Blade (UBW!Taylor Worm Quest)

[siflux]

Tinkertech means that there's enough black boxes in the Power Suit (ex. how the suit turns energy into Stun Beam and armor) that it counts as something non-mundane. It's probably about as expensive and effective as a low-end Noble Phantasm or high-end Mystic Code.

Actually, given the fame of the Metroid series, Samus could probably count as a Servant (fake only, because she never actually existed, but that's okay given Angry Manjuice and the poisoned cup). The Power Suit would be a continuously-active-type NP, and Hyper Beam as an active NP.

 

[ryune]

Tinkertech means that there's enough black boxes in the Power Suit (ex. how the suit turns energy into Stun Beam and armor) that it counts as something non-mundane. It's probably about as expensive and effective as a low-end Noble Phantasm or high-end Mystic Code.

Actually, given the fame of the Metroid series, Samus could probably count as a Servant (fake only, because she never actually existed, but that's okay given Angry Manjuice and the poisoned cup). The Power Suit would be a continuously-active-type NP, and Hyper Beam as an active NP.

Click to shrink...

I think the second would be a better explanation. Metroid is one of those defining things of an entire genre even if it does share the title with Castlevania. And everything "original" or rather something that defines an entire category is stored in the throne of heroes. Even machines and stories are there and Metroid is one of those games that defined platformers. Samus would at least be on the same level as Sasaki Kojirou in terms of combat prowess. Someone who could compete with a Heroic spirit with their own skill and tools provided the enemy doesn't use a NP themselves.

Speajking of, from what I can think of, the Varia suit is, itself a ridiculous combat enhancement. With it Taylor classes in at least the mid ranges for blaster and brute and a little less in mover and breaker categories. And that is without most of the weapon systems active.

 

[siflux]

The primary limiting factor there is that Taylor probably won't be keeping the armor. I don't have numbers in mind, but Tracing the Power Suit will probably take much of Taylor's prana, at least initially. There might be some kind of thing where if fights go on too long, she runs out of prana and needs to run. Like a reverse Lung. I'll do whatever seems most interesting.

 

[Frakir's brother]

Actually, given the fame of the Metroid series, Samus could probably count as a Servant (fake only, because she never actually existed, but that's okay given Angry Manjuice and the poisoned cup). The Power Suit would be a continuously-active-type NP, and Hyper Beam as an active NP.

Click to shrink...

While fame can create Heroic Spirits from whole cloth, it requires a bit more than the fame of a video game. It takes worship to do that.

 

[ryuan]

While fame can create Heroic Spirits from whole cloth, it requires a bit more than the fame of a video game. It takes worship to do that.

Click to shrink...

I'm fairly sure there won't be a lack of those things.

 

[ryune]

While fame can create Heroic Spirits from whole cloth, it requires a bit more than the fame of a video game. It takes worship to do that.

Click to shrink...

I am suddenly curious just what kind of effect Taylor herself becoming famous using the armor will have. Considering the reason that modern day heroic spirits are considered to be not happening is because there is little way for them to stand out enough for it to happen. In a world like this you could very well see characters like the Triumvirate or the S9 ascending to the throne.

 

[siflux]

If the Grail even exists in this world, it was never found or at least never used. The Triumvirate and some of the S9 (Jack, Grey Boy, The Siberian) would have enough fame, most or all of them wouldn't be usable because poison was never spilled in the cup. Hero would definitely be in there, and maybe Legend, but the other association the other two have with cauldron might be too non-heroic to let them be summoned in a standard Grail War.

That said, can you imagine Servant Creeper as Berserker? 'I survived your excaliblast. Now I'm immune'. Plus Mad Enhancement. If he grows enough, he's basically unbeatable.

 

[ryune]

If the Grail even exists in this world, it was never found or at least never used. The Triumvirate and some of the S9 (Jack, Grey Boy, The Siberian) would have enough fame, most or all of them wouldn't be usable because poison was never spilled in the cup. Hero would definitely be in there, and maybe Legend, but the other association the other two have with cauldron might be too non-heroic to let them be summoned in a standard Grail War.

That said, can you imagine Servant Creeper as Berserker? 'I survived your excaliblast. Now I'm immune'. Plus Mad Enhancement. If he grows enough, he's basically unbeatable.

Click to shrink...

You mean Crawler. I wasn't talking about the grail war specifically. Heroic spirits can be summoned without the Grail itself or even the system the Grail was a part of. I was just using the Triumvirate as an example of a level of fame. And I was wondering on just what that level of fame could do for a magi who could actually tap into the power that this kind of fame provides.

 

[siflux]

Yes, I mean Crawler. Autocorrect happened, but I blame myself for not reading more carefully before posting.

 

[Frakir's brother]

I'm fairly sure there won't be a lack of those things.

Click to shrink...

Religion, not just some nerds.

 

[siflux]

Uber implied that you were supposed to go back and forth across the city, not just tear through an entire region at a time. There's probably a lot you missed, and you're concerned both about the risk of the remaining two bosses being stronger than the expect, and about the benefits of having a more capable suit if you Trace it later for your own purposes. With your new ability to effectively fly, you're confident you can grab anything you find.

You start by further scouring 'Maridia', the maze under the bay, but find nothing more. From there you backtrack to the Docks, taking another pass through the rusty ship where you fought Phantoon. You find one of the grey Reserve Tanks in one of the abandoned warehouses next to the docks, but that's it. Not an auspicious start, although at least you don't run into the ABB or not-Lung.

From there you head through the Merchants' territory, aka 'Brinstar'. The Trainyard is surrounded by PRT, who will probably stop you from continuing this before you find all the upgrades for the Power Suit. You skirt the edges, looking for powerups a little further from the Trainyard. Turns out you missed a few energy tanks last time, as well as a suit visor mode labeled as 'X-Ray Scope'.

"This is awesome!" You note aloud as you stare through walls, your suit simultaneously taking in the presence of barriers, what it would take to destroy them, and what's both in front of and behind them. Then you remember something less awesome that you read about something like this. "Wait, aren't X-Rays ionizing radiation? This doesn't give people cancer when I look at them, does it?" You ask the suit radio.

"We used T-Rays for exactly that reason," Uber notes. "Well, it was closer to us not wanting to give each other cancer, but it's the same idea on a different scale."

Now armed with the ability to easily find hidden powerups, you take a third trip through the Docks and the Bay, and only after finding nothing more do you feel confident that you've found everything. Another pass through 'Brinstar' nets you another Energy Tank, another Reserve Tank, and a chance to covertly watch Armsmaster and Miss Militia load the Merchants capes into an armored vehicle and begin escorting the truck out of the area. SO AWESOME.

You finally head towards downtown, labeled as 'Norfair', but you stop along the way when you notice a region of the map with a different area label. Apparently, the arcade where you started, still with a massive hole in the wall, is 'Crateria', and it held not one but two energy tanks the whole time. Cute trick.

Finally, you hit downtown, controlled by the Nazis. You steadfastly avoid the region labeled as a boss's lair -- not hard, considering it's on top of the tallest building. The first cool new power you find is called 'Speed Booster'. It triggers if you run in a straight line for about 100 feet, at least doubling your speed when it kicks in. The first time you try it, you slam face-first into a wall, coming to a dead stop with a you-shaped dent where you impacted. The suit prevents the sudden acceleration from hurting you physically, but your face burns a little when you think about how many people on the internet just watched you do that.

Further exploration nets you a snazzy boot upgrade that doubles your jump height. From a standing jump, you can actually reach the top of some smaller office buildings now. The height is actually a bit terrifying, so you regularly jump up to your top height to get used to it as you search for more cool suit parts.

The T-Ray scope shows you a powerup underground, unfortunately forcing you to drop into the sewers. Conveniently, someone (probably Uber or Leet) has put a bunch of boards over the sewer water, so you don't need to worry about getting as dirty. The powerup looks sort of like a multi-pronged hook, and proves to be for grappling.

This is quite possibly the second coolest attachment for the suit. Sure, the Space Jump almost completely obviates the need for it as an exploration tool, but humans are really good at noticing movement in their peripheral vision, and this should let you hang motionless above people or on walls. Even better, the suit is already purple, which should blend fairly well into the night. You'll have to see if you can manifest just the grapple beam without the rest of the suit for less Prana later.

It's starting to feel like all the coolest gear is in Norfair. You kind of wish you'd started by going here.

After a bit more exploration, you think you have all the Energy Tanks there are to be found. The normal tanks form two full rows of 7 bars of energy each on your HUD, and above that is a line of four Reserve Tanks. The errors from the Missile function are still bugging you, but there's not much you can do about that. It's time to fight a boss.

You Space Jump to fight Ridley, and ultimately win. It's a lot like how he first threw you into this game. He comes out you with fireballs, tail slaps, and body slams, and he keeps grabbing you and trying to crush you alive. It's a good thing you went out of your way to get all those extra Energy Tanks, because you end up with a mere quarter of it left before he finally stops moving. You shoot the exploding body a few more times for good measure.

"Unfortunately," Uber notes, "The traditional powerup received around this time is Screw Attack, which turns spinning jumps like what you can do forever with Space Jump into a weapon. As well, shortcomings of this translation from video game to real life have left out most of the plot, so it's time for a more detailed explanation. In the source material, Samus Aran's parents, first biological then adopted, were killed by Ridley, who works for Mother Brain. At the start of this adventure, he also destroyed a research colony in the process of kidnapping the last known Metroid."

"Roll credits," Leet butts in.

"Couldn't avoid a title drop, sorry. The creatures must be destroyed. They're living biological weapons that drain all the energy out of other creatures, killing them. Worse, Mother Brain was designed to control them. They're a terrifyingly powerful weapon. However, we can't use them properly here, both because we don't want the Protectorate coming down on us before the game ends, and because our Samus doesn't have a concussive weapon like Missiles to exploit the traditional freeze-then-shatter Metroid vulnerability."

"So, how can we even call this Metroid when there are no Metroids?" Leet asks his partner an obviously rehearsed line.

"We decided that the best course of action was to upgrade Mother Brain by splicing in Metroid DNA, thus giving her energy draining capabilities. Also, we're not sure how to actually beat her without freezing capabilities, and she has a T-Rex body. There's probably going to be a bit of a rampage if our hero doesn't handle it herself."

You leg it towards the outskirts of town directly away from the bay, where the last boss is supposed to be. The Speed Booster quickly kicks in, and surprisingly doesn't turn off when you start using Space Jump. The suit clocks you going at about 500 miles per hour.

"On a technical note, the Speed Booster is only about half as effective as its canonical capabilities. No matter how awesome it would be, throwing a sonic boom around an urban environment is a good way to get a visit from an angry superhero," Uber fills the otherwise boring but quick and dizzying trip across town.

About a minute later, you hit the edge of the expansive grounds of a mansion on the edge of town. Rather than stopping, you keep going for another second until the enemy should be right below you. Fortunately, the skylight you fall through is already broken.

Your ears fill with laughter as you note that your enemy is just a GIANT brain in a jar surrounded by turrets, not a rampaging kaiju. You scan the turrets and note that they're self-powered and firmly attached to the walls. Disregarding the boss, you walk into another room, reach blindly into a drawer, and take out a screwdriver that was never there to begin with for a small amount of prana. You walk back into the room, unscrew the turrets off the wall, and throw them as hard as your servo-enhanced arms will let you through the skylight.

Right, boss time. You punch through the thick protective glass around the brain, then shoot it in its cyclopean eye until it collapses. Victory!

Oddly, the floor starts to rise. You run Structural Analysis over it to find that it's a giant, flying tinkertech platform. With forcefields around the edges and forming a ceiling, preventing you from running. The arena rises through the long-shattered glass you used as an entry into the twilit sky. Something beneath the brain stirs, punching up through the floor beneath it to reveal that you do have a kaiju problem after all. And then, it attacks once more.

On the bright side, the huge, horrifying exposed brain is still its weak point. On the not so bright side, the creature is faster than you'd expect for its size and otherwise completely invulnerable to what your suit can throw at it. You duck and dodge its presumably atomic breath weapon, try not to cower when it roars, and in between it all shoot it back. But the most disgusting part is when it manages to grab you with its massive jaws and drinks a fifth of your maximum life right there, visibly healing its wounds and changing from a somewhat red color to something more serene. Still, you keep at it, learning its attack patterns and dodging all future bite attacks until it finally drops once more. A timer ticks to life in the corner of your HUD: 3:00.

"Oh my, I think that was a load-bearing boss. Better get off the grounds before the whole place explodes," Uber jokes as the timer ticks to 2:58.

The force field walls around the floating arena are down now, but only because they're a low ceiling and a set of visible walls forcing you to run a maze on the way out and making your speed booster worthless. The time drops the whole time. 2:14. 1:47. 1:02.

0:24. That's your time when you make it to the edge of the grounds and jump the fence. Uber instructs you to turn around and have a seat, but you clear another mile first for safety.

As the countdown hits 0:00, a rocket shoots up from the still-flying platform, exploding into the early night sky. Then another, and another. Apparently, the self-destruct sequence was actually a nice fireworks show. A few minutes later, the final volley launches into the sky, spelling out a word that Uber and Leet echo as loud as they can over the suit radio: "D e e R F o r C e!"


"Stream's over," Uber notes a few seconds later. "Cam's returning home, and you can change back and go home whenever. Live viewer count is the highest we've had since Tetris, and we could well beat its total numbers in a few weeks. Good job out there, Ms. Aran."

You run Structural Analysis over the powered armor one last time. You earned this. The fireworks even had a completion note stating you found 100% of the powerups near the end. Sure, Leet will take back the original. But copy or not, the suit is yours, and you feel almost like it's learned something from its experiences.

Trace upgraded -- Power Suit (Stun Only) [Taylor Hebert] {NP}: This facsimile of Samus's powered armor was created by the supervillain Leet. Though crippled in many ways compared to its source, it was still upgraded as thoroughly as possible by its first and only bearer, Taylor Hebert. It bears memories of seeking out upgrades and of recognizing attack patterns. For a small amount of Prana, it will show the direction (but not distance) towards the nearest upgrade, or nowhere at all if there is no outstanding data. For a larger amount of Prana, If an attack that can be dodged is used against it (regardless of whether it hits), the suit will automatically dodge the same attack pattern for the rest of the battle. This ability cannot break the laws of physics or causality.


You reach the arcade. Oddly, the wall is already fixed. You change back to the clothes you came in, and roll the suit out of the bathroom. Uber and Leet are there, still in costume, leaving you little choice about giving it back. Their body shapes so obviously match those of Daniel and Ted that you're a little ashamed it took you so long to be certain about it. It feels like Projecting the suit in the future will be a huge Prana expenditure, but it'll probably be worth it.

You run back home. Compared to the servo-enhanced stride you've already gotten used to even without the Speed Booster, it feels downright slow. Dad's still awake when you get in, reading something in the living room.

"Hey there, kiddo. You hungry? I saved some spaghetti for you."

"You mean you made spaghetti specifically because you expected me to come home hungry."

"Guilty as charged," he admits. The two of you head over to the table and he drops a heaping portion on a plate for you. "How did things go?"

"I had a lot of fun. There was this video game that I'd never played before, I went running a little, and then there was that unexpected fireworks display. Pretty good overall."


That night, you dream about the Protectorate, and about the people the Merchants can't hurt anymore. It's a very pleasant dream.


What to do tomorrow? Pick Four (Three for the day and one for the night, options may be chosen repeatedly, order may matter):
[ ] Go to school
[ ] Go to the arcade
[ ] Go to the library and study for your GED
[ ] Get more gear for your power
[ ] Patrol some part of the city
[ ] Other (Write In)

 

[Silver W. King]

[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the arcade
[X] Get more gear for your power
[X] Get more gear for your power

We now have the freakin power armor? Awesome!

 

[siflux]

We now have the freakin power armor? Awesome!

Click to shrink...

You now have freakin power armor that is ALSO a Noble Phantasm. And nowhere near enough Prana to truly abuse it. Still awesome!

 

[Silver W. King]

You now have freakin power armor that is ALSO a Noble Phantasm. And nowhere near enough Prana to truly abuse it. Still awesome!

Click to shrink...

Can our prana capacity improve with use? Or is it a limited amount that now matter how used and refiled will always stay the same?

 

[siflux]

The former. A quick check on Wikipedia says that prana comes in when you breathe, which makes me think that you could probably get a temporary prana boost by blood doping. Other than that, prana is your life force, so you can probably boost capacity via exercise, regular use, and living a more well-rounded life.

 

[CKirk]

[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Get more gear for your power

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

The former. A quick check on Wikipedia says that prana comes in when you breathe, which makes me think that you could probably get a temporary prana boost by blood doping. Other than that, prana is your life force, so you can probably boost capacity via exercise, regular use, and living a more well-rounded life.

Click to shrink...

Od is life-force. Prana is what is made when Od and Mana from the environment are mixed together. Not sure if Nasu works on that principle or not though, being able to increase Od like that... I think it might, but I know Prana is usually a limited by your circuit quality and quantity. Quantity's pretty much impossible to change unless you rip the circuits out of someone else, and even then you basically have a 0% chance of having them successfully transplanted unless you're blood-related, that's how family Crests work in Nasu pretty much. Although they also come with pre-programmed spells/knowledge as well. Quality can improve, but its one of those "you really need to start young or it'll take a literal lifetime" things as well.

Using Units... Shirou has 27 circuits at D-rank quality, I think his canon output is like 1250 units of prana before he runs dry?

Meanwhile Rin has something like 50 + her family crest running at B or A rank. She as a crapload of prana really compared to most maguses.

I do know, however, that if a Tracing is practiced enough it can be either traced at full-quality and/or for less prana. At least I'm fairly sure on that, of course our only example is "Here, let me break Reality over my fucking knee" GARcher.

 

[Silver W. King]

You know, siflux this is your quest, so you can tweak those rules a bit if you want. Nothing says you have to absolutely follow canon, specially since this is mixed with Worm setting, so you have that as an excuse. For things like this, Nasu canon should be a guideline more than anything.

I mean, does Taylor even have circuits, or is this shard fuckery? Or is this something else entirely?

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

You know, siflux this is your quest, so you can tweak those rules a bit if you want. Nothing says you have to absolutely follow canon, specially since this is mixed with Worm setting, so you have that as an excuse. For things like this, Nasu canon should be a guideline more than anything.

I mean, does Taylor even have circuits, or is this shard fuckery? Or is this something else entirely?

Click to shrink...

I was thinking it was shard fuckery myself.

Also, ignore my prana number (1250), not sure where I'm pulling it from and can't find anything to back me up on it.

Also, Rin has 40 circuits plus 30 from her famaily crest apparently. *shrug* Even if its not relevant, figure I should correct myself.

 

[Silver W. King]

I was thinking it was shard fuckery myself.

Click to shrink...

If its shard fuckery then the possibilities would be practically endless.

You can trace anything. A~ny~thing!

Imagine the number of bullshit you can pull of with that. Not to mention the ability to trace the skills to use from an item, like Shirou did with Berserker's axesword to do a version of Nine Lives.

 

[siflux]

I honestly haven't decided yet whether it's shard fuckery or proper magic circuits. Probably the former via the latter -- shard fuckery in this case is a bunch of bonus high quality magic circuits and an instinctive understand of how to use them for basic purposes. Unless the Clocktower exists in this universe (which it probably doesn't), she's going to have a hard time finding magical training and inventing new ideas is non-trivial. On the flip side, with nobody using Mysteries in this universe, they'll be incredibly powerful if you can discover them. I'm declaring that magic circuits are a thing that exist in this universe as they do for Nasu. Based on some quick research, I think I'm going to go with the following.

Taylor is both not fully grown and not particularly trained as a mage, so she only has about 10-15 units of prana (where it takes 2 to reinforce an object and 5 to trace one). Let's go with 14 units for now. Shard fuckery says that this will grow with time and practice, probably capping around 1000 in time, which is twice as much as Rin had and is honestly an absurd amount of power. But hey, superpowers are supposed to be Just Plain Better.

Prana can be obtained through two methods: Mana (environmental) and Od (internal). Classic Nasu mage behavior is to start a spell with your own Od, then run it off atmospheric Mana. There's lots of ways to fuck around with getting more Od (for example, setting up a bounded field and then killing a bunch of people in it), as is classic Nasu behavior. Od merges easily with biological fluids like blood, so the blood doping idea I mentioned before would actually be a workable way to recharge. Mostly, I want everyone who isn't me to generate plans to cheat for greater capacity.

If you exist in a Nasu story and you're not cheating, you're not doing it right. Not that even cheating is necessarily enough to save you, but it's a necessary first step.

 

[ShadowAngelBeta]

Right, so we need to drop ourself with Tracing each night before bed so we can up our capacity quickly. Not much of a way to cheat this system unless we can safely integrate other people's "circuits" or something like that.

 

[siflux]

Shard fuckery says that you're compatible with everyone else's magic circuits, in case you want to go around stealing them. I say that doing so is fatal to the target (not to Taylor), both because there's no known way to remove magic circuits without severely damaging the donor, and because as far as anyone knows it's impossible to survive without at least a little magic. Not that Taylor knows anything about magic circuits. Outside character knowledge just states that she is potentially capable of murdering people and stealing the tiny amount of magic they naturally have. By my personal greater multiverse theories for fiction, it's actually the Linker Core that produces Od and the Magic Circuits that distribute it through the body, much like the distinction between the heart and the vascular system. It's theoretically possible for them to be of greatly different quality, but in practice either one will degrade towards the level of the other, or the weaker one will get exercised enough naturally to be as strong as the other. Usually a bit of both.

 

[ryune]

One of the big things to note, Magic circuits do not store prana. A mage's capacity is not measured in volume but in throughput. Theoretically, a mage in a mana rich environment could have unlimited stamina provided they do not overtax their circuits and literally burn them out much like you can by running an excess of electricity through a wire.

Now, on to brain storming ideas. The basic mage craft skills are structural analysis, reinforcement and alteration. Most, if not all of the effects of magecraft can be traced back to working on these three techniques. Well, I say that but it's equivalent to comparing an acid battery with a copper wire connecting the two contacts and a modern day smartphone. Some big things to consider is that we get a database free which many mages don't. It gives us a massive advantage in our study of not just mechanics but would also in our research of mysteries... if we could get our hands on them in the first place.

That said, we can use alteration to produce our own, all be it short lived, enchantments. Things like taking a pipe and overlaying the concepts for sword onto it. It won't produce anything spectacular but then, nothing you develop from scratch ever does. What our skill provides us with though is the ultimate rapid prototyping tool in existence. Provided we have the stamina we could create a weapon in a day or two that could rival something made by a professional by the simple expedient of just imagining a slab of metal in the shape of a sword, projecting it, testing it our and using SA on it to find flaws in it and then refining and repeating the process.

Also, we are a budget MM at the moment. Maybe we should consider going to a gun store to check out the merchandise? Not so much so that we have the advantage of lots of guns as much as the wealth of technical knowledge we could gain from their workings and possibly the assistance we could gain in designing a weapon for ourselves. The varia suit itself provides a not inconsiderable strength enhancement and even if it's blaster is in permanent stun mode the off hand is still fully functional.

Additionally, we could just take from rubber balls and use them as ammunition by tracing them while altering their velocity. A fairly decent non-lethal attack method for when we don't want to use the Varia suit.

As for getting around the limitations of prana capacity, flasks of blood that are enchanted to keep blood fresh. Now, granted, that probably don't work quite as well at the conception but with work I can see it being effective in the same way that Rin's gems are. We would just need to reinforce how much they transfer heat away from what they contain to make them cool the blood like a refrigerator and have the whole thing powered by the prana stored in the blood.

EDIT: Incidentally, siflux, Do items we create that store prana have an extra cost to project a charged version as apposed to an "empty" version?

 

[Minion #Q]

[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the arcade
[X] Get more gear for your power

 

[siflux]

Do items we create that store prana have an extra cost to project a charged version as apposed to an "empty" version?

Click to shrink...

I'm moderately certain that magecraft cannot create prana, even at a loss, without serious shenanigans (a true wish/miracle, Denial of Nothingness, etc). Basically, you need true magic, not the shitty stuff that has 'rules' and 'restrictions' and 'things that are still impossible'.

If it is possible to generate prana with Tracing (as opposed to ordinary projection, it also replicates the legendary history of the item, so it might possibly be a true magic. It's at least passingly similar to a very specific form of Denial of Nothingness), then it's at least going to be highly lossy -- basically, useless unless you need to transfer prana to a friend, and even then there are better prana transfer rituals (although Taylor would probably not be down for a tantric ritual, no matter how efficient it is).

As an aside, Tracing is a currently a unique magecraft. It may be possible to teach it to someone else, but it's probably only possible for Shiro to use it because his origin is sword and his element is sword. Taylor gets it because shard fuckery.

 

[Fishyface]

[X] Go to the library and study for your GED
[X] Go to the arcade
[X] Get more gear for your power
[X] Get more gear for your power

 

[Frakir's brother]

I'm moderately certain that magecraft cannot create prana, even at a loss, without serious shenanigans (a true wish/miracle, Denial of Nothingness, etc). Basically, you need true magic, not the shitty stuff that has 'rules' and 'restrictions' and 'things that are still impossible'.

If it is possible to generate prana with Tracing (as opposed to ordinary projection, it also replicates the legendary history of the item, so it might possibly be a true magic. It's at least passingly similar to a very specific form of Denial of Nothingness), then it's at least going to be highly lossy -- basically, useless unless you need to transfer prana to a friend, and even then there are better prana transfer rituals (although Taylor would probably not be down for a tantric ritual, no matter how efficient it is).

As an aside, Tracing is a currently a unique magecraft. It may be possible to teach it to someone else, but it's probably only possible for Shiro to use it because his origin is sword and his element is sword. Taylor gets it because shard fuckery.

Click to shrink...

Tracing can be taught, he teaches it to Rin. It is his reality marble that makes it practical.

 

[ryune]

I'm moderately certain that magecraft cannot create prana, even at a loss, without serious shenanigans (a true wish/miracle, Denial of Nothingness, etc). Basically, you need true magic, not the shitty stuff that has 'rules' and 'restrictions' and 'things that are still impossible'.

If it is possible to generate prana with Tracing (as opposed to ordinary projection, it also replicates the legendary history of the item, so it might possibly be a true magic. It's at least passingly similar to a very specific form of Denial of Nothingness), then it's at least going to be highly lossy -- basically, useless unless you need to transfer prana to a friend, and even then there are better prana transfer rituals (although Taylor would probably not be down for a tantric ritual, no matter how efficient it is).

As an aside, Tracing is a currently a unique magecraft. It may be possible to teach it to someone else, but it's probably only possible for Shiro to use it because his origin is sword and his element is sword. Taylor gets it because shard fuckery.

Click to shrink...

That was kind of Shirou's thing though. Projection was noted as being inefficient as all hell. He got around that by having his reality marble. In that place he could create swords and things that could be used as swords for free and the only cost was bringing it into the world. Without Gaia exerting effort to destroy the things he makes he would be capable of what was essentially denial of nothingness: sword edition. One thing to consider though is that projection isn't the creation of matter. It isn't the restructuring of whatever is there. What you are doing is making what is essentially an illusion that can effect reality. As such, it's like a math trick. It doesn't matter if you add 6000 to one side of an equation so long as you also subtract it. Sure, using the "illusionary" prana to refill our own supply would incur a backlash when it disappears but if we use it like Rin and create a gem with a single action spell that we use immediately? It has little enough difference from projecting a mystic code or NP.

EDIT: This however does require Shirou's reality marble in truth rather than the shard hax we have on hand. As I understand it now our ability to record objects is little different from MM's eidetic memory rather than an actual world with differing rules.

 

[siflux]

I'm looking forward to unleashing the world of Taylor's soul. It's going to happen, I'm just not even sure what's going to be in there yet.