Quest

by Kahlil Johnson

Uhhhh

46. T4

The first thing you do on Sunday is to drop the director an e-mail explaining why you did what you did with Uncle Danny and the negotiations. The gist of your email states that you have no problem selling tech to the PRT so long as you are paid appropriately, but also that you refuse to be forced into selling tech to the PRT. You mention that you most likely would have been more keen on the staves if they had given you a softer sell. Then you mention the booster option, as well as rough pricing of what you would need per staff in order to make them work. Finally, you ask if they would be willing to invite MP to Brockton Bay to 'help' with the harvesting project.

Once that's sent, you set about working. You do the finishing touches on the Chronomanipulator. It looks like the circular head of a photon cannon, except with a diameter of roughly six feet. You run through a quick battery of tests to make sure it won't open up a tear in space leading to the void and shunt you through it, and then tear yourself away from the desire to turn it on and tinker so that you can go get prepared. You are self-aware enough to know that even if you plan to take breaks, you won't adhere to them without outside interference, so when you go and prepare snacks and drinks, you think about who would be best to help you avoid going straight into tinker fugue land. The Protectorate is right out, mostly because they're busy doing more important things than micromanaging you. You'd gotten a couple of tips from Armsmaster, but most of those revolved strongly around never ever leaving your tinker lab, which was… not healthy, especially when you were about to turn it into a time chamber.

Of the Wards, the ones who spent the most time at the Wards HQ were… Carlos and Missy. Taylor had also taken to spending a lot of time here. You did a quick scan of the common room. Missy was making Taylor watch a magical girl show, and Dean was finally back, making a sandwich for himself. You kind of wanted to ask him about Dinah since he would probably know best, but you also really wanted to tinker. You walked over to where Taylor and Missy were sitting.

"Hey, can you two help me with something?"

"Sure," they both replied.

"I'm going to be accelerating time in my tinker lab," you hold up your hands before they can burst out with questions, "Armsmaster already approved my use of it, but I am… prone to losing track of time so I wanted some outside assurance that I would take regular breaks. So, I'm giving you this," you put a remote down on the table in front of them, it had a power button and room for several others, but was otherwise empty. "This is the control for the time-field generator. If you come to check up on me and I'm not taking care of myself, I want you to turn off the time field and force me to do that."

They both shift from examining the remote to looking at you, serious expressions in their eyes, at least until Missy rolls hers.

"You don't need to act like this is some big favor. We would've done this anyway, right Taylor?"

"Yea. How will we check on you? Won't there be like a time bubble in the way?" Taylor asks

"Well, for one, that's what the remote is for, and on the other hand, the time field should be permeable. I even built in a safety mechanism so that if something living is only half inside then the time field affects all of it."

"Ok, well, have fun Tony, don't get too carried away."

"Yeah, Tony." Missy seems a bit calmer than she was yesterday. Maybe the trek to the boat graveyard helped. Still, you do catch the way her eyes glance over at Taylor's pocket several times. You'd guess she's thinking about the communicator you made for her, as well as the promise you'd made to her about building her something. You'll rectify that, this week and sooner rather than later.

As you assemble the simplest thing you'll be building today, a Khaydarin Crystal Generator, you can't help but wonder what it would look like if you had a window in your lab. Would you see the world pass by in slow motion, or would it be something else? You put the finishing touches to your Khaydarin Crystal Generator and leave it to work for a bit. 'Generator' was a bit of a misnomer as it sort of grew the crystal from ambient cosmic energy. On the other hand, Khaydarin Crystal in its base form wasn't alive in any sense of the word, but it would continue to form the crystal structure it consisted of on top of itself given enough cosmic energy, or other energy actually. You left the time bubble still on as you went to eat some snacks under Taylor and Missy's watchful eye. You'd contemplated bringing them into your lab, but not only would they get cold faster, but they'd also be in your lab which was one o the things Armsmaster had emphasized that you not do, lest food get in your tinkertech. Conversely, napping in your lab, especially bubbled up, was more efficient than napping outside.

When you finished, you returned to see several mostly grown Khaydarin Crystals. Excellent, you could turn them into your next project, an Ihan Crystal, at a much more efficient rate than if you'd needed to synthesize a substitute. Oh god, was Armsmaster rubbing off on you? The fact that you had to question whether that was a bad thing answered your previous question.

Several times, during your Ihan Crystal Production, you were dragged away from your workbench by Taylor and Missy, not literally kicking and screaming, at least you hoped not, but near enough. Sometimes they'd make you nap on a small bed you'd set up in the room. Other times they would feed you.

Finally, though, you were done with your… well, it was useful ok. It wouldn't really do much other than sit in your lab, look pretty, and act as a sort of database for your projects. You knew that it could be used to store messages, but that's not the functionality you were going for. No, you wanted to store blueprints, and you could now.

[Blueprints] Pick up to five blueprints to store. Blueprints can be deleted from the crystal, and those deleted cannot be recovered.

Spoiler: MP Invite

When you left, you had a return e-mail from Director Piggot, saying that she would send out an invitation, and that Mouse Protector was an independent hero, so she did not technically have to answer

The bombing started again that night. You suppose you should have expected it. Bakuda has been free for almost a week now. What was really frightening was the sheer speed with which the Protectorate responded. Apparently, she'd managed to harden her tech against the remote access backdoors your hacker used, but that didn't mean that it couldn't detect them simply because they were waiting for a broadcast. By the time you woke up Monday morning, Armsmaster had already taken Lung to a cell on the Rig, otherwise known as PHQ to the news.

You only found out when you turned said news on in the morning. School was once again ablaze with talk about how Armsmaster was the 'coolest tinker ever' and all other sorts of inane middle-school fanboying. You hated it. Wait, you weren't becoming jaded, were you? You were way too young to be jaded, physically at least.

That day you pulled the same trick of asking to get picked up late, this time citing that you were going to head home for a bit rather than an afterschool activity. You really needed to stop doing this or you'd get caught, but it's not as though you had a better way to get away from your overprotective family and watchful eye of the law.

You walk up to a payphone and dial Lady Photon's home number. It was unlisted, but that didn't exactly matter to you since it was in one of the PRT Databases you had access to.

Spoiler: New Wave and Dinah Social Roll

"Hello," a woman's voice responds as its owner picks up the phone. It didn't sound like Louise, so it was either Lady Photon or Laserdream

"Hello, I am the thinker who helped Dinah Alcott out. I was hoping to speak with her and with you."

There's a lot of noise in the background, and Lady Photon verifies your identity by asking leading questions about the conversation you had with Dinah. You're pretty sure Tattletale could have pulled them out of random background noise, but you also know that people in Brockton Bay weren't used to any truly strong thinkers.

"Alright, you said you wanted to talk to me. We can do that first since Dinah is still on her way home from school." Lady Photon says.

"It's about Mouse Protector and the Nine," you say, going on to explain about how Ravager hired the Nine to kill Mouse Protector, and they were planning on doing it and killing Ravager as well.

"That's… very useful information, but I'm afraid we're not in a position to act on it. Why haven't you taken this to the PRT?"

"Coil's moles."

"What would Coil's moles do with information about Mouse Protector?"

"They would know I exist."

"Still, even if I were the one to tell the PRT, they would still find out you exist. New Wave isn't known to have any thinker connections."

"You have Dinah," you pointed out.

"Dinah can confirm what you said, but she wouldn't have been able to give such an accurate description, especially not without a specific line of questioning." Well, she has you there.

Wait. If Coil's spent his alternate timelines trying to kidnap Dinah and figure out why his other kidnapping attempt failed, then he likely already knows you exist.

You will

[MP Info] Inform the PRT from another different payphone.

[MP Info] Ask Lady Photon to pass it on.

[MP Info] Write-in.

Later that day, you finished up both Vista's new gloves, and actually improved them, allowing her to create animated images along with the green hard-light constructs. You hoped that the Khaydarin Crystals embedded in the gauntlet wouldn't send the wrong message, but perhaps it was too late on that account. You had done a decent job of keeping Missy from finding out you were making the gloves by switching projects every so often.

You also got to see Missy and Taylor's budding friendship. Actually, it seemed sort of likely that Missy had declared that Taylor and her were friends and that had been that. Taylor seemed to alternate between amusement and bewilderment at the different things Missy was having them do together. You're pretty sure Missy was sleeping over at your house sometime this week, once the bombing calmed down.

The Protectorate was out in force, hunting down Bakuda and keeping her on the back foot. You wondered if Oni Lee could break into the Rig. You kind of doubted it. The Rig had significantly better fortifications than the PRT HQ.

Still, you were getting off on a tangent. You had Vista's gloves. Unfortunately, it would take, at minimum, a week for them to get through the approval process, same with your phasing armor, but Vista could still test it and see what you made for her.

You…

[Holo-Gauntlet] Present it to her Today

-[Holo-Gauntlet] Ask Taylor to get you some wrapping paper to wrap it up first.

[Holo-Gauntlet] Wait until it's approved.

-[Holo-Gauntlet] Ask Taylor to get you some wrapping paper to wrap it up first.

[Holo-Gauntlet] Write-in.

Voting Moratorium Length: 7 Hours

Votes for next chapter:

Blueprints

MP Info

Holo-Gauntlet

QM Note:

I wrote in a really fun tsun-tsun moment with Vista, but it really just didn't fit in with the flow of the chapter.

I was really tempted to say that you call up Mouse Protector and tell her that the S9 were going to make her an abomination for "Irony Shake"

Also, you literally wrote keep it short and then added two other options. Plus with tinkertech, keeping it short guarantees literally nothing.

Also, you know that the Tin-mother Dragon thing is like 100% Fanon, which means that it may or may not be true.

Sorry for not being around on the weekend. I was taking a bit of a break from writing to relax and map out what the next arc of my fic looks like. But hey, I'm back now.

Whew, 30 chapters huh.

Last edited: Jul 1, 2019

Like

314

Hugs

14

Insightful

2

Informative

1

Funny

1

Meow

1

Winter

2

Red Envelope

1

Sun

1

Perseids meteor shower

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 1, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 31. To the Wayside.

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 2, 2019

#4,388

Spoiler: Winning Vote

"I'd like it if you were to pass this information on to the PRT so that they can contact whatever city Mouse Protector is in," you tell Lady Photon.

"You don't know?"

"I know a lot of general events but details are vague."

"Anything else you want to tell me?" she sounds distinctly annoyed, but you're pretty sure she believes you.

"Actually yes, In terms of the local PRT, I know that Piggot and Armsmaster are trustworthy," you can hear her sigh. "Additionally, on the topic of the Nine, Jack Slash has a power that has remained undocumented, he has a thinker power that lets him predict parahumans subconsciously."

Lady Photon's voice is more serious, "You're certain?"

"Absolutely."

"I'll make sure this gets passed on. Thank you for the tip."

"Wait, there's more that I need to say." You go into a whole long-winded explanation about Coil, all his resources, his goals, his power the whole shebang. Halfway through, Lady Photon has to get a notepad to write down everything you're saying. She mutters something suspiciously like "serves them right," when you tell her about Coil's plan to out the Empire. You inform her about the Travelers and how they 'escaped from Madison' which heavily implies that they are ziz-bombs.

"Ok, I think I got all of that. Is there any more?"

"Yes, don't let Panacea anywhere near Tattletale. Bad things happen."

"Bad things?"

"I'd really rather not elaborate."

Lady Photon pauses, you wonder if she's gonna argue with you, "Ok," she says finally. "What should we call you?"

[Pseudonym] Don't give a name Lady Photon finds this option unacceptable

[Pseudonym] Nobody

[Pseudonym] Plot

[Pseudonym] Wildbow

[Pseudonym] Write-in.

"There's one last thing. May I speak to Dinah?"

More conversation in the background. "Hello, mister. Thank you for your help."

"Of course Dinah, do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

"Only three." That's good enough.

"What's the probability that Brockton Bay is heavily flooded before May 16th?"

"88.7774% Why is it so high?"

"I'm sure you and your guardians can figure it out. What about before May 12th?"

"1.2345%"

"That's all I needed for now. Goodbye." You hang up. You're already running slightly later than expected. At this rate, you won't actually reach home before you've asked Mrs. Cortez to pick you up.

When you get home, you have some time to spare, so you set about making a throwaway PHO account using the Heberts' ultra-slow wi-fi connection. You wonder if it would actually be faster to upgrade their service and then use the internet, but you figure out pretty quickly that it wouldn't, not to mention you don't have the tools about you. You quickly shoot Mouse Protector's verified account a warning about the Nine. You don't know how much good it will do, but perhaps it's better than doing nothing.

You ask Taylor to go out to the boardwalk and pick you up some wrapping paper. It's a bit of an exercise sneaking it past Vista, but once you do, you use your time dilation field to quickly wrap up the gloves, in a box of course so that she can't tell what they are. Taylor looks very amused with your actions. You hope she doesn't hop on the Tony x Missy bandwagon that everyone else seems to be on, including Missy. You hastily write Missy's name on the wrapping paper before turning off your Chronomanipulator.

You step out, holding the box in front of you. Missy is sitting on the sofa in the common room, watching TV by herself. It's getting late enough that most Wards would be at home, though Uncle Danny has given you and Taylor permission to stay over at Wards HQ while the bombing situation is ongoing. As far as you can tell, it's become way more… well… like canon since Lung was captured early this morning/late last night. The news that you catch in your short breaks is very much in 'shocked and horrified' mode.

"Missy, I've got a present for you.~"

"Oh," Missy looks up and sees the box you're holding. With a twist of space and a yank, it's suddenly in her lap on the couch. "What is it?" she asks even as her hands work to tear apart the wrapping paper to reveal… a cardboard box full of packing peanuts. You were in a rush ok.

"Wow!" She says as she pulls one of the gloves free from the temporary packaging. She pulls it over her hand and you pat yourself on the back silently as the glove fits itself around her small hand. "How does it-" her question is interrupted by her making a small green pyramid in between her pointer finger and her thumb. "Oh."

"How long before you think I'll be able to use these?" she asks you.

"I'm pretty sure the average review takes around a week, at least according to Chris. This will be my first time as well."

Missy glomps you, skipping the space in between the two of you to directly wrap you up in a hug as she throws herself at you. It's all you can do to keep your twelve-year-old body upright.

"ThankyouThankyouThankyou!" Missy mumbles into your shoulder.

"It's uh… I mean… I promised right." Click.

Your face snaps to Taylor, who is holding the Communicator that you built for her and giggling at a picture she's taken of you and Missy. This cannot stand, you can't let this picture be distributed. Taylor picks up on your desire, cackles and then flees into her room.

Wait. Did Taylor just cackle at you? Check that off the bucket list, you guess.

The bombing continues through the night, causing school to be canceled… again. Seriously, you wonder if the other kids your age actually attended 180 days of school or whatever the minimum number is supposed to be, not that it really matters. The kids who are actually trying to will get into Arcadia (assuming that it's still standing after Leviathan) while the rest will spread out into the other schools. Likely Immaculata if you had to guess based on the average wealth level of someone attending your middle school, but also possibly Winslow. Clarendon students weren't zoned to go to this school. Still, this meant more time for you to tinker, plus the materials for your staves had been delivered, so that was a plus. You could get started on those. Which you did, with Missy and Taylor's constant fussing to make sure you were eating and resting enough. You got through three of them before you got bored. A quick message to Dragon showed that Armsmaster would be 'busy' for the rest of Tuesday, but would be available to meet the next day. You considered building the repair drones now but instead decided on spending some time hanging out with Missy and Taylor. Missy was a bit disappointed that she couldn't actually use the gloves on patrols, but the first few steps of the review process didn't actually involve sending the gloves anywhere, so she could keep them until the review came back around to Armsmaster and Piggot.

Spoiler: Armsaster and Dragon Social

Apparently, Armsmaster had to cancel last minute on the meeting where you would show off your repair drones. When you contacted Dragon she said that she was busy working on an important project. Since there weren't any tinkers to show, you considered going straight to Director Piggot, but it seems she was still working on getting the Dockworker project set up, and thus was too busy for you. At least you didn't have to maintain the staves now, you could just set up the drones in your lab. You were also pretty sure that you were supposed to keep the staves somewhere safe that wasn't 'in your lab' but no one was available to tell you where the hell that was, so they were in your lab.

You found out later that day that Armsmaster had been busy capturing Bakuda, and that Dragon had been flying one of her prison craft out to Brockton Bay for Lung. The PRT happily chucked Bakuda into that same transport because of all the damage she had done to Brockton Bay and all the people she'd killed. As far as you knew, she never actually went so far as to implant bombs into people, likely because she didn't have the time. Armsmaster's press conference did mention that there were several helpful tips that led to Bakdua's capture, something that pinged your bullshit radar. That sounded an awful lot like Coil's meddling to take the ABB out of the picture. After all, who else could it be? Cauldron usually used a strict non-interference policy for this city and another person manipulating events so that they fell into place the same way they did in canon was, frankly, ridiculous.

Of course, on the next day, Coil name-dropped the entire Empire, which meant that they were causing loads of chaos in the city. At least your thinker persona was vindicated. Of course, this meant that Uncle Danny had strongly insisted that you and Taylor stay at the Wards HQ were 'it was safer.' You had only slept at home twice this week. You were starting to wonder if you should consider this to be moving out.

Of course, the Wards were also held back, not allowed into the city for fear of running into Empire capes with nothing to lose.

Of course, this does give you enough time to flag down Miss Militia through your phone and ask her for training. You invite Taylor to come as well, and then the rest of the Wards since they're all stuck in the Wards HQ with you. Well, except Dean that is. You wonder what he's up to.

Missy is the only one who accepts, and you suspect it's because she wants to spend time with you and Taylor.

How do you ask MM to train you?

[Training] Hand-to-Hand

[Training] Physical Conditioning

[Training] Aiming and proper gun safety

[Training] Write-in.

Voting Moratorium Length: 3 Hours

Votes for next chapter:

Pseudonym

Training

QM Note:

Do you guys think I should use a Rollz room or stick to just doing the rolls on SV? The plus side of a room is that you don't see the rolls as I write the chapter. SV is, of course, way more visible.

Guess what? Tinker of Fiction every day this week (hopefully). That means I do need to cut down the Moratorium quite a bit though.

Also, the vote spoiler is literally a thousand words long WTH.

Like

311

Hugs

16

Insightful

2

Informative

1

Meow

1

Perseids meteor shower

2

Winter

2

Red Envelope

1

Sun

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 2, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 32. Snap Back to Reality

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 3, 2019

#4,487

Spoiler: Winning Vote

Miss Militia, despite her usually forgiving attitude when it comes to you and the rest of the Wards, is exceedingly strict as she teaches the three of you proper gun safety. You're currently working with guns that don't actually fire, and yet she still properly corrects your grip if it's even slightly off.

"Haven't you done this before?" you ask Missy.

"No, I'm not allowed to use anything that could even resemble a gun so I never saw the point."

It's almost an hour before she deems you good enough to allow you to actually use one of the guns at the PRT/Protectorate firing range on the Rig.

To everyone (except you), it's a huge surprise when Taylor figures out her bug proprioception aiming trick. Miss Militia even praises her strongly for "creative usage of her power," which has her blushing like crazy and stammering like some star-struck fangirl. You realize that that is exactly what she is, especially because she doesn't know all the bad things about the PRT and Protectorate that color your impression of them.

"What's the situation with the Empire?" you try and ask casually. It's an open secret that they are going to town on Brockton Bay looking for whoever outed them.

Miss Militia grimaces with her eyes, "Assault and Battery are currently trying to de-escalate the situation with them. Apparently, we've been tipped off that someone was trying to frame Tattletale for the whole situation, but if we know who it is then I haven't been informed."

"Oh?" Missy nudges Miss Militia to elaborate further.

"Apparently some thinker in the city calling himself Spoiler dumped a load of information on New Wave, who are reporting it to us."

"Anything else?"

Miss Militia's eye grimace somehow gets worse, "We've received a tip that Leviathan is the next Endbringer attack, that it will probably be next week, and that it will probably hit New England."

"I thought the Endbringers couldn't be predicted?" Taylor asks.

"I've been told the report is trustworthy, though not from Spoiler. I don't know if it's a thinker who can predict them or what?"

"So what's going to happen?" you ask.

"It depends. The cities adjacent to the ones Leviathan hits are generally considered to be unsafe as well, though they only deal with flooding and tidal waves. I haven't been briefed on the plan, but I'd assume that they'll try and get you out of the city."

Taylor looks at you contemplatively. You weren't really planning on fighting Leviathan anyway. It would be even better if you can convince Taylor to get out of the city as well along with the rest of the Wards. If you're lucky, the PRT will force them out of the city, though they didn't do that even with an hour's warning, and some Wards from other cities even came to the Leviathan fight, so you have no idea what the policy is supposed to be.

School, your hospital shift (with Taylor this time) and comforting spooked Taylor and telling her she doesn't need to attend the Leviathan fight if she doesn't want to takes up all of your Friday. You considered telling Uncle Danny about it, but Taylor had begged you not to, so you withheld judgment. You kind of sort of understood.

Missy and Taylor had essentially practiced search and rescue techniques when you took them scavenging. That meant that she thought she would be very useful for that sort of thing. You had explained to her that Dragon usually handed out armbands to all attending capes that would keep track of them, but she still wanted to help. You thought back to what you knew about the Leviathan fight. A whole lot of people die. From the Protectorate, you know Velocity dies, and Dauntless gets time bubbled. On the Wards side, Aegis, Gallant, and Browbeat all die.

You can't count on that knowledge to carry you through though, considering the sheer amount of butterflies you've been causing, not to mention your very existence. Another thing to think about is you are pretty sure that your staff won't work on anyone who has been... ugh you want to vomit just thinking about it. Anyone who has been crushed into… bloody paste by Leviathan probably can't be resurrected unless someone collects all that bloody paste, or brings the staff to it before the flooding disperses it. Neither of which is likely to happen. Speaking of your staves though, even if Director Piggot rejected the option to add booster functions to the PRT-staves, your own still has it. Maybe you could boost Eidolon or Flechette, but then Leviathan might stop holding back, and you have literally nothing capable of defending against a not-sandbagging Endbringer.

Saturday afternoon is spent inside your time-bubble'd lab. It's a bit cramped because both Taylor and Missy have decided to take up residence inside it while you work. They were a lot more spooked by the news about Leviathan than you are. That's probably because you've had about 2 months longer than them to come to terms with it and it still freaks you out to think that you're in a city where Leviathan could show. It's one thing to think about it from the other side of a screen, and entirely another when it's your fleshy body at risk. Just like with the Nine, though you don't know which one is worse. At least Leviathan will just kill you and isn't that a chilling thought.

You are, of course, working on your Blink Band. A device that replicates stalker's blink. You doubt you'll be able to finish it today, but it's good to have, and another defensive tool you'll have if you're… you suppress a shudder, you're in the city Leviathan attacks.

You continue to work, trying to take your mind off it, until you feel a pair of hands wrap around yours, preventing you from working further.

"You ok?" it's Taylor. She's covering your shaking hands as you fumble with the component on your Fabricator's makeshift bench.

Missy turns off the time dilation field using the remote you gave her, "I think you should take a break."

You spend the rest of Saturday with your two minders curled up on the couch in front of the TV, watching a comedy and wrapped up in blankets. Taylor seems to be enjoying babying and embarrassing you in front of Missy and to be honest, you enjoy it too. Even if your mind is protesting that you're far too old for this, it's a good way to not think about what's coming.

You wake up on Sunday to a text on your Wards phone. You pull it off of the dresser Uncle Danny crammed into your somewhat cramped attic room. It's a message saying that with the news of Leviathan's imminent attack, your dockworker plan has been postponed due to safety regulations for natural disasters. You didn't actually know the Endbringers qualified as natural disasters.

It also states that Mouse Protector showed up precisely at midnight and is looking to meet with you. A message from Miss Militia follows immediately after begging you to come to the PRT HQ as soon as possible.

Welcome to the Week of May 8th, 2011:

First, since I have to give you guys extra time to vote for the weekly plan, we're going to have an interlude.

No Moratorium on Interlude Vote

[Interlude] Missy Biron

[Interlude] Colin Wallis

[Interlude] Dragon

[Interlude] Daniel Hebert

[Interlude] Director Emily Piggot

[Interlude] Thomas Calvert

[Interlude] Brian Laborn

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well (Only for Weekly Plan).

You could stick with Starcraft until Leviathan, orrr you could see what another tree has to offer.

[Tech Tree] Stick with Starcraft

[Tech Tree] Nier Automata

Type B Battle Android Specialized Tools (Electronics)8 - 1 = 7 Actions8 Common Materials10 Uncommon Materials5 Rare Materials3 Exotic Materials

Pod Specialized Tools (Electronics)6 - 1 = 5 Actions4 Common Materials6 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

A170 Scanner Device(Does not Require Pod)Good Tools3 - 1 = 2 Actions3 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

R050: Spear Device(Does not Require Pod) (Who's laughing now Kaiser?)Excellent Tools4 - 1 =3 Actions5 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

[Tech Tree] Frostpunk

Coal Generator(That's a lot of power) (Runs on Coal)Basic Tools5 - 1 = 4 Actions10 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material

Arctic Exploration Suit Good Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions6 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Prosthetic Excellent Tools3 - 1 = 2 Actions5 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Automaton Excellent Tools6 - 1 = 5 Actions8 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials

[Tech Tree] Legend of Zelda

Master Sword(Worthiness Judgement is Extra)Good Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions7 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Ancient Arrow(Set of 10) (Consumable)Good Tools2 - 1 = 1 Action2 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Bow of Light Excellent Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions6 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Triforce of WisdomGrants wielder the ability to heal others, the ability to communicate telepathically and a precognitive ability to know the right decision (Experiences interference from other Precogs) (??? if combined with Triforce of Power, Courage)Specialized Tools (Magic)5 - 1 = 4 Actions 5 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

You currently have:

Blueprints:

Stored in Ihan Crystal. Check the Projects post for prices

Starcraft

Singularity Spider Mines

Purifier Core Matix

Jorium Crystal Synthesizer

Jorium Psionic Inducer

Orbital Command

Schematics:

One action to complete as long as you have access to your Fabricator.

Fabricator (Basic)2 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material

Upgraded Fabricator2 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Upgraded Habitat Builder1 Common Material3 Uncommon Materials

Stasis Rifle3 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material1 Rare Material

Armor Plating5 Common Materials

Caduceus Staff (Basic)3 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Caduceus Staff (Illness Upgrade)3 Common Materials10 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Caduceus Staff

(Illness and Resurrection Upgrade)3 Common Materials14 Uncommon Materials6 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

Caduceus Staff (Illness and Booster Upgrade)4 Common Materials13 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Caduceus Staff

(Illness, Booster, and Ressurection Upgrades)4 Common Materials17 Uncommon Materials6 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

Vishkar Hardlight Gloves2 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Vishkar Hardlight Gloves with Sentry Hallucination Upgrade (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)3 Common Materials7 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

All-in-one Communicator, Police Scanner, Web Browser, and GPS1 Common Material5 Uncommon Materials

Sombra Hacking Interface 4 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials

Upgraded Sombra Hacking Interface 6 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Material

Chronomanipulator (2:1)10 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Khaydarin Crystal Generator6 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Ihan Crystal (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)2 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Phasing Armor (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)2 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Repair Drone (Protoss) (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)1 Common Material2 Uncommon Materials

Blink Band 2/4 Actions completed.

Tools:

Excellent Tools, Specialized Tools (Medical), (Energy)

Materials:

27 Material Credits (1:1 for Common, 3:1 For each tier higher), 42 Common Materials, 26 Uncommon Materials, 6 Rare Materials, 0 Exotic Materials

Actions:

5 2 (Good Workshop) = 7 - 1 (Hospital) = 6 by default, can be increased up to 10 by those below:

@Kejmur, 5 Omake Points

@Hydralisk, 4 Omake Points

@Katsuragi, 2 Omake Points

@AsahinaTora, 1 Omake Point

@MangoFlan, 2 Omake Points

@Poliamida, 3 Omake Points

@NathanMedium, 3 Omake Points

Additionally, You can use your points on a week to add 5 to all rolls for that week's plan (Social Rolls Included). Just make sure to @ me in the message where you are spending your points otherwise I might miss it.

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well (Only for Weekly Plan).

[Action] Refine Materials using your Fabricator (Convert materials to ones of better quality at a 3:1 Ratio) (Do up to 5 times in 1 action)

-[Action] 3 Common Materials to an Uncommon Material

-[Action] 3 Uncommon Materials to a Rare Material

-[Action] 3 Rare Materials to an Exotic Material

[Action] Go Harvest Containers in the Boat Graveyard

[Action] Build some Specialized Tools (Excellent Tools, 5 - 1 (Fabricator) = 4 Actions, 10 Common Materials, 5 Uncommon Materials, 2 Rare Materials)

[Action] Upgrade your Workshop to an Excellent Workshop (Excellent Tools, 6 - 1 (Habitat Builder) = 5 Actions, 12 Common Materials, 7 Uncommon Materials, 2 Rare Materials)

[Action] TINKER!

-[Project] Pick a project or Schematic

[Social] Write-in. (write-in whatever you want to social this week. You will still have social events regardless and 50% of people must vote for a social vote for it to "win")

If you don't have enough materials to refine when you choose the refine materials action, you'll just have wasted that action.

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well (Only for Weekly Plan).

QM Note:

Shorter chapter to close out the week.

Please note that not adding boosters to the PRT staves was first stated here. Tony had already known, but this is the first time it's shown in a scene.

Leviathan hitting anywhere in New England would cause flooding in every coastal city, or at least I'm pretty sure that's the case (Rough estimate based on the size of Kyushu, which is smaller than New England but was entirely sunk underwater.)

I am probably going to be doing a whole lot of background rolls for the Levi fight, but if you want to see them, I can expose them.

Kejmur said:

I wonder with what kind of MP we will deal with. I like fanon MP personally, but in the end, she is fanon one, so I also wouldn't assume she will be exactly the same. But maybe I guess. We'll see. At least this time she may avoid a drastic end.

I don't think canon MP had enough screen time to greatly differentiate her from the fanon representation, though she may be a bit less over the top in canon.

Also, if you couldn't tell, I've been listening to a lot of Eminem lately.

Like

282

Hugs

13

Informative

3

Funny

2

Meow

1

Perseids meteor shower

2

Winter

2

Red Envelope

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 3, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks Interlude 2: Coil

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 4, 2019

#4,594

Spoiler: Winning Vote

Coil, known to some as his fake identity, Thomas Calvert, was sitting in his base brooding. Of course, he was also attending his day job as a PRT Consultant. Such was the beauty of living in two realities at once, realities that he could end at any time, just like that.

Of course, not everything was great, and he'd have had a wonderful new pet if it weren't for someone's interference. He had been putting out feelers looking for the city's newest thinker, another asset that would be useful to him once acquired. With only one example to go off of, he hadn't been able to figure out the exact power of the thinker, and he was doing an extremely good job of going to ground, no traces whatsoever of a new thinker of any alignment in the city. Intriguing.

Of course, he hadn't let up on the attempts to recover the previously lost asset, Dinah. Just because she was with New Wave didn't mean she was out of his reach. Unfortunately, she'd been tipped off by his previous attempt, even if he'd used his power to destroy all evidence of a break-in and the entire universe it took place in. He would admit that he was having some difficulties acquiring her. Most attempts resulted in failure and the ones that succeeded usually ended up in the deaths of one of the members of New Wave. Not a loss he would mourn for any length of time, but enough to bring the heat down on his head, both from the Protectorate and from the other gangs in the city.

They wouldn't be a problem anymore though, not with how he used some of his moles in the ABB to help Armsmaster track down Lung and Bakuda. It would make those currently in power look good, annoyingly enough, but he had plans for that. Then came his masterstroke, the release of the identities of every member of the Empire. Initially, he'd planned on pinning that on Tattletale, but with how the PRT were suddenly examining his informants very closely, he found that the Empire were more receptive when he presented them conflicting information. Some would agree with the plants saying that Tattletale was at fault, while others would believe that this was a move by the local director, making them argue with each other, and all the more likely to rampage through the city, which they had done wonderfully.

He'd been trying to plant information inside the PRT to make it look like this was Emily's fault, but he'd run into roadblocks. The PRT were upping security. For the life of him, he couldn't figure out why until he'd broken into the Director's office and rifled through her filing cabinets. Apparently, the new thinker, calling himself Spoiler, had tipped off the PRT about a number of things, including several of his future plans all of his cape moles, and his acquisition of the Traveler's, something he'd hoped to keep secret for as long as possible while the other gangs tore themselves and each other apart.

It wasn't enough to say that Coil was mad, no, he was furious and he'd gotten an inkling as to the new Thinker's power. Based on the name and the information given, he likely had some sort of precognitive power that gave him text phrased like a narrative, possibly with a focal character. Unfortunately, that didn't clue him into how Spoiler had found out about him, but it could be due to pure chance as well. Now that he had that tidbit of information, he could renew his search. He would find Spoiler, and he would turn him into a drugged-up husk that provided information for him. No one crosses him and gets away with it.

There was also the matter of his future pet warning the PRT about the upcoming Endbringer attack. Though he was loath to admit it, even he hadn't known her power was that strong. If her prediction came true, it would make it that much harder to take her out from under the PRT. Not to mention they might be interested, and he still owed them a favor.

Of course, as he was rifling through the Director's cabinets, he found something even more interesting. The newest tinker in the Wards, Tony Martin, a.k.a. Horizon had built a staff capable of resurrection. Frankly, it wasn't that interesting to him, considering he could always just destroy reality whenever he died, creating a new one in which he was still alive. But, it was something to look out for, he would gain control of the fledgling tinker once he replaced Emily, but perhaps Tony or one of his inventions would be useful sooner than that. It was difficult to get one of his few remaining moles in the PRT into his lab. He'd had to call on Tattletale again, and they'd only succeeded because the Wards were stationed in the PRT HQ rather than the Rig and the Protectorate was too far afield dealing with other problems to come back and stop him. Unfortunately, the dolt hadn't been able to figure what most of the tinkertech in the boy's lab did before he got captured and Coil had to collapse the timeline.

Somewhat troubling, but not a roadblock. Frankly, Coil couldn't believe his own good luck when it came to little Tony. The tinker was powerful and essentially came with easily available leverage, along with a cape cousin with the same leverage. They were both particularly close to Daniel Hebert, a man far too exposed for his own good. How would he go about getting their subservience using this leverage? Well, first he'd probably kidnap the idiot along with some suitable threats. Then, once they had been suitably blackmailed, he could use subtly threaten the man, and the other cousin to keep them in line. It would be deliciously ironic. The girl trying to protect her younger cousin and the boy trying to protect the girl, both dancing to his tune.

Of course, right now he was in the business of moving anything that wasn't an acceptable loss out of the city and further inland, to prepare for the upcoming Endbringer attack. Afterward, well, he'd need to have the Undersiders and the Travelers work on discrediting the local PRT. Oh, he wonders how Emily would deal with the kidnapping of two Wards under her supervision. It's a risky gamble, but he can try as many times as he needs to.

QM Note:

Coil's own interpretation of his power makes him sound totally megalomaniacal all the time. Also, Coil always seemed vaguely pedophilic to me, but I'm not really sure if it's ok to even hint at that on this website, so I tried to avoid it.

I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure Coil has no idea about Cauldron ties to the Protectorate.

Look, Work was kind of a bitch today, so I'm really not in the right mindset to do pricing. Let's just say that I lied about that, I'll get around to it tomorrow.

Last edited: Jul 4, 2019

Like

323

Hugs

21

Informative

2

Funny

2

Insightful

1

Meow

1

Red Envelope

2

Winter

2

Perseids meteor shower

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 4, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 33. Precautions, Decisions

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 5, 2019

#4,657

Spoiler: Winning Vote

You get out of bed and inform Uncle Danny that Miss Militia is requesting your presence at the PRT HQ. He drains a coffee groggily and drives you downtown. Despite the chaos of the last three days, the city is quiet. You wonder how the PRT got the Empire to stand down, or if it's just the Endbringer Truce. Probably the latter. They're probably also holding off on acting on all the information you just handed them about Coil because of it. Damn.

You make your way to the Wards HQ and upon entering, you are greeted by the sight of a very unimpressed looking Miss Militia with Mouse Protector clinging to her leg like a toddler.

"This is your fault," she deadpans.

Mouse Protector vanishes. Before you can figure out where she went, a pair of hands lift you up by your armpits like a toddler and spin you around so you're facing a grinning Mouse Protector.

"It is I. The glorious Mouse Protector, defender of the meek and-" She's cut off by Miss Militia beaning her with a beanbag gun.

"He's twelve."

"Ah, of course. Well, I must admit I was surprised to hear I had such a mouse-ive fan in the Bay. I don't think I've been here since, well, ever," Mouse Protector says with her ever-cheerful tone as you hang limp in her hands. You do your best to replicate Miss Militia's unimpressed look.

She glances between the two of you, then squeals. Loudly. Right next to your pitiful ears.

"He's like a mini-you!"

"Yes, Tony is very responsible," she says, giving Mouse Protector a very pointed look.

"You wound me with your brie-stering glare!" Mouse Protector exclaims.

"Ok, that one was just bad," you interject.

"That's why it's great! And you should count yourself lucky that I came down here at all. I was going to decline because I had some catching up to do with my good friend Ravy," you assume that's Ravager, "but I was tipped off that I… might be needed here," she catches herself.

"Can you put me down now?"

"Never!" Mouse Protector says before assaulting your cheek with her own. You look to Miss MIlitia's eyes, begging for her to save you. She just gives you an empty stare that lets you know you're on your own.

After a bit, she puts you down and strikes a pose, "So, I was all excited to super-mice your little pet project, but Hannah's telling me it's canceled. So you know what that means?"

"No?"

Mouse Protector vanishes and then reappears with a stack of board-games. "That means we get to hang out to take your mind off all the doom and gloom!"

As the various other Wards trickle in, they are all cordially invited to join your lengthy board-gaming session.

Sunday afternoon is spent finishing your Blink Band and then teaching Missy and Taylor how to use a staff, your personal one. Well, it starts out that way, but the rest of the Wards also show up to the common room and you go through the instructions for each function with each of them, one by one. Just in case. No one speaks about what that case would be, nor do they want to think about it.

"So, it's this week, huh. None of us have been to an Endbringer fight before, so if it doesn't end up coming to Brockton Bay, which of us are going? I know I am, I'm durable enough to take a hit and I can fly people to safety," Carlos broaches the subject you've all been dancing around.

"I'm going," Missy announces next, "As a Ward from a visiting city, the PRT will make sure that I'm as safe as I could possibly be and my power is too strong for me to just not go."

"It's what my cannon was built for, even if Piggot did get on my case about it. I'm still allowed to use it for this exact scenario," Chris says.

Before Taylor can volunteer herself, as she's about to do, you ask them all a question. "You guys are talking like you'll all attend if Leviathan hits Brockton," Which you don't know if you've changed enough to make false. "Why is that? Shouldn't we back off? Aren't you afraid?" you ask trying to keep your hands from shaking, whether at the thought of facing down an Endbringer or losing one of the friends you've grown close to, you don't know.

"Are you serious? We can't just abandon our city. It's our job to fight to protect it!" Dennis exclaims. Dean seems to be nodding along in agreement.

"Hey! Tony's only been here for two months, you can't ask him to call it his city after only that long," Missy jumps to your defense.

"Besides," Taylor says, positioning herself so that she's slightly in front of you as if being overprotective, "Tony's already made a whole bunch of stuff for the PRT to use during the fight, and he's right, it is scary."

"Bravery is about overcoming your fears," Dean comments, attempting to sound wise. It would be stupid of you to hate him just because he tends to do that, especially since he's generally pretty likable, but Dean has never struck you as being particularly smart. "We're all afraid, but Dennis is right. It's our city, we can't just stand by while it's destroyed. Endbringer or not."

"You're both right," Carlos mediates, "but the ultimate decision lies with Tony. We can't ask him to risk his life, just like he can't stop us from going if we want to."

You wonder if Uncle Danny would have an aneurysm if he overheard this conversation.

The PRT won't let you go if the attack is out of the city.

[EB Attendance] I'll go if it's in Brockton Bay.

-[EB Attendance] and I'll lend my personal stave to the PRT if it's not.

[EB Attendance] I won't go if it's in Brockton Bay.

-[EB Attendance] but I will lend my stave to the PRT.

To your surprise, school isn't canceled on the week where there could be an Endbringer attack. Then again, having all the kids in one place probably makes it easier to herd them to Endbringer shelters. That and you're pretty sure that if the secret got out this early, there would be riots as people fled the city, which would be bad. You are, of course, under very strict orders not to tell anyone that is not your immediate family, though Taylor is still on the 'don't tell Uncle Danny' plan, which you think is dumb. You do agree with her that if Uncle Danny knew he would absolutely forbid either of you from going, but you think that rather than convince him, Taylor is trying to circumvent him. She was quite stubborn when you suggested this was a bad idea, but she did reluctantly agree that it would be hypocritical of her to tell you that you couldn't go. You don't know if you should do anything about that.

[Uncle] Inform Uncle Danny about the upcoming EB attack (Taylor is unhappy with you)

[Uncle] Don't inform Uncle Danny (Uncle Danny will be unhappy later)

[Uncle] Write-in. (You can try and convince Taylor again, but the DC will be high)

Monday night is spent again in your time bubble, Tinkering as fast as you can, this time you're making some shields, not just for you, but also for Taylor and Missy. Missy has stated outright that she's planning on attending the Endbringer fight regardless of where it is and no matter how strange your relationship friendship might be, you can't actually stand the thought that she could die. Taylor is the same, if not more so. Not to mention she's being unreasonably stubborn about attending. You can only hope that if it's not in Brockton then the PRT or Protectorate can convince her that she's being stupid.

You've already created the first type of shield, a plasma shield that's essentially an invisible blue bubble around the wearer until something hits it and it becomes a visible plasma blue. Now you're working on what you know is possible, making the hardened shields that Immortals use.

The first thing you did was use multiple interweaving wavelengths of energy to make the shield denser than is theoretically possible. You wonder offhand if this is one of the methods Endbringers use to become super-dense. Of course, this isn't quite right, as it makes the shield tougher, but doesn't exactly guarantee a certain number of strikes like you know hardened shields should. That comes when you have the idea of shaping the shield as a series of hexagons that reinforce each other, making it so that overly strong blasts are dissipated.

You examine the shield belt you've just made. The hardened shield will negate anything short of a nuclear blast at close range, and it has five layers. You're pretty sure Leviathan can punch that hard, but as long as he's sandbagging, you don't think he will.

As you're printing the last one, your time bubble deactivates as Taylor and Missy stroll into the room, looking livelier than they've been since Mouse Protector invited them to play board games. You turn to greet them only to get smacked in the face by a green hard-light heart which promptly dissolves into a bunch of tiny birds, probably doves. Subtle, Missy.

"Guess what? Guess what?" Missy says excitedly.

"What?" If she tries to make you guess you're going to stasis rifle her.

"Your tinkertech got approved, both the gloves and your fancy armor thing."

"Oh, good."

"That's it?" Missy pouts cutely, not that you'd let her know you think that.

You give her a wry smile.

"Actually, I made something else for you."

"Oh?" Taylor joins the conversation.

"Yeah, these shield belts are multilayered, and should stand up to almost any impact."

"That's… Wow," Taylor says as you activate the one you've put on to test and the hexagonal shields form over you.

"How big of an impact?" Missy asks, idly making temporary constructs with her gloves.

"Theoretically anything up to a nuclear blast won't puncture more than one layer, but the bottom layers have to recharge before the upper layers can."

"That's still incredible," Taylor says.

"I know," you smirk, "I'm just that awesome."

Missy smacks you in the face with another heart.

Real Subtle.

Voting Moratorium Length: 3 Hours

Votes for next chapter:

EB Attendance

Uncle

QM Note:

I suck at writing campy stuff.

Posting this a bit early so that You guys have enough time to properly vote because I'll probably close the vote sooner than I usually do. Also, wow you guys managed to spend those materials way faster than I thought you'd be able to. I'm actually going to take this as a sign that I'm pricing things right.

Last edited: Jul 5, 2019

Like

315

Hugs

20

Funny

12

Informative

2

Insightful

1

Meow

1

Winter

3

Red Envelope

2

May Day

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 5, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 34. Interrupted

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 8, 2019

#4,779

Spoiler: Winning Vote

"If it's in Brockton Bay, I'll go," you interrupt the argument.

Taylor looks like she wants to disagree, but holds back. You've already tried to talk her out of going so if she tries to tell you not to go, she'll just end up sounding hypocritical.

"Wait, what is the protocol for Wards who live in a city attacked by an Endbringer?" you ask.

Carlos looks stumped, and frustrated, possibly because he doesn't know the answer. He goes for his phone before-

"Hey, kiddies, you're all looking awful morose," Mouse Protector says, from her spot on the couch. When did Mouse Protector get here? Dennis shrieks and stumbles backward, falling on his butt.

"Do you expect us to be upbeat when there's a possibility Leviathan will be showing up this week?"

"Maybe not, but I've come bearing good mews." Taylor and Missy sigh simultaneously.

"Oh?" Carlos asks.

"Yep, with the help of the thinker who tipped us off, the bigwigs have narrowed the date down to the 15th, though we don't know the when or where."

"That's good news?" Dean asks incredulously.

"It gives you more time to prepare after all."

"Do you know what the protocol for Wards in a city attacked by an Endbringer?"

"Well, no one can force you to stay, but there's usually not enough time to consult parents, so it's left up to you guys. We've never had this much advance warning before, so…" she waves her a hand in a back and forth motion.

"So-" Carlos begins but is interrupted.

"That's not why I'm here though. Since Tony's little project is on hold. I've been tasked with keeping up mouse-ral around here." Taylor's eye twitches.

"By who?" Dean asks.

"Why, myself of course! Now, then you all are free on Wednesday, right? Great! We're going to-"

[MP Interrupt] See a movie.

[MP Interrupt] Go shopping.

[MP Interrupt] Go out to eat.

-[MP Interrupt] Ice Cream

-[MP Interrupt] Fugly Bob's

-[MP Interrupt] Write-in.

[MP Interrupt] Go to an Arcade

[MP Interrupt] Write-in.

You don't get a good chance to talk to Taylor alone on Tuesday because it's her official debut, and she's being whisked this way and that by various PRT staff. You still have no idea what her costume is supposed to look like, and you are slightly annoyed at that. Then again, it's kind of your fault that you never bothered to ask her to show it to you. You wonder if Taylor minds that you are more focused on your tinkering because of the current situation. You hope not, and she didn't seem particularly fond of her costume.

You finally catch her about 30 minutes before she's supposed to go on stage, and 10 minutes before you're supposed to join the rest of the Wards on stage to be 'present.' You stare.

You have no idea how Glenn Chambers managed to convince her to wear what she's wearing, but she's damn well going to make an impression on the crowd.

Her costume consists of a high-necked dress that stops just past her knees, which you can tell by its bulk has armor paneling underneath it, along with combat boots, similar to Vista's, and stockings. The short sleeves of her dress show just a bit of her upper arm before they are met by long evening gloves. All of this is black, with silvery spiderweb patterns across it. As a mask, she has some sort of spider-themed ballroom mask. It looks like a more combat-styled, spider-themed version of the ballroom gown costume you saw.

You're so stunned that you forget to even get her attention before she goes off to hair and makeup, and you're ushered on stage with the rest of the Wards.

Later, you're showing Taylor how to use your stasis rifle, since you're planning on giving it to her for Leviathan's attack. You're also trying to convince her that it would be a good idea not to keep Uncle Danny in the dark. He's already given you permission to sleep over at the Wards HQ so that you can finish your staves, and he's having Taylor stay there as well to 'look after you.'

"Come on Taylor, do you really want Uncle Danny to be in the city if Leviathan shows up here?" you ask her. She looks green at the thought, so you press on. "If we tell him, he'll probably be more inclined to say, get him and his friends out of the city for the weekend?"

Taylor considers the merit of your argument.

Spoiler: Taylor Roll

"Since we know that it's going to be on Sunday, couldn't we just tell him on Friday? Or even Saturday morning. That would give him enough time to get out of the city," Taylor rationalizes.

"Don't you think he'll be mad at us for not telling him sooner?"

Taylor's face goes through a variety of expressions that you can't quite read. "It's ok for him to be mad at us, but I'm going to go, and I'm going to help people." Is this the legendary Hebert stubbornness that you've heard so much about?

"Don't you think that if you're still in the city when Leviathan hits, he won't leave? Uncle Danny seems like the kind of person to do that, even if it puts him unnecessarily at risk."

"The PRT has a vested interest in protecting me. Dad doesn't have that same protection. He'll understand."

You somewhat doubt that Uncle Danny will 'understand,' and you're also realizing that Taylor actually knows very little about how Endbringer fights typically go. Then again, you also know very little other than the few shown in canon, many of which were noted to be significantly more brutal than the ones preceding them. Still, it seems unlikely that Taylor will be convinced which leaves you with the same dilemma you faced yesterday.

[Uncle] Inform Uncle Danny about the upcoming EB attack (Taylor is unhappy with you)

[Uncle] Don't inform Uncle Danny (Uncle Danny will be unhappy later)

That night, you stay up late finishing staves while Taylor and Missy have a 'slumber party' and occasionally check up on you.

After your 'team-building exercise' with Mouse Protector, you spend the rest of the day tinkering, partially on staves, and a bit here on there on a blade that you hope could convince Leviathan to leave. You have no doubt that by itself, it could theoretically kill Leviathan, but at that point, things might head into the realm of 'Leviathan manipulates all the water in your body to make you explode.' You don't know whether Leviathan can actually do that, but even if he can't, he could probably move fast enough to pulp whoever's wielding the blade unless it's Alexandria, and she'd probably get smacked all the way down the coast or something.

You finish the Warp Blade before you break for dinner. Despite the looming threat, the mood between the Wards seems a bit lighter, like it was back when you first joined. Everyone except Browbeat and Dean have taken to practically living out of the Wards HQ for the rest of the week.

Dennis is telling his usual jokes and making exaggerated arm gestures. Carlos and Missy are taking turns playing the straight-man, and Dean is telling Brock stories about the Wards before the three newest members joined. Taylor has been forcefully added to the joke-telling group by Missy, whereas you are listening to Dean tell, possibly exaggerated, stories. It's nice, relaxing even. It keeps your mind off of the impending death machine headed your way.

After dinner, you head back into your lab to continue mass-producing staves. You still haven't been told where to put them, so they've been piling up on top of your counters, sort of. You've made sure that they are all placed in such a way that they are not unintentionally moved or damaged as you go about the lab, but you're starting to run out of space.

At around two in the morning, as you're putting the finishing touches on another staff, Missy and Taylor open the door and turn off your chronomanipulator.

"Tony," Taylor begins, "we may not be as smart ask Armsmaster or know exactly how long you should be able to spend in that time bubble safely, but we're not stupid."

"Spending this long working isn't healthy. I know because Miss Militia complains about Armsmaster working this hard and how it's not healthy for him and that goes doubly for you since you're in this time bubble."

"I know, it's just that this current specialty is really powerful, and I need to get everything out of it that I can, plus I need to finish the staves for the PRT because they're really important. I just feel like I'm running out of time."

Missy looks understanding. "I get it, but we can't just stand by and watch you work yourself to the bone."

You get the feeling that suggesting sleeping in the time bubble to get extra sleep is not the solution they want to hear.

"Maybe we could help in some way?" Taylor suggests.

[Intervention] Refuse? (You could do this)

[Intervention] Have them put mats into the Fabricator (This won't significantly speed anything up, but they will feel like they're helping. They'll also be staying up late with you)

[Intervention] Agree to not stay up so late anymore. (-2 Actions)

-[Intervention] Don't complete two staves

-[Intervention] Don't complete the Observer

-[Intervention] Remove 10 items from what you plan to store in the Ihan Crystal.

[Intervention] Write-in.

Voting Moratorium Length: 3 Hours

Voting Opens at 5:18 p.m. UTC

Votes for next chapter:

MP Interrupt

Uncle

Intevention

QM Note:

Your argument was pretty good, so I halved the 'convince Taylor' DC since you had a pretty good argument, but you still rolled quite low. Of course, I'm pretty sure I know what you're going to vote for, but since you didn't specify in the previous option I'm letting you decide now.

Last edited: Jul 8, 2019

Like

296

Hugs

16

Informative

1

Insightful

1

Funny

1

Meow

1

Red Envelope

2

Winter

2

Perseids meteor shower

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 8, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 35. Reprieve

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 11, 2019

#4,835

Spoiler: Winning Vote

You are picked up early from school on Wednesday, but instead of going straight to the PRT so you can get to work tinkering like you usually do, you are instead taken by your handler to a local ice cream place on the Boardwalk. As it turns out, you and Missy are the first people to arrive because Arcadia lets out later than Fenway Middle School. Winslow apparently lets out earlier than Arcadia as well, since Taylor is the next person to show up. She greets the two of you by cheerfully tousling your hair, which causes Missy to snicker as you try and fail to swat her hand away. You know Taylor hasn't been transferred to Arcadia yet, but you haven't been paying attention to exactly when it will happen. If you remember correctly, Arcadia was still around after Leviathan struck, but didn't open until the next school year. Maybe they are planning on admitting her next year when she'd be a junior? You ask her, which gets Missy and Taylor into a discussion of what Winslow is like (bad but more in a very run-down way than a place that is actively criminal). After a couple of minutes of this discussion, the Arcadia contingent of the Wards shows up. After they get out, Mouse Protector is still nowhere to be found. Brock is the last to show up, and he nods to each of you before taking up his silent position at the edge of the group.

"So, ice cream," Carlos says like he's debriefing you before a mission.

There's a silence where no one really knows what to do. "So, what do you normally do when you hang out?" Taylor asks. Thank God you have someone to be socially awkward for you so you don't have to shoulder that burden.

"Typically we just discuss recent events and the like, sometimes our internship work as well," Dean says diplomatically (internship work meaning patrols).

"Ah," Taylor says. Neither she nor I have actually been on any patrols yet, as I've requested not be put on a patrol schedule and Taylor has only had her debut a day ago. Normally, she would have started already, but with the Endbringer Truce in full effect right now, there isn't much that needs patrolling. Parahuman crime is basically gone as all the capes are holing up in preparation for Leviathan, or in the case of the Merchants, running, at least you suspect that they'll stay true to their actions in the story that you have so delicately broken over your knee.

"Should we go inside and order?" Dennis asks as the awkward silences continue.

"Wouldn't it be better to wait for Mouse Protector?" Dean asks.

"Awww! How sweet of you to think of me!" A woman wearing a Mouse Protector t-shirt says as she places a hand on Dean's shoulder. You didn't notice her approaching at all, and it seems neither did Dean as he starts before suppressing his reaction. She's Caucasian, with short brown hair that hangs just below her face and bright blue eyes. Her physique is quite muscular, and she stands taller than both Taylor and Carlos, though only barely for the latter. "You can call me Zoey," the woman who is undoubtedly Mouse Protector introduces herself."Alright kiddies, let's go get some ice cream."

As you are ushered to the front of your group with Missy, you realize that aside from Missy, Taylor, and occasionally Chris, you haven't interacted much with the rest of the Wards. You aren't strangers, more like friendly acquaintances. You like them from what you know, but you really don't know that much about them. Maybe this will be a good opportunity to get to know them as people rather than as the characters you try and keep in your head. Although, if they are anything like you and Missy, their cape identity is the largest part of their identity. You vaguely remember Dr. Yamada disapproving of that, but you're not a psychologist, and you have to focus more on averting disaster than being a workaholic.

When you get to the front of the line, Missy orders a chocolate fudge as you peer into the window to look at the flavors. Missy pulls out her wallet before Mouse Pro-Zoey says that she's buying for everybody. You are next, as Carlos seems to have ordered you by age. From the way Missy attacks her chocolate fudge cone, you suspect that this is one arena where Missy doesn't mind her age. You order the most interesting looking flavor, probably meant for young children, but hey, right now you fit in that category. You take your cotton candy explosion ice cream with all the grace of a twelve-year-old eating ice cream as you pretend not to see the disgusted look Missy shoots you. Taylor is up next, and she gets butterscotch, followed by Chris who orders cookies and cream. Dennis follows Missy's example and orders chocolate fudge while Dean gets black walnut. Who eats black walnut ice cream? Carlos is last among the Wards and he gets a chocolate and peanut butter ice cream. Zoey rounds you all off by getting strawberry. Huh. You expected something more flamboyant.

When you all sit down, Brock is actually the person to start the conversation, to everyone's surprise. "The last few weeks have been pretty crazy huh?"

"It's not like they let us do anything," Missy complains. "Even when everything was going to hell. They just had us fucking sit there and wait." You note that no one is surprised by Missy's foul language.

"The bombs were dangerous," Carlos decides to explain the reasoning of your bosses, "and then there was the breakout, where you would have had to go against Lung."

Missy scoffs. "The bombs didn't go off for more than an hour each day, and they didn't leave any traps."

"But, what if they did?" Dean asks.

"Yeah, and what if Lung just decided to attack me on a patrol?" Missy snaps at him. He's clearly surprised. He must be used to her just going along with whatever he says.

You try your own hand. "They were just trying to keep us safe, Missy," you reason. You actually sort of appreciate that they didn't force you to go help. It gave you more time to prepare for Sunday.

"Fine," Missy huffs, but her anger is clearly waning. "It's not like I need to be protected, though. I'm the most experienced one here."

"No matter how experienced you are, it's a dangerous job, and accidents happen," Zoey joins the conversation, a bit of pink ice cream on her nose. It looks comical, and Missy struggles to keep expression still.

"What about what happened afterward, with Armsmaster getting Bakuda a second time?" Dean asks

"I was pretty surprised he managed to get Lung too. I know he was working on a sedative for him, but I didn't think he'd get to use it, since y'know, Lung," you say.

"Well, he always seems to have a plan," Taylor suggests, and your mind immediately goes to the 'Batman Justification' or whatever it's called. You've forgotten. Wait. That's interesting and possibly troubling. You don't have any issue remembering what you know about Worm, but you are beginning to forget other information about your previous world, and it's only been two months.

"I wanted to see the device Armsmaster used to beat Bakuda, but he wouldn't let me look at it," Chris says. You really wish everyone would stop bringing up how awesome Armsmaster is using the device you made for him. "What do you think, Tony? Could you replicate it?"

'Replicate it? I made it' is what you want to say. Instead, you say, "It depends on what my specialty is for the week."

"That reminds me, I wanted to take a look at those crystals you're making. Do you think I could have some?"

"Yeah, I'll see about sending some over to your room."

"Also, I know you're on a time crunch with those staves, but you have been hogging the time bubble." You're slightly annoyed, but you did promise that you would share, and you have been spending basically all your time in double time the last two weeks.

"I'll start sharing next week," you grumble.

"Time bubble?" Dennis asks.

"Oh!" Missy exclaims, and then proceeds to tell everyone at the table about how amazing you are for building a time manipulation 'thingy.' You take the time to look at the rest of Ye Olde Ice Cream Shoppe. It's actually fairly full, and the chatter is doing a good job of covering up your conversation which is decidedly revealing.

"What about the Empire thing?" Taylor asks. You missed some of the conversation in between. "I thought it was supposed to be against the rules?"

"We have our suspicions about who it is," Zoey admits likely referencing that you 'spoiled' Coil's plot, "but they're getting off free for now because of the Endbringer Truce. Once that's over, you can bet that everyone will be coming down on them like a ton of bricks. Now," she places her hands on the heads of those closest to her, which turn out to be Missy and Taylor. Wait, where did her ice cream cone go? "You all talk about work too much. Surely you do something else."

Everyone just sort of stares at her as if she suddenly started spouting gibberish.

"I'm the student council president," Dean volunteers, "but I don't think anyone is interested in that."

"Speaking of, what's up with your girlfriend? She's been talking about some family thing all week."

"Oh, that," Dean says, obviously not wanting to elaborate. Unfortunately, from Dennis's expression, he either didn't get the hint or is deliberately ignoring it. "Fine, there's a newly triggered girl staying with them. I can't say anything else about it."

"Does she not want to join the Wards?" Missy asks, though perhaps less eagerly than she would have if Taylor hadn't already joined and been coerced into being Missy's cape friend.

"It's not looking like it," Dean admits, "but we'll see."

Ugh. Leave it to Glory Girl to be indiscreet about the girl who is running away from kidnappers and trying to hide. Then again, it's unlikely Coil doesn't know where she is, and she's mainly being protected by New Wave's insularity more than anything else.

Zoey throws up her hands, "You guys are all such sticks in the mud!" she exclaims. You are only somewhat surprised to see her acting like a teenager.

"Hey-" Dennis is interrupted by a spoonful of strawberry ice cream landing squarely in his mouth. He makes a confused noise.

"That settles it, this qualifies for... extreme measures!"

This is how you find yourself playing some sort of amalgamation of bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball with the rest of the Wards. Also, you're pretty sure Missy and Taylor are cheating, but you have no proof other than the fact that your team is kicking the other team's butt with Missy as the top scorer and Taylor as the playmaker.

In the end, you split off, with only you, Missy, Taylor, and Chris heading back to the PRT HQ, while the others head home.

You grimace at their response, you want to finish off your Warp Blade, your Observer, 3 more Staves, and then fill up the crystal. You won't be able to make it any faster with their help, but if you allow them to help a bit, you could probably get them to back off on the whole staying up late thing.

"Here's a list of materials for each of the components in the staff. If you can get the fabricator to make three more sets then all I'll have to do is assemble them."

"Ok," they both agree. You can only hope it won't affect their sleep too much. Then again, you could always try and get them to sleep in the lab. You look down. There's barely enough room for two sleeping bags, and that's if you don't plan on having anybody using the lab. Oh well, it's better than letting them get too sleep deprived, even if it's only making it so you have fewer hours with which to sleep. You contemplated sleeping in Taylor's sleeping bag, but it just feels odd. Thinking about it makes your body dysphoria return in force. You're pretty used to being twelve by now, but something about sleeping in the same bed as your 15-year-old cousin sister just sets off too many warning bells in your head.

Still, that's how Wednesday and Thursday night go, and you've actually made good progress, finishing all the staves as well as completing your blade. Theoretically, the energy blade should cut through any material with ease, just like Armsmaster's nano thorn, but you have no idea how wonky Endbringer dimensionality interacts with that. At least Missy and Taylor don't seem tired, though they have been spending increasing amounts of time with you.

On Friday, you shoot off an email to Director Piggot and Armsmaster, explaining that the staves are done and then you sit in your time bubble and stare at your crystal.

"What are you doing?" Missy asks.

"Storing my memories in this crystal," you explain, poorly.

"Can I try?"

"Unfortunately no. Not only am I on a bit of a time crunch with how much I want to store in here, but I could also have problems if I look through it later and recall your memories."

Taylor looks up from where she's reading a book on one of the few seats in your lab. "That sounds dangerous."

"It's not, as long as I'm the only one with access to it."

Taylor squints at me but lets it go.

"I'm calling Uncle Danny tonight," you tell her. Missy, sensing that this is a family matter, stealthily escapes the room.

"Do we have to tell him today? Maybe we could-"

"What if Leviathan attacks Brockton Bay just after midnight. We're already cutting it close as is."

"Fine."

Spoiler: Calling Uncle Danny

"What!?" Uncle Dany is displeased. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

You just look at Taylor, letting her field this question. "We wanted to know what our options were before we talked to you."

"How long have you known?"

"Since Sunday," you answer.

"I... We need to get out of the city."

"The PRT will transport us to a safe location," Taylor says quickly. You raise your eyebrow, noting that such a thing is only offered upon request, and neither of you has filled out that request form. Oh, Taylor, when did you get so good at lying to your father? Don't answer that, you already know the answer.

Uncle Danny makes some inarticulate noises of frustration, "Fine. But we will be having words about this afterward," he says to Taylor, who pales a little. "That includes you too, Tony. Don't think you're off the hook either. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some road trips to plan."

That went better than you expected it to. Then again, you sort of expected him to come get you and drive you out of the city. From Taylor's shaky sigh, she agrees. You can only wonder what he'll do when he finds out both of you attended the fight, well, if it's in Brockton Bay. If it's not, neither of you will go, and Uncle Danny will only be moderately upset.

It rains all of Saturday, which is spent finishing up your Observer along with more crystal-staring. Mrs. Cortez and Armsmaster show up to your lab with several cases for your staves. Armsmaster explains that only you, him, Director Piggot, and the Chief-Director will be keyed in biometrically to the cases and that the cases themselves were designed by a Protectorate Tinker who specializes in durable devices. Apparently, Armsmaster himself can maintain them, but you offer to repair them with your own drones. You don't have time for a long demonstration, but you do finally get the chance to show off the repair drones you made last week. Armsmaster is suitably impressed, but has more pressing matters on his mind, like the impending Endbringer attack.

That night, you stay up late, cramming as much into the crystal as you can manage, hoping that everything will be ok.

You wake up in the morning to sirens. The first siren signifies that there's an Endbringer attack. The second means that the Endbringer is close enough that it will damage the city. The third means that the Endbringer itself will come to the city. You scramble out of bed at the third siren. grabbing all the things you've made, along with the cases of healing staves, and donning your costume. You see the rest of the Wards doing something similar. All of them have elected to stay. You know that no matter what you do, you'll prioritize their survival over everyone else's. You'd like to claim impartiality, but you're only human.

You have a bit of time before Leviathan is projected to arrive, which means you can deliver the staves to whoever is going to claim them, as well as...

[Last Minute Prep] Key Dragon into the Observer temporarily, so that the central command area can always track Leviathan.

[Last Minute Prep] Lend a piece of hand-held tinkertech to someone until the end of the fight.

-[Last Minute Prep] E.g. give Velocity your Warp Blade.

[Last Minute Prep] Write-in.

You'll also need to figure out how you're going to take part in the fight

[Strategy] You're going stab Leviathan with your fancy new blade. *QM snickering in background*

[Strategy] You'll stick to the mobile medical stations, ensuring anyone who makes it to you in 1 or 2 pieces lives.

[Strategy] You'll go out and use your booster on nearby parahumans to make them better at fighting off Leviathan.

[Strategy] Write-in.

Voting Moratorium Length: 12 Hours

Voting Opens at 4:05 AM UTC

Votes for next chapter:

Last Minute Prep

Strategy

QM Note:

I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I made the table for the Uncle Danny call. The only way you would have been forced to leave the city would have been if you rolled under 10. That would also have the drawback of taking away 2 Actions, which would have been 4 since everything you did this week was in the time bubble.

Sorry for not posting the last two days, just wasn't really feeling it, also the ice cream outing was just so difficult to write. Having more than three characters in a scene should be illegal.

Your weekly plan will be decided after good old Levi.

Like

303

Hugs

20

Informative

1

Meow

1

Red Envelope

2

Winter

2

Perseids meteor shower

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 11, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 36. Leviathan Part 1

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 14, 2019

#4,978

Spoiler: Winning Vote

Quickly, you pull out your observer, somewhat larger than a football, it can't comfortably fit into your arms, so you turn it on. Immediately, it's cloaking activates and though both your sense of touch and your power is telling you that the observer is still there, you find it a tad hard to believe. All that you can see is the faintest visual shimmer, easily missed even indoors. In the rain, it's as invisible as it can get.

You meet up with the rest of the Wards and load up into a van that will take you to the staging point. According to Carlos: Armsmaster and Dragon managed to pinpoint Leviathan's target almost 2 hours in advance, which means you have quite a bit of time to get organized. You look over to Taylor, Arachne now and see that she has the compacted Stasis Rifle strapped to her back. It's comically white and green against her black and silver costume. You hope it keeps her safe. You do a quick visual scan of Missy and Taylor using your beads, ensuring that they both have the shield-generating belts you made for them and that Missy has her gloves. The gloves are easy to check for as Missy seems to be nervously manipulating several triangular holograms as she looks outside.

You follow her gaze and see that the downpour is much worse than it was yesterday. You've never seen rain this bad. It's coming down in what looks like sheets, sweeping the city in a westward pattern from the shore. The visibility is so poor that you can barely see a block over, even with your beads accounting for the water accumulating on the window of the van. How do they fight in this weather? You look around to see the rest of the Wards with the same grim expressions that Taylor and Missy are wearing, though some are hidden by masks. Chris is operating his visor, likely doing last minute checks just like you are. You can't help but glance nervously at Carlos, Dean, and Brock. They're your friends. Not close friends, like Missy or Chris, but you don't want them to die. You don't believe in any such nonsense as fate, but Carlos and Brock are likely to take the sort of injury that even your staves can't help them come back from.

You turn back to your own devices. You have quite a bit of combat-applicable tinkertech now, though you did spend most of the last two weeks building it up. The only non-combat devices you had taken with you were your habitat builder and the Ihan Crystal. You wouldn't be able to access anything stored in the crystal without the specific interface you had built, but you couldn't count on the PRT building surviving, and if it didn't you would lose all the blueprints you had built up until now, except for the ones stored in this crystal. You also had plans for the habitat builder to clear up debris and build temporary supports to help you and Missy extract people from unstable buildings. The rest of your tech is locked up in the stave-storage cases after you'd taken them out and handed them off to a PRT person.

You turned back to your Observer and started fiddling with the settings. It should be able to take a position above the city and scan the whole thing with ease, even seeing through a certain amount of physical obstruction. On the other hand, you wanted to track Dinah and Uncle Danny, because Coil was still around and he wouldn't respect the Truce as others would. The trouble with that was the Observer struggled to see inside the heavily insulated Endbringer shelters while it was down here with you in the van. When it was out over the city, you were unlikely to be able to see anything at all past the walls. Additionally, you didn't have any specific wireless or technology signatures that you could use to track them since neither should have any sort of tinkertech on them and none that you know of. You settle for just setting it up as an administrative subroutine to make sure that it can't see them, and to notify you via your beads if it suddenly can. You don't actually know if Dinah is still in the city, but given that she's not with the PRT, it's less likely that she was teleported out by someone like Strider. Then you prepare a second user role that would allow someone with it to have a certain number of privileges without being able to override your own commands, or even see them.

You had half-expected to see some idiot boarding up his windows and staying put like people did with Hurricanes back on your old world, but that didn't seem to be the case. Perhaps giant lizard-monster of death was a much better motivator for finding shelter than just the weather. Thus, it looks like you'll end up rescuing mostly capes.

You are dropped off at the staging ground, where the Triumvirate are floating and gathering the heroes. You look over to the villain gathering and just catch sight of the Undersider's on some of Bitch's dogs. After about ten minutes of milling around, Legend gathers the groups together and makes his speech about how you won't all die here. You're not really paying too much attention, the icy dread filling your veins having transformed into numbness. You feel oddly empty as if you're having some sort of out-of-body experience. The terror doesn't quite seem so all-consuming now, though it's still present. You make a tiny screen using your beads and use the time to let the Observer float up into the sky, using its fine fins to maneuver itself upward through the pouring rain. You're pretty sure Alexandria saw it, by the way the Observer camera tagged her as looking right at it. She doesn't say anything, so you assume she'll let it lie. You then message Dragon the address and auth token. She messages back.

"What is this?" there's a pause so short you couldn't respond if you wanted to. "Oh," she replies, texting you with perfect punctuation. You swap over to the Observer's visual feed and see that it's climbed three-quarters of the way to its designated resting position above the top of the city. The purely visual sensors can hardly see anything through the rain at this height, but the Observer's suite of other senses prove to be incredibly useful as you could pinpoint everyone in the city. Leviathan hasn't entered it's range yet, but hopefully, the Observer can detect it when it does. You hardly have an Endbringer that's within a testable range.

"How did you get the cameras and sensors to be so high-fidelity?" Dragon messages when you don't respond, "Never mind. That's a question for another time. Thank you, I'll make sure to make good use of this."

You message back a simple "Good Luck."

The groups are starting to split up. Carlos and Brock don't follow behind Alexandria, though Armsmaster does, along with several other Brutes. Then a whole lot of blasters and other ranged attackers follow Legend. Lastly, people who can make forcefields or impede tidal waves in some other way follow Eidolon. You briefly wonder if Vista, boosted by your staff, would be helpful there. You put that thought out of your head immediately. That would be putting her far too close to danger.

Dragon organizes the capes who are going to be performing search and rescue. You message her again, asking to be put on a team with Arachne and Vista, and Dragon obliges you. You wind up in the southwestern part of the city. On any other day, this would be Empire territory, but today it's just Sector A-8, practically as far from Leviathan's projected land-fall as you could get.

"Vista, I'm going to boost you now."

"Got it."

You point the staff at her and activate it. You're slightly annoyed that you designed it to be held with two hands, but you can always clutch it under your arm while you're using the Habitat Builder. Under her visor, Missy smirks. Then she steps forward and is suddenly on a building almost at the edge of the sector. You wouldn't actually know where she was except for the thin blue line of your boost still connecting you, but looking like it's getting squeezed through an invisible straw about 5 feet away from you. There's no visual distortion at all. She steps back through the invisible warp and gives you a huge grin. You can't help but think she looks incredible grinning like that, with the pouring rain and drenched city skyline as a backdrop. You snap yourself out of it. Now isn't the time for weird hormonal imbalances.

"This is incredible!" Missy crows. "I feel like I could turn these buildings into pretzels with a thought!"

"Please don't," Taylor deadpans. The three of you chuckle, easing a bit of the tension.

That's when your armband beeps.

Leviathan spotted, projected landfall at Sector H-4

That's when the armband starts to drone about the various injuries in the fight. Dragon or her algorithm don't tell you to move for quite a bit, even as Leviathan tears his way into the middle of the city. As you listen in from your position, you make sure that Missy stays boosted so that she can warp you all at the drop of a hat. Either to take you where you need to go or to get the hell out of dodge if Leviathan shows up.

The tension builds with each announcement spewed out by the armband. You note that several capes that were announced as 'deceased' are later marked down as 'recovered.' You wonder who exactly is wielding your other staves. How is Panacea holding up? You can't imagine that moving with the med-bay and witnessing all the horrific injuries and death is fun. It's part of the reason you aren't with her. The other reasons being the two girls with you.

Horizon, Vista, Arachne, please move to sector H-5

You quickly check your Armbands to ensure you're going to the right spot and then Missy sets up some spacial warps that get you there in roughly 10 steps. It's crazy how fast her power works when you have her boosted. The lack of visual distortions even makes it easier for you to stomach moving through far too much space in far too little time.

Your previously empty radar of injured people instantly fills up with capes. A quick glance shows you that no one you know is among them, and you set about methodically going to them and healing them. From there, everything sort of blurs together in a mix of high-speed spatial distortion movement, rain, and capes thanking you for healing them. You wonder if you should feel good about helping out so much, but all you feel is numb. You move to your next patient, one who waited until last among this group. He's a Case-53 with blood-red Crystals embedded all along his arms, replacing his eyes, and an especially large on protruding from his chest Luckily, your power deems him sufficiently biological to heal, though it doesn't seem to affect the crystal growths. The man, Blood Diamond, your beads helpfully inform you, thanks you and runs off as his armband yammers at him.

You sort of stand still, staring into space for a moment, before Taylor tugs on your arm and you let Missy warp you to the next group. You wonder how Taylor feels right now. Missy is easy to read since she wears her emotions on her face and you can see half of it. Her current mood could be described as 'grim determination.' Taylor, on the other hand, is much harder to read even without the full-face mask she made for herself. You switch to another target, Anvil, a hero from Colorado, who has expired from waiting too long for your aid. A woman, possibly one of his teammates is coming up to you and looking angry, but she stops cold when you resurrect him. You feel faintly smug, but that's it. If this is how you feel, even with all your doing to help, is Taylor ok? You know she has a bit of an inferiority complex, and between your observer and Dragon's armbands, she probably feels pretty useless.

Space twists around you in such a way that the wall of water that was about to hit the building you're in passes harmlessly to the sides. Huh, had Missy been doing that before? Were you boosting her?

Your next destination is one of the few times where the debris hadn't already been cleared by another cape. You pull out the habitat builder, making sure to keep the boosting active on Missy. You've noted that you can use it to remove debris, even as Missy manipulates the space around it. Unfortunately, you're in no position to collect the deconstructed materials, so you leave them be. You get inside the basement and start constructing temporary supports and reinforcing the roof so that even if the building collapses above you, your room should be safe.

As you do this, Taylor is documenting the cape's injuries. You look over and see that it's the girl from the bank, the new Undersider. Several blades formed from her hair are lying flat on the ground.

"Her throat is partially crushed and her arm is broken in more places than I can count. She's still alive, but not for much longer," Taylor says clinically.

"I'm on it." You point the staff at her and immediately her throat seems to restructure itself. You note that her hand looks like it's half transformed into a blade. Then, it untwists itself in a gruesome fashion that has become familiar to the three of you. Once it's properly straightened out, it turns fully into a blade, and then back into a hand. She puts it to her throat as if checking that it's not still crushed. She stands up, turns to you and says, "Thank you," before she launches herself out through the entrance you made using her blade-legs trick.

You're about to move on to the next location when Dragon's voice comes through your armbands.

"Arachne's group, The Command Center has been attacked, and Armsmaster is currently holding off Leviathan by himself. Both areas are currently short on staff-wielders and movers are currently occupied." Another tidal wave passes harmlessly around you. "Please report to medical stations at either Sector C-6 or Sector E-3."

Huh, Armsmaster is probably around C-6 and Dragon wants you there in case Armsmaster does get himself killed. The fact that she knows it's happening means that Armsmaster probably just asked people to clear out for a bit while he had his fist-fight with Leviathan, the crazy fucker. He better not die. On the other hand, The command center is probably full of squishy people in need of healing. You look at Missy and Taylor and see that they're looking expectantly at you. The unspoken message is clear, they'll go wherever you do.

You'll

[Leviathan Part 2] Go to the medical station at sector C-6 to prepare for when Armsmaster gets injured.

[Leviathan Part 2] Go to the medical station at sector E-3 to heal the thinkers and other people there.

[Leviathan Part 2] Continue to perform search and rescue in your current Quadrant.

[Leviathan Part 2] Write-in.

You also remember that you had thought about other cape combinations that could deal with Leviathan or his gimmicks. You might be able to message them through the armband now that you think about it, but you're not sure any organized strategy could work. So far it seems much more like faintly controlled chaos.

[Message] Write-in.

EB Omake Points:

So, how is this going to go? Well, it's actually quite simple. Here are the people with points:

@Kejmur, 5 Omake Points, Pending - 2

@Katsuragi, 2 Omake Points

@AsahinaTora, 1 Omake Point

@MangoFlan, 2 Omake Points

@Poliamida, 6 Omake Points, Pending - 6

@NathanMedium, 7 Omake Points

@Swordude, 2 Omake Points

@Hydralisk, 2 Omake Points, Pending - 2

Just to be clear, the fact that each character has the same point cost doesn't mean that they have equal chance of survival. My first plan was to change point costs for each character based on their survival chances but I found that needlessly complicated. it also reveals far too much behind-the-scenes information and encourages you to spend points "optimally" rather than on characters you care about.

How do you spend them? Simple, you state a character and a certain number of points.

How much is each point worth?

Surival of Named Character Increased.

Surival of Named Character Greatly Increased.

Surival of Named Character Guaranteed.

Named Character will have no permanent injuries.

Named Character will not be injured.

If you have any questions, please @ me in the comments below.

Characters guaranteed to survive without injury at the time of this update:

Daniel Hebert

Dinah Alcott

Coil

Voting Moratorium Length: 12 Hours

Voting Opens from 4:19 AM UTC

Votes for next chapter:

Leviathan Part 2

Message

Spend Omake Points

QM Note:

I made the executive decision to not write-in the armband announcements as I don't think they add anything to the story, and I feel like many other fics add them in because they were there in Worm.

BTW, when I said I'll look for new tech trees after Leviathan. I meant After. Leviathan. I mean, you're free to discuss them, but don't ask me later why I haven't decided on a certain tree if you post it now. As to paying in Omake points to choose an unavailable tech tree. I'll decide after Leviathan leaves and you vote for next week's plan.

Last edited: Jul 15, 2019

Like

307

Hugs

14

Informative

1

Funny

1

Meow

1

Winter

3

Red Envelope

2

Perseids meteor shower

2

Monk Penguin

Jul 14, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 37. Leviathan Part 2

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 16, 2019

#5,117

Spoiler: Winning Vote

While Armsmaster is important, he's definitely less in need than the command center, which according to your observer is full of capes with no durability or escapability whatsoever

"We're going to E-3," you tell Dragon and Missy. The latter creates several spacial warps that quickly transport you to where you're going.

"Understood," Dragon says, her voice garbled because of the space wizardry going on. You don't pay too much attention to it.

The scene you're greeted by when you, Missy, and Taylor arrive at the medical station in Sector E-3 you are greeted by a sign of carefully controlled chaos. Several people are helping to move the thinkers and other command center capes from the collapsed and flooded command center to the medical station. You immediately switch your staff from boosting to healing and set about wading through the score of injured people. Yes, it's exactly twenty, you counted. Oh, Carlos is carrying a very bedraggled looking Tattletale with a head wound. You move over to them after there are no critical cases. You're the only healer around, and that includes all the staves you gave to the PRT, you wonder what the hell they're doing with them. You attempt to give Carlos a once-over but he refuses, citing his power, so you move on to healing Tattletale. Huh, you didn't know this thing worked on thinker headaches. Judging by the groan of relief and then look of wide-eyed shock she gave you, she picked up on it too. Your only hope she didn't realize you know who she is. You should stop thinking about that since it might make it easier for her power to pick up on.

You instead look to your allies as you mindlessly switch targets to heal a cape that is gushing blood from where their eye used to be. Your beads inform you that their name is Eleventh hour. You look up to see Missy attempting to do the same space-bending trick she used to direct the tidal waves around you. This time, she's not boosted though, and there are more capes here than you've seen since the staging ground, so she's struggling. At least she seems to be able to make it so that the waves that do hit are weak enough to splash off harmlessly. Taylor is helping people move the injured to get healing, and move the healed who can't move themselves along with… Is that Uber?

You are interrupted by a blue flash, which is followed by a man in a blue and black costume with a cap, carrying a bloody Kaiser and either Fenja or Menja. Strider, your armband informs you, has just died of his gaping chest wound. You immediately move to resurrect him before checking on Kaiser and the twin. They are both also dead, Kaiser from blood loss and the twin from suffocation. You check your staff, it just needs a few minutes to recharge. You heal some other people while it does so, and then go and resurrect Kaiser. Your staff informs you that it will recharge in 2 minutes, whereas the twin has been deceased for 9 minutes, meaning you're out of time.

You see Kaiser looking at you, his expression hidden behind his mask. You're about to shake your head and inform him of the bad news while healing someone else when Dennis shows up, taps the girl, Fenja, your beads inform you, and she's frozen in time. You haven't exactly tested that out yet, but you suppose now is as good a time as any to try it out.

Armsmaster down C-6

You start in surprise, but continue to heal with one hand (look Ma! You may be slightly hysterical) as you fiddle with your beads to try and see if your observer saw what happened.

As it turns out, it did. You get a Video of Armsmaster fighting Leviathan one on one, only for an errant piece of rubble to strike his foot at a critical moment, causing him to lose his balance. Leviathan then proceeds to slam him through a couple of buildings. You're actually surprised he survived that. You switch the observer to a real-time feed and catch sight of Velocity just barely avoiding getting pulped by a lizard arm while Lady Photon blasts at it, the light seeming to glint off of Leviathan's scales as the blasts did minimal damage. Dennis taps you on the shoulder and you see that Fenja is no longer frozen

You resurrect her, which earns you a nod from Kaiser who is now sitting up and getting ready to go back out into the fight. You switch off your observer camera and get right back into the nitty-gritty of healing a bunch of thinkers and other capes. At some point, you're joined by another cape who is wielding one of your staves. Your observer identifies her as one of the several Prisms in the city.

You turn and see that Missy has successfully implemented some sort of space-barrier around the medical station just in time for another tidal wave to pass harmlessly around the building. Missy is awesome.

As you're finishing up, the space has become conspicuously empty save for all the thinkers, who are forming a second command center. You see several screens being set up with your Observer feed along with some of Dragon's drones. You glance up at the ceiling and feel like you can just imagine your observer. It's got its fins spread out to maintain it's altitude while the eye is pointed at the city, fully spread, all sensor's active. You're brought out of your momentary reverie by several thinkers all screaming "Urgent!" into their armbands, and looking around to see who else did it. Tattletale takes the initiative.

"Leviathan is heading towards the shelter in Sector E-6. Civilians are in danger. I repeat civilians are in danger."

As you finish healing the last people along with the Prism clone, both of your armbands inform you that you are to travel to Sector D-5 and assist with Medical efforts there. It's close than you'd like to be to Leviathan, but your Observer shows that right now he's being harried by all three members of the Triumvirate. They can probably keep him busy.

You look at the Prism clone as you start boosting Missy, noting with a sort of clinical detachment how close-fitting her prismatic costume is. "You can come with us, we'll get there quickly,"

"Ok," she says. Out of the corner of your eye, you think you catch Missy frowning for just a moment.

Then space warps and you're off. Despite however she feels about Prism (who you recall is Triumph's girlfriend), Missy doesn't do something stupid like make her warps especially nauseating and you all arrive in good time. There are only a couple of capes which you start making quick work of along with Prism. Then, Strider, thankfully uninjured this time, appears with several very injured civilians. It looks like a couple of them were hit by some sort of falling debris. You haven't heard any news about the shelter collapsing, so it must have just been some loose pieces.

Then your armband and beads both buzz in alarm. You glance at them and turn on the beads holographic screen just in time for everybody in the shelter to see Zion show up and beat the stuffing out of Leviathan with casual ease. The serpent then flees into the Ocean.

Several people around you give a sort of weak cheer. You don't join in, all you feel is numb and tired. You move on to the next person and note that Dean has died of his injuries recently. You resurrect him. Next patient. A Case-53 that looks sort of like an anteater except that he's bright yellow. Heal him, next patient. A cape with some sort of martial arts theme, judging by the gi. Heal him, next patient. You move to the next bed only to find there's no one there. You look around and see that all the beds are empty. You sort of just stare at the room and zone out.

A hand snaps in front of your face. It's Taylor.

"Horizon! Horizon! Are you ok?"

You holster your staff, then rub your temples. "Yeah, just needed a minute."

Missy is resting her head on Prism, who is speaking into her armband.

"Our ride will be here soon," she informs you after finishing her conversation.

Your ride turns out to be Shielder, who makes a bowl-shaped, translucent blue shield for you all to sit in as he flies out towards the PRT HQ, which is miraculously still standing. When you're so high up, you can just make out the mangled wreck of the PHQ, otherwise known as the Rig. You note that shielder is not very fast. Maybe 10-15 mph, you'd guess, though he could be slowed down by lugging four people along with him.

"Hey, Horizon," he gets your attention

"Yeah?"

"You helped make those staves, right?" He points at the one strapped to your back. There's no real point in denying it as you've been seen with one for a couple of weeks now, and you didn't bother changing the design of the other staves, so they all look identical to yours.

"Yeah," you say wearily. The numbness is starting to fade and it's replaced by a mixture of relief and exhaustion.

"Thanks. One of those literally brought my sister back from the dead."

"S'no problem," you say, leaning on the nearest available surface. It happens to be Taylor, who runs a gloved hand through your hair. You're about ready to fall asleep when Prism gently nudges you.

"We're here."

You see Shielder lowering you slowly to the ground. He drops the shield out from under you when you're about an inch off of the ground. You're the only one that stumbles, which is a little surprising. You'd have expected the other three to be just as tired as you. Prism splits off from the group and joins a group of herself. You note that all three of her are wielding staves. Interesting.

Someone clears their throat and a hush comes over the crowd. You look up to the front and see the Triumvirate all floating above the crowd, though there are also a few fliers floating above you. There's no stage underneath them this time, but Legend shows that it's superfluous.

"Thank you, all of you, and I give thanks especially to the brave men and women who gave their lives today to drive off the monster known as Leviathan. A moment of silence, if you would."

Everyone pauses and it's silent except for the faint drizzling of the leftover rain. Then, the clouds recede past you and rays of sunlight shine down on you. With a start, you realize that it's only mid-afternoon. Also, that dramatic timing was hella suspicious. You squint at Eidolon, but his masked face reveals nothing.

"I would also like to announce that today has been the Endbringer fight with the fewest casualties since Behemoth first revealed himself in 1992." A cheer goes up from the crowd. "That is because of these staves," one of the Prisms hands him one, "which I am sure you have seen heal a great many injuries today. I would like to give a special thanks to the Protectorate tinkers whose hard work and time went into these devices. You've saved many lives today." You might be imagining things, but you think that he's looking at you as he says that. An even louder cheer goes through the crowd. You're pretty sure this is a bad thing for your plan to 'lay low,' but you can't help be filled with pride for your accomplishment, for all the people you've saved today, all the people whose fates you've changed.

Missy wraps you in a hug and then proceeds to give you a peck on the cheek, your visors bonking against each other as she does so. She pulls back right after. You glance over and see that her face is bright red. Your own face mirrors hers judging by the way your cheeks burn.

"Once again, I thank everyone here," Legend continues, "and I'll say that now is a time for celebration. This is another step forward in defying the fate the Endbringers would put upon us!"

The cheers this time are so loud you're pretty sure you went momentarily deaf and now have a case of tinnitus.

As it turns out, the three of you are the first people to arrive back at the Wards HQ. The shelters haven't been opened yet, though they will be soon and people will mill out to find what remains of their homes. You try not to think about that somber thought too long. Today is a win, right? You see that of the 9 staves that you gave to the PRT, only six are still functional, though the other three only need a bit of time under your repair drones. Your lab is fine, although a bit shook around. Many things that were on desks are now on the floor. You'll clean it up later. You grab the secure cases and start packing up the functional staves. Any damage they have will be repaired the next time you stick them under the repair drones for maintenance.

As you're doing so, a bit of metal falls off a shelf and… bounces off your shield. Huh, you hadn't noticed but none of you got any use out of your shields. It's nice to think that even if you hadn't done that, the three of you would have been fine. You finish up just in time to see Dean come in with a very clingy-looking Glory Girl

"-but you died!"

"He only died a little bit, he got better," Oh, there's Dennis, following right behind him.

Dean punches Dennis on the shoulder lightly. Panacea is nowhere to be seen.

After a couple more minutes, Chris enters the common room as well, prodding at a non-functional hoverboard and muttering about repair costs.

"Hey, do you want to see if my repair drones work on that?"

"Huh, sure."

You bring one out and hook up the interface to Chris's visor and wristpad. He does some quick modifications to the repair schematic your drone automatically constructed and then you see the beam hit the hoverboard and slowly untwist it and put everything back where it goes. There's still a bit missing, but that can be attributed to materials that are no longer on the hoverboard.

Almost an hour later, you're starting to worry about the last two members of your team. As if to allay your fears, Carlos steps inside. You all go up to greet him, Glory Girl included, except you see the grim look on his face. Any good mood you all might have had immediately goes out the window.

Carlos takes a deep breath of preparation and speaks. "Brock… didn't make it."

There's an empty silence. None of you say anything.

"He drowned, and they couldn't recover his body in time to get him to someone with a staff."

"So his body is still intact?" you blurt out, and then shrink when everybody switches from looking at Carlos to looking at you.

"Yeah… Why?"

"I uh," you're about to explain that you might be able to resurrect people who have been dead for longer than 10 minutes. Then you remember that people aren't supposed to know you're the one who made the staves capable of resurrecting people. No reason, you finish lamely.

Voting Moratorium Length: 12 Hours

Voting Opens from 1:58 AM UTC

Welcome to the Week of May 15th, 2011:

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well.

Your time among the crafty stars is over. It's time to switch to another tech tree.

-[Tech Tree] Nier Automata

Type B Battle AndroidSpecialized Tools (Electronics)8 - 1 = 7 Actions8 Common Materials10 Uncommon Materials5 Rare Materials3 Exotic Materials

PodSpecialized Tools (Electronics)6 - 1 = 5 Actions4 Common Materials6 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

A170 Scanner Device(Does not Require Pod)Good Tools3 - 1 = 2 Actions3 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

R050: Spear Device(Does not Require Pod) (Who's laughing now Kaiser?)Excellent Tools4 - 1 =3 Actions5 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

-[Tech Tree] Frostpunk

Coal Generator(That's a lot of power) (Runs on Coal)Basic Tools5 - 1 = 4 Actions10 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material

Arctic Exploration SuitGood Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions6 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

ProstheticExcellent Tools3 - 1 = 2 Actions5 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

AutomatonExcellent Tools6 - 1 = 5 Actions8 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials

-[Tech Tree] Legend of Zelda

Master Sword(Worthiness Judgement is Extra)Good Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions7 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Ancient Arrow(Set of 10) (Consumable)Good Tools2 - 1 = 1 Action2 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Bow of LightExcellent Tools4 - 1 = 3 Actions6 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Triforce of WisdomGrants wielder the ability to heal others, the ability to communicate telepathically and a precognitive ability to know the right decision (Experiences interference from other Precogs) (??? if combined with Triforce of Power, Courage)Specialized Tools (Magic)5 - 1 = 4 Actions5 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

You currently have:

Blueprints:

Stored in Ihan Crystal. Check the Projects post for prices

Starcraft

Singularity Spider Mines

Purifier Core Matix

Jorium Crystal Synthesizer

Jorium Psionic Inducer

Orbital Command

Psi-field Generator

Mirage

Psi-screens

SCV

EMP Spider Mines

Stasis Spider Mines

Zealot Glimpse Goggles

Khala Emulation Helmet

Neural Interface

Purifier Adept

Void Prison Rifle

Psi-Disruptor

Graviton Disruptor Rifle

Alpha Wave Detector

Void Array (Warp Prism)

Sentry

Pylon

Robotics Bay

Upgrade Robotics Bay to Function on All Tinkertech

Big Phase Reactor

Purifier Core Matrix

Mecha Zerg Larva

Terrazine Gas Synthesizer

Void Portal

Zergling Metabolic Boosts Augment

Medical Bay

Make Zerg Controllable by Taylor's Power

Gamete Meiosis Augment

Chitha Augment

Zerg Larva

Schematics:

One action to complete as long as you have access to your Fabricator.

Fabricator (Basic)2 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material

Upgraded Fabricator2 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Upgraded Habitat Builder1 Common Material3 Uncommon Materials

Stasis Rifle3 Common Materials1 Uncommon Material1 Rare Material

Armor Plating5 Common Materials

Caduceus Staff (Basic)3 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Caduceus Staff (Illness Upgrade)3 Common Materials10 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Caduceus Staff

(Illness and Resurrection Upgrade)3 Common Materials14 Uncommon Materials6 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

Caduceus Staff (Illness and Booster Upgrade)4 Common Materials13 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Caduceus Staff

(Illness, Booster, and Resurrection Upgrades)4 Common Materials17 Uncommon Materials6 Rare Materials2 Exotic Materials

Vishkar Hard Light Gloves2 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Vishkar Hard Light Gloves with Sentry Hallucination Upgrade (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)3 Common Materials7 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

All-in-one Communicator, Police Scanner, Web Browser, and GPS1 Common Material5 Uncommon Materials

Sombra Hacking Interface4 Uncommon Materials3 Rare Materials

Upgraded Sombra Hacking Interface6 Uncommon Materials4 Rare Material

Chronomanipulator (2:1)10 Common Materials5 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials1 Exotic Material

Khaydarin Crystal Generator6 Common Materials4 Uncommon Materials

Ihan Crystal (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)2 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials2 Rare Materials

Phasing Armor (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)2 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Repair Drone (Protoss) (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)1 Common Material2 Uncommon Materials

Blink Band (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)1 Common Material3 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Plasma Shield Generator (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)1 Common Material2 Uncommon Material

Hardened Shield Generator (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)1 Common Material5 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Phase Reactor (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)3 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials

Warp Blade (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)2 Common Materials3 Uncommon Materials

Observer (Blueprint Requires Khaydarin Crystals)3 Common Materials2 Uncommon Materials1 Rare Material

Tools:

Excellent Tools, Specialized Tools (Medical), (Energy)

Materials:

27 Material Credits (1:1 for Common, 3:1 For each tier higher), 30 Common Materials, 1 Uncommon Material, 1 Rare Material, 0 Exotic Materials

Actions:

5 2 (Good Workshop) = 7 - 1 (Hospital) - 2 (Leviathan) = 4 by default, can be increased up to 8 by those below:

@Kejmur, 3 Omake Points

@Katsuragi, 5 Omake Points

@AsahinaTora, 1 Omake Point

@MangoFlan, 1 Omake Points

@Poliamida, 4 Omake Points

@NathanMedium, 7 Omake Points

@Plausitivity, 2 Omake Points

@Lifeandlice, 3 Omake Points

Additionally, you can use your points on a week to add 5 to all rolls for that week's plan (Social Rolls Included). Just make sure to @ me in the message where you are spending your points otherwise I might miss it.

You are now limited to 4 Actions in your time bubble as you are also sharing with Chris/Kid Win as you promised to do so. Armsmaster is currently not in a position to use it, so you've split it up half and half. If you feel that this is unfair then take it up in a social action.

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well.

Please use the following Plan format:

] Plan Name

-[Tech Tree] {Insert Tech Tree Here}

-[Action] Refine Materials using your Fabricator (Convert materials to ones of better quality at a 3:1 Ratio) (Do up to 5 times in 1 action)

--[Action] 3 Common Materials to an Uncommon Material

--[Action] 3 Uncommon Materials to a Rare Material

--[Action] 3 Rare Materials to an Exotic Material

-[Action] Go Harvest Containers in the Boat Graveyard (Currently Unavailable due to Leviathan)

-[Action] Build some Specialized Tools (Excellent Tools, 5 - 1 (Fabricator) = 4 Actions, 10 Common Materials, 5 Uncommon Materials, 2 Rare Materials)

-[Action] Upgrade your Workshop to an Excellent Workshop (Excellent Tools, 6 - 1 (Habitat Builder) = 5 Actions, 12 Common Materials, 7 Uncommon Materials, 2 Rare Materials)

-[Action] TINKER!

--[Project] Pick a project or Schematic

-[Social] Write-in. (write-in whatever you want to social this week. You will still have social events regardless and 50% of people must vote for a social vote for it to "win")

If you don't have enough materials to refine when you choose the refine materials action, you'll just have wasted that action.

Plan Voting Only. 12-hour voting Moratorium is in effect as well.

QM Note:

Did you know that Armsmaster rolled a Nat 1? I was like… how am I supposed to write this? The extent of his injuries will be revealed next update. Also Missy crit on both this roll and the last one, lol.

This is my first time writing an Endbringer Fight, so please let me know what you thought of it. Also, big news:

Tech Tree suggestions are open again. Do make sure to @ me if you want a response.

Guyman said:

Arc Reactor, Xerath Power Generator, Pylon, Fusion Core and Coal Generator compare to one another?

In terms of energy generated

Pylon Coal Generator Arc Reactor Fusion Core Xerath Power Generator

Be aware that the middle three consume resources and the Xerath Power Generator has other dangerous side effects.

Also, Ugggggh. The new SV Text editor is just awful for posting compared to the last one. Whether I write in Word or Google Docs, copying and pasting results in a whole lot of whitespace for no apparent reason.

Last edited: Jul 16, 2019

Like

295

Hugs

22

Informative

3

Funny

1

Meow

1

Red Envelope

2

Perseids meteor shower

2

Winter

2

Monk Penguin

Jul 16, 2019

View discussion

Threadmarks 38. Aftermath

View content

Monk Penguin

Monk Penguin

Way of the Open Flipper

Jul 18, 2019

#5,629

Spoiler: Winning Vote

You wake up on Monday morning to your room at the Wards HQ. Outside your window, you can see the shadow of the orange light of the sunrise reflected off of the ruined buildings. Your window faces west, which does provide for a nice view over the city, but is not conducive to watching sunrises. Your beads inform you that is 6:32 A.M. It's way too early to be awake, and yet you can't go back to sleep. You settle instead for looking out over the city. Your city. Not in the sense that you own the city, but right now more than ever, you feel like you belong here, like you're a part of the city, rather than an outsider. In the morning light, the city looks peaceful. It gives you a flutter of hope. One that is swiftly crushed by the reminder of what is in store for you in the future. The staves made national and probably international news, not that there's a whole lot of the latter in this world. You've also been seen and photographed holding a staff that looks identical to the ones advertised weeks before the Leviathan attack.

You open the browser application on your beads and navigate to your own PHO page as you scroll the holographic screen. It appears that the PRT has confirmed that the resurrection staves were based off of your design, and that you helped design them. You suppose that lying would have been pretty transparent. You scroll the holographic screen to see the confirmation followed by pages of people either wondering what your tinker specialty is or giving you fancy names like 'The World's Greatest Medical Tinker,' or 'The Boy Who Conquered Death.' The praise is nice, but it also means that you have almost certainly triggered Mannequin, the fucking horror movie reject is probably on his way along with his merry band of murderhobos. If this was canon, you'd have about three weeks before they arrive in the city. Of course, this isn't canon, so you have no idea when they'll arrive in the city. You should probably start setting up some precautions.

You head out into the common room and see that nobody is awake right now. Then, you head into your lab for some early morning tinkering. You look over your stores and see that you basically only have raw materials, almost no components or rare materials at all. This won't do, so you you do set up what is essentially a two-part manufacturing line with your fabricator and yourself to convert some of the materials you do have into electrical parts and components for you to use for your next few projects. You finish building what you needed for the projects you plan to work on this week when your Chronomanipulator turns off. For a moment, you worry that it broke, but then you look up and see Missy holding the remote you gave her and looking tired. She's wearing pastel green pajamas with wavy dark green and white lines that sprout from the hems. You recognize them because they are the Vista Brand pajamas that are available in the gift store.

She pouts at you. "Come on Tony, Carlos is making breakfast."

It should be criminal to be that cute.

You step out and see that Carlos is making waffles. He's not making them from scratch or anything fancy, just mixing storebought waffle mix powder with water and then putting it on a wafflemaker. You didn't know the Wards kitchen had a wafflemaker.

Despite the delicious waffles, everybody looks grim. There's an empty spot at the dining table. You all eat your waffles in silence, though you scoot a bit closer to Taylor, who absently puts an arm around you. When everyone is just about finished, Carlos (who you note has eaten approximately 3 full-sized Belgian Waffles) stands up and gets everyone's attention.

"I got an e-mail from Director Piggot this morning that has a couple of items for all of us. First on the list, Director Piggot is stepping down as the supervisor of the Wards. Miss Militia is taking her place. Similarly, Miss Militia is stepping up as the Temporary Protectorate Team Leader since Armsmaster is... recovering from his injuries." There's some whispering at that.

Dennis in particular manages to whisper particularly loudly to Chris. "Do you know how badly he's injured?"

"Let's not speculate on Armsmaster's injuries," Carlos loudly interrupts. "Armsmaster also had the role of approving tinkertech and acting as a mentor to Chris and Tony. While he recovers, both of you have been assigned temporary mentors. Chris, you've been assigned Konio of the New York Protectorate. Tony, you've been assigned Juggernaut of the Boston Protectorate."

You make a note on your beads to look both of them up later, since you want to know who's hands you're in until Armsmaster recovers. Possibly longer if Dragon convinces him to go all Defiant on everybody, though that seems unlikely given that he has no reason to leave the Protectorate. It's not like people will be upset that he got injured against Leviathan. If anything, surviving a hit like that is probably a gold star on his record.

"Oh and Tony, the Director wanted to see you in her office."

You guess you're not tinkering any time soon.

Director Piggot has her usual neutral facial expression on when you enter her office. Of course, it still looks like she's strongly considering punching you in the face, but that's just how she looks.

"Horizon, is your reconnaisance drone still above the city?" Oh, that's what this meeting is about.

You tap a holographic button projected by your beads and see that yes, your observer is exactly where you left it, floating high above Brockton Bay. Dragon's temporary key should have expired sometime early this morning, though if you doubt your security is good enough to keep her out if she was determined to regain access. Speaking of Dragon, you should really get on that whole freeing Dragon thing that you thought you were going to do. It's looking increasingly likely that Armsmaster won't take that path, which means it's sort of up to you. You technically have the required resources to get started right now, but you need those to make you things that will get you more resources. Oh wait, Director Piggot is still staring at you, and she's looking displeased.

"Yes."

"Good. Normally, this meeting would be about having you take it down, as it violates just about every privacy law ever written just by existing. Fortunately for you, it seems that we have come into some extraordinary circumstances. I would like you to connect that drone's sensors to the computers here at the PRT HQ."

Ah, it's nice to be reminded that the PRT is shady as shit. Then again, it's entirely possible that there's some law or exception that grants Piggot the authority to make on-the-fly decisions like she's doing right now. You don't know what sorts of regulations there are for Endbringer-destroyed cities. You know from the attack itself that you can split off a side channel for your ownn uses without letting anyone in PRT HQ know what you're doing. Plus, she's also not asking you to hand over control which, from Piggot, is a pretty big concession.

On the other hand, ugh, Coil has his grimy fingers all up in this system's guts. Wow, phrasing, but more seriously, doing as she asks will likely give him access to highly detailed sensors trained on the city. Refusing probably means that she will force you to take it down, and also makes you look unreasonable. Man, you wish you'd taken Coil out of the equation way sooner. Then again, you hardly have any countermeasures built now. He's always seemed like a problem you could put off until later. Then again, you don't know that he still has access, considering that Armsmaster probably put in some work to remove it. On the other hand, you don't actually know if Lady Photon told them about Coil's civilian identity. I mean, you think she would have, considering his position, but you don't know so, and capes can be weird. Again, if Coil manages to escape being arrested, he'll probably still be able to get into the PRT systems because there's no one here to reinforce them against him. Chris doesn't have the specialty, Armsmaster is injured. Dragon is probably busy, and you, well, you don't have the materials right now.

[Observer] Agree to key in the PRT HQ (Coil might gain access to the cameras)

[Observer] Refuse to key in the PRT HQ (Director Piggot might force you to take down the Observer)

You spend that afternoon modifying the Mecha Zerg Larva blueprint in the ihan crystal. You can't make too many substantive changes since you no longer have the right tech tree. Luckily, you're not looking to improve or change their functionality, you just want to remove some functionality. When you finish, the larva can only transform into Mecha Zerg drones and those drones are no longer capable of transforming into Mecha Zerg structures. Then, you fab three of them. The little mechanical larva take almost no time at all to make and put together. Their parts almost seem to join together on their own in your hands. Then, you feed one a bit of raw material and a bunch of the electronic components you made (1 Common Material, 3 Uncommon Materials). The larva started to morph into a drone before your eyes. About a minute later, a perfect mechanical replica of a zerg drone, about the size of a large dog, was skittering about on your floor. It was even designed to make electronic versions of the typical zerg squelching noises. Eww.

You then spent some time painting it neon green and putting a pair of googly eyes on it. After that you programmed it to make noises similar to a squeaky toy. You watched it squeak about your lab for a bit, then shrugged, caught it again and then glued more googly eyes to it and even some ribbons for good measure. Where had the ribbons come from? You weren't sure but you might as well get some use out of them.

Dean walked in right as you were fine-tuning the squeaking noise (because of course, it had to be perfect). "Hey Tony, did you want to..." he trails off as he takes in the scene that is you crouching low to poke the neon green Mecha Zerg drone as it flaps it's weird fins and squeaks. "I'm just... gonna go."

It's at that point that you realize that you're planning on dropping this little guy in the bay, and the glue and ribbons likely won't hold up to the water. At least the paint will.

Tuesday is the day that Uncle Danny will get back. You and Taylor didn't actually leave the PRT HQ yesterday, since the streets were still partially flooded and the PRT was busy getting everybody to some sort of temporary shelter. You spend the morning reviewing your blueprints on the psi-screens. You realize that your original plan of wearing them all the time to prevent Jack Slash from reading you was a bit flawed. For one, the device wasn't fully refined, and could cause brain damage if worn for long periods of time. Granted, you weren't a psionic just yet, so it wasn't as bad for you, but wearing it for longer than 12 hours at a time would be dangerous, and you'd need to spend just as much time with it off to ensure you didn't get brain cancer or have a stroke. Granted, you could probably heal both of those with a staff, but that would almost certainly get Uncle Danny to confiscate the device. Furthermore, it might not even work as you'd intended. It would certainly block any attempts to read your mind, but you didn't know exactly how Jack's power would interact with that block. His power simply exchanged information with your own, which might get blocked by the psi-screen, but it might also get circumvented entirely because your shard didn't technically count as part of your mind.

Of course, even an off-chance of blocking his power was probably worth it, but you should be certain you wanted to use it. You glanced over at your two Mecha Zerg larva and one drone. You could make another larva, it would increase your resource gathering speed, and you wouldn't even need to dip into your hospital pay to get materials.

After you build the scanner, you have 6 Common, 1 Uncommon, and 1 Rare Material. You should write whether you want to spend some of your 36 Material Credits to construct an item. You have the opportunity to change the action spent on building the Psi-Screen to something else.

[Psi-Screen] Build the Psi-Screen, spend 6 Material Credits to get the parts for everything

[Psi-Screen] Blueprint the Psi-Screen.

[Psi-Screen] Build a Mecha Zerg Larva instead.

[Psi-Screen] Write-in something else to do with your 1 (Tinker Lab only) action.

Uncle Danny is angry now. Well, he's been angry since he showed up at the PRT building and Taylor confessed that you two participated in the Endbringer fight. He then drove you home, which is where you are now.

The entire first floor will probably need to be repaired and possibly re-wired seeing as it spent almost 10 hours underwater and then another 20 hours soaking wet. Your and Taylor's bedrooms are dry, along with the rest of the second floor. Uncle Danny's room, and the appliances on the other hand... You wonder if flood insurance covers those. He steps on the first step to go upstairs, which promptly gives way under his foot.

You can almost see the steam coming out of his ears. The three of you stand in your destroyed living room in silence.

"How could you?" Uncle Danny says softly. Taylor visibly flinches. "You led me to believe that the PRT would take you out of the city. Now I hear that you were present for the WHOLE DAMN THING! Lowest causalties among any Endbringer fight my ASS! One of the Wards DIED in that fight. So give me one good reason why I shouldn't ground you two until Tony turns 18."

Taylor sort of just wraps her arms around herself and cowers clearly choosing to remain silent. Knowing Uncle Danny, he'll cool off pretty quick. He's only angry because he cares about you after all. The only issue is that if he makes any proclamations while he's angry, he'll stick to them like a mule after he calms down, even if they're unreasonable, he's stubborn like that.

[Uncle Danny] Stay Silent.

[Uncle Danny] Tell him you were saving lives.

[Uncle Danny] Tell him you had ensured you were as safe as you could be in an Endbringer fight.

[Uncle Danny] Write-in.

Your Tuesday afternoon is spent in your lab with Missy, who is poking your Drone as it squeaks at her. She loves the damn thing. You had initially been planning on hiding it, but then Dean had casually walked in when you were testing one. You still managed to keep the other two larva a secret though. You were finishing up a set of scanners that you would attach to your Observer. They should allow you to identify the rarer materials in the wreckage underneath the waters of the bay, but you might need to position it lower and further east since they were obscured by so much water. That's when Carlos texts you, telling you to come into the common room.

When you get there, you see that the other Wards and Miss Militia are all there, unmasked like you and Missy.

"Ok, I'm sure Carlos told all of you, but I'm your supervisor for the forseeable future. I came to check up on all of you, and to inform you that the PRT has scheduled mandatory therapy sessions for all of you, beginning next week." You all nod. "Furthermore, I've been informed that your specialization should have changed this weekend." It's obvious who she's talking to. "I know that Armsmaster was the one who would usually keep track of it, but he's indisposed right now, so the duty falls to me as his replacement."

Uhhh... how to explain this.

[Specialization] "My Specialization is Combat Androids."

[Specialization] "My Specializations is Sexy Combat Androids in Revealing Outfits!"

[Specialization] "I'd rather not say."

[Specialization] Write-in.

Voting Moratorium Length: 6 Hours

Voting Opens from 8:00 PM UTC

Votes for next chapter:

Observer

Psi-Screen

Uncle Danny

Specialization

QM Note:

I may have forgotten to give you guys material credits for last week. Let's just say that the payment came in late. They have now been added to the Character sheet.

For those of you wondering when people will figure out that you're building fictional things, you should maybe build something recognizable if you want people to recognize you. The only recognizable tech that you're using publicly is the staff and not only has Overwatch not yet come out in Aleph, it could even be explained away as a stylistic choice. The only other recognizable devices you have are the stasis gun and the Warp blade. You've never even used the warp blade in a public.

Like

289

Funny

26

Hugs

13

Informative

1

Insightful

1

Meow

1

Sun

2

Winter

2

Red Envelope

1

Monk Penguin

Jul 18, 2019

View discussion

First

Prev

4 of 9

Next

Last

Threadmarks

Sidestory

Apocrypha

Media

Informational

Staff Post

View content

You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

hakunoX

Hero of Fiction (MHA based tinker of fiction inspired quest)

hakunoX Words: 2.3k

Superhero open voting

Replies 23

Tuesday at 7:17 AM

Alectai

Essence of the Age (Exalted Quest)

Alectai Words: 9.7k 1 ... 13 14 15

Fantasy exalted do it for the exposure here we go again

Replies 368

Apr 26, 2023

NinetyNineLies

King Arthur's No Good, Going to be Bad Weekends

NinetyNineLies Words: 3.6k 1 2

Original original king arthur sort of

Replies 42

Apr 29, 2023

AnaqiX

We are Taylor

AnaqiX Words: 730 1 2 3 4 5

worm semi-crack

Replies 104

Jul 3, 2023

When We Were Capes (Wild Cards/Worm)

When We Were Capes (Wild Cards/Worm)

toxinvictory Words: 5.8k

Crossover worm worm crossover crossover discussion makes the gm fuzzy mad science

Replies 9

Mar 17, 2023

Quests

Industrial

Contact usTerms and rulesPrivacy policyHelpRSS

Community platform by XenForo © 2010-2022 XenForo Ltd.