Hobbies are spelling craft and artifice. It's the reason why I punched a hole in my universe to go somewhere where I could advance my magical arts largely unhindered." I don't think she liked that answer.
"Magnus, have you considered not using magic for everything? Maybe make some friends?" Hah?
"Magic makes everything so convenient. I don't need to eat or sleep. I have more help from like-minded people. I have more resources than I did back home. I see no reason to do anything else. I could get into those guns I keep hearing about." She sighs.
"This kind of behavior could be considered to be unhealthy. Not everything should be considered to be a bother to be circumvented with magic." She speaks madness.
"Why not? I have spells to will into existence a hotel that is clean and can feed hundreds of people. Spells that can tell me what the weather will be like hells I could even decide the weather if I'm in a city. I have spells to build and repair things for me. I know that I can create more spells here now that I don't have the divine to smite me for considering using some of the older spells or elven high magic." She scribbles something down.
"Can I ask you a question, Magnus?" I nod, "What will you do once there's no more battles, no more epic quests, no new spells to learn, no new worlds to conquer?" Huh.
"I can imagine that would be very far away but I guess I would die. Running out of new spells means I did what all wizards dream of doing." By that time, I hope to have at least a few students but I don't know if this world can support more wizards.
"That's very sad Magnus. While I hope for you to live a long life, I also want you to live it. Go to parties, fall in love, meet people, that's what I feel you should consider doing." Sounds like a pain in the ass.
"How would I go about doing that?" she smiles.
"For starters, you should try and make at least 2 friends without magic. I'm not asking you to make lifelong brotherhoods, I'm asking you to at least meet with other people at least once a week." I should probably tell her I need magic to even talk to her.
"If I use zero magic then I couldn't even communicate with anyone nor would I be able to read anything here." She scribbles something down.
"Okay, so some magic then. No Master effects or bullying people into liking you." I nod.
"I will honestly try that's the best I can say." I think I have an idea but I'm not going to say it.
She takes a deep breath, "I feel that we can end things here." I stand from my seat.
"Do I have to contact you regularly about my progress?" she scribbles something down but shakes her head.
"You don't have to if you don't want to." I feel like she would like to know.
"I could give you my phone so you can put your number. I'm still kind of struggling to use it." she nods, taking the phone from me and inputting her number into it.
"Magnus, I want you to know that if you are unsure of something or have ANY questions about how to go about a social situation, you can call me. If you want to have an earlier session, you call me for that as well so we could set something up." I nod.
"Do I have to sign something before I teleport away?" she shakes her head.
"Goodbye Magnus, have a good day, and please consider trying for 2 friends." I chuckle.
"I will give it the ole wizards try," I salute her with my hat, "Goodbye Ms. Yamada."
Standing in the middle of my chamber, I ponder in one of the chairs. How the Hells am I going to make friends? My friends back home like to do the orc clan slaying or bothering the nobles. Here there isn't anything close to orcs nor does bothering the equivalent of nobles seem appealing.
Who have I met to try and start a friendship? I am not considering the faker nor Alexandria, since they are technically my bosses. It's been a while since I've even spoken to Mouse Protector and Karma. I think Jackson is busy with work. Hmm, maybe I co-.
I stand straight up from my seat and head towards the ritual chamber, calling in two of the clay clones. They bring the carcass of Burnscar and the pile of gore that is Mannequin. This would fulfil her requirement but I should strive for above and beyond. If they betray me, I could always just kill them again. The Moonwalkers kept calling this man Sphere. Maybe I can look up who is related to Sphere and resurrect them as well to keep him in line. Who else? I could resurrect Bonesaw so I can get access to Wet Tinker things.
I tasked the Diviner and the clones on Earth to start looking up the names of people. It shouldn't be more than a day or two before I can drag them back to the living. Wait, is there an afterlife here? Questions for later, I roll up my sleeves and order the other clayclones to bring me the cauldron and the rubies, I have 2 more clayclones to make.
Bonus:
Yamada watches the young cape vanish in a puff of smoke and exhales. She quickly pulls out her phone and calls Alexandria's secretary. She informs her to have Alexandria meet her as soon as possible. She says her goodbyes and goes to her office, the hurriedly clicking of the heels of her shoes is the main sound in the building. Entering, she grabs a water bottle from her carton and takes a sip to steady herself. She truly hopes Magnus considers her words. After a few moments, she hears a knock on her door.
"Come in." the door opens to reveal Alexandria.
"How are you, Jessica? Weiss said it was urgent." She clears her throat, feeling it dry again.
"We have both held the dubious honor of meeting Emily Piggot and hearing her opinions on Capes" Yamada took a sip of water, the normally unflappable woman shaken in a way Alexandria had never seen her in before. "It is in my professional opinion Magnus would justify most of her viewpoints."
"How bad is it?" Alexandria asks, her tone level but with a hint of ice.
Yamada takes another sip, "He is unmoored from both society and basic concepts of morality. I would normally diagnose him with severe anti-social personality disorder; however, it is a conditioned response from the environment he was raised in one where human life has little intrinsic value."
"How do we keep him from becoming another A-Class Threat to deal with?" Alexandria's voice was ice cold, yet the unchanging woman had an undeniable air of tiredness surrounding her.
"I recommended he stop using magic as often, to go out and make connections with others. Teach himself people have value beyond what they can potentially offer him."
Yamada's voice firmed up as she explained her treatment plan to the famous heroine.
"Do you think that will work for him?" Yamada nods.
"I believe that he will try on his own. He seemed to consider it when I asked him about him having any friends here. He needs genuine help and I will do my best to assist him in developing into a person." Her voice didn't waver.
Alexandria exhales, "I hope you're right."
AN: this is an odd one but I liked it. if it doesn't sound right please tell me as I'm iffy on some parts
AN: yes some of the s9 are being given a second (with death ring) chance at life to technically meet yamadas requirements.