Taylor hammered away at her forge. She was still in the boring phase of things, where she was making the tools she would need to make the really fun stuff later. Technically she could make the fun stuff now, but this would cut the time requirement to 1/3rd what it would otherwise be. Much more efficient to get this out of the way now, as opposed to suffering through a low bonus. Well, lower bonus, she giggled to herself. She reached into her pile of stolen firearms and pulled out another one before quickly disassembling it and beginning the process of turning it into yet another tool to add to her growing set. With every different handheld tool, her bonus crept up. She estimated she was a bit over a week out from being finished with this one, and then she could move on to something else. A big magic loom maybe?
Heads?
It would take her a couple weeks to get the loom up and running, but once it was finished, she'd be able to work on magic clothes and really get to play around with her Tinker aspect properly. Looking over options had her pretty excited.
There was some some cords she could wrap around her shoulders like tassels that would massively boost her lifting strength, and she could further augment that by mimicking the Ant Haul spell. It would take her about a full day to put it together (stupid tax for gluing effects together), but the final result would let her lift a car over her head, or carry around almost a ton of gear unencumbered.
She'd have to get creative with the materials, but she could whip up some Boots Of Striding And Springing in about a day and a half. A slight speed boost and even more power behind her jumps. Of course, it would also be tempting to throw together some Boots of Speed - not the cheap ones she already had a blueprint for, they were trash that barely worked, but real ones that worked all day and would need to be designed from the ground up. Those would take two whole weeks to make, but it'd make her twice as fast in so many ways.
Sleeves Of Many Garments were super-cheap, to the point she might throw those together before anything else. They'd let her wear her armor everywhere, and disguise it as whatever clothes she wanted. It would make it a bit easier to disguise on the fly too.
Tails?
Taylor's ears perked up as a van came to a stop outside her secret lair. She frowned, confused. It had been months since someone even tried to sell this place. And only one vehicle-
[Initiative. 3+10=13.]
Three men in tactical gear and balaclavas burst into the entrance hall brandishing rifles. "Hands above your head! Cooperate and you won't be harmed. One way or another, you're coming with us." [Success!] Coil's men. He was doing the thing where he tried something risky in a throwaway timeline, while leaving things alone in the main one. Coil wouldn't try something like this if he thought she was a powerful Human master, which meant he thought this was a simple snatch-and-grab on a tinker with no gear.
First priority was staying free. She would maybe be okay with him giving her piles of money to fund her tinkering in exchange for giving her jobs that tied into his larger plans for the Bay, but getting tossed in a cell to tinker at gunpoint held no interest for her. Second priority was keeping him in the dark on her capabilities; he needed to keep thinking he was dealing with a Tinker, instead of a Master. If this attempt failed, he'd drop the timeline and try again, maybe a couple times. It would take a few losses before he attempted to negotiate employment, so she needed to deal with these guys quickly and efficiently.
Decision made, she snatched a gun from the pile and let it sing a tune of death.
Heads.
Obviously, making magic tools for her other unchained crafts would also take time, but would open up new possibilities for her. She already had armor and weapons she liked, but getting tools means she could make such things for other people in just a few weeks. Masonry and woodworking tools would expand the kinds of materials she could work with, and would really allow her to start playing around with Stronghold stuff. She couldn't really make magic items with Craft/Cooking, but it'd be worth it to eventually make herself a magic kitchen just for the opportunity to experience what a DC 75 meal tasted like.
Heads?
She wasn't sure how necessary it was, exactly, but an Amulet Of Bullet Protection +5 wasn't the worst thing to throw together. She was already pretty difficult to hit for basically anybody using a gun, but that was normal folk. Automated turrets and power-assisted aim would still turn her to swiss cheese, and even some mundanes could still hit her if they were good enough. There was no doubt in her mind a good military sniper could give her a right headache, so why not shore up that defense a little bit? It'd only take like ten days.
She'd not yet been injured, so she didn't really need healing items yet, but it was never a bad idea to have some on hand just in case. She couldn't wear it into combat, at least not without giving up potential access to her speed-boosting boots, but Boots Of The Earth would give her the ability to heal up from near-dead to full in under 30 minutes. It'd only take a day and half to throw them together, too.
One thing that had caught her eye was the Luckstone; it'd take almost a full work-week to throw together, but it would boost everything just a little bit. And it wouldn't even take up an item slot! That had to be worth it.
Tails?
Taylor frowned. Two vehicles had just pulled up out front. Several pairs of feet were approaching the house. It seemed like too many for this to just be a realtor bringing people by to see the property, and in any case it'd been months since anyone had even tried to sell this place.
The footsteps spread out. They were trying to be quiet, walking slowly on the grass, [Success!] but that didn't matter for Taylor. Three in the front, three in the back, two on the left, two on the right. All of them were prepping some kind of grenade. Not that the type mattered, since she could shrug off just about anything they threw at her. Frags, tear gas, even confoam wouldn't do more than slow her down a little bit. They would die all the same, and Coil would drop this attempt.
[Surprise round! Steal maneuver (grenade pin). Initiative. Disable Device (mid-detonation). Fortitude. Fortitude. Fortitude. Full Attack (revolver).]
The next minute or so was a tedious repeat every six seconds, but when everything was done, the only thing Coil had really done was give Taylor's lair a strong smell of pepper. She eyed the grenades longingly, but she knew she couldn't have them, because this version of events was going to-
Heads.
Naturally, magic items boosting her various skills would be useful. She was great at lying and disguising already, but she couldn't quite tell impossible lies to skeptical folk, and who knows how she'd fare against the likes of Tattletale. She was hesitant, though; tools that were hard to lug around were one thing, they were a lot cheaper, but they'd still take forever to make. Crafting something that good for her Bluff skill would take almost a month, and it's not like she wasn't already amazing at it.
Taylor put down her tools and stretched. It was getting into the evening now, almost time for dinner.
Heads?
She threw together a quick something from the ingredients she'd purchased earlier (nothing that had to be stored in a fridge, since the fridge had been disassembled already, and reeked regardless). Just took 30 seconds to throw together something utterly delicious. It was a problem for her tinkering to have Craft/Cooking instead of like...Leatherworking, but she could work around that, and the gustatory benefits were undeniable.
As she dug in, she thought about the past couple weeks. It wasn't often anymore that she had a moment to sit and think to herself. Always busy with something - school, crafting, patrolling, or sleeping.
She wasn't sure why she was bothering with school, really - she already knew basically everything they could possibly try to teach her, and that was with like 1 rank in everything. She didn't really want revenge on her tormenters, they were beneath her now - even if she was getting it passively from Madison losing her mind every time she saw Taylor. She didn't need a diploma, even - being a cape meant she could drop her whole life, travel anywhere in the world, and write her own paycheck, because nobody would turn down someone so useful as her if she signed up.
This ring was almost as much a curse as a boon. Four extra hours in the day almost compelled her not to waste them, or else tearing apart bits and pieces of the basement tools to forge it had been a waste of time and material. Tearing apart her old life to make her new one from scratch. She couldn't keep burning the candle at both ends. All work and no play makes Taylor a dull girl. She'd learned that lesson the hard way, from watching...
she wasn't sure why she was bothering with schoolthe basement tools
tearing apart her old life
burning the candle at both ends
...watching her dad fall apart when her mom died.
When had she last talked to her father? Really talked, not just a greeting in the morning as they passed each other like two ships in the night. It had been before the locker, before New Years...Christmas, perhaps? he'd gotten pretty busy with work again the next day.
She'd been going from school straight here every day, crafting for 8 hours, then patrolling for another few, then crawling home around 2am for a bit of sleep before school again. On weekends, she might not even come home at night. Had he noticed? He hadn't said anything. Maybe he hadn't noticed. If he had...would he even know what to say, how to broach the topic?
Worse, she wasn't sure how to broach the topic either. She'd contemplated earlier how it would be close to impossible to have a real conversation with anybody except maybe Tattletale, because any attempt to talk was practically begging for her to lean on her social skills to get what she wanted. But she wasn't sure she wanted to turn all that power on her dad...and she wasn't sure she'd have a choice, if she bit the bullet and started having that conversation with him.
She would lie to him, and he'd believe her, because that was her power now. Before, nobody would listen, but now everybody would listen to everything she said. An evil laugh and heroes cowered. A simple lie and it was gospel in the minds of the most stubborn foe. A heartfelt request was all that separated her from the trio confessing to every single thing they'd ever done to her.
She felt homesick.
Almost in a daze, she packed her tools away in their little hiding place and exited the building while throwing on a basic disguise. She practically ran across town, hiding in alleys here and there while re-disguising to avoid anybody being able to follow her. She arrived home almost 20 minutes later, huffing and puffing. She could jog forever, and even sprint for minutes on end, but she still wasn't the world's fastest girl, and even her endurance still had limits. After catching her breath for a minute, she strode up the steps and entered the house.
"Taylor? You're...here. Is everything okay?" He'd noticed. He just didn't know how to bridge the gap anymore than she did. But she had to try.
"I..." She swallowed. "Dad, I need to have a serious discussion with you. But it starts with...um...well, I'm a cape."
Tails?
Taylor's ears perked up as a van came to a stop outside her secret lair. She frowned, confused. It had been months since someone even tried to sell this place. And why only one vehicle? What, did the realtor and prospective buyer ride here together? They approached the door and...knocked? Curious, she wandered over and unlocked the door. Three men in tactical gear and balaclavas regarded her - all inexplicably unarmed. "Evening, ma'am," one of them said. "If it's not too much trouble, our employer would like a word."
[Knowledge/Local. Success! Sense Motive. Success!]
Coil's mercenaries, here to scoop up what he thought was a helpless tinker. She almost prepared for a fight before pausing - there was no way he'd started with diplomacy. She'd fought these men already, probably more than once...but Coil didn't know she knew that. He'd know she was faking being helpless, but if she lied, he wouldn't know she knew he knew she was lying.
[Bluff (Feign Harmlessness) vs Sense Motive. 2+27=29. 13+6=19. 11+5=16. 19+5=24. 1+5=6. 7+5=12. Success!]
"I suppose saying no isn't an option," Taylor said with a dramatic sigh. "Don't worry, I'll come quietly." In short order, she was bundled up into a van and driven away from her hideout. They'd at least let her lock the place up before they left, that was nice, even if they'd interrupted her dinner. While they drove, Taylor thought about what she wanted to happen here. Top priority, freedom, second priority, secrecy. She wanted a client, not a boss.
The car stopped in some fast food parking lot, and one of the men pulled out a cell phone right as it started ringing. He answered and put it on speaker. "Good evening. I hope my men didn't give you any trouble? This was intended to be more of an introduction than forced induction."
[Sense Motive vs Bluff. Success!]
"I mean, sending three grown men after one little girl isn't subtle. But I at least appreciate they weren't pointing guns at me the whole time. You said not a forced induction, implying a more normal one is still on the table. Is this the world's shadiest job offer?"
The voice on the other end of the line chuckled. "It can be if you like, but for the moment it's more of...an offer to invest. I care deeply about this town, and want to see it flourish. I have reason to believe you're heroically-inclined, and I would hate to see you get snatched up by the Empire just because you ran out of easy materials and got caught scavenging, or buying rarer materials on Ebay."
"If you're offering to fund my tinkering no strings attached - which I'm sure you're not - it's gonna be 200k a year, minimum. For the foreseeable future, I can't really go faster than that - can't even go that fast for another week or so, still putting the tools together. That's the minimum because that's what would cover my material costs. Anything less, and I'm either leaving possibility on the table, or I've gotta go dumpster-diving anyway."
Coil hmm'd to himself on the other end of the phone. "That's about 500 a day. A bit on the high side, but I'm willing to fund your tinkering. Although you're right - I've got some caveats and quid pro quos in mind. First though, some questions: can others use what you make? How often do you need to do upkeep?"
"My stuff doesn't need upkeep, doesn't fall apart unless someone's beating on it on purpose. The stuff I've made so far - tools mostly - can't be used by anyone but me. I could make stuff that can be used by anybody, but they take more than twice as long, and they can't reach the same heights as something crafted to fit someone in particular. Making something for a particular person requires a meeting in-person, though...and as you can imagine, I'm not exactly inclined to work for weeks on end for something I can't use that I won't even have access to. And forgive me, but you don't seem like the type to like face-to-face meetings."
He chuckled. "You're not wrong. I take my security quite seriously." He was quiet for a moment, contemplative. "600 per day, to cover tinkering expenses and gives you spending money comparable to a minimum wage job. In exchange, one night a month, I'll have a job for you. Not tinkering, just making trouble for the gangs. I'll call with other offers now and then, either gang hits or tinkering requests for my employees, with pay to be negotiated at time of request."
"Eating into my tinkering time will probably be quite expensive," she warned him. "if that's not a dealbreaker, I think this arrangement is acceptable."
Tails.
"Glad we could see eye to eye on this. My men will provide you with a good phone to stay in touch. I'd advise leaving it somewhere secure in your lair. They'll also provide you with a spending card - it's attached to an account set up by...well, I won't trouble you with the details. It will be secure, that's all that matters."
[Sense Motive vs Bluff. Success!]
She didn't care that he was hiding a Cauldron connection, because at least this one was fairly commonly used by all kinds of villains. Plus, if Cauldron wanted to take her money, they could just do it. "Looking forward to working with you," she replied. She was even being honest: this would ease her need to rob everybody blind all the time, so now her patrols could be less about making money and more about making trouble.
The van quickly returned her to her stolen lair. She scarfed down some food, and got back to working on her magic tools with renewed vigor.