The Tinker of Fiction story setup and tropes but with Ar'Kendrithyst's LITRPG powerset instead of ToF's.
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Ar'KendWorm (Worm LitRPG SI)
- Thread starter Aetheron
- Start date
- Created
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- Incomplete
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Statistics (19 threadmarks, 40k words)
User Total Aetheron 19
Prolog
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
Given that he goes toe to toe with Batman on a regular basis, I suppose it shouldn't be that surprising that The Joker has the occasional moment of legitimate brilliance alongside all the crazy.
That doesn't really make it any less embarrassing to realize that I've let things 'going according to plan' lull me into a false sense of security. And that's above and beyond the absurdity of the plan itself.
I mean, in my defense, no matter how gently it's done, being woken up in a much younger body is… disorienting… to put it mildly. Coupled with the realization that the reason a caseworker was shaking me awake was that we'd arrived at my "distant cousin's" house and it was time to meet Mr. Hebert… Well, that train of plot has a whole lot of implications, many of which I have no interest in thinking about now, let alone immediately after being woken up.
Which led to me making agreeable noises and shooing 'Uncle Danny' off to work while I 'settled in' so that I could rush over to the kitchen and grab the toaster.
…I think I've been staring at this stupid toaster for a full five minutes now and it's finally starting to sink in that I have absolutely zero inexplicable urges to disassemble it, or anything else, to make a cthulhutech ray gun or whatever.
Yeah.
Letting my head drop onto the table with a sigh, I take a moment to mourn the death of The Plan and then get up to put the toaster back on the counter where I found it.
A Tinker— of Fiction or otherwise— I apparently am not.
Which might, admittedly, be for the best given how much like work being a Tinker sounds like.
Even if I would really really love to be able to build a portal to somewhere that isn't Earth Bet right about now.
Okay, okay… so I'll admit it. My disappointment is immense and my day is ruined.
Being on Earth Bet as a jailbroken Tinker sounded bad enough. Being on Earth Bet as a civilian sounds way worse.
I'm going to choose to be an optimist and assume I have a power, just not that power, but I mean… What am I supposed to do?
Point my hands at the wall and shout, "pew pew!?"
Nothing.
Put my hand on the wall and try to climb?
Nope. Not Spiderman. Or any kind of flight that relies on just thinking about going up either.
Happy thoughts?
…I'll put a pin in that one for some time when I forget this is Earth Bet.
Shout, "status!" and pray-
-the gods are listen…ing…
Oh.
Well then!
Once again ignoring the fact that that is not my name and all the many many things I was studiously ignoring about what the name Jane implies about my new situation… Why does that name sound so familiar?
Flatt… Jane Flatt…
Oh, wasn't that the daughter from that one story. What was it called? Arkenthingy?
A/N - So that's the elevator pitch: The Tinker of Fiction story setup and tropes but with Ar'Kendrithyst's LITRPG powerset instead of ToF's.
That doesn't really make it any less embarrassing to realize that I've let things 'going according to plan' lull me into a false sense of security. And that's above and beyond the absurdity of the plan itself.
I mean, in my defense, no matter how gently it's done, being woken up in a much younger body is… disorienting… to put it mildly. Coupled with the realization that the reason a caseworker was shaking me awake was that we'd arrived at my "distant cousin's" house and it was time to meet Mr. Hebert… Well, that train of plot has a whole lot of implications, many of which I have no interest in thinking about now, let alone immediately after being woken up.
Which led to me making agreeable noises and shooing 'Uncle Danny' off to work while I 'settled in' so that I could rush over to the kitchen and grab the toaster.
…I think I've been staring at this stupid toaster for a full five minutes now and it's finally starting to sink in that I have absolutely zero inexplicable urges to disassemble it, or anything else, to make a cthulhutech ray gun or whatever.
Yeah.
Letting my head drop onto the table with a sigh, I take a moment to mourn the death of The Plan and then get up to put the toaster back on the counter where I found it.
A Tinker— of Fiction or otherwise— I apparently am not.
Which might, admittedly, be for the best given how much like work being a Tinker sounds like.
Even if I would really really love to be able to build a portal to somewhere that isn't Earth Bet right about now.
Okay, okay… so I'll admit it. My disappointment is immense and my day is ruined.
Being on Earth Bet as a jailbroken Tinker sounded bad enough. Being on Earth Bet as a civilian sounds way worse.
I'm going to choose to be an optimist and assume I have a power, just not that power, but I mean… What am I supposed to do?
Point my hands at the wall and shout, "pew pew!?"
Nothing.
Put my hand on the wall and try to climb?
Nope. Not Spiderman. Or any kind of flight that relies on just thinking about going up either.
Happy thoughts?
…I'll put a pin in that one for some time when I forget this is Earth Bet.
Shout, "status!" and pray-
| Jane Flatt Human, age: 12 Level 0, Class: None Exp: 0/100 Class: -/- Points: 1 | |||
| HP | 119/120 | 160 per day | |
| MP | 150/150 | 200 per day | |
| Strength | 12 | +0 | 12 |
| Vitality | 16 | +0 | 16 |
| Willpower | 15 | +0 | 15 |
| Focus | 20 | +0 | 20 |
-the gods are listen…ing…
Oh.
Well then!
Once again ignoring the fact that that is not my name and all the many many things I was studiously ignoring about what the name Jane implies about my new situation… Why does that name sound so familiar?
Flatt… Jane Flatt…
Oh, wasn't that the daughter from that one story. What was it called? Arkenthingy?
A/N - So that's the elevator pitch: The Tinker of Fiction story setup and tropes but with Ar'Kendrithyst's LITRPG powerset instead of ToF's.
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
My excitement over the discovery of my powers burns hot and then flames out as I remember where I am.
I had a… Well, not a plan per se, but maybe something halfway between an idle day dream and a character concept for being isekai'd into Veird.
But this isn't Veird.
So even ignoring the fact that Earth Bet lacks the Theological underpinnings motivating Project Silver Angel, it's also, somewhat ironically given the hilariously dangerous things living here, a bit too safe and tame for the lofty heights my dreams aspired to given that it lacks a self-sustaining tide of more manageable monsters to grind up into XP to fuel my growth.
…Unless Nilbog's turf or Eagleton happens to be conveniently close by?
No.
No, Brain, I said no.
Even if that somehow panned out, using magic to generate non-magical force via !!SCIENCE!! in order to threaten to destroy two of the Veirdian moons if they don't knock it off with the Quiet War bullshit somehow seems less insane than effectively mooning Ziz.
Even if she's worse about it than the Veirdian Angels, Ziz is hardly going to give a shit about whether or not I think she's doing the Angel concept wrong. I mean for one, she's doing it wrong on purpose.
I'm just going to have to accept that I'll need to plan on being somewhat more frugal with my points to make every purchase count.
Which, given that I am currently both a very squishy human living in the next best thing to a warzone and probably going to be working primarily with Skitter means there's really only one reasonable choice for my first purchase.
Buying [Scry], I flop my squishy ass down on the couch and close my eyes. Hmmm… 'a place you have been or have seen.'
Taking a deep breath, I picture… uh… the front yard of the Hebert's house? I haven't really been or seen much else of Brockton Bay yet given that my case worker pulling into the driveway is as far back as I can remember as "Jane Flatt."
…If I can find a way to do it discreetly, I should try and find a way to at least confirm if "my" dad was named Erick. Maybe make one of those statues he was fond of as a memorial for him.
…and maybe one for the original Jane I seem to have replaced.
Assuming she was ever even real and that this body wasn't poofed into existence right as we pulled into the driveway. Was the case worker even a real person? Or just Q in a dress? I can't actually picture her face right now which I was chalking up to not paying attention at the time but…
Okay, no. I don't think I want to think about that anymore right now so, "[Scry]!"
My vision sort of doubles and suddenly I'm looking at both the inside of my eyelids and at the front door of the house.
Opening my eyes, I can see the ceiling and the front door at the same time but can only meaningfully focus on one or the other.
Looking left, right, up, or down pans my point of view around, but it takes me some practice to get used to doing it without also turning my head.
Once I do get used to it though, I look up and down the street trying to pick a direction.
I could flip a coin or- No, wait, I'm a duh.
I look up.
Crossing my fingers that Scry counts as 'having seen,' I recast [Scry].
Still looking up at the sky and ceiling, I now also look down at Brockton Bay from a thousand feet in the air. Assuming 'also look' really applies since I can still only focus properly on one viewpoint at a time. Everything looks pretty small from way up here though and… I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for the importance of the street name overlay on Google Maps because I have no idea which of those tiny houses is the Heberts'.
I take a moment to look around and make sure there's no cape fights happening enthusiastically enough to be visible from on high and when there isn't, as far as I can tell, I switch my focus back to the driveway and look around for a distinctive enough house to home in on.
Sadly, the houses all have that kind-of-samey thing going on that you get when a single developer does an entire neighborhood at once. One or two look like they have extra rooms that were added on later, and one neighbor even added a third floor, but none of them really stand out enough to pick out from the other tiny rectangles I see packed together from on high.
Hmmm…
I-
My view from the driveway winks out as the spell ends.
Well then.
Whatever, I was kind of done with that one anyway.
Taking a moment to focus on what I want to see, I try again.
Awesome! It worked.
I look down at the Heberts' neighborhood from about a hundred feet directly above the Heberts' driveway.
Paranoia briefly overtaking me, I spin my view full circle making sure there's nothing obviously terrible happening one more time before going back to looking down at the Hebert's house.
From here, I can kind of make out the hole in the front stairs I had to step over when I entered the house. Or at least I think that's what that dot is, the "eyeball" of the scry spell doesn't really seem to be able to squint very well and midday sun glaring off the heavy dusting of snow on everything is making it hard to look straight down right now.
I think Erick had some kind of combo vision enhancing spell that would probably help? I'll have to look into that at some point.
For now, I hurriedly switch back to looking around for landmarks from way on high and before that casting can lapse on me.
Now, if this works the way I'm hoping it does, then I should be able to… [Scry].
Gah!
Only my position laying on the couch making it physically impossible impossible stops me from lurching backwards as I suddenly find myself staring at the center of the Medhall logo from close enough that my nose would hurt if I was there in person.
Making a note to be more, or maybe less, specific in my thinking about where I want to scry from, I rotate my point of view until I can see downtown.
…I should have made a list of landmarks to find in advance, huh?
This might just be the mana-exhaustion talking, but the lower levels of Veirdian style [Meditation] are just fucking awful, I decide as I slowly sit up on the couch.
At least my paranoia around someone finding me while I'm [Immobile], [Blind], and [Deaf] is mostly focused on them doing something stupid because they think I'm, you know, dead. Having to hide under Taylor's bed or something instead of just pretending to nap would be even worse but even if I'm going to keep double checking every time I'm scrying the neighborhood, I'm pretty sure no one actually bothers Taylor at home until Leviathan wrecks it largely by accident and there's way too much snow outside for it to be May.
…wait.
Something about that last thought bothers me now that the mana-exhaustion-induced headache is tamping down on the enthusiasm I felt earlier for exploring the city and leveling up as fast as I could to buy even more spells.
Slowly plodding my way to the window, I confirm that yes, there is indeed a heavy dusting of snow on the ground thick enough to see even in the waning sunlight of 4pm.
Leaning my forehead against the cool glass, the urge to just stay there a while is strong but I force myself to stumble towards the kitchen and look for a calendar.
And, sure enough, it's open to the page for January rather than May.
Which explains both the snow and it being dark at 4pm.
It also, unfortunately, might explain why Taylor hasn't come home from school yet.
I am, I decide, going to choose to believe that my arriving around noon means there was nothing I could have done to stop The Locker even had I headed towards Winslow immediately instead of spending the afternoon spamming [Scry] to explore the neighborhood and then [Meditate]ing to recover my mana.
Hopefully nothing ever disproves that belief.
I mean, it's not like I had any idea where Winslow was– I only found it towards the end of my last Scry cycle– or what Taylor's locker number would be.
And that's assuming today is the third and not any other day in January.
Also, I'm apparently a twelve year old girl now and probably shouldn't be wandering a major city alone. Especially not one known for racial tensions and gang violence.
…Gods damn it, I'm still going to feel worse than I already do if it turns out I could have done something but didn't because I was too wrapped up in my own shit.
Working my way through the cabinets from left to right I eventually find the one with the cups and pour myself some water in the probably vain hope that at least some of my headache is from mundane dehydration.
Gulping that down, I walk over to the phone hanging on the wall and pick up the receiver.
Then I pause, fingers hovering indecisively over the buttons.
If it is the third, and 4pm, then there is absolutely fuck all I can do at this point and Taylor's going to be in the psych ward for a while until her brain adapts to all the new inputs.
…Unless this is one of the stupid fanfic AUs that dial the locker up to 13 and no one actually finds her to pull her out of the locker until fucking tomorrow?
Gods-fucking-Damn It, I'm a non-canon character. I can't take anything for granted, can I?
I dial 9-1-1.
I had a… Well, not a plan per se, but maybe something halfway between an idle day dream and a character concept for being isekai'd into Veird.
But this isn't Veird.
So even ignoring the fact that Earth Bet lacks the Theological underpinnings motivating Project Silver Angel, it's also, somewhat ironically given the hilariously dangerous things living here, a bit too safe and tame for the lofty heights my dreams aspired to given that it lacks a self-sustaining tide of more manageable monsters to grind up into XP to fuel my growth.
…Unless Nilbog's turf or Eagleton happens to be conveniently close by?
No.
No, Brain, I said no.
Even if that somehow panned out, using magic to generate non-magical force via !!SCIENCE!! in order to threaten to destroy two of the Veirdian moons if they don't knock it off with the Quiet War bullshit somehow seems less insane than effectively mooning Ziz.
Even if she's worse about it than the Veirdian Angels, Ziz is hardly going to give a shit about whether or not I think she's doing the Angel concept wrong. I mean for one, she's doing it wrong on purpose.
I'm just going to have to accept that I'll need to plan on being somewhat more frugal with my points to make every purchase count.
Which, given that I am currently both a very squishy human living in the next best thing to a warzone and probably going to be working primarily with Skitter means there's really only one reasonable choice for my first purchase.
Buying [Scry], I flop my squishy ass down on the couch and close my eyes. Hmmm… 'a place you have been or have seen.'
Taking a deep breath, I picture… uh… the front yard of the Hebert's house? I haven't really been or seen much else of Brockton Bay yet given that my case worker pulling into the driveway is as far back as I can remember as "Jane Flatt."
…If I can find a way to do it discreetly, I should try and find a way to at least confirm if "my" dad was named Erick. Maybe make one of those statues he was fond of as a memorial for him.
…and maybe one for the original Jane I seem to have replaced.
Assuming she was ever even real and that this body wasn't poofed into existence right as we pulled into the driveway. Was the case worker even a real person? Or just Q in a dress? I can't actually picture her face right now which I was chalking up to not paying attention at the time but…
Okay, no. I don't think I want to think about that anymore right now so, "[Scry]!"
My vision sort of doubles and suddenly I'm looking at both the inside of my eyelids and at the front door of the house.
Opening my eyes, I can see the ceiling and the front door at the same time but can only meaningfully focus on one or the other.
Looking left, right, up, or down pans my point of view around, but it takes me some practice to get used to doing it without also turning my head.
Once I do get used to it though, I look up and down the street trying to pick a direction.
I could flip a coin or- No, wait, I'm a duh.
I look up.
Crossing my fingers that Scry counts as 'having seen,' I recast [Scry].
Still looking up at the sky and ceiling, I now also look down at Brockton Bay from a thousand feet in the air. Assuming 'also look' really applies since I can still only focus properly on one viewpoint at a time. Everything looks pretty small from way up here though and… I suddenly have a newfound appreciation for the importance of the street name overlay on Google Maps because I have no idea which of those tiny houses is the Heberts'.
I take a moment to look around and make sure there's no cape fights happening enthusiastically enough to be visible from on high and when there isn't, as far as I can tell, I switch my focus back to the driveway and look around for a distinctive enough house to home in on.
Sadly, the houses all have that kind-of-samey thing going on that you get when a single developer does an entire neighborhood at once. One or two look like they have extra rooms that were added on later, and one neighbor even added a third floor, but none of them really stand out enough to pick out from the other tiny rectangles I see packed together from on high.
Hmmm…
I-
My view from the driveway winks out as the spell ends.
Well then.
Whatever, I was kind of done with that one anyway.
Taking a moment to focus on what I want to see, I try again.
Awesome! It worked.
I look down at the Heberts' neighborhood from about a hundred feet directly above the Heberts' driveway.
Paranoia briefly overtaking me, I spin my view full circle making sure there's nothing obviously terrible happening one more time before going back to looking down at the Hebert's house.
From here, I can kind of make out the hole in the front stairs I had to step over when I entered the house. Or at least I think that's what that dot is, the "eyeball" of the scry spell doesn't really seem to be able to squint very well and midday sun glaring off the heavy dusting of snow on everything is making it hard to look straight down right now.
I think Erick had some kind of combo vision enhancing spell that would probably help? I'll have to look into that at some point.
For now, I hurriedly switch back to looking around for landmarks from way on high and before that casting can lapse on me.
Now, if this works the way I'm hoping it does, then I should be able to… [Scry].
Gah!
Only my position laying on the couch making it physically impossible impossible stops me from lurching backwards as I suddenly find myself staring at the center of the Medhall logo from close enough that my nose would hurt if I was there in person.
Making a note to be more, or maybe less, specific in my thinking about where I want to scry from, I rotate my point of view until I can see downtown.
…I should have made a list of landmarks to find in advance, huh?
This might just be the mana-exhaustion talking, but the lower levels of Veirdian style [Meditation] are just fucking awful, I decide as I slowly sit up on the couch.
At least my paranoia around someone finding me while I'm [Immobile], [Blind], and [Deaf] is mostly focused on them doing something stupid because they think I'm, you know, dead. Having to hide under Taylor's bed or something instead of just pretending to nap would be even worse but even if I'm going to keep double checking every time I'm scrying the neighborhood, I'm pretty sure no one actually bothers Taylor at home until Leviathan wrecks it largely by accident and there's way too much snow outside for it to be May.
…wait.
Something about that last thought bothers me now that the mana-exhaustion-induced headache is tamping down on the enthusiasm I felt earlier for exploring the city and leveling up as fast as I could to buy even more spells.
Slowly plodding my way to the window, I confirm that yes, there is indeed a heavy dusting of snow on the ground thick enough to see even in the waning sunlight of 4pm.
Leaning my forehead against the cool glass, the urge to just stay there a while is strong but I force myself to stumble towards the kitchen and look for a calendar.
And, sure enough, it's open to the page for January rather than May.
Which explains both the snow and it being dark at 4pm.
It also, unfortunately, might explain why Taylor hasn't come home from school yet.
I am, I decide, going to choose to believe that my arriving around noon means there was nothing I could have done to stop The Locker even had I headed towards Winslow immediately instead of spending the afternoon spamming [Scry] to explore the neighborhood and then [Meditate]ing to recover my mana.
Hopefully nothing ever disproves that belief.
I mean, it's not like I had any idea where Winslow was– I only found it towards the end of my last Scry cycle– or what Taylor's locker number would be.
And that's assuming today is the third and not any other day in January.
Also, I'm apparently a twelve year old girl now and probably shouldn't be wandering a major city alone. Especially not one known for racial tensions and gang violence.
…Gods damn it, I'm still going to feel worse than I already do if it turns out I could have done something but didn't because I was too wrapped up in my own shit.
Working my way through the cabinets from left to right I eventually find the one with the cups and pour myself some water in the probably vain hope that at least some of my headache is from mundane dehydration.
Gulping that down, I walk over to the phone hanging on the wall and pick up the receiver.
Then I pause, fingers hovering indecisively over the buttons.
If it is the third, and 4pm, then there is absolutely fuck all I can do at this point and Taylor's going to be in the psych ward for a while until her brain adapts to all the new inputs.
…Unless this is one of the stupid fanfic AUs that dial the locker up to 13 and no one actually finds her to pull her out of the locker until fucking tomorrow?
Gods-fucking-Damn It, I'm a non-canon character. I can't take anything for granted, can I?
I dial 9-1-1.
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
"No, Ma'am. She goes to Winslow." I catch myself shaking my head even though the dispatcher obviously can't see me. "If they told me the sky was blue I'd look outside to check before believing them. The fact that they've managed to do less than jack shit about the bullying over the past…"
It suddenly occurs to me that I never actually checked year the calendar was for. Turning around to look- There's a giant of a woman standing right the fuck there holding a broom like a baseball bat!
"Who are you!?" She screams at me.
"Jesus fuck!" I lurch away from her only to slam into the wall, banging the back of my already aching head into the corner of the phone base thing as I scramble to bring the receiver back up to my mouth. "Help! There's a- ummm." My poor brain finally catches up with my eyes and the girl suddenly looks way younger and less imposing as I realize that being way taller than me is a lot easier now I'm somewhere shy of 5 feet tall. Add in that most of her 'bulk' is actually a winter coat, and that she has dark curly hair and glasses? "…Taylor?"
"Who are you?" She doesn't nod or anything, but a bit of uncertainty edges out the indignant anger in her expression as the broom dips, her arms no longer quite so tensed up for imminent violence which I choose to see as both confirmation and a good sign even though she's still asking questions I barely know the answer to. "What're you doing in my house?"
"I'm Jane," I tell her, taking a moment to rub the back of my head now that I'm no longer expecting her to try and attack me. Fucking ow. I make a mental note to move [Treat Injury] up a few notches on my build order. "…Your cousin?" I add when I realize my name doesn't seem to be ringing any more bells for her than it did me.
…Balls. Still nothing.
"Okay, hang on." I sigh. "I thought Uncle Danny said he was going to, like, call you and… Um, hang on, gimme a minute." I wave the phone at her as I remind myself I was using it."I was kinda in the middle of filing a missing persons report on you and-"
"You… what?"
"Yeah yeah hang on." I wave her off. "I don't think the 9-1-1 lady is allowed to just hang up on me until I confirm we're okay and there's no sense wasting any more of her day."
Taylor throws her hands up and stomps off towards the living room as I put the phone back up to my ear.
"Hi, sorry about that but I guess my cousin isn't actually missing." I frown as the phone remains totally silent. "Er- Hello?"
…alright, well, maybe Earth Bet's 9-1-1 operators are allowed to just hang up on you?
Putting the phone back on the hook, I frown as the whole thing just… falls off the wall. It only doesn't hit the floor because the cable connecting it to the phone jack is a little too short.
On the plus side, this does a lot to mend my opinion of Brockton Bay's emergency services.
On the down side… "Hey, Taylor? I think I broke your phone."
"So…" Taylor begins as she settles down on the front steps while we wait for the cops to come check on us. "You said your name was Jane?"
"Yup." I nod, squatting down to peer into the hole in the second step to try and make sure nothing lives in there. "Jane Flatt."
"And you're my cousin." She doesn't phrase it as a question, but I can hear the doubt in her voice. "Who I've never heard of."
I shrug, deciding it's probably safe enough to risk taking a seat on the other side of it. "I think the social worker lady said it's actually your dad that's my cousin but he's, like, old and stuff so he said I could call him Uncle Danny and calling you my third cousin once removed is… kind of a mouthful."
Wait. Old?
Danny is… not that much older than I remember being yesterday. And yet I'm definitely having trouble not thinking of him as this, like… ancient fossil. Did whatever forces conspired to put me here give me some kind of think-like-a-tweenager—
"…Social worker?" Taylor asks in a complicated tone that pulls me from my thoughts enough that I look over and see her making an equally weird face at me.
"Yeah, I'm sure she told me her name but like…" I trail off, remembering that I am in fact not sure she gave me her name. Or even existed.
"No, I mean…" Taylor's weird-facing intensifies. "You're not just visiting, are you?"
"Oh… no." I shake my head, grinning. "Nope. You're stuck with me forever now. Uncle Danny signed the paperwork and everything."
"What happened- that is… If you don't want to talk about it that's fine!" Taylor takes a deep breath. "But…"
"Ooooh." And suddenly the weird face makes sense. Okay then. Not how I planned on doing it, but I guess we're doing this now. "Yeah… I have no idea."
"You… what?"
"Everything before I woke up is just…" I bring my hands up the sides of my head and splay my fingers out in what is hopefully the multiversal sign for 'mind=blown' "Gone!"
"You don't remember anything?"
"Well, I mean obviously I remember how to talk." I laugh as something occurs to me. "And I remember stuff like what a cousin is, but I'm technically taking the social worker at her word that we're even related. I mean, it'd be kind of a weird twist if it turned out she was lying and I don't think social services is that hard up for placement options but..." I shrug.
For obvious reasons, I leave it unsaid that if it turns out the social worker was just Q in a dress or whatever then I can't imagine making me genetically related to Taylor would be any more difficult than anything else they obviously needed to be able to do for me to even be here at all.
Taylor frowns at me. "You seem… weirdly okay with all of this."
"It's kind of hard to miss what I don't remember." I frown as I realize that I also don't miss my actual life even though I should. That it at least bothers me that I'm not bothered is a good sign, I think, but I'm not ready to unpack that right now so I try to move on to the next oddity about my situation. "Honestly, the weirdest part is that I know amnesia only works this way on TV and yet…" I shrug.
We sit in awkward silence for a long enough moment that I opt to risk worsening my headache a bit further to set a [Scry] high above us to look for the cops. My head throbs a bit harder, but not so badly that I can't manage. Closing my eyes helps, weirdly enough, given that I'm still seeing either way. Maybe it's psychosomatic like how smiling can make you happier because your brain associates the action with already being happy?
Well, whatever the cause, I think it'll be easier to just keep my eyes closed and watch Taylor via another [Scry]-
…Oh for fucks sake. I was that close this whole time? If I'd known that, then I would have bit the bullet an hour ago and then I could have just bought Discipline instead of having this stupid migraine this whole time.
Still, better late than never? Mentally navigating the menus, I pull up Discipline.
A point spent, my maximum mana doubles, and I suddenly feel more… expansive? More me? Something's different at least, even if I can't say exactly what. Spiritual enlightenment was never really my thing, so I think I'll just go with 'and my soul grew three sizes that day.' Or two sizes since it doesn't triple my mana until I get it to level 10, but whatever.
Far more important is that my headache doesn't budge a fucking inch.
Because, as I belatedly remember, not getting mana headaches was a Scion of Focus perk, not Willpower. So it's Concentration rather than Discipline that would help here. Or it would, if Concentration hadn't been the second thing I'd bought today as soon as I got my first level up. Which means this already isthe reduced headache.
"Are you okay?" My active [Scry] having let me watch exactly what it looked like as I slumped forward and let out an annoyed groan, I can't really claim I'm surprised by the concerned tone in Taylor's voice as she looks over at me.
"Yeah," I grumble. "Thinker headaches are just... bullshit."
Taylor's mouth opens, closes, opens… closes. "...You're a cape?" She eventually asks.
"Yeah- Wait, no." I shake my head, correcting myself. "Capes have costumes and shit."
Taylor stares at me for a moment before humming in what I choose to take as agreement. "But you have powers."
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that's a new thing." I frown and start pulling my gloves off as a third explanation for my current state occurs to me. "Maybe it's a good thing I don't remember."
Taylor starts making that weird face at me again. "...why would that be a good thing?"
I pause in the middle of pushing up my sleeve to give her a look. "Think about how you got your powers."
Taylor shudders a bit before going eerily still.
"Yuuup." I nod pointedly at her before looking away so I can close my eyes again without making it weird. Weirder. "Apparently it's like that for all of us."
And now I find myself wishing I had a cup of coffee or something to sip at as a prop as I pretend to thousand-yard-stare off into the distance. Nothing I can do with the broken phone really has the same vibe and I briefly debate taking [Conjure Item] out of order just so I can at least summon an empty mug. Sadly, even if I got the spell to make a decent mug on the first try… I don't think quoting Tyrian Lannister from a show that probably doesn't exist on Earth Bet is the way to go here.
So I settle for embracing the weird instead and keep my actual eyes closed while holding my now bare forearm up to the 'eye' of my [Scry] spell.
"How-" Taylor finally chokes out only to stop again. "...Thinker?"
"Trump technically." I shrug as best I can while twisting my arm back and forth looking for any scars or other weird marks. "But yeah, I grabbed some Thinker powers and traded a headache for enough information to not freak out about being left with a bunch of strangers by social services."
…huh, taken individually, that's even all true. Technically.
"Grabbed? Wait, powers?" Taylor asks, emphasizing the plural a little incredulously.
"Yeah. Think of it like… uh… Dauntless?" I switch arms. "Only as a Grab-Bag cape so instead of him using charges to enchant his costume, I use them to reach back into the grab-bag for another minor power."
"That's-" Taylor frowns. "Okay, you say minor but- No, hang on. What are you doing?"
"Checking for scars."
"Scar- oh."
"Yeah." I let my arm drop and push my sleeves back down. "But whatever happened to me, it doesn't look like past-me slit her wrists."
"Riiight." Taylor looks deeply uncomfortable for a moment before going eerily still again. Even knowing it probably just means there's a horde of bugs in a basement somewhere doing all the awkward freaking out on her behalf, it's still a little creepy to see. Not that I have any room to talk, given that I'm staring at her with my eyes closed.
As if hearing my last thought, Taylor frowns. "Why were you doing it with your eyes closed?"
"Looking with my eyes bothers my headache more than looking with the clairvoyance power I took."
"Didn't you say your Thinker powers gave you the headache?"
"Yuuup." I nod. "But if being stupid stopped things from being true then Winslow wouldn't exist at all."
Taylor apparently doesn't disagree with that assessment and we lapse into another period of awkward silence.
Eventually, the cop car I've been keeping half an eye on from a hundred yards or so up turns the corner onto Taylor's street and I lift my arm to point it out.
"There's the-" Taylor and I both start to say, both pointing at the same cop car, and then both stopping at the same time as we realize what we're doing.
"...and then I was going to call back but I kinda…" I hold up the Heberts' phone to show the police officer the big crack running through the connector. "...broke the phone."
"I see." The officer nods. Fortunately, he looks amused rather than angry at me for wasting his time.
Unfortunately, his blonde hair and blue eyes annoy me. Nothing against him personally or anything, I just really could have done without having the awkward realization that anyone who sees my blonde hair and blue eyes is probably going to have the same suspicions about me that I do about him. This fucking town, I swear. City? Whatever.
"And you were home late because..?" He asks, turning to my cousin.
"I wasn't late." Taylor sighs, shooting me an annoyed look. "My cousin is just…"
"Taylor." I give her one right back. "It's dark out!"
"It's winter." Taylor turns back to the cop. "I take the 111 from Broadway all the way to Summer. Getting home a little after 4 is early for me."
"Broadway to-" I frown. "The school bus doesn't drop you off here at the house?"
"No…" Taylor looks at me like I'm the crazy one.
"...Cities are weird."
It suddenly occurs to me that I never actually checked year the calendar was for. Turning around to look- There's a giant of a woman standing right the fuck there holding a broom like a baseball bat!
"Who are you!?" She screams at me.
"Jesus fuck!" I lurch away from her only to slam into the wall, banging the back of my already aching head into the corner of the phone base thing as I scramble to bring the receiver back up to my mouth. "Help! There's a- ummm." My poor brain finally catches up with my eyes and the girl suddenly looks way younger and less imposing as I realize that being way taller than me is a lot easier now I'm somewhere shy of 5 feet tall. Add in that most of her 'bulk' is actually a winter coat, and that she has dark curly hair and glasses? "…Taylor?"
"Who are you?" She doesn't nod or anything, but a bit of uncertainty edges out the indignant anger in her expression as the broom dips, her arms no longer quite so tensed up for imminent violence which I choose to see as both confirmation and a good sign even though she's still asking questions I barely know the answer to. "What're you doing in my house?"
"I'm Jane," I tell her, taking a moment to rub the back of my head now that I'm no longer expecting her to try and attack me. Fucking ow. I make a mental note to move [Treat Injury] up a few notches on my build order. "…Your cousin?" I add when I realize my name doesn't seem to be ringing any more bells for her than it did me.
…Balls. Still nothing.
"Okay, hang on." I sigh. "I thought Uncle Danny said he was going to, like, call you and… Um, hang on, gimme a minute." I wave the phone at her as I remind myself I was using it."I was kinda in the middle of filing a missing persons report on you and-"
"You… what?"
"Yeah yeah hang on." I wave her off. "I don't think the 9-1-1 lady is allowed to just hang up on me until I confirm we're okay and there's no sense wasting any more of her day."
Taylor throws her hands up and stomps off towards the living room as I put the phone back up to my ear.
"Hi, sorry about that but I guess my cousin isn't actually missing." I frown as the phone remains totally silent. "Er- Hello?"
…alright, well, maybe Earth Bet's 9-1-1 operators are allowed to just hang up on you?
Putting the phone back on the hook, I frown as the whole thing just… falls off the wall. It only doesn't hit the floor because the cable connecting it to the phone jack is a little too short.
On the plus side, this does a lot to mend my opinion of Brockton Bay's emergency services.
On the down side… "Hey, Taylor? I think I broke your phone."
"So…" Taylor begins as she settles down on the front steps while we wait for the cops to come check on us. "You said your name was Jane?"
"Yup." I nod, squatting down to peer into the hole in the second step to try and make sure nothing lives in there. "Jane Flatt."
"And you're my cousin." She doesn't phrase it as a question, but I can hear the doubt in her voice. "Who I've never heard of."
I shrug, deciding it's probably safe enough to risk taking a seat on the other side of it. "I think the social worker lady said it's actually your dad that's my cousin but he's, like, old and stuff so he said I could call him Uncle Danny and calling you my third cousin once removed is… kind of a mouthful."
Wait. Old?
Danny is… not that much older than I remember being yesterday. And yet I'm definitely having trouble not thinking of him as this, like… ancient fossil. Did whatever forces conspired to put me here give me some kind of think-like-a-tweenager—
"…Social worker?" Taylor asks in a complicated tone that pulls me from my thoughts enough that I look over and see her making an equally weird face at me.
"Yeah, I'm sure she told me her name but like…" I trail off, remembering that I am in fact not sure she gave me her name. Or even existed.
"No, I mean…" Taylor's weird-facing intensifies. "You're not just visiting, are you?"
"Oh… no." I shake my head, grinning. "Nope. You're stuck with me forever now. Uncle Danny signed the paperwork and everything."
"What happened- that is… If you don't want to talk about it that's fine!" Taylor takes a deep breath. "But…"
"Ooooh." And suddenly the weird face makes sense. Okay then. Not how I planned on doing it, but I guess we're doing this now. "Yeah… I have no idea."
"You… what?"
"Everything before I woke up is just…" I bring my hands up the sides of my head and splay my fingers out in what is hopefully the multiversal sign for 'mind=blown' "Gone!"
"You don't remember anything?"
"Well, I mean obviously I remember how to talk." I laugh as something occurs to me. "And I remember stuff like what a cousin is, but I'm technically taking the social worker at her word that we're even related. I mean, it'd be kind of a weird twist if it turned out she was lying and I don't think social services is that hard up for placement options but..." I shrug.
For obvious reasons, I leave it unsaid that if it turns out the social worker was just Q in a dress or whatever then I can't imagine making me genetically related to Taylor would be any more difficult than anything else they obviously needed to be able to do for me to even be here at all.
Taylor frowns at me. "You seem… weirdly okay with all of this."
"It's kind of hard to miss what I don't remember." I frown as I realize that I also don't miss my actual life even though I should. That it at least bothers me that I'm not bothered is a good sign, I think, but I'm not ready to unpack that right now so I try to move on to the next oddity about my situation. "Honestly, the weirdest part is that I know amnesia only works this way on TV and yet…" I shrug.
We sit in awkward silence for a long enough moment that I opt to risk worsening my headache a bit further to set a [Scry] high above us to look for the cops. My head throbs a bit harder, but not so badly that I can't manage. Closing my eyes helps, weirdly enough, given that I'm still seeing either way. Maybe it's psychosomatic like how smiling can make you happier because your brain associates the action with already being happy?
Well, whatever the cause, I think it'll be easier to just keep my eyes closed and watch Taylor via another [Scry]-
Level up! +2 Ability Points |
…Oh for fucks sake. I was that close this whole time? If I'd known that, then I would have bit the bullet an hour ago and then I could have just bought Discipline instead of having this stupid migraine this whole time.
Still, better late than never? Mentally navigating the menus, I pull up Discipline.
| Discipline 1 Multiply your base MP by 2 Requirements: 20 Willpower Exp: 0/100 |
A point spent, my maximum mana doubles, and I suddenly feel more… expansive? More me? Something's different at least, even if I can't say exactly what. Spiritual enlightenment was never really my thing, so I think I'll just go with 'and my soul grew three sizes that day.' Or two sizes since it doesn't triple my mana until I get it to level 10, but whatever.
Far more important is that my headache doesn't budge a fucking inch.
Because, as I belatedly remember, not getting mana headaches was a Scion of Focus perk, not Willpower. So it's Concentration rather than Discipline that would help here. Or it would, if Concentration hadn't been the second thing I'd bought today as soon as I got my first level up. Which means this already isthe reduced headache.
"Are you okay?" My active [Scry] having let me watch exactly what it looked like as I slumped forward and let out an annoyed groan, I can't really claim I'm surprised by the concerned tone in Taylor's voice as she looks over at me.
"Yeah," I grumble. "Thinker headaches are just... bullshit."
Taylor's mouth opens, closes, opens… closes. "...You're a cape?" She eventually asks.
"Yeah- Wait, no." I shake my head, correcting myself. "Capes have costumes and shit."
Taylor stares at me for a moment before humming in what I choose to take as agreement. "But you have powers."
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure that's a new thing." I frown and start pulling my gloves off as a third explanation for my current state occurs to me. "Maybe it's a good thing I don't remember."
Taylor starts making that weird face at me again. "...why would that be a good thing?"
I pause in the middle of pushing up my sleeve to give her a look. "Think about how you got your powers."
Taylor shudders a bit before going eerily still.
"Yuuup." I nod pointedly at her before looking away so I can close my eyes again without making it weird. Weirder. "Apparently it's like that for all of us."
And now I find myself wishing I had a cup of coffee or something to sip at as a prop as I pretend to thousand-yard-stare off into the distance. Nothing I can do with the broken phone really has the same vibe and I briefly debate taking [Conjure Item] out of order just so I can at least summon an empty mug. Sadly, even if I got the spell to make a decent mug on the first try… I don't think quoting Tyrian Lannister from a show that probably doesn't exist on Earth Bet is the way to go here.
So I settle for embracing the weird instead and keep my actual eyes closed while holding my now bare forearm up to the 'eye' of my [Scry] spell.
"How-" Taylor finally chokes out only to stop again. "...Thinker?"
"Trump technically." I shrug as best I can while twisting my arm back and forth looking for any scars or other weird marks. "But yeah, I grabbed some Thinker powers and traded a headache for enough information to not freak out about being left with a bunch of strangers by social services."
…huh, taken individually, that's even all true. Technically.
"Grabbed? Wait, powers?" Taylor asks, emphasizing the plural a little incredulously.
"Yeah. Think of it like… uh… Dauntless?" I switch arms. "Only as a Grab-Bag cape so instead of him using charges to enchant his costume, I use them to reach back into the grab-bag for another minor power."
"That's-" Taylor frowns. "Okay, you say minor but- No, hang on. What are you doing?"
"Checking for scars."
"Scar- oh."
"Yeah." I let my arm drop and push my sleeves back down. "But whatever happened to me, it doesn't look like past-me slit her wrists."
"Riiight." Taylor looks deeply uncomfortable for a moment before going eerily still again. Even knowing it probably just means there's a horde of bugs in a basement somewhere doing all the awkward freaking out on her behalf, it's still a little creepy to see. Not that I have any room to talk, given that I'm staring at her with my eyes closed.
As if hearing my last thought, Taylor frowns. "Why were you doing it with your eyes closed?"
"Looking with my eyes bothers my headache more than looking with the clairvoyance power I took."
"Didn't you say your Thinker powers gave you the headache?"
"Yuuup." I nod. "But if being stupid stopped things from being true then Winslow wouldn't exist at all."
Taylor apparently doesn't disagree with that assessment and we lapse into another period of awkward silence.
Eventually, the cop car I've been keeping half an eye on from a hundred yards or so up turns the corner onto Taylor's street and I lift my arm to point it out.
"There's the-" Taylor and I both start to say, both pointing at the same cop car, and then both stopping at the same time as we realize what we're doing.
"...and then I was going to call back but I kinda…" I hold up the Heberts' phone to show the police officer the big crack running through the connector. "...broke the phone."
"I see." The officer nods. Fortunately, he looks amused rather than angry at me for wasting his time.
Unfortunately, his blonde hair and blue eyes annoy me. Nothing against him personally or anything, I just really could have done without having the awkward realization that anyone who sees my blonde hair and blue eyes is probably going to have the same suspicions about me that I do about him. This fucking town, I swear. City? Whatever.
"And you were home late because..?" He asks, turning to my cousin.
"I wasn't late." Taylor sighs, shooting me an annoyed look. "My cousin is just…"
"Taylor." I give her one right back. "It's dark out!"
"It's winter." Taylor turns back to the cop. "I take the 111 from Broadway all the way to Summer. Getting home a little after 4 is early for me."
"Broadway to-" I frown. "The school bus doesn't drop you off here at the house?"
"No…" Taylor looks at me like I'm the crazy one.
"...Cities are weird."
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
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"Soooooo…" I drag out the word as I get comfy on the couch. "I have a charge to spend."
"Uh huh." Taylor's tone sounds annoyed rather than excited. Enough so that I bother opening my eyes to look and find her staring down at me with her hands on her hips.
"...What?"
Taylors hands leave her hips to gesture in my general direction. "You're taking up the entire couch."
I glance down and yup, with the pillow behind my head my feet almost reach the other end of the couch. "Oh." I lift my legs up to make space for her until she sits down and then put my legs right back down so they're now resting on top of hers.
"...seriously?"
"I don't actually remember taking the correspondence course, obviously, but I'm like 95% sure that all younger siblings are supposed to be annoying brats." I answer as cheerfully as I can manage.
"We're cousins." Taylor grumps, trying to shove my legs off of her.
"Yeah." I agree, trying my best to keep my body rigid and my legs unmoving. "But I live here now. Your dad signed the paperwork, Sis."
Fortunately for me, while it still being January means that Taylor hasn't gotten very far along on her new fitness kick, I think Jane was a gymnast or… something? Also, now that I'm thinking about it, said fitness kick focused on running not upper body strength.
Unfortunately, it only occurs to me after Taylor quickly just… gives up that I'm dealing with a girl who's had learned helplessness beaten into her– possibly literally– for over a year now. And now I feel bad.
"Hey." I reach down and poke her. "So like, I'm pretty sure that what you need is a hug but we, like, just met and I dunno… this seemed like it'd be baby steps or whatever but if you want me to move..?"
Taylor sighs then goes still, but doesn't ask me to move. So… progress? Maybe.
"You said you had a charge to spend?" She asks before I can decide if I should move my legs on my own or not.
"Yeah." I opt to leave them where they are for now. "Or I guess five, really, if I've got a handle on how the diminishing returns works out. I've spent most of my charges so far trying to counter that so I get better growth long term. Well, to be honest I was mostly just trying to keep the headaches at bay but same difference." I shrug. "But yeah, I have one and I should get two more tomorrow and then probably another two- They come in pairs. So another two later on in the week, so that's five, but then that'll be it for a while."
Taylor stares at me for a while. "Uh huh."
"Right, so, I have three ideas." My stomach gurgles. Loudly. "…four ideas! But taking [Mend] to fix the phone and order pizza runs the risk of Uncle Danny having tried to call us and then wanting to know why he couldn't get through if the phone is working… or even just noticing that the phone suddenly looks brand new. So I guess we'll call that plan D?"
I look at Taylor, but even once she figures out I wasn't being rhetorical she just shrugs.
"Okay… so originally I was thinking I'd take this Animal [Husbandry] kind of power. I think it's meant for, like… cows and stuff, but it should work on your bugs too. Which, if it does, then I can take the Shaping and then Aurify powers too so I can make the effect cover the whole basement since only being able to rapidly grow a single spider to adulthood at a time is way less helpful than doing so with a bull would be. But yeah, even without those I think the two of us should still be able to frog march your spiders through a few extra generations worth of directed-evolution before spring?" I accidentally end my stream of consciousness babble in a questioning lilt as I realize that I very specifically avoided ever checking the basement for spiders. Opening my eyes again to look, I find Taylor still staring at me while making yet another weird face that I don't know her nearly well enough to interpret.
"Ummm… wait." I eventually add after a moment when she doesn't actually say anything. "Have you already started collecting spiders for silk production?"
Taylor nods, but the weird face just grows more intense and complicated looking as she does so. "You…" she starts to say before trailing off.
"...Me?" I prompt her when she doesn't seem like she wants to finish her sentence.
"Your charges are limited?"
"Sort of?" I lift a hand, palm down, and rock it back and forth in a so-so gesture. "I'll keep getting them for a good while…" I trail off as Taylor sort of deflates.
"You don't have to waste them trying to make me feel better about having a terrible power."
…Oh for fucks sake, woman.
I realize I said that out loud as Taylor frowns at me. "Hey!"
"Hey yourself!" I decide to just double down. "I know you're, like, clinically depressed and all but that's just silly." Taylor opens her mouth to object or something but I just raise my voice a bit and keep going. "Your power is awesome."
"I control bugs."
"No!" I point in her face. "I mean, yes, you control all the bugs. But the keyword there is all, or maybe control, but not bugs."
"...what?"
"You don't talk to bugs and ask them to do things. You don't set vague orders like go 'go over there.' You control them to the same degree I control my fingers." I wiggle said fingers at her. "And you do it to each and every single one of them in a… what? A couple city-block's radius?" Of course, the first time I am being rhetorical, she tries to respond and I have to deny her the chance by just refusing to shut up. "You are a biblical plague in human form."
"Also," I offer up as Taylor somehow manages to look both thoughtful and mutinous at the same time. "My powers are bad at Brute ratings." At least assuming they share the 'lead = anti-magic' issue of the source material. "So I'm admittedly rather fond of the idea of you keeping a Shelob or three in the basement to sicc on anyone that attacks us here at home."
"Shel- Oh…" Taylor frowns before her eyes widen. "Can you do that?"
"Uh… I mean, it's generally pretty frowned upon but like… Fleur."
"Not that- I meant making-" Taylor pauses, going eerily still again. "...should I be worried about being attacked here?"
"Not specific…ally…" I start to wave her off before making the mistake of actually thinking about her question. "Uh… well… I mean… hmmm."
"That's not very reassuring."
"No. No, it really isn't. Uuuugh!" I whine, fully embracing my newfound tweendom as I let myself go boneless. "I just wanted to imitate a lump and talk about my powers but nnnooooo… now we need to do threat assessments on the local cape scene and shit."
"There. There?" Taylor reaches over and pats my arm twice, doing an impressive Baymaxx impression for a girl who can't have ever seen the movie that doesn't exist yet.
"Yeah yeah, yuck it up, Miss Responsible." I stick my tongue out at her. "Alright. First up by virtue of being the most likely to fuck with us on purpose is Coil, aka Schrodinger's Existential Threat, who will absolutely try to use your dad as leverage against us if he catches wind of half of what we can do…"
"...can be a truly colossal bitch that puts Emma to shame but the real problem is that Coil put a gun to her head and forced her to work for him. So not only do we need to worry about her power sherlocking out our secrets out based on something absurd like how I phrase something unrelated, but we need to worry about her doing it in a timeline not even she remembers because it never actually happened."
"...How do you even fight that?" Taylor asks as my run down of Coil's whole shtick winds down.
"Mostly by trying to commit to staying off their radars until we're ready to deal with him. Which I guess means my idea to grab [Cleanse] and [Treat Injury] and start purging the local cancer wards is right out."
"That's…" Taylor makes another one of her weird faces but somehow makes it distinctively frownier. "What does 'ready to deal with him' even look like if he can just always pick the timeline where he wins?"
"Ah. Well. Generally speaking, there's a few ways to work around his power, mostly boiling down to four categories: luck, timers, indirect attacks, or overwhelming force." I hold up a hand and count off the options on my fingers. "Every time he uses his power, there's a small window where the divergence between his paths is small enough that attacking him in that moment will probably let you deal with both of him."
"Okay." Taylor nods. "So how do we know when he uses his power."
"I don't think we can. Not reliably anyway." I shrug as Taylor frowns even harder at me. "There are some tricks he likes to pull that make it pretty obvious what he's doing if you know what his power is. But, unless we catch him showing off by flipping a coin and getting tails every time, then there's no reliable way I know of to use our powers to tell. That's why I call that one luck. The other options all amount to trying to bypass that limitation via the magic of stalking, poison, or… well, blowing up the entire city all at once."
"We're not doing that."
"Obviously." I roll my eyes. "I keep all my stuff here too now. Plus, neither of us can actually even do that so if you can put away the judgey eyes, then we can debate the far more practical and relevant merits of committing just one eensy weensy murder instead…" I hold up my thumb and index finger as close together as I can get them without touching.
"Well, fine then!" I cross my arms over my chest and pout. "I promise not to resort to murder outside of the usual exigent circumstances.
"No murdering people!" Taylor pokes my leg.
"Fiiiine…" I poke her right back. "But for the record, turning him into a puddle isn't murder if I do it because he put a gun to my head. It's self-defense. Or defense-of-others if it's your head or Uncle Danny's."
Taylor looks like part of her wants to keep arguing, but after a moment spent glaring at me she eventually just nods with a huff. For all that we're apparently not going to actually tell him about… well, anything, Taylor can be remarkably practical when it comes to measures meant to keep her dad safe.
"Good talk." I mostly manage to avoid sulking or pouting. "On a happier note, despite not actually talking about my power ideas, I think we pretty much confirmed that I'm going with my second plan for now."
Taylor gives me a suspicious look that's totally unwarranted. "...Which one was that?"
"The one where the worst that can happen is my accidentally creating a new lake."
My other plan– unrelated to my powers and that I totally thought of in advance rather than coming up with just now as backdated justification– to inure her to my nonsense is clearly working because Taylor continues emoting rather than going still as she drops her face into her hands and groans. "Please tell me that the lake wouldn't be under our house."
"The lake wouldn't be under our house." I dutifully repeat back to her in as close a match to her own voice as I can manage. Imitation is not my strong suit, but judging by the look she gives me I think I pulled it off. "What? I keep my stuff here too. But on a, uh, totally unrelated note: Can you show me where the local library is some time so I can read up on what exactly an 'aquifer' is? All I know about them is that they're apparently a giant pain in the ass in Dwarf Fortress."
"Uh huh." Taylor's tone sounds annoyed rather than excited. Enough so that I bother opening my eyes to look and find her staring down at me with her hands on her hips.
"...What?"
Taylors hands leave her hips to gesture in my general direction. "You're taking up the entire couch."
I glance down and yup, with the pillow behind my head my feet almost reach the other end of the couch. "Oh." I lift my legs up to make space for her until she sits down and then put my legs right back down so they're now resting on top of hers.
"...seriously?"
"I don't actually remember taking the correspondence course, obviously, but I'm like 95% sure that all younger siblings are supposed to be annoying brats." I answer as cheerfully as I can manage.
"We're cousins." Taylor grumps, trying to shove my legs off of her.
"Yeah." I agree, trying my best to keep my body rigid and my legs unmoving. "But I live here now. Your dad signed the paperwork, Sis."
Fortunately for me, while it still being January means that Taylor hasn't gotten very far along on her new fitness kick, I think Jane was a gymnast or… something? Also, now that I'm thinking about it, said fitness kick focused on running not upper body strength.
Unfortunately, it only occurs to me after Taylor quickly just… gives up that I'm dealing with a girl who's had learned helplessness beaten into her– possibly literally– for over a year now. And now I feel bad.
"Hey." I reach down and poke her. "So like, I'm pretty sure that what you need is a hug but we, like, just met and I dunno… this seemed like it'd be baby steps or whatever but if you want me to move..?"
Taylor sighs then goes still, but doesn't ask me to move. So… progress? Maybe.
"You said you had a charge to spend?" She asks before I can decide if I should move my legs on my own or not.
"Yeah." I opt to leave them where they are for now. "Or I guess five, really, if I've got a handle on how the diminishing returns works out. I've spent most of my charges so far trying to counter that so I get better growth long term. Well, to be honest I was mostly just trying to keep the headaches at bay but same difference." I shrug. "But yeah, I have one and I should get two more tomorrow and then probably another two- They come in pairs. So another two later on in the week, so that's five, but then that'll be it for a while."
Taylor stares at me for a while. "Uh huh."
"Right, so, I have three ideas." My stomach gurgles. Loudly. "…four ideas! But taking [Mend] to fix the phone and order pizza runs the risk of Uncle Danny having tried to call us and then wanting to know why he couldn't get through if the phone is working… or even just noticing that the phone suddenly looks brand new. So I guess we'll call that plan D?"
I look at Taylor, but even once she figures out I wasn't being rhetorical she just shrugs.
"Okay… so originally I was thinking I'd take this Animal [Husbandry] kind of power. I think it's meant for, like… cows and stuff, but it should work on your bugs too. Which, if it does, then I can take the Shaping and then Aurify powers too so I can make the effect cover the whole basement since only being able to rapidly grow a single spider to adulthood at a time is way less helpful than doing so with a bull would be. But yeah, even without those I think the two of us should still be able to frog march your spiders through a few extra generations worth of directed-evolution before spring?" I accidentally end my stream of consciousness babble in a questioning lilt as I realize that I very specifically avoided ever checking the basement for spiders. Opening my eyes again to look, I find Taylor still staring at me while making yet another weird face that I don't know her nearly well enough to interpret.
"Ummm… wait." I eventually add after a moment when she doesn't actually say anything. "Have you already started collecting spiders for silk production?"
Taylor nods, but the weird face just grows more intense and complicated looking as she does so. "You…" she starts to say before trailing off.
"...Me?" I prompt her when she doesn't seem like she wants to finish her sentence.
"Your charges are limited?"
"Sort of?" I lift a hand, palm down, and rock it back and forth in a so-so gesture. "I'll keep getting them for a good while…" I trail off as Taylor sort of deflates.
"You don't have to waste them trying to make me feel better about having a terrible power."
…Oh for fucks sake, woman.
I realize I said that out loud as Taylor frowns at me. "Hey!"
"Hey yourself!" I decide to just double down. "I know you're, like, clinically depressed and all but that's just silly." Taylor opens her mouth to object or something but I just raise my voice a bit and keep going. "Your power is awesome."
"I control bugs."
"No!" I point in her face. "I mean, yes, you control all the bugs. But the keyword there is all, or maybe control, but not bugs."
"...what?"
"You don't talk to bugs and ask them to do things. You don't set vague orders like go 'go over there.' You control them to the same degree I control my fingers." I wiggle said fingers at her. "And you do it to each and every single one of them in a… what? A couple city-block's radius?" Of course, the first time I am being rhetorical, she tries to respond and I have to deny her the chance by just refusing to shut up. "You are a biblical plague in human form."
"Also," I offer up as Taylor somehow manages to look both thoughtful and mutinous at the same time. "My powers are bad at Brute ratings." At least assuming they share the 'lead = anti-magic' issue of the source material. "So I'm admittedly rather fond of the idea of you keeping a Shelob or three in the basement to sicc on anyone that attacks us here at home."
"Shel- Oh…" Taylor frowns before her eyes widen. "Can you do that?"
"Uh… I mean, it's generally pretty frowned upon but like… Fleur."
"Not that- I meant making-" Taylor pauses, going eerily still again. "...should I be worried about being attacked here?"
"Not specific…ally…" I start to wave her off before making the mistake of actually thinking about her question. "Uh… well… I mean… hmmm."
"That's not very reassuring."
"No. No, it really isn't. Uuuugh!" I whine, fully embracing my newfound tweendom as I let myself go boneless. "I just wanted to imitate a lump and talk about my powers but nnnooooo… now we need to do threat assessments on the local cape scene and shit."
"There. There?" Taylor reaches over and pats my arm twice, doing an impressive Baymaxx impression for a girl who can't have ever seen the movie that doesn't exist yet.
"Yeah yeah, yuck it up, Miss Responsible." I stick my tongue out at her. "Alright. First up by virtue of being the most likely to fuck with us on purpose is Coil, aka Schrodinger's Existential Threat, who will absolutely try to use your dad as leverage against us if he catches wind of half of what we can do…"
"...can be a truly colossal bitch that puts Emma to shame but the real problem is that Coil put a gun to her head and forced her to work for him. So not only do we need to worry about her power sherlocking out our secrets out based on something absurd like how I phrase something unrelated, but we need to worry about her doing it in a timeline not even she remembers because it never actually happened."
"...How do you even fight that?" Taylor asks as my run down of Coil's whole shtick winds down.
"Mostly by trying to commit to staying off their radars until we're ready to deal with him. Which I guess means my idea to grab [Cleanse] and [Treat Injury] and start purging the local cancer wards is right out."
"That's…" Taylor makes another one of her weird faces but somehow makes it distinctively frownier. "What does 'ready to deal with him' even look like if he can just always pick the timeline where he wins?"
"Ah. Well. Generally speaking, there's a few ways to work around his power, mostly boiling down to four categories: luck, timers, indirect attacks, or overwhelming force." I hold up a hand and count off the options on my fingers. "Every time he uses his power, there's a small window where the divergence between his paths is small enough that attacking him in that moment will probably let you deal with both of him."
"Okay." Taylor nods. "So how do we know when he uses his power."
"I don't think we can. Not reliably anyway." I shrug as Taylor frowns even harder at me. "There are some tricks he likes to pull that make it pretty obvious what he's doing if you know what his power is. But, unless we catch him showing off by flipping a coin and getting tails every time, then there's no reliable way I know of to use our powers to tell. That's why I call that one luck. The other options all amount to trying to bypass that limitation via the magic of stalking, poison, or… well, blowing up the entire city all at once."
"We're not doing that."
"Obviously." I roll my eyes. "I keep all my stuff here too now. Plus, neither of us can actually even do that so if you can put away the judgey eyes, then we can debate the far more practical and relevant merits of committing just one eensy weensy murder instead…" I hold up my thumb and index finger as close together as I can get them without touching.
"Well, fine then!" I cross my arms over my chest and pout. "I promise not to resort to murder outside of the usual exigent circumstances.
"No murdering people!" Taylor pokes my leg.
"Fiiiine…" I poke her right back. "But for the record, turning him into a puddle isn't murder if I do it because he put a gun to my head. It's self-defense. Or defense-of-others if it's your head or Uncle Danny's."
Taylor looks like part of her wants to keep arguing, but after a moment spent glaring at me she eventually just nods with a huff. For all that we're apparently not going to actually tell him about… well, anything, Taylor can be remarkably practical when it comes to measures meant to keep her dad safe.
"Good talk." I mostly manage to avoid sulking or pouting. "On a happier note, despite not actually talking about my power ideas, I think we pretty much confirmed that I'm going with my second plan for now."
Taylor gives me a suspicious look that's totally unwarranted. "...Which one was that?"
"The one where the worst that can happen is my accidentally creating a new lake."
My other plan– unrelated to my powers and that I totally thought of in advance rather than coming up with just now as backdated justification– to inure her to my nonsense is clearly working because Taylor continues emoting rather than going still as she drops her face into her hands and groans. "Please tell me that the lake wouldn't be under our house."
"The lake wouldn't be under our house." I dutifully repeat back to her in as close a match to her own voice as I can manage. Imitation is not my strong suit, but judging by the look she gives me I think I pulled it off. "What? I keep my stuff here too. But on a, uh, totally unrelated note: Can you show me where the local library is some time so I can read up on what exactly an 'aquifer' is? All I know about them is that they're apparently a giant pain in the ass in Dwarf Fortress."
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
Hearing a door opening, I quickly grab my rock off the table and glance over at… an empty patch of living room?
Oh, right.
Lamenting for the umpteenth time that I lack Taylor's capacity for multi-tasking, I switch my focus to the 'eye' of the [Scry] spell I left at the top of the stairs. Facing it in the same relative direction, I see Taylor sleepily making her way out of her room.
I suppose it's a good thing that I already know trying to engineer your own trigger event disqualifies you from having one or else I'd be really tempted to try and steal QA's next bud from that kid with the birds.
Shaking my head at the thought, I wave in Taylor's general direction and she waves back as she heads into the bathroom.
Putting my rock back on the table, I recast [Stoneshape] and-
Woo!
Oh for fucks sake! That stupid 'slowly' keyword is back.
Fortunately, quickly testing things out by making the rock roll itself around on the table confirms that while I now allegedly could control a bigger rock, the 'minor' amount of stone I actually have still moves at the slightly higher speed I got from level 2.
Granted, being able to move more 'stone' around isn't super helpful right now given I only have the one rock, but it does seem to mean that splitting the rock in half and trying to move both of them works a little better. I still lose control of one of them when they get more than a few feet apart but that's better than it happening almost immediately.
I hear the sound of a door opening again. Actually remembering to check my [Scry] spell this time, I catch Taylor leaving the bathroom with a grumpy look on her face and then heading down the stairs two at a time. That she does this while stepping around the various items on the staircase without looking could be written off as being familiar with the hazards in her own home, but I suspect may be an early warning sign for what I vaguely remember Tattletale mentioning as one of her tells. Sure, I only noticed because I was kinda looking for it, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't mention it.
"You need to look where you're going." I tell her as she reaches the bottom of the stairs.
"I thought we agreed you weren't going to mess with the house." She says at the same time, staring pointedly at the rock lazily roaming the table on its own. "Why is there a piece of the basement walls on the table?"
Her question having taken longer and thus being the most recently asked, I shrug and opt to answer rather than trying to start a staring contest with Skitter.
"Technically we agreed that I wouldn't make a lake under the house. Which I didn't!" I roll the two rocks to my hand, scooping them up and waving them at her. "This came from above the ground line–" If only because I sure as shit wasn't going to go any further into Skitter's basement than absolutely necessary– "and I can put it back when I'm done." Making sure to hold them out at an angle Taylor can see them, I have the two rocks smoosh themselves back into a single lump of stone. "I just didn't want to go outside in the cold and dark to find one."
Hazard of using magically exhausting yourself until you pass out as a way to avoid dealing with the issues inherent in trying to sleep in a new place. Going to bed that early means waking up early too. Or maybe that's just being a tween again? I vaguely remember being one of those obnoxiously chipper morning people the last time I was this age too. At least prior to puberty telling my body to knock it the fuck off sometime during middle school.
Wait…
I'm 12, not 8. Shouldn't I already be in middle school?
Also, don't girls start puberty earlier than boys?
...Ewwww.
"What?" Taylor asks, and I realize I said that last part out loud.
"Nothing important." I sigh. "Just a series of unpleasant personal revelations. The worst being that I might actually be a…" I pause to ham up my horrified shuddering. "A morning person." If true, there's no amount of [Cleanse] that can solve that.
"...Ewww?" Taylor says the right words, but I can tell from her tone that she doesn't actually understand my plight.
"Yeah yeah, I know." I wave off her obvious lack of concern. "I'm just being overly dramatic. Go back to peeing or whatever it was you were doing. I'll start boiling some water for tea."
"Riiight." Taylor nods, turning around and heading back up the stairs. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. And you still need to look where you're going!" I call after her, trying to balance being heard against not waking Uncle Danny up at the ass crack of dawn.
Taylor pauses on the stairs with a confused look on her face as she grabs the banister and leans back far enough for us to see each other with our actual eyes through the railings at the bottom half of the stairs. "No I don't?" She says, much more quietly. "You know I don't."
"Human beings need to look where they're going, Taylor." I roll my eyes at her. "Not doing it can make you look all… confident and stuff, but it also makes you stand out."
"...Tattletale?"
"Tattletale."
"Woo!" I cheer as the [Scry] spell I put above our latest resting spot pushes me over the edge.
"Got your…" Taylor pauses to gulp down air, bending forward to rest her hands on her knees. "You got your next set of charges?"
"Yuuup!" I do a little victory dance, only stopping when I notice Taylor is glaring at me. "What?"
"I think I hate you."
"Oh come on!"
"Just a little." Taylor amends, like that makes it better.
"Hey. I told you, your power is awesome too!"
"Not that." Taylor slowly stands up and starts doing the stretches we looked up online. "Okay, not just that. I just…" She waves an arm at me as I belatedly start doing the stretches too. "How do you still have so much energy?"
"Ohhh…" I nod, that makes more sense. "From what I can tell when I was checking myself out in the shower looking for any weird scars and stuff, I think past-me played some kind of sportsball or something. Cause this," I gesture up and down at my body, "looked athletic as fuck."
"Riiight." My cousin nods, but still looks annoyed.
"Hey." I stop stretching to kick her lightly in the shin. "All I mean is that past-me already did the exhausting part of getting into shape for me. Just needing to maintain it is easier."
"Yeah." Taylor says with feeling. "That's why I hate you a little bit right now."
"...Oh." I shrug. "Well. Ummm… that's… reasonable, I guess? But for the record, I reserve the right to throw all this back in your face later."
"What?"
"Don't you 'what' me, bitch. Have you seen your legs? They're longer than my whole body."
"No they aren't."
"I AM ALLOWED TO EXAGGERATE WHEN CHEERING YOU THE FUCK UP!"
Taylor takes my shouting in stride, just staring at me with an unimpressed look.
"No, seriously, I give it a month or two tops before you and your stupid tallness genes switch around who's struggling to keep up with who."
Taylor just hums noncommittally, but she does stop glaring at me quite as hard.
That settled, I call up my status menus and grab the next items on my shopping list.
Rereading the description on Telepathy, I eye my cousin and her obviously still somewhat grumpled mood and then decide to give her until we're both done with our stretches to finish internalizing the exercise-related implications of my barely coming up to her shoulder.
Only when her breathing has steadied and she looks like she's ready to start jogging again do I poke her. "Hey, Taylor?"
"...What?" She asks, still sounding a little annoyed.
"Are you actually mad at me?"
Taylor sags a little. "...No."
"Okay good, cause the power I want to try now comes with a warning that it might hurt if it turns out you really don't want to talk to me."
"...What?" My cousin's voice goes flat as she turns around to stare at me, her body doing that eerie stillness thing again.
"Nothing bad bad just… more Thinker headache stuff."
"Uh huh." Taylor hums doubtfully, but she stops resembling the emotive equivalent of a statue. "What are you planning to do?"
"Right, so, you know how Parahuman Studies say that actual Telepathy is basically impossible?"
"What? They do?"
"Yeah, I don't know." I shrug. "Apparently they think you'd need a brain the size of a house or something?"
"Then how do they think I control my…." Taylor trails off as she sees my widening grin. "No."
"Yes!"
"No." My cousin repeats herself.
I cast [Telepathy] and repeat myself right back without moving my mouth. =Yes!=
My huge grin slowly slides off my face as my cousin takes a deep breath and goes still again instead of responding.
=Hello?= I try again. =Can you hear me?=
My cousin nods slowly.
"Awesome!" I shout, pumping my fists in the air before remembering to use the spell. =Ahem! I mean… Awesome! Are you able to respond?=
"...You can't just hear what I'm thinking?"
"No?" I shake my head.
"You're sure?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"I… see."
My cousin stares at me for a moment.
"Ugh… whatever you're trying to do, I don't think it's working. You have to, like, really focus on wanting to send a thought out across the connection. Unless you need to have [Telepathy] too to be able to answer? That'd be kind of lame." I tap my chin in thought but all I really remember about the Telepathy in the story is that Poi mostly handled it and that the 'call quality' broke down after a couple thousand kilometers unless Erick used Orphiels as repeaters.
My cousin keeps staring at me but none of whatever she's trying to send gets through.
"Damn." I huff after another minute passes. "That sucks. I thought it was two-way and I could, like, keep you company at school or something." I sigh. "Well, at least I can tell you to call the cops if I get kidnapped or something."
Taylor scuffs her boot through the snow, emotion slowly bleeding back into her face. "You really can't hear what I'm thinking?"
"Nope." I sigh. "Not unless you've been like… Head empty. No thoughts here." I cross my eyes, tilt my head slightly, and let my tongue loll out of my mouth a little before shrugging. "This entire time."
=No. Mostly I was just panicking about you being able to read my thoughts.=
"Oh, I guess that's- wait." I blink, realizing Taylor's lips didn't move at all. =You figured it out!?=
I resume my earlier victory dance.
=Jane…= Taylor smacks her forehead.
=What?= I try to push along the sense of enjoyment I get from not needing to stop dancing to talk now. I have no idea if the spell works that way but I think Erick could do pictures eventually? Or maybe that was because Poi was a Mind Mage?
=...Nevermind.=
Oh, right.
Lamenting for the umpteenth time that I lack Taylor's capacity for multi-tasking, I switch my focus to the 'eye' of the [Scry] spell I left at the top of the stairs. Facing it in the same relative direction, I see Taylor sleepily making her way out of her room.
I suppose it's a good thing that I already know trying to engineer your own trigger event disqualifies you from having one or else I'd be really tempted to try and steal QA's next bud from that kid with the birds.
Shaking my head at the thought, I wave in Taylor's general direction and she waves back as she heads into the bathroom.
Putting my rock back on the table, I recast [Stoneshape] and-
| Stoneshape level up! |
Woo!
| Stoneshape 3, 1 minute per level, medium range, 20 MP Slowly move small amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape. Exp: 0/300 |
Oh for fucks sake! That stupid 'slowly' keyword is back.
Fortunately, quickly testing things out by making the rock roll itself around on the table confirms that while I now allegedly could control a bigger rock, the 'minor' amount of stone I actually have still moves at the slightly higher speed I got from level 2.
Granted, being able to move more 'stone' around isn't super helpful right now given I only have the one rock, but it does seem to mean that splitting the rock in half and trying to move both of them works a little better. I still lose control of one of them when they get more than a few feet apart but that's better than it happening almost immediately.
I hear the sound of a door opening again. Actually remembering to check my [Scry] spell this time, I catch Taylor leaving the bathroom with a grumpy look on her face and then heading down the stairs two at a time. That she does this while stepping around the various items on the staircase without looking could be written off as being familiar with the hazards in her own home, but I suspect may be an early warning sign for what I vaguely remember Tattletale mentioning as one of her tells. Sure, I only noticed because I was kinda looking for it, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't mention it.
"You need to look where you're going." I tell her as she reaches the bottom of the stairs.
"I thought we agreed you weren't going to mess with the house." She says at the same time, staring pointedly at the rock lazily roaming the table on its own. "Why is there a piece of the basement walls on the table?"
Her question having taken longer and thus being the most recently asked, I shrug and opt to answer rather than trying to start a staring contest with Skitter.
"Technically we agreed that I wouldn't make a lake under the house. Which I didn't!" I roll the two rocks to my hand, scooping them up and waving them at her. "This came from above the ground line–" If only because I sure as shit wasn't going to go any further into Skitter's basement than absolutely necessary– "and I can put it back when I'm done." Making sure to hold them out at an angle Taylor can see them, I have the two rocks smoosh themselves back into a single lump of stone. "I just didn't want to go outside in the cold and dark to find one."
Hazard of using magically exhausting yourself until you pass out as a way to avoid dealing with the issues inherent in trying to sleep in a new place. Going to bed that early means waking up early too. Or maybe that's just being a tween again? I vaguely remember being one of those obnoxiously chipper morning people the last time I was this age too. At least prior to puberty telling my body to knock it the fuck off sometime during middle school.
Wait…
I'm 12, not 8. Shouldn't I already be in middle school?
Also, don't girls start puberty earlier than boys?
...Ewwww.
"What?" Taylor asks, and I realize I said that last part out loud.
"Nothing important." I sigh. "Just a series of unpleasant personal revelations. The worst being that I might actually be a…" I pause to ham up my horrified shuddering. "A morning person." If true, there's no amount of [Cleanse] that can solve that.
"...Ewww?" Taylor says the right words, but I can tell from her tone that she doesn't actually understand my plight.
"Yeah yeah, I know." I wave off her obvious lack of concern. "I'm just being overly dramatic. Go back to peeing or whatever it was you were doing. I'll start boiling some water for tea."
"Riiight." Taylor nods, turning around and heading back up the stairs. "Thanks."
"You're welcome. And you still need to look where you're going!" I call after her, trying to balance being heard against not waking Uncle Danny up at the ass crack of dawn.
Taylor pauses on the stairs with a confused look on her face as she grabs the banister and leans back far enough for us to see each other with our actual eyes through the railings at the bottom half of the stairs. "No I don't?" She says, much more quietly. "You know I don't."
"Human beings need to look where they're going, Taylor." I roll my eyes at her. "Not doing it can make you look all… confident and stuff, but it also makes you stand out."
"...Tattletale?"
"Tattletale."
Level up! +2 Ability Points |
"Woo!" I cheer as the [Scry] spell I put above our latest resting spot pushes me over the edge.
"Got your…" Taylor pauses to gulp down air, bending forward to rest her hands on her knees. "You got your next set of charges?"
"Yuuup!" I do a little victory dance, only stopping when I notice Taylor is glaring at me. "What?"
"I think I hate you."
"Oh come on!"
"Just a little." Taylor amends, like that makes it better.
"Hey. I told you, your power is awesome too!"
"Not that." Taylor slowly stands up and starts doing the stretches we looked up online. "Okay, not just that. I just…" She waves an arm at me as I belatedly start doing the stretches too. "How do you still have so much energy?"
"Ohhh…" I nod, that makes more sense. "From what I can tell when I was checking myself out in the shower looking for any weird scars and stuff, I think past-me played some kind of sportsball or something. Cause this," I gesture up and down at my body, "looked athletic as fuck."
"Riiight." My cousin nods, but still looks annoyed.
"Hey." I stop stretching to kick her lightly in the shin. "All I mean is that past-me already did the exhausting part of getting into shape for me. Just needing to maintain it is easier."
"Yeah." Taylor says with feeling. "That's why I hate you a little bit right now."
"...Oh." I shrug. "Well. Ummm… that's… reasonable, I guess? But for the record, I reserve the right to throw all this back in your face later."
"What?"
"Don't you 'what' me, bitch. Have you seen your legs? They're longer than my whole body."
"No they aren't."
"I AM ALLOWED TO EXAGGERATE WHEN CHEERING YOU THE FUCK UP!"
Taylor takes my shouting in stride, just staring at me with an unimpressed look.
"No, seriously, I give it a month or two tops before you and your stupid tallness genes switch around who's struggling to keep up with who."
Taylor just hums noncommittally, but she does stop glaring at me quite as hard.
That settled, I call up my status menus and grab the next items on my shopping list.
| Mana Shaping 1 Alter AOE in subtle ways, 10 MP + spellcost Requirements: 10 Willpower Exp: 0/100 |
| Telepathy 1, self, super long range, 1 MP per minute + Variable Communicate with the minds of people you know. 1 connection available per level. Unwanted connections are harmful to caster. Exp: 0/100 |
Rereading the description on Telepathy, I eye my cousin and her obviously still somewhat grumpled mood and then decide to give her until we're both done with our stretches to finish internalizing the exercise-related implications of my barely coming up to her shoulder.
Only when her breathing has steadied and she looks like she's ready to start jogging again do I poke her. "Hey, Taylor?"
"...What?" She asks, still sounding a little annoyed.
"Are you actually mad at me?"
Taylor sags a little. "...No."
"Okay good, cause the power I want to try now comes with a warning that it might hurt if it turns out you really don't want to talk to me."
"...What?" My cousin's voice goes flat as she turns around to stare at me, her body doing that eerie stillness thing again.
"Nothing bad bad just… more Thinker headache stuff."
"Uh huh." Taylor hums doubtfully, but she stops resembling the emotive equivalent of a statue. "What are you planning to do?"
"Right, so, you know how Parahuman Studies say that actual Telepathy is basically impossible?"
"What? They do?"
"Yeah, I don't know." I shrug. "Apparently they think you'd need a brain the size of a house or something?"
"Then how do they think I control my…." Taylor trails off as she sees my widening grin. "No."
"Yes!"
"No." My cousin repeats herself.
I cast [Telepathy] and repeat myself right back without moving my mouth. =Yes!=
My huge grin slowly slides off my face as my cousin takes a deep breath and goes still again instead of responding.
=Hello?= I try again. =Can you hear me?=
My cousin nods slowly.
"Awesome!" I shout, pumping my fists in the air before remembering to use the spell. =Ahem! I mean… Awesome! Are you able to respond?=
"...You can't just hear what I'm thinking?"
"No?" I shake my head.
"You're sure?"
"Pretty sure, yeah."
"I… see."
My cousin stares at me for a moment.
"Ugh… whatever you're trying to do, I don't think it's working. You have to, like, really focus on wanting to send a thought out across the connection. Unless you need to have [Telepathy] too to be able to answer? That'd be kind of lame." I tap my chin in thought but all I really remember about the Telepathy in the story is that Poi mostly handled it and that the 'call quality' broke down after a couple thousand kilometers unless Erick used Orphiels as repeaters.
My cousin keeps staring at me but none of whatever she's trying to send gets through.
"Damn." I huff after another minute passes. "That sucks. I thought it was two-way and I could, like, keep you company at school or something." I sigh. "Well, at least I can tell you to call the cops if I get kidnapped or something."
Taylor scuffs her boot through the snow, emotion slowly bleeding back into her face. "You really can't hear what I'm thinking?"
"Nope." I sigh. "Not unless you've been like… Head empty. No thoughts here." I cross my eyes, tilt my head slightly, and let my tongue loll out of my mouth a little before shrugging. "This entire time."
=No. Mostly I was just panicking about you being able to read my thoughts.=
"Oh, I guess that's- wait." I blink, realizing Taylor's lips didn't move at all. =You figured it out!?=
I resume my earlier victory dance.
=Jane…= Taylor smacks her forehead.
=What?= I try to push along the sense of enjoyment I get from not needing to stop dancing to talk now. I have no idea if the spell works that way but I think Erick could do pictures eventually? Or maybe that was because Poi was a Mind Mage?
=...Nevermind.=
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
I stare deep into the abyss.
The abyss stares back.
And by abyss I mean my new classmates who are, with only a few exceptions, all understandably staring at the new girl who arrived halfway into homeroom and then was asked to keep standing there awkwardly at the front of the classroom while the teacher embraced their OCD by making three quarters of the class shift down a seat to keep everyone in alphabetical order.
On the plus side, I reflect as I finally head towards my new seat, they didn't ask me to do any weird icebreakers or even introduce myself beyond a simple, "yo, I'm Jane."
On the downside… This puts my assigned seat in the front row. It also puts me between two girls that make me strongly suspect the universe is either taunting me for originally thinking I was in a Tinker of Fiction scenario or my social Qworker is doing some sort of weird 'all the tropes but not the power' thing.
I mean, sure, the athletic blonde girl giving off some serious Hermione Granger vibes to my left could totally just be some random extra. Even if being to my left means her last name must come very early in the alphabet.
But the girl that got shunted from the back row up to the front of the next column over… Well, how many black girls my age have both noticeable cleavage and a purple streak in their hair?
"Something on my face?" Said black girl, who I now realize I've been staring at in consternation for long enough that it's moving from awkward to rude, asks challengingly.
Clearly the only way out is through. "Yes," I nod, leaning in a little bit toward her as I do so and pointing at her face.
"Shit," she sighs, turning to the girl I'm going to assume is Missy until told otherwise. "Do I really?"
Probably-Missy frowns, looking her over. "No?"
"Her hair is purple!" I protest, before Probably-Aisha can do more than look annoyed with me. "Wait, does hair count as part of your face?"
"Please take your seat, Jane." The teacher calls out from her desk before anyone can answer me.
"Right, sorry!" I put my books on the desk and step around it to sit down.
The bell rings right as my butt hits the chair.
"Why even have me sit down?"
"So… are you two going to be my new, like, shoulder angel and shoulder devil all day?" I ask as my first period teacher takes my joining the class as an excuse to shuffle up who's sitting in which cluster of four desks and I end up sitting with the same two girls from homeroom. They're even in the same-ish relative positions with Probably-Aisha to my right and Probably-Missy across from me.
"What?" The other girl I don't know responds before either of them can, taking her new seat at the desk diagonally across from me.
"Nothing. The teacher just rearranged everyone's seats to put these two next to me in Homeroom too." I hold out my hand. "I'm Jane, the new girl, obviously."
"Hi Jane-The-New-Girl, I'm Ruth."
I grin at Ruth. Challenge accepted! I can totally out dad-joke an actual middle schooler. Probably. But first, I glance at the other two girls. "I never actually got either of your-"
"Miss Flatt." I startle, the teacher apparently being right next to me. "If you and Miss Herren could pipe down we have a test today. If you aren't familiar with the material, don't worry, we'll just use it as a guide for where you'll need to review to catch up with the rest of the class."
"Okay." I take the exam and wait for the teacher to move on before rolling my eyes. Don't know the material? It's fucking middle school algebra.
Sitting back down in my seat after handing in my exam, I glance at the clock. Class isn't even halfway over yet.
Looking around the room, I spot a few of the other kids flipping their papers over to start in on the second half of the test. Ruth is one of them, but Probably-Missy and Probably-Aisha are still working on the bottom of the first page so even if she finishes before class ends it would probably be rude to try talking to her.
Folding arms on my desk and resting my head on them, I put a [Scry] up above my seat to keep watch while I [Telepathy] my cousin.
=Taylor…= I whine into her brain. =I'm bored.=
=Not now, Jane. I'm taking a test.=
=Oooh!= I perk up. =Me too! Or I was, but it was really easy so-=
=Jane! I need to concentrate!=
=Right. Sorry.=
Activating [Meditation] I try to at least recover some mana.
I resist the urge to drum my fingers on my desk.
I resist the urge to start humming, barely.
I resist the urge to start kicking my feet, but only because I still cannot move while using [Meditation] at level 4.
I resist… fuck it. I break [Meditation] and cast [Scry] over where I eventually found Winslow the other day.
I cast [Scry] on… uh… [Telepathy]!
=What room are you in?=
=Jane!=
=What room are you in?=
=213! Now shush.=
I cast [Scry] just inside the big window at the end of the second floor and then from there I cast [Scry] about halfway down the long hallway outside of what turns out to be room 222. Backing up a viewpoint, I belatedly try to make out the room number at the end of the hall I started at… I can't actually see the whole placard but the second digit being a 4 instead of a 0 is good enough so I count out the rooms and recast [Scry] outside of… 215?
Damnit, one of those doors must have been a closet or bathroom or something.
But even if the angle is awful, I can at least see through the open doorway enough to cast my next [Scry] inside the doorway of 213 and… there's Taylor. One last [Scry] and I'm staring down at… fucking seriously?
The page is upside down, but is pretty clearly another fucking algebra test. I guess I can at least double check my cousin's work?
=...You forgot to carry the 2 on number 7.=
=Jane!= Taylor's face goes through a few odd expressions. =…That's cheating.=
=Taylor, if Winslow gave even a passing fart about academic integrity then they'd have made at least a token effort to stop the bullying from impacting your schoolwork.=
Taylor frowns at her exam for a moment but she does go back and fix her mistake so I take that as my winning the argument on being allowed to help and go back to looking over her test.
…Waitaminute.
Flipping back to the [Scry] point a few feet above my own head, I take advantage of the better viewing angle to look over at my neighbor's tests.
Aha!
Suck it, Local-Multiversal-Cluster!
You can conspire to keep me from asking them for their names all you want, but that is clearly 'Missy Byron' written neatly at the top of her paper and…
Ummm…
Okay.
I'm like 90% sure that gawd-awful doctor-like squiggle-thing at the top of Probably-Aisha's test is at least trying to say Aisha Laborn. I don't think I'd have been able to figure that out if I wasn't already pretty sure who she was but still…
Okay, maybe make that 80% sure?
I mean sweet RNGeezus, this girl's handwriting is worse than mine.
=…and if you're really that worried about them saying you cheated just tell the teacher you asked your cousin to start tutoring you.=
I cast one last [Scry], emptying out all but the last few dregs of my mana pool and adding another chunk of Winslow's hallways to the list of 'places I've been or seen.'
Woo! Yay spell cost reductions.
=Right… my twelve year old cousin is tutoring me in Algebra.=
=…I mean, I am?= I try to send a telepathic shrug over the connection. I assume it's at least somewhat successful since I get a distinct impression of Taylor rolling her eyes back at me without her actual eyes moving. =But yeah, would it probably sound more reasonable if you just, you know, never mention my age.=
=Yeah…= Taylor frowns. =Why are you so good at this anyway?=
=Think about that one for a second,= I hedge, trying to avoid outright lying to my cousin any more than necessary. I'd probably just tell her about the whole isekai thing if I didn't know QA, and by possible extension the rest of the shard network including Ziz and Zion, would be listening in. Sure, there's nothing saying they can't just pull the thoughts right out of my head just as easily. But there's at least a chance that my social Qworker made some manner of Blank or Invictus or whatever arrangements and slim odds are better than none.
=…Right. Sorry.=
Oh, gods damn it. Now I feel bad,
=Don't worry about it.= I send along another mental shrug. =Wherever I lived before, I think it's safe to assume they had a school system with higher standards than fucking Winslow."
=Well that narrows things down.=
=Ha! Yeah, I know. It doesn't even rule out the rest of Brockton Bay.=
A bell rings and it takes me a moment to realize it's back in my classroom rather than Taylor's.
Lurching to my feet, I wave my schedule at my classmates before they can all bolt out the door like they did after homeroom.
Or at least that was the plan.
Said plan is immediately put on hold as I sway on my feet, feeling a tad woozy.
"Are you okay?" Missy asks.
Task failed successfully, my classmates have all paused their escape attempts to look at me.
"I'm fine." I reassure them, grabbing the back of my chair to steady myself before adding: "Just stood up way too fast." It might even be true, even if the real issue is that I underestimated how lightheaded being nearly out of mana would make me. "Are any of you heading to… Parahuman Studies with Miss Greene next?"
"I am." Ruth confirms, and Missy nods along.
I turn to Aisha next but she shakes her head. "Naw, I got fucking Health class next."
"Ewww." I grimace reflexively before realizing I'm remembering high school health class. Though from the way Aisha says it and the look on Ruth's face I'm guessing it isn't any better here. "Wait." I glance down at my schedule and sure enough, I have Health class last period. "Is health class here the 'diet and exercise is important' kind or the 'if you have sex you will get pregnant and then die!' kind?"
"The fuck?" Aisha laughs. "Die?"
"I don't know." I pull on my backpack. "It's from a movie or something."
…a movie I won't name since it might not exist here.
"You watch some weird ass porn." Aisha grins, shaking her head as we make our way towards the door.
I almost manage to avoid laughing, only to spot the teacher visibly deciding he doesn't want to touch our conversation with a ten foot pole out the corner of my [Scry] spell. "Not that kind of movie."
"Oh!" Missy snaps her fingers. "Mean Girls!"
"Yes!" I point at her. It does exist!
"That doesn't not sound like a porno." Aisha grins, walking backwards off to the left so she can wave goodbye as Missy and Ruth head right.
I pause at the doorway briefly, hand half-raised to object, before realizing she's got a point and just wave back before turning to follow the others.
"Ugh." Ruth scowls at me as I catch up, shooting a weird look over her shoulder. "Did you really need to encourage the damn…"
"No, Ruth, oh my god…" I groan, holding up my hands to stop her latest racist tirade as we step into the classroom for Parahuman Studies. "Okay, ignoring the whole junk science thing for now, I'm just saying that clearly not even Kaiser believes that bullshit he's preaching."
Ruth glares at me doubtfully, but it's Missy trailing along behind us that lobs me the curious sounding softball. "Really?"
"Yes, really!" I look back and give her a nod of acknowledgement for her contribution before going back to staring at Ruth as I willfully pivot our entire argument a half step sideways. "Just look at Fenja and Menja."
"Fenja and Menja are white." Ruth hisses at me.
"Yeah!" I agree, rolling my eyes. "They're also both girls."
"...So?"
"So… He talks a big game but he can't really be that bent out of shape about 'the gays' if he's banging two of them." I steadfastly ignore the fact that plenty of people get off on the idea of 'fucking the dyke out of her' as that seems like it'd kinda be… well, devastating to my case. Also, I suspect, wildly inappropriate for a room rapidly filling with tweens. Not that calling out Kaiser's incest fetish is better on that front per se, but I'm ignoring that because I really want to hammer the iron of Ruth's obvious confusion and discomfort while it's hot, and so I add: "I mean, you do understand what a threesome is, right?"
"That's…" Ruth's mouth opens and closes a few times while her face looks more and more grossed out.
"Enough, Miss Herren." The teacher cuts her off before Ruth finishes changing gears, shooting us a look that makes me suspect Ruth's Empire wannabe sympathies have come up in class before. "You too, Miss…" She trails off, presumably realizing she doesn't actually recognize me.
"I'm Jane Flatt." I introduce myself with a wave. "The new transfer student."
"Ah, yes." The teacher, a Miss Greene according to my schedule, nods in recognition. "Please take a seat." She gestures broadly at the whole room.
"Oh, they're not assigned? Cool, I'll just…" look around and realize I'm the only one not already sitting down and there's only one empty desk left.
Right then. Off I go to sit next to Missy. Again.
Apparently the universe has decided that Vista and I will become friends and it isn't taking no for an answer.
Joke's on the universe though because my cousin is Skitter and she'd rather fist fight Cthulhu than deal with the teen drama involved in joining the Wards.
The abyss stares back.
And by abyss I mean my new classmates who are, with only a few exceptions, all understandably staring at the new girl who arrived halfway into homeroom and then was asked to keep standing there awkwardly at the front of the classroom while the teacher embraced their OCD by making three quarters of the class shift down a seat to keep everyone in alphabetical order.
On the plus side, I reflect as I finally head towards my new seat, they didn't ask me to do any weird icebreakers or even introduce myself beyond a simple, "yo, I'm Jane."
On the downside… This puts my assigned seat in the front row. It also puts me between two girls that make me strongly suspect the universe is either taunting me for originally thinking I was in a Tinker of Fiction scenario or my social Qworker is doing some sort of weird 'all the tropes but not the power' thing.
I mean, sure, the athletic blonde girl giving off some serious Hermione Granger vibes to my left could totally just be some random extra. Even if being to my left means her last name must come very early in the alphabet.
But the girl that got shunted from the back row up to the front of the next column over… Well, how many black girls my age have both noticeable cleavage and a purple streak in their hair?
"Something on my face?" Said black girl, who I now realize I've been staring at in consternation for long enough that it's moving from awkward to rude, asks challengingly.
Clearly the only way out is through. "Yes," I nod, leaning in a little bit toward her as I do so and pointing at her face.
"Shit," she sighs, turning to the girl I'm going to assume is Missy until told otherwise. "Do I really?"
Probably-Missy frowns, looking her over. "No?"
"Her hair is purple!" I protest, before Probably-Aisha can do more than look annoyed with me. "Wait, does hair count as part of your face?"
"Please take your seat, Jane." The teacher calls out from her desk before anyone can answer me.
"Right, sorry!" I put my books on the desk and step around it to sit down.
The bell rings right as my butt hits the chair.
"Why even have me sit down?"
"So… are you two going to be my new, like, shoulder angel and shoulder devil all day?" I ask as my first period teacher takes my joining the class as an excuse to shuffle up who's sitting in which cluster of four desks and I end up sitting with the same two girls from homeroom. They're even in the same-ish relative positions with Probably-Aisha to my right and Probably-Missy across from me.
"What?" The other girl I don't know responds before either of them can, taking her new seat at the desk diagonally across from me.
"Nothing. The teacher just rearranged everyone's seats to put these two next to me in Homeroom too." I hold out my hand. "I'm Jane, the new girl, obviously."
"Hi Jane-The-New-Girl, I'm Ruth."
I grin at Ruth. Challenge accepted! I can totally out dad-joke an actual middle schooler. Probably. But first, I glance at the other two girls. "I never actually got either of your-"
"Miss Flatt." I startle, the teacher apparently being right next to me. "If you and Miss Herren could pipe down we have a test today. If you aren't familiar with the material, don't worry, we'll just use it as a guide for where you'll need to review to catch up with the rest of the class."
"Okay." I take the exam and wait for the teacher to move on before rolling my eyes. Don't know the material? It's fucking middle school algebra.
Sitting back down in my seat after handing in my exam, I glance at the clock. Class isn't even halfway over yet.
Looking around the room, I spot a few of the other kids flipping their papers over to start in on the second half of the test. Ruth is one of them, but Probably-Missy and Probably-Aisha are still working on the bottom of the first page so even if she finishes before class ends it would probably be rude to try talking to her.
Folding arms on my desk and resting my head on them, I put a [Scry] up above my seat to keep watch while I [Telepathy] my cousin.
=Taylor…= I whine into her brain. =I'm bored.=
=Not now, Jane. I'm taking a test.=
=Oooh!= I perk up. =Me too! Or I was, but it was really easy so-=
=Jane! I need to concentrate!=
=Right. Sorry.=
Activating [Meditation] I try to at least recover some mana.
I resist the urge to drum my fingers on my desk.
I resist the urge to start humming, barely.
I resist the urge to start kicking my feet, but only because I still cannot move while using [Meditation] at level 4.
I resist… fuck it. I break [Meditation] and cast [Scry] over where I eventually found Winslow the other day.
I cast [Scry] on… uh… [Telepathy]!
=What room are you in?=
=Jane!=
=What room are you in?=
=213! Now shush.=
I cast [Scry] just inside the big window at the end of the second floor and then from there I cast [Scry] about halfway down the long hallway outside of what turns out to be room 222. Backing up a viewpoint, I belatedly try to make out the room number at the end of the hall I started at… I can't actually see the whole placard but the second digit being a 4 instead of a 0 is good enough so I count out the rooms and recast [Scry] outside of… 215?
Damnit, one of those doors must have been a closet or bathroom or something.
But even if the angle is awful, I can at least see through the open doorway enough to cast my next [Scry] inside the doorway of 213 and… there's Taylor. One last [Scry] and I'm staring down at… fucking seriously?
The page is upside down, but is pretty clearly another fucking algebra test. I guess I can at least double check my cousin's work?
=...You forgot to carry the 2 on number 7.=
=Jane!= Taylor's face goes through a few odd expressions. =…That's cheating.=
=Taylor, if Winslow gave even a passing fart about academic integrity then they'd have made at least a token effort to stop the bullying from impacting your schoolwork.=
Taylor frowns at her exam for a moment but she does go back and fix her mistake so I take that as my winning the argument on being allowed to help and go back to looking over her test.
…Waitaminute.
Flipping back to the [Scry] point a few feet above my own head, I take advantage of the better viewing angle to look over at my neighbor's tests.
Aha!
Suck it, Local-Multiversal-Cluster!
You can conspire to keep me from asking them for their names all you want, but that is clearly 'Missy Byron' written neatly at the top of her paper and…
Ummm…
Okay.
I'm like 90% sure that gawd-awful doctor-like squiggle-thing at the top of Probably-Aisha's test is at least trying to say Aisha Laborn. I don't think I'd have been able to figure that out if I wasn't already pretty sure who she was but still…
Okay, maybe make that 80% sure?
I mean sweet RNGeezus, this girl's handwriting is worse than mine.
=…and if you're really that worried about them saying you cheated just tell the teacher you asked your cousin to start tutoring you.=
I cast one last [Scry], emptying out all but the last few dregs of my mana pool and adding another chunk of Winslow's hallways to the list of 'places I've been or seen.'
| Clarity level up! |
Woo! Yay spell cost reductions.
=Right… my twelve year old cousin is tutoring me in Algebra.=
=…I mean, I am?= I try to send a telepathic shrug over the connection. I assume it's at least somewhat successful since I get a distinct impression of Taylor rolling her eyes back at me without her actual eyes moving. =But yeah, would it probably sound more reasonable if you just, you know, never mention my age.=
=Yeah…= Taylor frowns. =Why are you so good at this anyway?=
=Think about that one for a second,= I hedge, trying to avoid outright lying to my cousin any more than necessary. I'd probably just tell her about the whole isekai thing if I didn't know QA, and by possible extension the rest of the shard network including Ziz and Zion, would be listening in. Sure, there's nothing saying they can't just pull the thoughts right out of my head just as easily. But there's at least a chance that my social Qworker made some manner of Blank or Invictus or whatever arrangements and slim odds are better than none.
=…Right. Sorry.=
Oh, gods damn it. Now I feel bad,
=Don't worry about it.= I send along another mental shrug. =Wherever I lived before, I think it's safe to assume they had a school system with higher standards than fucking Winslow."
=Well that narrows things down.=
=Ha! Yeah, I know. It doesn't even rule out the rest of Brockton Bay.=
A bell rings and it takes me a moment to realize it's back in my classroom rather than Taylor's.
Lurching to my feet, I wave my schedule at my classmates before they can all bolt out the door like they did after homeroom.
Or at least that was the plan.
Said plan is immediately put on hold as I sway on my feet, feeling a tad woozy.
"Are you okay?" Missy asks.
Task failed successfully, my classmates have all paused their escape attempts to look at me.
"I'm fine." I reassure them, grabbing the back of my chair to steady myself before adding: "Just stood up way too fast." It might even be true, even if the real issue is that I underestimated how lightheaded being nearly out of mana would make me. "Are any of you heading to… Parahuman Studies with Miss Greene next?"
"I am." Ruth confirms, and Missy nods along.
I turn to Aisha next but she shakes her head. "Naw, I got fucking Health class next."
"Ewww." I grimace reflexively before realizing I'm remembering high school health class. Though from the way Aisha says it and the look on Ruth's face I'm guessing it isn't any better here. "Wait." I glance down at my schedule and sure enough, I have Health class last period. "Is health class here the 'diet and exercise is important' kind or the 'if you have sex you will get pregnant and then die!' kind?"
"The fuck?" Aisha laughs. "Die?"
"I don't know." I pull on my backpack. "It's from a movie or something."
…a movie I won't name since it might not exist here.
"You watch some weird ass porn." Aisha grins, shaking her head as we make our way towards the door.
I almost manage to avoid laughing, only to spot the teacher visibly deciding he doesn't want to touch our conversation with a ten foot pole out the corner of my [Scry] spell. "Not that kind of movie."
"Oh!" Missy snaps her fingers. "Mean Girls!"
"Yes!" I point at her. It does exist!
"That doesn't not sound like a porno." Aisha grins, walking backwards off to the left so she can wave goodbye as Missy and Ruth head right.
I pause at the doorway briefly, hand half-raised to object, before realizing she's got a point and just wave back before turning to follow the others.
"Ugh." Ruth scowls at me as I catch up, shooting a weird look over her shoulder. "Did you really need to encourage the damn…"
"No, Ruth, oh my god…" I groan, holding up my hands to stop her latest racist tirade as we step into the classroom for Parahuman Studies. "Okay, ignoring the whole junk science thing for now, I'm just saying that clearly not even Kaiser believes that bullshit he's preaching."
Ruth glares at me doubtfully, but it's Missy trailing along behind us that lobs me the curious sounding softball. "Really?"
"Yes, really!" I look back and give her a nod of acknowledgement for her contribution before going back to staring at Ruth as I willfully pivot our entire argument a half step sideways. "Just look at Fenja and Menja."
"Fenja and Menja are white." Ruth hisses at me.
"Yeah!" I agree, rolling my eyes. "They're also both girls."
"...So?"
"So… He talks a big game but he can't really be that bent out of shape about 'the gays' if he's banging two of them." I steadfastly ignore the fact that plenty of people get off on the idea of 'fucking the dyke out of her' as that seems like it'd kinda be… well, devastating to my case. Also, I suspect, wildly inappropriate for a room rapidly filling with tweens. Not that calling out Kaiser's incest fetish is better on that front per se, but I'm ignoring that because I really want to hammer the iron of Ruth's obvious confusion and discomfort while it's hot, and so I add: "I mean, you do understand what a threesome is, right?"
"That's…" Ruth's mouth opens and closes a few times while her face looks more and more grossed out.
"Enough, Miss Herren." The teacher cuts her off before Ruth finishes changing gears, shooting us a look that makes me suspect Ruth's Empire wannabe sympathies have come up in class before. "You too, Miss…" She trails off, presumably realizing she doesn't actually recognize me.
"I'm Jane Flatt." I introduce myself with a wave. "The new transfer student."
"Ah, yes." The teacher, a Miss Greene according to my schedule, nods in recognition. "Please take a seat." She gestures broadly at the whole room.
"Oh, they're not assigned? Cool, I'll just…" look around and realize I'm the only one not already sitting down and there's only one empty desk left.
Right then. Off I go to sit next to Missy. Again.
Apparently the universe has decided that Vista and I will become friends and it isn't taking no for an answer.
Joke's on the universe though because my cousin is Skitter and she'd rather fist fight Cthulhu than deal with the teen drama involved in joining the Wards.
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
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Jane: Rude! Not inaccurate, but still.Ah, real threads, where @Aetheron stories go to die
"I'M HOME!" I announce at the top of my lungs as I shove open the front door.
"You're late." Taylor says without looking up from what looks like the homework she's doing at the kitchen table.
"What? No I'm not."
"It's dark out."
"Yeah, cause it's…" I start to trail off as what Taylor's doing finally clicks. "It's winter!" I finish way more enthusiastically, rushing over to her.
Finishing her sentence on the essay looking thing she's writing, Taylor sets her pencil down and then finally looks at me as I bounce in place next to her. "Did the bus drop you off in front of the house?"
"No!" I cheer, hugging her. "It was awful!" I laugh happily. "I'm totally going to learn how to teleport as soon as I can just so I can bop us to and from school."
"Don't waste-" Taylor pauses. "Actually, that sounds really nice."
"I know! Doesn't it?"
"Yeah… you can let go of me now."
I hug her tighter instead, pressing my face against the side of her head. "Taylor."
"…What?"
"You sassed me."
"…I did."
"I'm so proud of you!" I give her one last squeeze before finally letting go lest she resort to drastic measures like summoning a swarm of spiders to chase me off.
Skipping around the table, I pull out the chair opposite her and start emptying the various rocks I stuffed into my pockets during my walk home from the bus stop onto the table.
…Wow. I picked up a lot more of these things than I thought. No wonder Taylor got home first.
"What are you doing?"
"Admiring my rock collection."
After a moment's consideration I grab the pair of white ones I think are mostly quartz and set them aside for later.
Er.
I glance at the two white rocks I've segregated out from the others because they're prettier.
…Ruth can never find out.
Anyway…
Shaking my head, I cast a mana shaped [Stoneshape] and, ugh, 'slowly' have the other rocks all smoosh themselves together into a big lump. Once that's done, I have the lump flatten itself out and roll itself up over and over again a bunch of times like it's hands-free playdoh. There's probably a better way to do this and I end up needing to recast [Stoneshape] a couple more times before I'm done but eventually it's all marbled together well enough that I can't readily identify any of the original rocks anymore.
At which point I turn it into a thick stone bowl a couple inches deep.
[Telepathy]
=Hey, Taylor?=
"We're in the same room, Jane. You can just use your words."
=Could. Won't. Practicing.= At only 1 mana a minute, leveling telepathy is already exasperatingly slow enough without turning it off for no reason. =Speaking of which, can you put some bugs on the bowl?=
"Why?"
=I wanna do an experiment.= I grab the quartz off the table and confirm they count as a 'minor' amount of stone once they've smooshed themselves together. =But I'm kinda hungry so-=
"Ewww."
I look up as Taylor starts making gagging noises. =...Are you okay?=
"I'm fine, but I'm not watching you eat my bugs."
"Ewwww…" I shudder, unable to stop the mental image of spiders wiggling around in my mouth. "Why would you put that idea in my brain!? Take it back!" I try to telepathically shove the mental image out of my brain and into hers but just end up making us both start gagging. "Gah! That's disgusting."
"Okay, okay." Taylor tries again after we get our brains and bellies under control again. "Why do you want me to put bugs in your bowl?"
"Not in my bowl! Ugh. On the bowl." I point at the rim in a circle. "Like, around the edge."
"Fine, but why?"
"Because I want to know if I can make this—" I can show her the quartz and then put it in the bowl. "—heat up using friction." I split the quartz in half, making two discs, and start spinning them in opposite directions while trying to have them push themselves together but not merge. It makes a sound kind of like a coffee grinder but not quite as loud and I start to raise my voice to talk over it before remembering I wanted to use [Telepathy] anyway. =I don't want to accidentally set the house on fire if—=
"Please don't!"
=—it works too well.= Standing up I try to make the back sides of the discs not vibrate and the sound immediately stops but only because the discs stopped moving altogether. Shrugging to myself, I set them spinning again and head over to the fridge. =So let me know if your bugs start feeling hot, okay?=
The noise warbles a few times as I try to walk, 'talk,' and grind quartz all at the same time, but hopefully that'll sort itself out when I get the component spells to a higher level.
"Why-" Taylor sighs as a louder spike in the grinder volume cuts her off. =Why can't you just watch it.=
=I told you, I'm hungry.= I pull open the fridge and look at what we have to eat.
Hmmm… no, I don't want a sandwich.
=Do you… need to do your "experiment" at the kitchen table?=
I pause my rummaging to try and properly transmit the overwhelming sense of pride and approval I'm feeling over the fact that Taylor just somehow managed to mentally say her air-quotes out loud. Or whatever the equivalent term would be for telepathy.
Wait, there was a question in there too, wasn't there? Oh, yeah, um… =No..? The range isn't great but if you want to move the bowl down into the basement that should be-=
Oooh! Eggs! I grab the carton and pull it out to make sure we have enough.
=What? Why do I need to move it, it's your experiment.=
=Taylor." I begin in my most patient tone, even going so far as to turn around to give her my best 'are you for real?' face. =Where do you keep your spiders?=
"Ugh! Fine!" Taylor stands up and grabs at the bowl. I stop the grinder for safety reasons while she's carrying it and then go back to opening the egg carton which is half empty but even 6 eggs should be more than plenty.
=Hey, Taylor…= I call after her as she heads down the stairs. =If I make some scrambled eggs, do you want any?=
=...Sure.=
Nodding, I grab another two eggs out of the carton and set them aside next to the cheese and bbq sauce. Putting the carton back in the fridge, the cold air reminds me of what I was originally trying to test.
=Hey, Taylor…are my discs hot?=
=No.= I get a feeling of a finger pressed against something cool and then something warm from her. =They're a little warmer than the bowl, but not hot.=
=That still counts!=
I think?
…Maybe.
More !!Science!! is clearly required! Casting [Scry] on the basement, I resume the discs' grinding once Taylor sets the bowl down.
| Stoneshape level up! |
Woo!
Making sure to keep stirring the eggs, I check the updated spell description.
| Stoneshape 5, 1 minute per level, medium range, 30 MP Slowly move medium amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape, OR gain fine control over minor amounts of stone and sand. Exp: 0/800 |
YES! Fine control! Fine-ally!
Down in the basement, my two quartz discs grind against each other a little harder but… Meh. The noise isn't any worse really, but I still can't really make them do it anything even vaguely approaching quietly without going so slow I may as well stop entirely. Which sadly means that won't be able to keep grinding XP once Uncle Danny gets home.
Embarrassingly, I giggle hard enough at my own stupid jokes to make Taylor look up from her homework for a moment before visibly deciding she doesn't want to know.
Silly Taylor, there is no defense against my love of over-sharing. Especially not when it comes to The Puns!
Well, hmmm… no defense other than the metaphor I used to explain my powers in Earth Bet terms not really covering the little blue boxes or the idea of XP. I'll need to elaborate at some point when I'm not busy cooking.
But soon! Soon there will be puns and exasperated sighing and it will be wonderful.
In any case, I guess this means I will need [Airshape] to muffle the noise and [Fireshape] to- Er.
=Hey, Taylor…are the discs getting any warmer?=
"Not really." Taylor shakes her head. "Maybe a little?"
=Meh.= I stop grinding the two stones together. =If this was going to work at all they'd need be getting hot way faster than this.=
I guess I'll need [Fireshape] after all. Or [Ward], but that kind of goes without saying given that [Ward] can do almost anything if you abuse it right… Wait, why don't I have [Ward] yet? Oh, right, because it, [Cleanse], and [Treat Wounds] all keep getting bumped down by things I can use now. But I think [Ward] might need to go on that list if only so I don't need to put a bunch of other things on it. Maybe that and [Blink] next level?
Eyeing the eggs and deciding they're done, I head over to the cabinet and grab a pair of plates.
"What were you trying to do, anyway?" Taylor asks as I start portioning out the eggs.
=I mean, eventually I'd want the quartz to melt so I can separate out the impurities but that's like… over a thousand degrees celsius.=
"Please don't burn down the house."
=Well, duh.= I roll my eyes at Taylor's interruption. =This was just proof of concept. And besides, if it had worked, then your bugs would've started dying way before the house caught fire. I kinda assumed I would find somewhere to make an oven outside or, like, way underground and then do the actual melting there but it doesn't seem like it's working so…= I shrug. =Moo point.=
"Moot." Taylor corrects me. "Moot point."
=No.= I correct her right back, carrying the eggs over to the table. =Moo point. Like a cow's opinion?=
O… kay… the blank stare Taylor gives me has zero recognition in it. I guess Mean Girls exists but Friends doesn't? Jeezus.
Unwilling to think about that any further, I slide Taylor's plate over toward her before just taking my seat and beginning to eat.
"Why are they orange?" Taylor pokes her eggs with her fork.
I shrug. =Because that's what color the cheese and barbeque sauce I used are.=
"You… put barbeque sauce in the eggs?"
I nod, enjoying the fact that I can take a bite of my eggs and continue to 'talk' anyway. =Of course I did.=
"But… But why?"
=Because otherwise they'd taste like eggs?=
"Right…" Taylor makes another one of her weird faces at me. "So…" Taylor pauses awkwardly. "...why are you trying to melt the quartz? You said something about impurities?"
=Yeah.= I nod, taking another bite. =Pure quartz is clear. The quartz downstairs is white because there's a bunch of other stuff mixed into it. My powers don't let me break down atomic bonds directly but I was hoping that if I could get it to melt then they'd either separate out naturally or I could spin it really fast or something to make them all move to either the middle or edge so I could just cut them off.=
Admittedly, the spinning part might need [Telekinesis] which would be another thing I'd need to buy if aurifying [Stonehape] doesn't let me lift it off the floor.
"Can't you just do the folding thing you used to make the bowl?" Taylor eyes her eggs one last time before finally stabbing a forkful and putting it into her mouth and chewing.
=I don't think so?" I shrug, recasting [Stoneshape] and then [Scry] anyway. =It's worth trying but the impurities I'm talking about are, like, microscopic so even if I got the quartz to look clear that way, I don't know if it would actually be clear."
Downstairs, I have the quartz press itself against the bottom of the bowl and then lift itself up until it forms a weird cross between a balloon and the lid of a pan over the top of the bowl. Then I try to will anything that isn't quartz to move to the edge of it. The result is… inconclusive, and just reinforces my decision to get [Ward] next level so I can try and make a gravity strainer.
"Ahh…" Taylor acknowledges, taking a second bite of her eggs without any of her earlier hesitation. Haha! Victory for Team Sam-I-Am! =What do you need the clear quartz for anyway?=
=I think I can make us "magic rings" that'll give us a minor Brute rating.=
Taylor starts to say something, but chokes on her food. =Seriously?=
=Yup.= I pause, trying to figure out a way to explain that they only last so many HP and Mana pool refills to someone who doesn't have either of those things, before realizing that I don't need to. =But like all Tinker-tech, the things break down after a while and the less perfect the crystal is the weaker the effect and the faster it breaks.=
=Oh.= Taylor swallows. "How fast are we talking?"
=One that's well made with a perfect diamond and all that? Years. The kludge I think I can make now? Weeks. Maybe days.= I shrug. =Or maybe it breaks the first time you put a big dent in the coffee table instead of stubbing your toe. I won't really know until I try to make one.=
Taylor hmmms thoughtfully. "I think there's one of those New Age shops on the Boardwalk that sells those 'healing crystals.' Would one of those work?"
"Maybe!"
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
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- 16,989
I wake up feeling awful while Taylor's alarm clock blares its stupid noise.
I remember waking up in the middle of the night and trying to spend one more pool of mana to level up. I passed out before I could spend the points but this doesn't feel like I'm somehow still suffering from mana exhaustion.
This feels more like… Like I somehow managed to spend my HP pool in my sleep maybe? That shouldn't be possible, but: Status.
Okay.
So MP and HP are both full. So whatever this is, it's not that.
Probably.
Also, HP exhaustion wouldn't explain the nausea or why I feel like I wet myself even though my bladder is still full enough to be angry about it-
Oh.
Oh, for fucks sake.
I put a hand down my pants and it comes back wet and red.
"Nope!" I buy and cast [Cleanse] immediately. "Fuck absolutely everything about this being a girl bullshit."
I don't feel much better afterward, but I know it worked because my crotch is suddenly dry as the blankets ripple with a release of thick air. And… I don't need to pee anymore? I guess it works on the parts of the mess that's are still inside me too.
Which… Okay, in retrospect, that should have been obvious given that the spell's primary use is to remove poisons and tumors and stuff.
"What's wro- oh." Taylor leans over the edge of her bed, looking down at me as she turns off the alarm clock. "Do you need to borrow-"
"No." I shake my head at her. "I already bought a power to fix it."
"You… spent a charge to not have periods?"
"Yup."
Taylor stares at me for a moment. "I can't decide if I'm jealous about how nice that sounds or mad at you for how wasteful that is."
"Wasteful!?" I hold up the hand with blood on it. "My body is doing stupid shit without my permission!"
"Periods end, Jane. You said you only get so many charges."
I choose to blame the early hour and various hormones coursing through my body for how long I stare at her before realizing what she's saying and where the miscommunication was.
"Hang on." I shake my head. "Okay, two things. One, it turns out I underestimated how effective my efforts to improve medium term growth would be and I'll actually get at least another couple sets of charges over the next week before things taper off." Seriously, Clarity and Concentration combo hard as they start leveling up.
"But they will taper off?"
"They will. But! I didn't buy some kind of 'Jane doesn't get periods any more' power." I wiggle my bloody hand at her and then cast [Cleanse] again. This time I focus on making sure the affected cubic meter includes my upper body and rids my fingers of the remaining bloody evidence of what my body tried to do to me. "I bought that 'cleans the everloving shit out of anything' power I mentioned wanting anyway. I just picked it sooner than I planned to so I could use it to clean out all of…" I gesture downwards. "…that."
"Cleaning power?" Taylor frowns. "I don't remember…"
"It was one of the ones I mentioned for one of the other plans. I guess it's not really a cleaning power so much as a purification power but that one that I mentioned purges cancer?" I hold up my clean hand. "It also removes bloodstains, poisons, and… uh…"
I call up the box.
"...a bunch of other stuff I don't fully understand yet. Trash and radiation?" I shrug. I think that's what I remember Erick using it for anyway. "It might also clear out the obviously unnecessary hormones too judging by how I can feel my nausea starting to settle but that might just be my body's natural reaction to realizing I set it's stupid fucking 'but what if you want to be a teen mom?' todo list on fire." I frown. Clearly I'm not entirely done with being a grump-asaurus but I can at least start to see the humor in it all. "Well, insofar as anything involving powers counts 'natural' or… Well, whatever. It also clears out the crusties from your eyes and that white plaque crap that causes morning breath. Want me to do you too?"
I hold up my now clean hand again.
Taylor looks at me for a moment before shrugging. "Sure."
Reaching out, I boop her on the nose as I cast a manashaped [Cleanse] on as much of her as I can. "Boop!"
Taylor blinks, then blinks again as the thick air swirls around her. Finally, she runs her tongue along her teeth. "Huh."
"Yup." I agree. "It's more shower adjacent rather than shower replacement, but it's very effective at what it does."
Taylor and I stare at each other for a moment. "…I'll make us some tea?"
"Yeah, just… give me a moment. If the nausea doesn't fade I'll grab the other healing power I wanted and try to bludgeon my idiot body into submission before school."
"Jane."
"Yeah?"
"It's Saturday."
"Oh." I roll over. "Then I'm going back to sleep. If I feel better when I wake up maybe we can hit up the library and then go for our run in the afternoon? Maybe check out that place you found for our secret lair?
=So really, the only "problem" with having the power is that now I'm going to feel bad for not going to hospitals to cure cancer and MRSA and stuff.=
Looking over at the neighbor's house as Taylor and I jog past, the giant picture window that whichever developer built this neighborhood seems to have loved including has the curtains thrown open and the lights on. So I don't even need to cast Scry to add the upper half of their living room to the list of 'places I've been or seen' and can thus Scry later in the event one of Coil's minions starts sniping at us from that direction.
I'd call myself paranoid, but Coil's alternate timelines are a decent stand in for the proverbial invisible demon trying to eat my face.
Seriously, fuck that guy.
=MRSA?= Taylor pulls my thoughts back to the present.
=Multi… Resistant? Staffa…something or other? I don't know. Germs that laugh at modern medicine basically. AIDS would probably have been a better example come to think of it. But yeah, I think Cleanse can pretty much obliterate any disease that isn't just your own body failing to do something 'cause of genetics.=
The lights are off in the next house, so I throw a [Scry] at the window and take a brief glance inside from a better angle before cancelling it just in case I need to actually be able to see into a space properly for it to count. Same layout as a bunch of the others, though this one is full of cats and cat themed decor so I guess I found the local cat-lady?
=That sounds like a big deal.=
=Yup! Which is why I feel bad about not doing anything about it now that I can. I mean, yeah, there are all kinds of issues with doing it and… And! It's not even like I won't be doing it eventually, I just can't seem to convince my conscience to shut up about it.=
I repeat, fuck Coil and the stupid cauldron vial he rode in on!
I wouldn't be having any of this moral quandary if I could at least pretend the locals would stick to the unwritten rules. But noooo…
Though I suppose in fairness to Earth Bet– Ewww… I can't believe I just thought that– I'd just have ended up having a different, far lesser, moral quandary over whether or not it still counts as 'being a good person' if you're knowingly doing it for the amazing PR and networking opportunities? Not that I don't want to eradicate cancer. Fuck cancer! And AIDS and- Well, no, don't fuck AIDS that's how you get-
I am way off topic. What was I doing?
Oh. Yeah. Taking advantage of Taylor being good at coming up with valid logical reasons to justify decisions she's already made for emotional reasons.
=Speaking of which… Do you want to come with me when I eventually start hitting up hospitals?=
=I don't think a hospital would appreciate me bringing a bunch of bugs in."
=True.= I agree before sending her a mental image of me smacking her in the face with a cartoon fish. =But I bet they'd love it if you got all the bugs to leave with you.=
=What just- Why a fish?=
=You were fishing for compliments.=
=No I wasn't!=
=Taylor.= I make sure to transmit using my most patient of tones. =You calling or implying that your power is weak or bad is like a cheerslut calling herself ugly. The sheer absurdity of the statement forcibly elicits a 'no you aren't' response followed by a compliment.=
The next house has the blinds drawn on the picture window but one of the smaller ones to the side is only most of the way down and a light is on. [Scry]!
Incoherent screaming assaults my 'ears.'
Startled, I reflexively try to rear back and away from the noise and end up tripping over my own feet and tumbling into the snow. I land hard, knocking the wind out of me and only barely avoid banging my head off a tree by sheer dumb luck.
"Are you okay?"
I wheeze, not even managing to tell her I'm fine. =House to our right! There's a woman tied up and…=
I switch focus back to my Scry-eye but all I see is an exterior wall? What!? No! Get back in the house!
My Scry-eye hurtles forward, it's vision briefly going dark as it moves through the wall before-
"-on't you dare stop!"
=Nevermind!=
I cancel the Scry spell as hard as I can, leaving the woman and what I assume is her husband to their… fun.
"What-"
=Nothing!=
I climb to my feet and brush myself off, steadfastly ignoring Taylor's increasingly intense stare.
=You don't want to know.=
Taylor's demanding stare abruptly breaks as her eyes go wide and her cheeks start to redden. "Are they…" she goes still.
=Mmm... Hmm...= I nod.
"…with ropes?"
=Mmm! Hmm!= I start nodding harder, letting some of my upper body join in on the motion. =I told you you didn't want to- Wait.= I frown =You can't see with your bugs yet. Are you, like, exploring them while they-=
"Let's just go!"
"Yes please!"
The two of us resume our late afternoon jog, silently agreeing to never speak of this ever again.
Wait.
…Holy shit!
The Scry eyes can move!?
I remember waking up in the middle of the night and trying to spend one more pool of mana to level up. I passed out before I could spend the points but this doesn't feel like I'm somehow still suffering from mana exhaustion.
This feels more like… Like I somehow managed to spend my HP pool in my sleep maybe? That shouldn't be possible, but: Status.
| Jane Flatt Human, age: 12 Level 7, Class: None Exp: 463/2100 Class: -/- Points: 2 | |||
| HP | 120/120 | 160 per day | |
| MP | 488/488 | 510 per day | |
| Strength | 12 | +0 | 12 |
| Vitality | 16 | +0 | 16 |
| Willpower | 20 | +0 | 20 |
| Focus | 20 | +0 | 20 |
Okay.
So MP and HP are both full. So whatever this is, it's not that.
Probably.
Also, HP exhaustion wouldn't explain the nausea or why I feel like I wet myself even though my bladder is still full enough to be angry about it-
Oh.
Oh, for fucks sake.
I put a hand down my pants and it comes back wet and red.
"Nope!" I buy and cast [Cleanse] immediately. "Fuck absolutely everything about this being a girl bullshit."
I don't feel much better afterward, but I know it worked because my crotch is suddenly dry as the blankets ripple with a release of thick air. And… I don't need to pee anymore? I guess it works on the parts of the mess that's are still inside me too.
Which… Okay, in retrospect, that should have been obvious given that the spell's primary use is to remove poisons and tumors and stuff.
"What's wro- oh." Taylor leans over the edge of her bed, looking down at me as she turns off the alarm clock. "Do you need to borrow-"
"No." I shake my head at her. "I already bought a power to fix it."
"You… spent a charge to not have periods?"
"Yup."
Taylor stares at me for a moment. "I can't decide if I'm jealous about how nice that sounds or mad at you for how wasteful that is."
"Wasteful!?" I hold up the hand with blood on it. "My body is doing stupid shit without my permission!"
"Periods end, Jane. You said you only get so many charges."
I choose to blame the early hour and various hormones coursing through my body for how long I stare at her before realizing what she's saying and where the miscommunication was.
"Hang on." I shake my head. "Okay, two things. One, it turns out I underestimated how effective my efforts to improve medium term growth would be and I'll actually get at least another couple sets of charges over the next week before things taper off." Seriously, Clarity and Concentration combo hard as they start leveling up.
"But they will taper off?"
"They will. But! I didn't buy some kind of 'Jane doesn't get periods any more' power." I wiggle my bloody hand at her and then cast [Cleanse] again. This time I focus on making sure the affected cubic meter includes my upper body and rids my fingers of the remaining bloody evidence of what my body tried to do to me. "I bought that 'cleans the everloving shit out of anything' power I mentioned wanting anyway. I just picked it sooner than I planned to so I could use it to clean out all of…" I gesture downwards. "…that."
"Cleaning power?" Taylor frowns. "I don't remember…"
"It was one of the ones I mentioned for one of the other plans. I guess it's not really a cleaning power so much as a purification power but that one that I mentioned purges cancer?" I hold up my clean hand. "It also removes bloodstains, poisons, and… uh…"
I call up the box.
| Cleanse 1, instant, short range, 10 MP. Purge an area equal to the level of the spell in meters of all Toxins, Disease, Filth, and Corruption. Exp: 20/100 |
"...a bunch of other stuff I don't fully understand yet. Trash and radiation?" I shrug. I think that's what I remember Erick using it for anyway. "It might also clear out the obviously unnecessary hormones too judging by how I can feel my nausea starting to settle but that might just be my body's natural reaction to realizing I set it's stupid fucking 'but what if you want to be a teen mom?' todo list on fire." I frown. Clearly I'm not entirely done with being a grump-asaurus but I can at least start to see the humor in it all. "Well, insofar as anything involving powers counts 'natural' or… Well, whatever. It also clears out the crusties from your eyes and that white plaque crap that causes morning breath. Want me to do you too?"
I hold up my now clean hand again.
Taylor looks at me for a moment before shrugging. "Sure."
Reaching out, I boop her on the nose as I cast a manashaped [Cleanse] on as much of her as I can. "Boop!"
Taylor blinks, then blinks again as the thick air swirls around her. Finally, she runs her tongue along her teeth. "Huh."
"Yup." I agree. "It's more shower adjacent rather than shower replacement, but it's very effective at what it does."
Taylor and I stare at each other for a moment. "…I'll make us some tea?"
"Yeah, just… give me a moment. If the nausea doesn't fade I'll grab the other healing power I wanted and try to bludgeon my idiot body into submission before school."
"Jane."
"Yeah?"
"It's Saturday."
"Oh." I roll over. "Then I'm going back to sleep. If I feel better when I wake up maybe we can hit up the library and then go for our run in the afternoon? Maybe check out that place you found for our secret lair?
=So really, the only "problem" with having the power is that now I'm going to feel bad for not going to hospitals to cure cancer and MRSA and stuff.=
Looking over at the neighbor's house as Taylor and I jog past, the giant picture window that whichever developer built this neighborhood seems to have loved including has the curtains thrown open and the lights on. So I don't even need to cast Scry to add the upper half of their living room to the list of 'places I've been or seen' and can thus Scry later in the event one of Coil's minions starts sniping at us from that direction.
I'd call myself paranoid, but Coil's alternate timelines are a decent stand in for the proverbial invisible demon trying to eat my face.
Seriously, fuck that guy.
=MRSA?= Taylor pulls my thoughts back to the present.
=Multi… Resistant? Staffa…something or other? I don't know. Germs that laugh at modern medicine basically. AIDS would probably have been a better example come to think of it. But yeah, I think Cleanse can pretty much obliterate any disease that isn't just your own body failing to do something 'cause of genetics.=
The lights are off in the next house, so I throw a [Scry] at the window and take a brief glance inside from a better angle before cancelling it just in case I need to actually be able to see into a space properly for it to count. Same layout as a bunch of the others, though this one is full of cats and cat themed decor so I guess I found the local cat-lady?
=That sounds like a big deal.=
=Yup! Which is why I feel bad about not doing anything about it now that I can. I mean, yeah, there are all kinds of issues with doing it and… And! It's not even like I won't be doing it eventually, I just can't seem to convince my conscience to shut up about it.=
I repeat, fuck Coil and the stupid cauldron vial he rode in on!
I wouldn't be having any of this moral quandary if I could at least pretend the locals would stick to the unwritten rules. But noooo…
Though I suppose in fairness to Earth Bet– Ewww… I can't believe I just thought that– I'd just have ended up having a different, far lesser, moral quandary over whether or not it still counts as 'being a good person' if you're knowingly doing it for the amazing PR and networking opportunities? Not that I don't want to eradicate cancer. Fuck cancer! And AIDS and- Well, no, don't fuck AIDS that's how you get-
I am way off topic. What was I doing?
Oh. Yeah. Taking advantage of Taylor being good at coming up with valid logical reasons to justify decisions she's already made for emotional reasons.
=Speaking of which… Do you want to come with me when I eventually start hitting up hospitals?=
=I don't think a hospital would appreciate me bringing a bunch of bugs in."
=True.= I agree before sending her a mental image of me smacking her in the face with a cartoon fish. =But I bet they'd love it if you got all the bugs to leave with you.=
=What just- Why a fish?=
=You were fishing for compliments.=
=No I wasn't!=
=Taylor.= I make sure to transmit using my most patient of tones. =You calling or implying that your power is weak or bad is like a cheerslut calling herself ugly. The sheer absurdity of the statement forcibly elicits a 'no you aren't' response followed by a compliment.=
The next house has the blinds drawn on the picture window but one of the smaller ones to the side is only most of the way down and a light is on. [Scry]!
Incoherent screaming assaults my 'ears.'
Startled, I reflexively try to rear back and away from the noise and end up tripping over my own feet and tumbling into the snow. I land hard, knocking the wind out of me and only barely avoid banging my head off a tree by sheer dumb luck.
"Are you okay?"
I wheeze, not even managing to tell her I'm fine. =House to our right! There's a woman tied up and…=
I switch focus back to my Scry-eye but all I see is an exterior wall? What!? No! Get back in the house!
My Scry-eye hurtles forward, it's vision briefly going dark as it moves through the wall before-
"-on't you dare stop!"
=Nevermind!=
I cancel the Scry spell as hard as I can, leaving the woman and what I assume is her husband to their… fun.
"What-"
=Nothing!=
I climb to my feet and brush myself off, steadfastly ignoring Taylor's increasingly intense stare.
=You don't want to know.=
Taylor's demanding stare abruptly breaks as her eyes go wide and her cheeks start to redden. "Are they…" she goes still.
=Mmm... Hmm...= I nod.
"…with ropes?"
=Mmm! Hmm!= I start nodding harder, letting some of my upper body join in on the motion. =I told you you didn't want to- Wait.= I frown =You can't see with your bugs yet. Are you, like, exploring them while they-=
"Let's just go!"
"Yes please!"
The two of us resume our late afternoon jog, silently agreeing to never speak of this ever again.
Wait.
…Holy shit!
The Scry eyes can move!?
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
"This is the place?"
"Yeah."
"Well." I nod at the faded yellow sign on the chain link fence. "Zero points for guessing why the place is condemned."
"I think it was condemned before it burned down."
"Oh."
The two of us stare at the charred remains of a house. The way the dimming late afternoon light bounces off the snow to wreathe the place in shadows doesn't really help the aesthetic, but I suspect it may have just been a powerfully ugly house to begin with.
And yeah, now that Taylor mentions it, even the one side of the house that didn't burn looks pretty rotten.
"Do you think one of the neighbors was trying to remove the eyesore and accidentally made it worse?"
"...How would I know?"
"Fair." I cast [Scry] above the house, taking in a bird's eye view of the layout. And then! Then! I start shifting it this way and that to explore the house properly.
Holy shit, this is amazing! Look, Ma, I'm flying… Wheee!
"Are you okay?"
"...Huh?" I look over to find Taylor aiming what I'm starting to think is her concerned face at me.
"You kinda spaced out and then started giggling like a loon."
"Oh, whoops." I shrug slowly, giving her my best 'what can you do' face. "I guess it's a good thing I have no sense of shame." Turning back to the house, I point at where a dirty but largely intact bulkhead door is hidden behind the rest of the ruins. "I was just looking around and I'm thinking we put the entrance around back? Between that bulkhead door and the… I think it was a sunroom? Enclosed deck? Whatever. It'll give us some extra cover from any nosy neighbors if we end up needing to use the actual entrance for some reason. Or maybe we put it inside the bulkhead? You said the basement floor is built directly on top of some ledge, right?"
"I think so." Taylor shrugs. "None of the worms around here are able to dig under it."
"Perfect…" I rub my hands together in hammed up glee. "Is anyone watching us?"
"...No?"
"You don't sound sure about that."
"There's a woman cooking dinner near a window that I think could see us if she turns around."
"Where?"
"Behind us and to the left."
Floating the eye of my Scry spell over– Wheeee! – I spot the window pretty quickly. And the woman she's talking about. Spinning the eye around, I confirm that yeah, she'd have a clear view of us if she were to peek out the window. She would not however be able to see the back of the ruined house.
"Anyone else?"
"No."
"Okay then." I move the eye to just inside the window, hoping that even if I get too distracted to watch her I'll still be able to hear it if she starts calling the cops or whatever. Ooooh! Bonus! She's got the radio playing decent music.
[Telepathy]
=Wish me luck!=
I crouch down and, double checking that the woman isn't looking, cast [Blink].
The world flickers a deep midnight blue and then I'm suddenly at the back corner of the house. Staying low, I duck around the corner only to trip over something hidden in the snow. I manage to catch myself on the bulkhead to stop myself from falling over completely but, eyeing how much of the debris and other hazards I can see poking up through snow looks distressingly pointy, I decide against walking any further.
[Stoneshaping] a bit of the concrete from the foundation a bit past the other side of the bulkhead into a flat inch thick shelf just above the snow, I [Blink] over to it.
[Mana Shaping] another [Stoneshape], I open a hole in the foundation and turn my platform into the top of a short steep slide.
Ooof. A stench like death immediately assaults my nose. Not sure if the death involved is whatever died and started rotting in there or just my poor nose committing suicide, but that is rancid.
[Cleanse]!
The smell vanishes only to come right back as the 2 cubic meters of clean air I can currently make just end up mixing together with the rest of the air trapped in the basement.
Right then.
Leaning as far away from the slide as I can while still being able to see the floor, I [Mana Shaping] another [Stoneshape] to have a circle about a meter wide of concrete pull itself up out of the floor. Either because I'm in a hurry or because I've misjudged what constitutes a 'medium' amount of stone, I end up pulling up more than just the concrete.
Feels like… sand?
Whatever it is, my poor nose doesn't have time to deal with that right now so I just let it go and focus on getting the concrete in the middle to push itself outwards, displacing the concrete already there up and forming it into a thin wall encompassing the new hole and my slide. Then I immediately recast [Cleanse] because ewww.
1…2…3…4…5… I give the air a sniff.
Better!
I still [Mana Shaping] another [Cleanse] into the entire space to make sure I got it all because, again, ewww.
I also [Cleanse] myself on general principle.
Okay, now I can investigate the sand.
Pulling out my flashlight, I turn it on and peer at the base of my wall.
Yup, looks like a layer of packed sand alright. Well, this part here is pretty shaken up now, but I'm guessing it was packed down tight when it had a house pushing down on top of it. Probably meant to make the base flat or something.
The feedback I get from the spell when I [Manashaping] another [Stoneshape] on the next half meter-ish chunk of stone seems to confirm that theory. Packed sand followed by solid rock that is neither flat nor level.
…Non-porous rock.
As in rock that doesn't have a bunch of tiny air pockets to compact itself into.
So uh…
What do I do with it?
Not seeing any better options, I have the sand and stone all smoosh itself together into one solid piece and then repeat my earlier process of reverse-squeezing itself up the walls until I have a thicker wall around a deeper hole that is a bit narrower.
The original width of the hole was kind of excessive, so I could probably do that quite a few more times before it'd get claustrophobic in there but it still isn't really a sustainable disposal method.
Hmmm…
Option 1, I chuck it into the backyard behind me and hope no one wonders why there's a new boulder behind the house.
Option 2, I open a hole in my wall and push it out into the basement while my nose tries to commit ritualized seppuku.
Option 3, I… I… I've got nothing.
Option 2 sucks, but option 1's fail states include a higher likelihood of Skitter and I being shanghaied into the Wards so…
Another cast of [Stoneshape] opens a flat hole in the wall near the floor like a mail slot without a cover and then a second mana shaped one-
…Oh?
Wait. Aurify just magically unlocks at Mana Shaping five!? I thought I'd need to get it to 10 and then spend another point for that. Not that I'm complaining mind you.
I resist the urge to- Oh, who am I kidding? I cackle like a fucking loon as I [Aurify] the everloving shit out of [Stoneshape]. Fuck designating a specific lump of stone as my target. Everything is my target!
As the vague feedback I was getting from the stone under my control spreads out to include all the dirt, sand, stone, and such within 5 meters, I reach out with that sense and pull a piece of the greyish stone that was below the sand out from the wall. I want to say it's granite but that would be pretending I have any idea what I'm talking about which would be silly when better options exist. Namely, having a golf ball sized piece of it float up to me because the whole area is part of Stoneshape's effect now.
…I probably could have been doing this the whole time if I'd thought to include some of the 'empty space' inside the hole as being part of the spell effect when Mana Shaping it.
Deciding to just call that a 'lesson learned, I flatten and smooth out the piece of rock until it resembles a decent skipping stone and then stuff it in my pocket for identification later. Yes, Imaginary-Sheldon, I'm going to talk to The Rock People.
That done, I turn my attention to the next question on the list. Namely, why do I have two holes-
Aw, fuck. I heard it as soon as I thought it.
But still, focusing on my new sense, I confirm that yes, there is indeed a second shaft- Nope! …excavation pit? Yes, there's a second excavation pit already cut into the stone a few meters to my left. It's much narrower than mine, only a few inches or so across to mine's somewhat-less-than-a-meter-now but it continues down beyond the point I can feel and it feels like it has some kind of tube shaped thing in it that isn't stone but almost counts?
Weird.
It's gotta be some kind of pipe, so… plastic, maybe? Or metal?
Metalshape is one of those sorta-separate-but-derived spells that comes from Stoneshape if I recall correctly. Like how Blink X is a prerequisite for Teleport even though Teleport is still a base spell.
But why would there be a pipe… oh. Was this house using well water? I didn't think city people did that. Isn't the whole point of putting up with having that many members of the public around, all the freaking time, that you get to have them handle all of that water and sewer systems nonsense for you?
Well whatever! I guess I'll use that as my guide for how deep I can go before I need to worry about getting wet.
Pulling up some more stone from below, I flatten out my side of the excavation pit and form a ladder to climb down.
Then I close the fuck out of the vent in the wall I forgot I opened and switch to pulsing out a [Cleanse] aura because holy shit does that-
Oh…
Oh no...
…I swear, if I find a gods damned septic tank down here I am going to introduce some people to Phagar.
Yes, I know I could just [Cleanse] it out of existence. That's not the point!
Cities are supposed to have working infrastructure!
PRT Officer: <Nervously> "Ma'am, I'm being told to ask you why you're rolling a giant boulder down the street."
Jane: <Angrily> "BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE ARE TAKING TOO DAMN LONG TO FIX THAT GODDAMNED POT HOLE!!"
"Yeah."
"Well." I nod at the faded yellow sign on the chain link fence. "Zero points for guessing why the place is condemned."
"I think it was condemned before it burned down."
"Oh."
The two of us stare at the charred remains of a house. The way the dimming late afternoon light bounces off the snow to wreathe the place in shadows doesn't really help the aesthetic, but I suspect it may have just been a powerfully ugly house to begin with.
And yeah, now that Taylor mentions it, even the one side of the house that didn't burn looks pretty rotten.
"Do you think one of the neighbors was trying to remove the eyesore and accidentally made it worse?"
"...How would I know?"
"Fair." I cast [Scry] above the house, taking in a bird's eye view of the layout. And then! Then! I start shifting it this way and that to explore the house properly.
Holy shit, this is amazing! Look, Ma, I'm flying… Wheee!
"Are you okay?"
"...Huh?" I look over to find Taylor aiming what I'm starting to think is her concerned face at me.
"You kinda spaced out and then started giggling like a loon."
"Oh, whoops." I shrug slowly, giving her my best 'what can you do' face. "I guess it's a good thing I have no sense of shame." Turning back to the house, I point at where a dirty but largely intact bulkhead door is hidden behind the rest of the ruins. "I was just looking around and I'm thinking we put the entrance around back? Between that bulkhead door and the… I think it was a sunroom? Enclosed deck? Whatever. It'll give us some extra cover from any nosy neighbors if we end up needing to use the actual entrance for some reason. Or maybe we put it inside the bulkhead? You said the basement floor is built directly on top of some ledge, right?"
"I think so." Taylor shrugs. "None of the worms around here are able to dig under it."
"Perfect…" I rub my hands together in hammed up glee. "Is anyone watching us?"
"...No?"
"You don't sound sure about that."
"There's a woman cooking dinner near a window that I think could see us if she turns around."
"Where?"
"Behind us and to the left."
Floating the eye of my Scry spell over– Wheeee! – I spot the window pretty quickly. And the woman she's talking about. Spinning the eye around, I confirm that yeah, she'd have a clear view of us if she were to peek out the window. She would not however be able to see the back of the ruined house.
"Anyone else?"
"No."
"Okay then." I move the eye to just inside the window, hoping that even if I get too distracted to watch her I'll still be able to hear it if she starts calling the cops or whatever. Ooooh! Bonus! She's got the radio playing decent music.
[Telepathy]
=Wish me luck!=
I crouch down and, double checking that the woman isn't looking, cast [Blink].
The world flickers a deep midnight blue and then I'm suddenly at the back corner of the house. Staying low, I duck around the corner only to trip over something hidden in the snow. I manage to catch myself on the bulkhead to stop myself from falling over completely but, eyeing how much of the debris and other hazards I can see poking up through snow looks distressingly pointy, I decide against walking any further.
[Stoneshaping] a bit of the concrete from the foundation a bit past the other side of the bulkhead into a flat inch thick shelf just above the snow, I [Blink] over to it.
[Mana Shaping] another [Stoneshape], I open a hole in the foundation and turn my platform into the top of a short steep slide.
Ooof. A stench like death immediately assaults my nose. Not sure if the death involved is whatever died and started rotting in there or just my poor nose committing suicide, but that is rancid.
[Cleanse]!
The smell vanishes only to come right back as the 2 cubic meters of clean air I can currently make just end up mixing together with the rest of the air trapped in the basement.
Right then.
Leaning as far away from the slide as I can while still being able to see the floor, I [Mana Shaping] another [Stoneshape] to have a circle about a meter wide of concrete pull itself up out of the floor. Either because I'm in a hurry or because I've misjudged what constitutes a 'medium' amount of stone, I end up pulling up more than just the concrete.
Feels like… sand?
Whatever it is, my poor nose doesn't have time to deal with that right now so I just let it go and focus on getting the concrete in the middle to push itself outwards, displacing the concrete already there up and forming it into a thin wall encompassing the new hole and my slide. Then I immediately recast [Cleanse] because ewww.
1…2…3…4…5… I give the air a sniff.
Better!
I still [Mana Shaping] another [Cleanse] into the entire space to make sure I got it all because, again, ewww.
I also [Cleanse] myself on general principle.
Okay, now I can investigate the sand.
Pulling out my flashlight, I turn it on and peer at the base of my wall.
Yup, looks like a layer of packed sand alright. Well, this part here is pretty shaken up now, but I'm guessing it was packed down tight when it had a house pushing down on top of it. Probably meant to make the base flat or something.
The feedback I get from the spell when I [Manashaping] another [Stoneshape] on the next half meter-ish chunk of stone seems to confirm that theory. Packed sand followed by solid rock that is neither flat nor level.
…Non-porous rock.
As in rock that doesn't have a bunch of tiny air pockets to compact itself into.
So uh…
What do I do with it?
Not seeing any better options, I have the sand and stone all smoosh itself together into one solid piece and then repeat my earlier process of reverse-squeezing itself up the walls until I have a thicker wall around a deeper hole that is a bit narrower.
The original width of the hole was kind of excessive, so I could probably do that quite a few more times before it'd get claustrophobic in there but it still isn't really a sustainable disposal method.
Hmmm…
Option 1, I chuck it into the backyard behind me and hope no one wonders why there's a new boulder behind the house.
Option 2, I open a hole in my wall and push it out into the basement while my nose tries to commit ritualized seppuku.
Option 3, I… I… I've got nothing.
Option 2 sucks, but option 1's fail states include a higher likelihood of Skitter and I being shanghaied into the Wards so…
Another cast of [Stoneshape] opens a flat hole in the wall near the floor like a mail slot without a cover and then a second mana shaped one-
| Manashaping level up! |
…Oh?
| Mana Shaping 5 Alter spell AOE in better, subtle ways, 10 MP + spellcost Alter spell AOE in better, moderate ways, 30 MP + spellcost Aurify Unlocked Requirements: 10 Willpower Exp: 20/800 |
Wait. Aurify just magically unlocks at Mana Shaping five!? I thought I'd need to get it to 10 and then spend another point for that. Not that I'm complaining mind you.
| Aurify 1 Transform an AOE spell into a semi-permanent effect surrounding yourself, based upon the parameters of the Aurified spell. Increase an instantaneous spell to a 1 second duration in order to create an aura. Able to support 1 aura at a time. Exp: 0/10000 |
I resist the urge to- Oh, who am I kidding? I cackle like a fucking loon as I [Aurify] the everloving shit out of [Stoneshape]. Fuck designating a specific lump of stone as my target. Everything is my target!
As the vague feedback I was getting from the stone under my control spreads out to include all the dirt, sand, stone, and such within 5 meters, I reach out with that sense and pull a piece of the greyish stone that was below the sand out from the wall. I want to say it's granite but that would be pretending I have any idea what I'm talking about which would be silly when better options exist. Namely, having a golf ball sized piece of it float up to me because the whole area is part of Stoneshape's effect now.
…I probably could have been doing this the whole time if I'd thought to include some of the 'empty space' inside the hole as being part of the spell effect when Mana Shaping it.
Deciding to just call that a 'lesson learned, I flatten and smooth out the piece of rock until it resembles a decent skipping stone and then stuff it in my pocket for identification later. Yes, Imaginary-Sheldon, I'm going to talk to The Rock People.
That done, I turn my attention to the next question on the list. Namely, why do I have two holes-
Aw, fuck. I heard it as soon as I thought it.
But still, focusing on my new sense, I confirm that yes, there is indeed a second shaft- Nope! …excavation pit? Yes, there's a second excavation pit already cut into the stone a few meters to my left. It's much narrower than mine, only a few inches or so across to mine's somewhat-less-than-a-meter-now but it continues down beyond the point I can feel and it feels like it has some kind of tube shaped thing in it that isn't stone but almost counts?
Weird.
It's gotta be some kind of pipe, so… plastic, maybe? Or metal?
Metalshape is one of those sorta-separate-but-derived spells that comes from Stoneshape if I recall correctly. Like how Blink X is a prerequisite for Teleport even though Teleport is still a base spell.
But why would there be a pipe… oh. Was this house using well water? I didn't think city people did that. Isn't the whole point of putting up with having that many members of the public around, all the freaking time, that you get to have them handle all of that water and sewer systems nonsense for you?
Well whatever! I guess I'll use that as my guide for how deep I can go before I need to worry about getting wet.
Pulling up some more stone from below, I flatten out my side of the excavation pit and form a ladder to climb down.
Then I close the fuck out of the vent in the wall I forgot I opened and switch to pulsing out a [Cleanse] aura because holy shit does that-
Oh…
Oh no...
…I swear, if I find a gods damned septic tank down here I am going to introduce some people to Phagar.
Yes, I know I could just [Cleanse] it out of existence. That's not the point!
Cities are supposed to have working infrastructure!
PRT Officer: <Nervously> "Ma'am, I'm being told to ask you why you're rolling a giant boulder down the street."
Jane: <Angrily> "BECAUSE YOU PEOPLE ARE TAKING TOO DAMN LONG TO FIX THAT GODDAMNED POT HOLE!!"
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
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"So, how was your day?" Danny asks as he puts his coat on the hook.
"Fine." Taylor looks up from her book briefly to shrug before going back to her reading.
Frowning as the silence stretches well past awkward, I sit up slowly so as to not break [Meditation] and look over the back of the couch at the two of them.
I wait for the conversation to continue.
And… wait…
And… wait.
Only, instead of continuing to talk, Taylor keeps reading and Danny starts to putter around the kitchen.
Well then!
Abandoning meditation, I stand up on the couch and put my hands on my hips to glare at Taylor. "Excuse me!?"
Danny startles, spinning around and obviously taking an extra half second to remember there's three people living in his house now before smiling apologetically "Sorry about that, Jane. I didn't see you there. How was your day?"
"Not you." I hold up one finger in a 'please wait' gesture as I step up onto the back of the couch and then quickly hop off of it to land in front of Taylor.
They tried to do this shit yesterday too and I let it slide then because yeah, 'fine' is probably being generous when it comes to describing how Taylor's typical day goes at that school.
I am not letting it slide today.
"Fine!?" I kick Taylor in the shin. "Your day was fine!?"
"Ow! Jane! What the-" Taylor tries to interrupt me but I just talk over her.
"You spent the entire day with me and all you have to say about it is fine!?" I kick her in the shin again before turning away and letting my hand fall as I stomp towards Danny to begin my demonstration of a proper answer. "My day was great, Uncle Danny! Taylor took me to the library. And then we went shopping on the boardwalk and I got a bunch of pretty crystals and some copper pipe for my art project and- MY BOOTS!" Spinning around, I race over to the stairs, scrambling up them on all fours to maximize the 'herd of elephants' effect. "You need to see my new boots!" I call over my shoulder through the railing as I go.
Grabbing the shopping bag with my new boots off of Taylor's bed, I spin around and head back, saving time by just leaping down the stairs.
…Ow? Okay, in retrospect that was probably not my brightest idea ever and should totally have hurt rather than just making my feet tingle briefly.
But also: Woo! Being able to regenerate HP and Mana later will net me a bunch of extra points of Meditation XP.
As an added bonus, the loud thump of my landing startles Danny and Taylor out of the weird staring contest they seemed to be having while I was gone.
"Behold!" I pull my new shiny black combat boots out of the bag and wave them around. "My boots!" Plopping myself back down onto the couch I pull them on and start bucking up the shiny metal buckles. "They have no laces and they make me, like, a whole inch-and-change taller than my shoes do. And!" I stand up and stomp into the kitchen, keeping a close eye on my feet because as hard as I'm hamming up my love for them I'm not actually used to walking in them yet and tripping over a flat surface would ruin my schtick here. "They make the best stompy noises when I walk around."
"That's…" Danny pauses briefly. "Very nice, Jane. Please don't break the floor."
"Oooh! Yeah!" I stop stomping to point at him. "I almost forgot to mention! They're steel toed too! So if any boys try to flirt with me I can break their shins!" I mime a kick. "Hiya!"
That finally gets a laugh out of Danny. "Did you two get up to anything else today?"
"Mmmm...Hmmm…" I nod. "We also went for our run. Which–" I glance at Taylor who's staring at me with a raised eyebrow and slightly widened eyes. "–Okay, I guess that part I'll allow you to describe as 'fine' since running around the block a bunch of times is basically just NASCAR but slower." Rolling my eyes at Taylor's blatantly obvious relief that I didn't tell Danny about any of the actually important stuff we did during our run, I vrrrrooommm around in a small leftwards circle to demonstrate the boring silliness that is NASCAR.
The rock lifts off the floor, reaches the edge of what I thought of as the spell effect, and then… keeps going?
"What? But…"
"Something wrong?" Taylor asks as she rolls over, leaning her face over the side of her bed to peer down at me.
I point to the rock floating in the air.
"...I thought you said you couldn't do that." She frowns.
"Yeah, I didn't think I… hmmm…" Suddenly suspicious, I cancel [Stoneshape] and-
The rock drops, bouncing off my forehead.
"...Ow."
Taylor lurches upright. "Did it just stop working because I-"
"Nah. My dumb ass just let herself get poked by the good-idea fairy."
Ignoring Taylor's amused snort, I recast [Stoneshape] at level one so that the entirety of the spell's effect is the rock with nothing left over. Then I will it back into the air.
The rock lifts off my pillow. It moves slowly, because level 1 and all, but it nonetheless floats its stupid rock ass up into the air where it has no business being.
"What the shit?" I glare at the rock, hovering above me. Not directly above my face this time. I can learn, thankyouverymuch. "Then why the fuck does [Telekinesis] even exist- oh, duh!" I smack myself on the forehead. "Not everything is made of stone, Jane."
Suddenly suspicious about how many of my other 'well, obviously I can't just do X' issues are self inflicted, I reshape the rock from resembling a golf ball into resembling a particularly short hotdog. Reaching up and grabbing the rock with both hands, I tug on it while willing it to remain still.
The rock doesn't move, even as I pull harder to the point of starting to lift my upper body off of my pile of blankets.
Cackling, I will the rock to rise, slowly pulling me into the air.
"Taylor, look!" I stage whisper, grinning at her as my face pulls level with hers and well aware that she's been staring at me the whole time. "I can-"
The spell ends, dumping me back down onto my nest.
...I can remember that using the level 1 version of the spell means it only lasts 1 minute.
Taylor leans her head over the edge of her bed again. "That didn't look even a little safe."
"Fuck safe!" I laugh. "I-"
There's a knock on the bedroom door. "Is everything okay in there?" The door opens and Uncle Danny sticks his head in. "I heard a loud bang."
"I'm fine!" I raise my hand and give him a thumbs up.
"Yeah, Dad. Jane's just… being Jane."
"Hey!" I scrabble to sit upright so I can glare up at Tayor properly. "Rude!"
"Ah." Danny just nods and goes along with his daughter's vicious slander. "Try not to break anything."
"Hey!" I shift my glare over to him. "I don't break things."
Taylor raises an eyebrow at me. "...The phone?"
I have no defense against such absurdly accurate statements so I make sure to keep my grumbling incoherent as I slump back down, crossing my arms over my chest. "Humph!"
Danny laughs. "Have a good night, girls." I hear the door close and then footsteps moving away.
Taylor's face appears above me almost immediately, one finger held to her lips in a shushing gesture.
Her other hand holds up 3 fingers, then 2, then 1. "No flying around on rocks, Jane."
"What!? Why not?"
"People would think you're Rune."
"That's…" I frown. "Gods damn it!"
"THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM CLIMBED UP THE WATER SPOUT!"
The next five meters or so of my excavation pit slowly float upwards, carrying me all the way to the top.
Separating off a disc of stone from the top and attaching it to the edges of the excavation pit, I park my butt on the bottom of my slide and begin displacing the rest of the stone out into the basement through the wall. I'll eventually want to circle back and smooth it down against the walls and floor so that it'll be somewhat less obvious what's happened if someone happens to look through the giant hole in the living room floor.
Or maybe just wait until I can [Teleport] it away?
Ugh! If only leveling [Blink] wasn't so gods-damned boring when you have to do it in secret. In Veird, I'd be blipping my way to and from school but noooo… I had to get isekai'd to Brockton fucking-
Wooooo…
My [Stoneshape] aura doesn't expand.
…oooo?
Huh.
I guess the [Aurified] range is derived from the 'medium amounts of stone' rather than the spell level?
Well, I shrug, I guess I'll find out if I'm right next level when medium becomes large. Whatever the case, dropping that stupid 'slowly' keyword at least makes the process of pushing the stone out into the basement way faster.
Standing back up and stretching, I form some stone into a pair of loops to hook my feet in, just in case, and then have my stone disc float back down at full speed.
…Meh. It's definitely faster, but it's not quite at freefalling roller coaster levels of wheee yet.
Ah well.
"DOWN CAME THE JANE AND PULSED HER AURA OUT!"
Pausing my descent the moment I feel the bottom of the pit enter my aura's range, I connect the disc to the surrounding stone so it won't go anywhere and switch over to aurifying [Cleanse] for a few seconds to make sure I can, you know, keep breathing and whatnot, before switching back to [Stoneshape.]
Dropping my disc all the way down to the 'floor' of my excavation pit, I take control of the rock below me and…
Waitaminute!
=Taylor!=
Squatting down to eke that little bit of extra penetration depth out of a lower center of mass, I confirm that yes, that is a transition to a different kind of rock I can feel happening at the edge of my aura. A different kind of porous rock.
=Taylor, I did it!=
Grabbing all the stone above that transition line with my aura, I start floating it back up to the top.
"AND THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM CLIMBED UP THE SPOUT AGAIN!"
=Did… what, Jane?=
=Okay, first of all: Rude!= I start shunting the next load of rock into the basement while I try to slather 'I am incredibly offended, but also entirely kidding' all over my next message to my cousin. =You know I can feel that judgey 'oh gods, what did she do now?' vibe you packed into that question.=
=You were the one concerned about accidentally making a new lake, Jane.=
=...Fair.= I send her an impression of me shrugging. =But no. What I did was got all the way down to the aquifer without hitting a septic tank.=
=That's… good?=
=Yeah. And the water layer is way further down than I thought it would be.=
Shifting my disc into a ring, I send her my viewpoint as I turn on my flashlight. Shining it down into a dark abyss, the cheap light's failure to illuminate it properly winds up doing a wonderful job of making it very clear that this is a hole I can't see the bottom of.
=Well that's terrifying.=
=Eh. Even if I somehow fell in, I'd probably survive unless I took a header.=
600 point absorption [Ward] for the win!
Despite being my most recent purchase via last night's level up, [Ward] is probably going to reach level 10 first. At the very least, immediately marking it as a favored spell with Clarity made getting it to level 6 so I could give myself a personal forcefield obnoxiously easy.
How did OG Jane's song go? Ward every morning! Ward every night! Uh… Ward Ward Ward, after every fight?
I'll… work on that last bit.
I mean, sure, [Ward] being so easy to power level makes assigning my other favored spell to Blink so I can get Teleport sooner so fucking tempting but… ce la vie! In this land that Registrars forgot, I can't just go get a quest to fix it later so I'm just going to have to suck it up and wait until I can favor Teleport.
=I was more talking about the fact that you did that in under an hour, Jane.=
=I mean… I worked on it yesterday too.=
=Yeah, for like 15 minutes.=
=Excuse you!= I pout. =I mean, yeah, now that you mention it I am feeling pretty wiped out.= Closing the hole in my disc, I cut [Stoneshape] and sit down on my slide again to rest. =But! Being painfully accurate is no excuse for calling my power a quickshot! Do I make fun of your lack of stamina when we're out running?=
=That's not…= I get a mental image of Taylor pinching the bridge of her nose while a distinct feeling of 'I don't want to know' blasts across the connection. =What I meant, was that I kind of assumed you were exaggerating about the lake.=
=Ooooh… yeah, no. Sinkholes are terrifying= I send her what I remember of that video online where this whole section of some street just suddenly up and drops out of existence, cars and all. =I do not want to cause one of… Oh, hmmm.=
Actually… that's not the worst idea for how to handle things if Noelle is already in Coil's base when I find it.
=Jane, no! Whatever it is, no.=
"Fine." Taylor looks up from her book briefly to shrug before going back to her reading.
Frowning as the silence stretches well past awkward, I sit up slowly so as to not break [Meditation] and look over the back of the couch at the two of them.
I wait for the conversation to continue.
And… wait…
And… wait.
Only, instead of continuing to talk, Taylor keeps reading and Danny starts to putter around the kitchen.
Well then!
Abandoning meditation, I stand up on the couch and put my hands on my hips to glare at Taylor. "Excuse me!?"
Danny startles, spinning around and obviously taking an extra half second to remember there's three people living in his house now before smiling apologetically "Sorry about that, Jane. I didn't see you there. How was your day?"
"Not you." I hold up one finger in a 'please wait' gesture as I step up onto the back of the couch and then quickly hop off of it to land in front of Taylor.
They tried to do this shit yesterday too and I let it slide then because yeah, 'fine' is probably being generous when it comes to describing how Taylor's typical day goes at that school.
I am not letting it slide today.
"Fine!?" I kick Taylor in the shin. "Your day was fine!?"
"Ow! Jane! What the-" Taylor tries to interrupt me but I just talk over her.
"You spent the entire day with me and all you have to say about it is fine!?" I kick her in the shin again before turning away and letting my hand fall as I stomp towards Danny to begin my demonstration of a proper answer. "My day was great, Uncle Danny! Taylor took me to the library. And then we went shopping on the boardwalk and I got a bunch of pretty crystals and some copper pipe for my art project and- MY BOOTS!" Spinning around, I race over to the stairs, scrambling up them on all fours to maximize the 'herd of elephants' effect. "You need to see my new boots!" I call over my shoulder through the railing as I go.
Grabbing the shopping bag with my new boots off of Taylor's bed, I spin around and head back, saving time by just leaping down the stairs.
| Fell for 35 HP damage! |
…Ow? Okay, in retrospect that was probably not my brightest idea ever and should totally have hurt rather than just making my feet tingle briefly.
But also: Woo! Being able to regenerate HP and Mana later will net me a bunch of extra points of Meditation XP.
As an added bonus, the loud thump of my landing startles Danny and Taylor out of the weird staring contest they seemed to be having while I was gone.
"Behold!" I pull my new shiny black combat boots out of the bag and wave them around. "My boots!" Plopping myself back down onto the couch I pull them on and start bucking up the shiny metal buckles. "They have no laces and they make me, like, a whole inch-and-change taller than my shoes do. And!" I stand up and stomp into the kitchen, keeping a close eye on my feet because as hard as I'm hamming up my love for them I'm not actually used to walking in them yet and tripping over a flat surface would ruin my schtick here. "They make the best stompy noises when I walk around."
"That's…" Danny pauses briefly. "Very nice, Jane. Please don't break the floor."
"Oooh! Yeah!" I stop stomping to point at him. "I almost forgot to mention! They're steel toed too! So if any boys try to flirt with me I can break their shins!" I mime a kick. "Hiya!"
That finally gets a laugh out of Danny. "Did you two get up to anything else today?"
"Mmmm...Hmmm…" I nod. "We also went for our run. Which–" I glance at Taylor who's staring at me with a raised eyebrow and slightly widened eyes. "–Okay, I guess that part I'll allow you to describe as 'fine' since running around the block a bunch of times is basically just NASCAR but slower." Rolling my eyes at Taylor's blatantly obvious relief that I didn't tell Danny about any of the actually important stuff we did during our run, I vrrrrooommm around in a small leftwards circle to demonstrate the boring silliness that is NASCAR.
The rock lifts off the floor, reaches the edge of what I thought of as the spell effect, and then… keeps going?
"What? But…"
"Something wrong?" Taylor asks as she rolls over, leaning her face over the side of her bed to peer down at me.
I point to the rock floating in the air.
"...I thought you said you couldn't do that." She frowns.
"Yeah, I didn't think I… hmmm…" Suddenly suspicious, I cancel [Stoneshape] and-
The rock drops, bouncing off my forehead.
| Crit for 5 HP damage! |
"...Ow."
Taylor lurches upright. "Did it just stop working because I-"
"Nah. My dumb ass just let herself get poked by the good-idea fairy."
Ignoring Taylor's amused snort, I recast [Stoneshape] at level one so that the entirety of the spell's effect is the rock with nothing left over. Then I will it back into the air.
The rock lifts off my pillow. It moves slowly, because level 1 and all, but it nonetheless floats its stupid rock ass up into the air where it has no business being.
"What the shit?" I glare at the rock, hovering above me. Not directly above my face this time. I can learn, thankyouverymuch. "Then why the fuck does [Telekinesis] even exist- oh, duh!" I smack myself on the forehead. "Not everything is made of stone, Jane."
Suddenly suspicious about how many of my other 'well, obviously I can't just do X' issues are self inflicted, I reshape the rock from resembling a golf ball into resembling a particularly short hotdog. Reaching up and grabbing the rock with both hands, I tug on it while willing it to remain still.
The rock doesn't move, even as I pull harder to the point of starting to lift my upper body off of my pile of blankets.
Cackling, I will the rock to rise, slowly pulling me into the air.
"Taylor, look!" I stage whisper, grinning at her as my face pulls level with hers and well aware that she's been staring at me the whole time. "I can-"
The spell ends, dumping me back down onto my nest.
| Fell for 3 HP damage! |
...I can remember that using the level 1 version of the spell means it only lasts 1 minute.
Taylor leans her head over the edge of her bed again. "That didn't look even a little safe."
"Fuck safe!" I laugh. "I-"
There's a knock on the bedroom door. "Is everything okay in there?" The door opens and Uncle Danny sticks his head in. "I heard a loud bang."
"I'm fine!" I raise my hand and give him a thumbs up.
"Yeah, Dad. Jane's just… being Jane."
"Hey!" I scrabble to sit upright so I can glare up at Tayor properly. "Rude!"
"Ah." Danny just nods and goes along with his daughter's vicious slander. "Try not to break anything."
"Hey!" I shift my glare over to him. "I don't break things."
Taylor raises an eyebrow at me. "...The phone?"
I have no defense against such absurdly accurate statements so I make sure to keep my grumbling incoherent as I slump back down, crossing my arms over my chest. "Humph!"
Danny laughs. "Have a good night, girls." I hear the door close and then footsteps moving away.
Taylor's face appears above me almost immediately, one finger held to her lips in a shushing gesture.
Her other hand holds up 3 fingers, then 2, then 1. "No flying around on rocks, Jane."
"What!? Why not?"
"People would think you're Rune."
"That's…" I frown. "Gods damn it!"
"THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM CLIMBED UP THE WATER SPOUT!"
The next five meters or so of my excavation pit slowly float upwards, carrying me all the way to the top.
Separating off a disc of stone from the top and attaching it to the edges of the excavation pit, I park my butt on the bottom of my slide and begin displacing the rest of the stone out into the basement through the wall. I'll eventually want to circle back and smooth it down against the walls and floor so that it'll be somewhat less obvious what's happened if someone happens to look through the giant hole in the living room floor.
Or maybe just wait until I can [Teleport] it away?
Ugh! If only leveling [Blink] wasn't so gods-damned boring when you have to do it in secret. In Veird, I'd be blipping my way to and from school but noooo… I had to get isekai'd to Brockton fucking-
| Stoneshape level up! |
Wooooo…
My [Stoneshape] aura doesn't expand.
…oooo?
| Stoneshape 6, 1 minute per level, medium range, 35 MP Move medium amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of Stoneshape, OR gain fine control over small amounts of stone and sand. Exp: 2/1300 |
Huh.
I guess the [Aurified] range is derived from the 'medium amounts of stone' rather than the spell level?
Well, I shrug, I guess I'll find out if I'm right next level when medium becomes large. Whatever the case, dropping that stupid 'slowly' keyword at least makes the process of pushing the stone out into the basement way faster.
Standing back up and stretching, I form some stone into a pair of loops to hook my feet in, just in case, and then have my stone disc float back down at full speed.
…Meh. It's definitely faster, but it's not quite at freefalling roller coaster levels of wheee yet.
Ah well.
"DOWN CAME THE JANE AND PULSED HER AURA OUT!"
Pausing my descent the moment I feel the bottom of the pit enter my aura's range, I connect the disc to the surrounding stone so it won't go anywhere and switch over to aurifying [Cleanse] for a few seconds to make sure I can, you know, keep breathing and whatnot, before switching back to [Stoneshape.]
Dropping my disc all the way down to the 'floor' of my excavation pit, I take control of the rock below me and…
Waitaminute!
=Taylor!=
Squatting down to eke that little bit of extra penetration depth out of a lower center of mass, I confirm that yes, that is a transition to a different kind of rock I can feel happening at the edge of my aura. A different kind of porous rock.
=Taylor, I did it!=
Grabbing all the stone above that transition line with my aura, I start floating it back up to the top.
"AND THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM CLIMBED UP THE SPOUT AGAIN!"
=Did… what, Jane?=
=Okay, first of all: Rude!= I start shunting the next load of rock into the basement while I try to slather 'I am incredibly offended, but also entirely kidding' all over my next message to my cousin. =You know I can feel that judgey 'oh gods, what did she do now?' vibe you packed into that question.=
=You were the one concerned about accidentally making a new lake, Jane.=
=...Fair.= I send her an impression of me shrugging. =But no. What I did was got all the way down to the aquifer without hitting a septic tank.=
=That's… good?=
=Yeah. And the water layer is way further down than I thought it would be.=
Shifting my disc into a ring, I send her my viewpoint as I turn on my flashlight. Shining it down into a dark abyss, the cheap light's failure to illuminate it properly winds up doing a wonderful job of making it very clear that this is a hole I can't see the bottom of.
=Well that's terrifying.=
=Eh. Even if I somehow fell in, I'd probably survive unless I took a header.=
600 point absorption [Ward] for the win!
Despite being my most recent purchase via last night's level up, [Ward] is probably going to reach level 10 first. At the very least, immediately marking it as a favored spell with Clarity made getting it to level 6 so I could give myself a personal forcefield obnoxiously easy.
How did OG Jane's song go? Ward every morning! Ward every night! Uh… Ward Ward Ward, after every fight?
I'll… work on that last bit.
I mean, sure, [Ward] being so easy to power level makes assigning my other favored spell to Blink so I can get Teleport sooner so fucking tempting but… ce la vie! In this land that Registrars forgot, I can't just go get a quest to fix it later so I'm just going to have to suck it up and wait until I can favor Teleport.
=I was more talking about the fact that you did that in under an hour, Jane.=
=I mean… I worked on it yesterday too.=
=Yeah, for like 15 minutes.=
=Excuse you!= I pout. =I mean, yeah, now that you mention it I am feeling pretty wiped out.= Closing the hole in my disc, I cut [Stoneshape] and sit down on my slide again to rest. =But! Being painfully accurate is no excuse for calling my power a quickshot! Do I make fun of your lack of stamina when we're out running?=
=That's not…= I get a mental image of Taylor pinching the bridge of her nose while a distinct feeling of 'I don't want to know' blasts across the connection. =What I meant, was that I kind of assumed you were exaggerating about the lake.=
=Ooooh… yeah, no. Sinkholes are terrifying= I send her what I remember of that video online where this whole section of some street just suddenly up and drops out of existence, cars and all. =I do not want to cause one of… Oh, hmmm.=
Actually… that's not the worst idea for how to handle things if Noelle is already in Coil's base when I find it.
=Jane, no! Whatever it is, no.=
Last edited:
10
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
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- 16,989
"Good morning, Shoulder-Angel! Happy Monday!" Sliding into my seat, I wave to Aisha before turning to Missy and waving to her. "And to you as well, Shoulder-Devil."
Missy frowns at me, but Aisha starts laughing. "How the fuck am I the Angel?"
"Uh, no offence–" I turn back to gesture at her… everything, really. "–to your 'street cred' or whatever you cool kids call it here but have you seen Missy?" I Vanna White at the girl in question. "Total 'violence solves everything' vibes and-"
"Hey!" Missy protests, poking me in the arm. "I am not violent!"
"Okay, first: Ow!" I pout at her, rubbing my arm and hamming up how much her poke hurt as hard as I can before turning back to Aisha. "And yeah, I guess warrior angels are a thing too, but!" I point at Missy. "You'll notice she didn't object to being the Shoulder-Devil, just to the idea that violence was her only qualification for the job." I switch to pointing at Aisha. "Way more importantly though, your name starts with A and Missy's doesn't even have one."
"Byron, Missy!" The teacher calls.
"Here!" Missy answers.
Oh jeezus, that's how we take attendance here? Why are we even seated alphabetically then?
Whatever.
"Anyway… speaking of violently having things…" I poke Missy in the arm. "What gym-"
"Flatt, Jane!"
"Rude!" I mock-glare at the teacher. "We can't all be Aisha!"
Missy makes a face but Aisha starts cackling behind me as the teacher and I stare at each other.
Unlike the teacher though, I have a conversation I want to get back to, so I let her win this one with a sigh. "...Physically present!"
I turn back to Missy as the teacher moves on. "What gym do you go to?"
"I…" Missys' eyes widen a little. "I don't?"
Why is she… oh, whoops! She probably uses one in the PRT building. Right.
Re-direct question? Or tease the shit out of her?
…Both!
"Really? What do you do then?" I reach over and squeeze her arm. "Accidentally trip and fall into gun shows wallet first every weekend?"
"...Really, Jane?" Missy's expression of mostly-concealed panic relaxes into exasperation. "I just… exercise." She pokes my arm. "And you're one to talk."
"Yeah." I flex my arm as stereotypically as possible, inviting Missy to give it a squeeze. "And I want to stay this way. Hence talking to you about whether or not the gym you go to is any good."
I'm not actually sure if staying in shape really matters given the way my stats work, but I'm also not sure that it doesn't. And it's not like I've had any luck making a proper stat item. I know Erick used [Ward] for color masks and stuff but I'm clearly forgetting something because even having successfully narrowed down the correct shade of red for Strength, my best result only gave me a single point before shattering just as immediately and enthusiastically as all of its predecessors.
"Yo." Aisha calls out behind me as a foot, which I hope also belongs to Aisha, nudges my butt. "If you two are done-"
The bell rings.
Aisha sighs, and we all grab our backpacks and head to the door as quickly as we can to beat the rush.
Once the awkwardly long bell finally stops, Aisha tries again as we navigate the complicated task of fitting three tween girls who're all trying to be first through a standard adult size door without any casualties. "If you two are done fondling each other, my dad runs a gym."
"Really?" I have no idea if my acting skills are up to the task of pretending I totally didn't know that so I use my favorite spell: Distraction! "You know," I reach out and squeeze her arm, "if you were feeling left out you can just say so. I'm sure Missy would be happy to fondle you too."
"Jane!" Missy squeaks.
Ruth's voice cuts in from behind us before I can respond. "The fuck is wrong with you people?"
"Ruth!" I abandon Aisha's arm in favor of spinning around and pointing my finger at Ruth's face accusingly. A quick [Scry] aimed out the back of my head letting me keep heading towards class without the risk of slamming into a door frame. "There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay in shape!" Speeding up just enough that I can see all three of them. I give Ruth a quick once over and then side-eye Aisha as blatantly as I can. "Even if the girl who claims her dad runs a gym is the squishiest one here."
"Squishy?"
"Hey." I hold up my hands placatingly even as I continue teasing her. "I'm sure you give the best hugs."
"Squishy!?" Aisha doesn't seem to want to be placated. Uh, actually she might really be mad at me.
"Aisha." I drop the teasing tone. "I'm not calling you-" I stop, taking a deep breath in and then out before I can utter the word 'fat' near an already incensed tween girl. "I only meant that, like, out of the four of us–" I gesture broadly at our little group as I walk backwards into our Algebra classroom. "–we only have a single pair of boobs."
And unlike my cousin, I'm perfectly fine with this state of affairs.
…Though apparently Ruth and Missy aren't, given the way they're crossing their arms over their chests and glaring at me.
Well, Missy is glaring at me. Ruth is glaring at Aisha, which is, granted, pretty much their usual method of interaction for most of the short time I've known them apart from Ruth's eyes being aimed a little lower at the moment.
"So! As I was saying." I shrug 'helplessly' at them and recast my favorite spell. "My sister-cousin and I are looking for a gym."
Neither Ruth or Missy react at all, but Aisha squints at me suspiciously. "Hol'up… Your what?" She asks, her tone making breaking the others out of whatever silly tweenie-bopper self-esteem spiral their thoughts had gotten stuck in as they questioningly glance first at her and then at me.
Distraction successful!
"Looking for a gym." I repeat, willfully misunderstanding the question even as I feel the giggles threatening to crack my composure. "Is your dad's any good?"
The urge to telepathically blast banjo noises into their brains is strong, but I resist the impulse by reminding myself that doing so would be, you know, a terrible idea many, many, times over unless I want to join the crazy train that is New Wave.
"DOWN WENT THE JANE AND- Ugh." I gag. "Why does my hole smell like shit again?"
…PHRASING!
Double ugh! Why is my brain like this?
Locking my disc in place and switching my aura to [Cleanse] quickly purges the stench that's invaded my excavation pit. Sadly, it does nothing to purge my memory of my brain's uncomfortable word choice tendencies.
Re-engaging [Stoneshape] and riding my disc back up, I pay closer attention to the stone around me. I don't feel any cracks or gaps in the walls that would let the smell from the basement leak in, even when I switch to the version of the spell that allows for fine control in exchange for a much tighter aura. The wall does shift a little bit in a few places as I work my way downwards using that tighter aura to try to firm up the wall though so maybe this is a perception issue?
How would I even fix that? [Ultrasight] maybe? Or more likely some tier 2 spell that merges [Ultrasight] with [Stoneshape]?
Such informative. Many helpful. Wow.
Seriously, if I didn't already know what Ultrasight did that wouldn't explain a thing.
…Ugh, no.
Well…
Okay, so it isn't 1 HP per second like I expected it to be so… maybe? I'll put a pin in that one until I get home and can look over my projected build.
Not that I have the HP regen to support even that for very long unless I'm Meditating, but given how much of what I do involves looking around with [Scry]... being able to see better might be worth it?
Whatever. That's a future-Jane problem.
For now, hopefully the 'fine control' smoothing fixes whatever leak is letting in that smell.
On which note, ugh, I pause again to [Mana Shaping] a [Cleanse] before finally reaching the bott-
A couple meters above the transition line, I hear a splashy noise as my disc suddenly and, given that water is effectively invisible to my stonestense, without warning, plows into said water. Even though I was already slowing down, I can't react fast enough to stop myself and I can hear the now pressurized water fountain up around the edges of my disc, where it sprays all over me and- Oh gods the water smells even worse.
Moving my disc back up and immediately [Mana Shaping] another [Cleanse] before I even finish locking it in place—
Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Go away.
[Telepathy]!
=Hey, Taylor…=
=...What did you do?=
=Rude!=
=...What happened?=
=I went to the dig site on the way ho–=
=By yourself!?=
=–me from sch- Hey! What's that supposed to mean? I'm short, not a baby.=
=Uh huh. What happened?=
=Right, so, I uh… I found the water table a little sooner and far more enthusiastically than I planned to and long story short: Can you bring me a spare change of clothes?=
I feel Taylor sigh over the connection. =I'll be there in a little bit.=
=Awesome! Thank you.=
Doo dooo… Waiting for Taylor. Doo doooo…
Growing bored almost immediately and figuring I might as well make the most of my time, I go back to working on our lair.
Pulling the collar of my shirt up over my nose and digging out my flashlight out of my pocket, I shine it downwards as I spin my [Stoneshape] aura back up and shift the disc into a ring.
…Yup. That is definitely where the stench is coming from. Also, and this might just be my imagination, but I'm pretty sure the water is slowly bubbling too, which cannot possibly be a good sign.
=Hey, Taylor.= I send her what I'm seeing and, because misery loves company, smelling before closing the hole back up and recasting [Cleanse]. =I have a new theory on why the house was condemned.=
=That's…= Taylor abandons words in favor of sending me an impression of dry heaving. =That's lovely, Jane. Thank you for sharing.=
=You're welcome!=
Now… What to do about the water?
Starting with the simplest solution, I try just pushing my disc down without leaving any gaps at the sides.
It works, for a little while, but eventually the pressure pushing back slows me down and… Yeah, I'm not moving anymore.
Okay then. I guess this is the floor now?
Well, no. I want way more than just a few inches of stone between me and that stench.
Switching my aura back to the larger but less precise version, I pick out a spot about another meter up and have an arched doorway slide out of it and form into a new disc for me to ride upwards until I'm level with it.
"THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM FLOWED OUT OF the… wall- Er."
Pausing my tunnelling efforts, I look upwards and double check that actually I'm facing…
Well, shit. I can barely see the light up there let alone tell which way is which from here.
Riding my new disc back up, I start re-forming the ladder on the slide side of the tunnel. Which, I guess I needed to do this anyway in case Taylor ever needed to get in or out without… me…
I pause, floating myself up further and looking at the slide coming in from the outside and leading directly to a giant hole in the ground.
Yeah… I have no idea what OSHAs rules are on things like this, but I am 100% sure this doesn't meet them.
Shifting the slide into something more like a step ladder or a steep staircase, I carve a fall hazard warning into each and every step. I also add some obvious hand holds along the side and… I'm still going to find some dumbass kid's body at the bottom some day if I don't fill this in, aren't I?
…Maybe [Ward] mixed with [Force Wall] to make a barrier that won't let anyone but me or Taylor in?
Or I can just suck it up and cast [Blink] the bajillion more times it'll take me to get [Teleport] and then we won't need an actual physical entrance.
Bah! I'll figure it out when I'm not freezing my ass off in soggy clothes and low on mana besides.
For now, I just lock my disc in place and wrap a temperature [Ward] around me set to a nice and comfy 70ish degrees.
Then I sit my tired ass down to [Meditate] because being OOM sucks.
Missy frowns at me, but Aisha starts laughing. "How the fuck am I the Angel?"
"Uh, no offence–" I turn back to gesture at her… everything, really. "–to your 'street cred' or whatever you cool kids call it here but have you seen Missy?" I Vanna White at the girl in question. "Total 'violence solves everything' vibes and-"
"Hey!" Missy protests, poking me in the arm. "I am not violent!"
"Okay, first: Ow!" I pout at her, rubbing my arm and hamming up how much her poke hurt as hard as I can before turning back to Aisha. "And yeah, I guess warrior angels are a thing too, but!" I point at Missy. "You'll notice she didn't object to being the Shoulder-Devil, just to the idea that violence was her only qualification for the job." I switch to pointing at Aisha. "Way more importantly though, your name starts with A and Missy's doesn't even have one."
"Byron, Missy!" The teacher calls.
"Here!" Missy answers.
Oh jeezus, that's how we take attendance here? Why are we even seated alphabetically then?
Whatever.
"Anyway… speaking of violently having things…" I poke Missy in the arm. "What gym-"
"Flatt, Jane!"
"Rude!" I mock-glare at the teacher. "We can't all be Aisha!"
Missy makes a face but Aisha starts cackling behind me as the teacher and I stare at each other.
Unlike the teacher though, I have a conversation I want to get back to, so I let her win this one with a sigh. "...Physically present!"
I turn back to Missy as the teacher moves on. "What gym do you go to?"
"I…" Missys' eyes widen a little. "I don't?"
Why is she… oh, whoops! She probably uses one in the PRT building. Right.
Re-direct question? Or tease the shit out of her?
…Both!
"Really? What do you do then?" I reach over and squeeze her arm. "Accidentally trip and fall into gun shows wallet first every weekend?"
"...Really, Jane?" Missy's expression of mostly-concealed panic relaxes into exasperation. "I just… exercise." She pokes my arm. "And you're one to talk."
"Yeah." I flex my arm as stereotypically as possible, inviting Missy to give it a squeeze. "And I want to stay this way. Hence talking to you about whether or not the gym you go to is any good."
I'm not actually sure if staying in shape really matters given the way my stats work, but I'm also not sure that it doesn't. And it's not like I've had any luck making a proper stat item. I know Erick used [Ward] for color masks and stuff but I'm clearly forgetting something because even having successfully narrowed down the correct shade of red for Strength, my best result only gave me a single point before shattering just as immediately and enthusiastically as all of its predecessors.
"Yo." Aisha calls out behind me as a foot, which I hope also belongs to Aisha, nudges my butt. "If you two are done-"
The bell rings.
Aisha sighs, and we all grab our backpacks and head to the door as quickly as we can to beat the rush.
Once the awkwardly long bell finally stops, Aisha tries again as we navigate the complicated task of fitting three tween girls who're all trying to be first through a standard adult size door without any casualties. "If you two are done fondling each other, my dad runs a gym."
"Really?" I have no idea if my acting skills are up to the task of pretending I totally didn't know that so I use my favorite spell: Distraction! "You know," I reach out and squeeze her arm, "if you were feeling left out you can just say so. I'm sure Missy would be happy to fondle you too."
"Jane!" Missy squeaks.
Ruth's voice cuts in from behind us before I can respond. "The fuck is wrong with you people?"
"Ruth!" I abandon Aisha's arm in favor of spinning around and pointing my finger at Ruth's face accusingly. A quick [Scry] aimed out the back of my head letting me keep heading towards class without the risk of slamming into a door frame. "There is nothing wrong with wanting to stay in shape!" Speeding up just enough that I can see all three of them. I give Ruth a quick once over and then side-eye Aisha as blatantly as I can. "Even if the girl who claims her dad runs a gym is the squishiest one here."
"Squishy?"
"Hey." I hold up my hands placatingly even as I continue teasing her. "I'm sure you give the best hugs."
"Squishy!?" Aisha doesn't seem to want to be placated. Uh, actually she might really be mad at me.
"Aisha." I drop the teasing tone. "I'm not calling you-" I stop, taking a deep breath in and then out before I can utter the word 'fat' near an already incensed tween girl. "I only meant that, like, out of the four of us–" I gesture broadly at our little group as I walk backwards into our Algebra classroom. "–we only have a single pair of boobs."
And unlike my cousin, I'm perfectly fine with this state of affairs.
…Though apparently Ruth and Missy aren't, given the way they're crossing their arms over their chests and glaring at me.
Well, Missy is glaring at me. Ruth is glaring at Aisha, which is, granted, pretty much their usual method of interaction for most of the short time I've known them apart from Ruth's eyes being aimed a little lower at the moment.
"So! As I was saying." I shrug 'helplessly' at them and recast my favorite spell. "My sister-cousin and I are looking for a gym."
Neither Ruth or Missy react at all, but Aisha squints at me suspiciously. "Hol'up… Your what?" She asks, her tone making breaking the others out of whatever silly tweenie-bopper self-esteem spiral their thoughts had gotten stuck in as they questioningly glance first at her and then at me.
Distraction successful!
"Looking for a gym." I repeat, willfully misunderstanding the question even as I feel the giggles threatening to crack my composure. "Is your dad's any good?"
The urge to telepathically blast banjo noises into their brains is strong, but I resist the impulse by reminding myself that doing so would be, you know, a terrible idea many, many, times over unless I want to join the crazy train that is New Wave.
"DOWN WENT THE JANE AND- Ugh." I gag. "Why does my hole smell like shit again?"
…PHRASING!
Double ugh! Why is my brain like this?
Locking my disc in place and switching my aura to [Cleanse] quickly purges the stench that's invaded my excavation pit. Sadly, it does nothing to purge my memory of my brain's uncomfortable word choice tendencies.
Re-engaging [Stoneshape] and riding my disc back up, I pay closer attention to the stone around me. I don't feel any cracks or gaps in the walls that would let the smell from the basement leak in, even when I switch to the version of the spell that allows for fine control in exchange for a much tighter aura. The wall does shift a little bit in a few places as I work my way downwards using that tighter aura to try to firm up the wall though so maybe this is a perception issue?
How would I even fix that? [Ultrasight] maybe? Or more likely some tier 2 spell that merges [Ultrasight] with [Stoneshape]?
| Ultrasight 1, 1 HP per minute. See clearly Purchase [Ultrasight 1] for 1 point? Yes/No |
Such informative. Many helpful. Wow.
Seriously, if I didn't already know what Ultrasight did that wouldn't explain a thing.
…Ugh, no.
Well…
Okay, so it isn't 1 HP per second like I expected it to be so… maybe? I'll put a pin in that one until I get home and can look over my projected build.
Not that I have the HP regen to support even that for very long unless I'm Meditating, but given how much of what I do involves looking around with [Scry]... being able to see better might be worth it?
Whatever. That's a future-Jane problem.
For now, hopefully the 'fine control' smoothing fixes whatever leak is letting in that smell.
On which note, ugh, I pause again to [Mana Shaping] a [Cleanse] before finally reaching the bott-
A couple meters above the transition line, I hear a splashy noise as my disc suddenly and, given that water is effectively invisible to my stonestense, without warning, plows into said water. Even though I was already slowing down, I can't react fast enough to stop myself and I can hear the now pressurized water fountain up around the edges of my disc, where it sprays all over me and- Oh gods the water smells even worse.
Moving my disc back up and immediately [Mana Shaping] another [Cleanse] before I even finish locking it in place—
| Cleanse level up! |
Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Go away.
[Telepathy]!
=Hey, Taylor…=
=...What did you do?=
=Rude!=
=...What happened?=
=I went to the dig site on the way ho–=
=By yourself!?=
=–me from sch- Hey! What's that supposed to mean? I'm short, not a baby.=
=Uh huh. What happened?=
=Right, so, I uh… I found the water table a little sooner and far more enthusiastically than I planned to and long story short: Can you bring me a spare change of clothes?=
I feel Taylor sigh over the connection. =I'll be there in a little bit.=
=Awesome! Thank you.=
Doo dooo… Waiting for Taylor. Doo doooo…
Growing bored almost immediately and figuring I might as well make the most of my time, I go back to working on our lair.
Pulling the collar of my shirt up over my nose and digging out my flashlight out of my pocket, I shine it downwards as I spin my [Stoneshape] aura back up and shift the disc into a ring.
…Yup. That is definitely where the stench is coming from. Also, and this might just be my imagination, but I'm pretty sure the water is slowly bubbling too, which cannot possibly be a good sign.
=Hey, Taylor.= I send her what I'm seeing and, because misery loves company, smelling before closing the hole back up and recasting [Cleanse]. =I have a new theory on why the house was condemned.=
=That's…= Taylor abandons words in favor of sending me an impression of dry heaving. =That's lovely, Jane. Thank you for sharing.=
=You're welcome!=
Now… What to do about the water?
Starting with the simplest solution, I try just pushing my disc down without leaving any gaps at the sides.
It works, for a little while, but eventually the pressure pushing back slows me down and… Yeah, I'm not moving anymore.
Okay then. I guess this is the floor now?
Well, no. I want way more than just a few inches of stone between me and that stench.
Switching my aura back to the larger but less precise version, I pick out a spot about another meter up and have an arched doorway slide out of it and form into a new disc for me to ride upwards until I'm level with it.
"THE ITSY BITSY ROCK WYRM FLOWED OUT OF the… wall- Er."
Pausing my tunnelling efforts, I look upwards and double check that actually I'm facing…
Well, shit. I can barely see the light up there let alone tell which way is which from here.
Riding my new disc back up, I start re-forming the ladder on the slide side of the tunnel. Which, I guess I needed to do this anyway in case Taylor ever needed to get in or out without… me…
I pause, floating myself up further and looking at the slide coming in from the outside and leading directly to a giant hole in the ground.
Yeah… I have no idea what OSHAs rules are on things like this, but I am 100% sure this doesn't meet them.
Shifting the slide into something more like a step ladder or a steep staircase, I carve a fall hazard warning into each and every step. I also add some obvious hand holds along the side and… I'm still going to find some dumbass kid's body at the bottom some day if I don't fill this in, aren't I?
…Maybe [Ward] mixed with [Force Wall] to make a barrier that won't let anyone but me or Taylor in?
Or I can just suck it up and cast [Blink] the bajillion more times it'll take me to get [Teleport] and then we won't need an actual physical entrance.
Bah! I'll figure it out when I'm not freezing my ass off in soggy clothes and low on mana besides.
For now, I just lock my disc in place and wrap a temperature [Ward] around me set to a nice and comfy 70ish degrees.
Then I sit my tired ass down to [Meditate] because being OOM sucks.
11
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
I raise my left hand. Be the me that raised her right hand instead!
[Blink]
The world flickers midnight blue as I blip upwards a few inches. Gravity, heartless bitch she may be, is at least impartial enough to still reach up and yoink me back down even when it's helpful, thus returning me to my starting position on Taylor's bed with a soft wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Oh, come on. I stare at my left hand, still raised in the air. Be the me that raised her right hand instead!
[Blink]
Wumph.
Left hand is still raised.
Sigh… What is the point of mostly remembering how Ar'kendi-whatever teleportation spells work thematically if I can't apply it?
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Ugh. On Veird I could at least do this in public. Could probably even grab a bunch of other freshly matriculated kids and play [Blink]-tag or something, but no… I had to isekai into Brockton fucking Bay.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Hell, even if I'd just arrived here sometime other than fucking Winter, then I could at least be doing this out in the woods or something.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Still my left hand in the air rather than my right.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Well, whatever. I'll at least be able to level [Meditation] on the way to school. Pretty sure that'll put it at the point where I can cast or maintain small spells while using it. No more needing to toggle back and forth between it and Telepathy!
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Bli-
The spell fizzles as the door opens, startling me out of my routine, but it's just Taylor.
"Shower's all yours."
"Woo!"
I [Blink] higher, shifting my arm and twisting my body as I fall so that I come down on my butt and then bounce myself off the bed.
"Woah, hey." She sticks an arm out before I can dash around her. "Just a heads up, I think Dad used it while we were out for our run so the water was already getting cold before I even finished." She tells me, casually murdering my enthusiasm while fiddling with the towel wrapped around her head. "Sorry." She adds a moment later as if that's going to help me.
"Sigh!" I announce, saying the word out loud because I know it annoys her. "I guess I'll just use [Cleanse] again- wait. Wait. Hang on." A solution slowly occurs to me. "Waitaminute!"
Cackling, I dash off to the bathroom and shove a [Mana Shaped] temperature [Ward] as far into the shower head's throat as I can before setting the knob all the way to cold and turning it on.
Cackling intensifying at the sight of steam wafting out of the water, I stick my hand in to confirm.
"UNLIMITED HOT WATER!" Well, only for the next 24 hours or so but actually I'll need to cancel it before then or Danny might notice but still!
I take a step back from the tub. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Be the me who's already naked. [Blink]
The world flickers midnight blue as I blip the foot or so back to the side of the tub.
"Your power is bullshit!" Taylor tells me.
"Taylor!" I whirl around, hands covering my- Er… I look down.
Damn. Still fully dressed. Er… well.
Okay, Blink, I guess I won't be mad at you for not doing what I wanted this time.
"Excuse you." I move my hands to my hips. "I'm trying to practice blipping out of my clothes here."
Taylor raises an eyebrow. "With the door wide open?"
"...shut up!"
"Ruth…" I sigh. "None of that has anything to do with- Oh…" I snap my fingers, pointing at her. "I get it now."
"Really now?" Aisha's glare shifts my way at my half-feigned 'Eureka' moment.
"Yup." I nod, grinning back at her. "Ruth doesn't hate black people, she hates poor people."
"What!? no-"
"You do though!"
"-I don't!"
"Everything you were complaining about:" I count them out on my fingers "The crime, the drugs, the 'smell,'" I airquote that last one, rolling my eyes, "all of that is-
"Miss Flatt," Mr Vernon interrupts me. "If you must talk during class, perhaps you would at least like to talk about the problem on the board?"
Tossing a [Scry] eye near the board so I don't have to break eye contact with Ruth, I look over the equation he's pointing at. "Seven." I say loud enough for my voice to reach the rest of the class. "Also minus seven if you've covered that part of how x squared works."
"That part." Mr Vernon sighs the sigh of aggrieved educators everywhere. "Is today's lesson."
"Oh." I nod, finally breaking eye contact with Ruth to shoot the teacher two thumbs up with an apologetic expression that I keep on my face when I turn back. "Sorry, Ruth." I point at the board. "You should probably pay attention."
In deference to the teacher's obvious wishes, I ignore whatever spluttered objections Ruth raises in response and just put my head down on my desk to focus on the more important questions: Like what the heck am I going to do while my friends are all busy learning basic math?
With a sigh, I start running down my list of options.
=Hey, Taylor! You busy?=
=Very.=
=Nevermind then.=
Work on my story for English class?
…Meh. Not feeling it right now. Plus, I already have like… a week and change's worth of pages ready to turn in.
Hmmm… I eye my mana, basically full again from meditating on the bus. I guess I could explore the city? Between being able to maintain [Meditation] and my dumbass finally realizing I can move the stupid eyes around rather than just rotating them in place before recasting the spell, I can probably even do it without OOMing out again this time.
Reaching into my backpack, I pull out the notebook for computer class and flip to the pages at the back where I'm making 'a list of locations for a text based adventure game set in Brockton Bay' as cover for making a literal checklist of places to Scry.
Now… where was I?
Ah, right. The PRT building.
Shifting my head so it at least looks like I'm paying attention, I cast [Scry].
The 'eye' of the spell pops into existence just outside the front doors, and I float into the lobby through the front door and past the pair of troopers guarding it.
Looking around, the girl working the front desk is dealing with some lady who's complaining about someone stealing her son's Yankees hat. She seems weirdly emphatic about it considering her son is awkwardly standing there next to her wearing a Red Sox hat but whatever. Better you than me, Miss Secretary/Greeter-lady.
Oooh!
Really tall black dude badging through the employees only door! Is it Coil? I zoom over to get a better look.
…Probably not?
His badge doesn't have his name on it, but in retrospect I'm pretty sure Coil is supposed to be obnoxiously tall but freakishly thin and this guy looks like he eats linebackers.
Eh, whatever. I'm bored. Let's follow him to his desk just in case.
…Or not!
A few hallways and an elevator ride later I find myself rapidly backing the eye out of what turned out to be the men's room.
I'll just… follow someone else around today instead. Oooh! Is that Miss Militia!?
Okay, yup, that isn't even close to where it's supposed to be.
As my aura reaches the 'bottom' of the lair, it's immediately obvious that the doorway I made isn't even close to being in the right place.
Fortunately, my digging implement of choice being magic makes shifting the doorway, and the half-formed room behind it, almost 30 degrees so that it's properly opposite the ladder absurdly simple. As bad as creating a sinkhole under an abandoned house would be, I'd much rather that than potentially doing it to one of its occupied neighbors.
That fixed, now I can pull enough stone out of the space behind the door to fill in the pit below me.
I also try pushing the whole floor down further and, surprisingly, I get it to shift another couple inches so I guess some of the pressure must have bled out into the rest of the aquifer over the past 24 hours?
Of course, it's only after I waste a few minutes doing that that I realize there's a better way to handle this.
Shifting stone from just above the space my stone sense indicates is 'empty' of stone but is clearly full of something out to the edges and then down and around below it, I slowly shift the pocket of water up and away from the rest of the aquifer until it's an inch or so beneath my feet and forms the 'mouth' of my latest 'Rock Wyrm' as I ride it back up.
At which point I yeet the water out into the snow, push the stone out into the basement, and head back down again to grab another load of stone.
Hmmm… =Hey, Taylor?= I puff out my cheeks and frown, but choose to ignore the mental sigh I get in response in favor of asking my question. =How much room do you actually need for your spiders anyway?=
=Uh… not much, I guess? It's mostly a matter of keeping them from eating each other while I'm out of range.=
=Well on that lovely note… I think I'm done?=
"Thank you for choosing The Jane-way–" Uh… I'll work on that name. That one has some serious 'do not want' connotations given who my social Qworker might be. "--Express for all your shaft riding needs! Please keep your arms, legs, and tentacles inside the vehicle at all times!"
Fortunately, I'm saved from having to ponder the words that just came out of my mouth while I was distracted by the way Taylor's hand tightens on my shoulder as we ride the disc down to our new lair.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." Taylor says in a tone indicating she's anything but.
Which, in fairness to her, a one meter wide tube feels a lot more cramped with two- Ah. Shit. I forgot she's claustrophobic or locker-adjacent-ophobic or- Muse on word choice later! Fixy fixy now!
Please don't be a crime against sanity.
Please don't be a crime against sanity.
Crossing my fingers, I make a light [Ward].
Well… it is producing light?
Taylor and I crane our necks up to stare at the weird cloud of glowing blue smoke that's angrily darting around above us as the disc continues bringing us downward.
In retrospect, thinking about the various ways Erick got it to go wrong while casting was probably the opposite of helpful.
Then again, Taylor's grip on my shoulder did relax a bit at some point. "...Is that better?"
"Well I'm not worried about the dark any more."
"Umm… yeah." I shrug. "On the plus side, that one isn't screaming so I'm going to call it a win.
"Is that what that was the other day?"
"I plead the fifth." If only because I have no idea what she's talking about. Well, that and I still don't want to give voice to the whole 'I isekai'd into your story with the body and powers of this girl from another story' thing I have going on. Which I'd kind of need to do to be able to explain how poorly Erick's first forays in lightwards went. "But here." I dig out my flashlight and hold it out to her, snagging the quartz 'terrarium' full of spiders with my aura and floating it out of her arms. "I'll trade you."
With my flashlight in hand, Taylor doesn't grab my shoulder again, but she does start doing that thing where she goes eerily still.
"...Don't you wander around the house in the dark all the time?"
"There are bugs everywhere at home."
"...Eww. Don't remind me."
"It's not that bad when you have complete control over them all."
"Uh huh. I'm sure."
"My point was that I can basically feel my way around at home using them as a map. But here… I found this chunk of rock by looking for where the bugs weren't."
"Ooooh… That makes-" An idea occurs to me. "Actually, let me try something."
[Telepathy]
"What are you-" she cuts off as I start trying to pipe the stonesense feedback from my aura to her. "...Woah."
[Blink]
The world flickers midnight blue as I blip upwards a few inches. Gravity, heartless bitch she may be, is at least impartial enough to still reach up and yoink me back down even when it's helpful, thus returning me to my starting position on Taylor's bed with a soft wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Oh, come on. I stare at my left hand, still raised in the air. Be the me that raised her right hand instead!
[Blink]
Wumph.
Left hand is still raised.
Sigh… What is the point of mostly remembering how Ar'kendi-whatever teleportation spells work thematically if I can't apply it?
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Ugh. On Veird I could at least do this in public. Could probably even grab a bunch of other freshly matriculated kids and play [Blink]-tag or something, but no… I had to isekai into Brockton fucking Bay.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Hell, even if I'd just arrived here sometime other than fucking Winter, then I could at least be doing this out in the woods or something.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Still my left hand in the air rather than my right.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Well, whatever. I'll at least be able to level [Meditation] on the way to school. Pretty sure that'll put it at the point where I can cast or maintain small spells while using it. No more needing to toggle back and forth between it and Telepathy!
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Bli-
The spell fizzles as the door opens, startling me out of my routine, but it's just Taylor.
"Shower's all yours."
"Woo!"
I [Blink] higher, shifting my arm and twisting my body as I fall so that I come down on my butt and then bounce myself off the bed.
"Woah, hey." She sticks an arm out before I can dash around her. "Just a heads up, I think Dad used it while we were out for our run so the water was already getting cold before I even finished." She tells me, casually murdering my enthusiasm while fiddling with the towel wrapped around her head. "Sorry." She adds a moment later as if that's going to help me.
"Sigh!" I announce, saying the word out loud because I know it annoys her. "I guess I'll just use [Cleanse] again- wait. Wait. Hang on." A solution slowly occurs to me. "Waitaminute!"
Cackling, I dash off to the bathroom and shove a [Mana Shaped] temperature [Ward] as far into the shower head's throat as I can before setting the knob all the way to cold and turning it on.
Cackling intensifying at the sight of steam wafting out of the water, I stick my hand in to confirm.
"UNLIMITED HOT WATER!" Well, only for the next 24 hours or so but actually I'll need to cancel it before then or Danny might notice but still!
I take a step back from the tub. Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Be the me who's already naked. [Blink]
The world flickers midnight blue as I blip the foot or so back to the side of the tub.
"Your power is bullshit!" Taylor tells me.
"Taylor!" I whirl around, hands covering my- Er… I look down.
Damn. Still fully dressed. Er… well.
Okay, Blink, I guess I won't be mad at you for not doing what I wanted this time.
"Excuse you." I move my hands to my hips. "I'm trying to practice blipping out of my clothes here."
Taylor raises an eyebrow. "With the door wide open?"
"...shut up!"
"Ruth…" I sigh. "None of that has anything to do with- Oh…" I snap my fingers, pointing at her. "I get it now."
"Really now?" Aisha's glare shifts my way at my half-feigned 'Eureka' moment.
"Yup." I nod, grinning back at her. "Ruth doesn't hate black people, she hates poor people."
"What!? no-"
"You do though!"
"-I don't!"
"Everything you were complaining about:" I count them out on my fingers "The crime, the drugs, the 'smell,'" I airquote that last one, rolling my eyes, "all of that is-
"Miss Flatt," Mr Vernon interrupts me. "If you must talk during class, perhaps you would at least like to talk about the problem on the board?"
Tossing a [Scry] eye near the board so I don't have to break eye contact with Ruth, I look over the equation he's pointing at. "Seven." I say loud enough for my voice to reach the rest of the class. "Also minus seven if you've covered that part of how x squared works."
"That part." Mr Vernon sighs the sigh of aggrieved educators everywhere. "Is today's lesson."
"Oh." I nod, finally breaking eye contact with Ruth to shoot the teacher two thumbs up with an apologetic expression that I keep on my face when I turn back. "Sorry, Ruth." I point at the board. "You should probably pay attention."
In deference to the teacher's obvious wishes, I ignore whatever spluttered objections Ruth raises in response and just put my head down on my desk to focus on the more important questions: Like what the heck am I going to do while my friends are all busy learning basic math?
With a sigh, I start running down my list of options.
=Hey, Taylor! You busy?=
=Very.=
=Nevermind then.=
Work on my story for English class?
…Meh. Not feeling it right now. Plus, I already have like… a week and change's worth of pages ready to turn in.
Hmmm… I eye my mana, basically full again from meditating on the bus. I guess I could explore the city? Between being able to maintain [Meditation] and my dumbass finally realizing I can move the stupid eyes around rather than just rotating them in place before recasting the spell, I can probably even do it without OOMing out again this time.
Reaching into my backpack, I pull out the notebook for computer class and flip to the pages at the back where I'm making 'a list of locations for a text based adventure game set in Brockton Bay' as cover for making a literal checklist of places to Scry.
Now… where was I?
Ah, right. The PRT building.
Shifting my head so it at least looks like I'm paying attention, I cast [Scry].
The 'eye' of the spell pops into existence just outside the front doors, and I float into the lobby through the front door and past the pair of troopers guarding it.
Looking around, the girl working the front desk is dealing with some lady who's complaining about someone stealing her son's Yankees hat. She seems weirdly emphatic about it considering her son is awkwardly standing there next to her wearing a Red Sox hat but whatever. Better you than me, Miss Secretary/Greeter-lady.
Oooh!
Really tall black dude badging through the employees only door! Is it Coil? I zoom over to get a better look.
…Probably not?
His badge doesn't have his name on it, but in retrospect I'm pretty sure Coil is supposed to be obnoxiously tall but freakishly thin and this guy looks like he eats linebackers.
Eh, whatever. I'm bored. Let's follow him to his desk just in case.
…Or not!
A few hallways and an elevator ride later I find myself rapidly backing the eye out of what turned out to be the men's room.
I'll just… follow someone else around today instead. Oooh! Is that Miss Militia!?
Okay, yup, that isn't even close to where it's supposed to be.
As my aura reaches the 'bottom' of the lair, it's immediately obvious that the doorway I made isn't even close to being in the right place.
Fortunately, my digging implement of choice being magic makes shifting the doorway, and the half-formed room behind it, almost 30 degrees so that it's properly opposite the ladder absurdly simple. As bad as creating a sinkhole under an abandoned house would be, I'd much rather that than potentially doing it to one of its occupied neighbors.
That fixed, now I can pull enough stone out of the space behind the door to fill in the pit below me.
I also try pushing the whole floor down further and, surprisingly, I get it to shift another couple inches so I guess some of the pressure must have bled out into the rest of the aquifer over the past 24 hours?
Of course, it's only after I waste a few minutes doing that that I realize there's a better way to handle this.
Shifting stone from just above the space my stone sense indicates is 'empty' of stone but is clearly full of something out to the edges and then down and around below it, I slowly shift the pocket of water up and away from the rest of the aquifer until it's an inch or so beneath my feet and forms the 'mouth' of my latest 'Rock Wyrm' as I ride it back up.
At which point I yeet the water out into the snow, push the stone out into the basement, and head back down again to grab another load of stone.
Hmmm… =Hey, Taylor?= I puff out my cheeks and frown, but choose to ignore the mental sigh I get in response in favor of asking my question. =How much room do you actually need for your spiders anyway?=
=Uh… not much, I guess? It's mostly a matter of keeping them from eating each other while I'm out of range.=
=Well on that lovely note… I think I'm done?=
"Thank you for choosing The Jane-way–" Uh… I'll work on that name. That one has some serious 'do not want' connotations given who my social Qworker might be. "--Express for all your shaft riding needs! Please keep your arms, legs, and tentacles inside the vehicle at all times!"
Fortunately, I'm saved from having to ponder the words that just came out of my mouth while I was distracted by the way Taylor's hand tightens on my shoulder as we ride the disc down to our new lair.
"You okay?"
"I'm fine." Taylor says in a tone indicating she's anything but.
Which, in fairness to her, a one meter wide tube feels a lot more cramped with two- Ah. Shit. I forgot she's claustrophobic or locker-adjacent-ophobic or- Muse on word choice later! Fixy fixy now!
Please don't be a crime against sanity.
Please don't be a crime against sanity.
Crossing my fingers, I make a light [Ward].
Well… it is producing light?
Taylor and I crane our necks up to stare at the weird cloud of glowing blue smoke that's angrily darting around above us as the disc continues bringing us downward.
In retrospect, thinking about the various ways Erick got it to go wrong while casting was probably the opposite of helpful.
Then again, Taylor's grip on my shoulder did relax a bit at some point. "...Is that better?"
"Well I'm not worried about the dark any more."
"Umm… yeah." I shrug. "On the plus side, that one isn't screaming so I'm going to call it a win.
"Is that what that was the other day?"
"I plead the fifth." If only because I have no idea what she's talking about. Well, that and I still don't want to give voice to the whole 'I isekai'd into your story with the body and powers of this girl from another story' thing I have going on. Which I'd kind of need to do to be able to explain how poorly Erick's first forays in lightwards went. "But here." I dig out my flashlight and hold it out to her, snagging the quartz 'terrarium' full of spiders with my aura and floating it out of her arms. "I'll trade you."
With my flashlight in hand, Taylor doesn't grab my shoulder again, but she does start doing that thing where she goes eerily still.
"...Don't you wander around the house in the dark all the time?"
"There are bugs everywhere at home."
"...Eww. Don't remind me."
"It's not that bad when you have complete control over them all."
"Uh huh. I'm sure."
"My point was that I can basically feel my way around at home using them as a map. But here… I found this chunk of rock by looking for where the bugs weren't."
"Ooooh… That makes-" An idea occurs to me. "Actually, let me try something."
[Telepathy]
"What are you-" she cuts off as I start trying to pipe the stonesense feedback from my aura to her. "...Woah."
12
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
MOAR!
"Jane!" Taylor shakes me awake. "Jane!"
"...Ow." I croak more than say.
"Jane!" The shaking stops. "Are you okay?"
"Head hurts..." I groan, blinking open my eyes and looking up at Taylor. Or I try to. Open vs closed doesn't seem to make a huge difference at the moment. Even with the flashlight she's using, it is dark this morning. Did we lose pow- Wait, what? "...Why am I on the floor?"
"I tried to… I didn't…" Taylor's head dips. "I just wanted to let you see what I see with my power too."
"Oh." I try to nod, but that makes the room spin so I stop. "Ow…" I whine, trying and failing to roll over so I can stand up.
"Yeah…" Taylor agrees unsteadily. "You just… fell over."
"Right." Despite how I feel, wiggling my fingers and toes confirms everything is still connected. So… Status?
| Jane Flatt Human, age: 12 Level 9, Class: None Exp: 5163/5500 Class: -/- Points: 3 | |||
| HP | 109/120 (-198) | 160 per day | |
| MP | 265/532 | 554 per day | |
| Strength | 12 | +0 | 12 |
| Vitality | 16 | +0 | 16 |
| Willpower | 20 | +0 | 20 |
| Focus | 20 | +0 | 20 |
…Parenthesis? Why are there- Oh… wasn't mental backlash from telepathy 'fake damage' or something? Can't kill you but can make you wish it could?
Yeah, that matches how I'm feeling right now.
Giving up on trying to roll over, I turn on [Meditation] in hopes my HP regen will handle fake damage with the same hourly aplomb it does actual HP damage.
No, wait, that's stupid. I saved the spare points for just this sort of 'rainy day' nonsense and even just breathing hurts right now. That has to count as rain. Calling up my menus, I buy and cast [Treat Wounds], sighing as the bit of up front healing flows through me. I still feel like shit though so I cast it again. And then again. And again. By which point my body has moved from, 'did anyone get the number on that bus?' to just sore. My head still hurts, but now it's the intimately familiar headache of being most of the way through my third mana pool of the day.
"Makes sense." I try nodding again, and this time I manage it without making the room spin. Mostly. "The spirit is willing but the brain is spongy and made of meat."
Hell, it took Taylor two weeks in a mental ward to fully adapt to the input.
"You're okay?"
"Yeah. I have a healing power now."
Taylor stares down at me for a moment and then giggles. I have no idea what's so funny- Oh. It only clicks as Taylor pulls back from kneeling over me and just sort of keeps going, more or less toppling over into a sitting position beside me, that her giggling is more of the hysterical-relief variety than anything resembling humor.
I shift, propping myself up on my arms so I can look at her properly.
"I vote we call this lesson learned: No shoving multiple blocks worth of bugs into Jane's brain. This breaks the Jane-brain. And, in hindsight, I owe you an apology. I should not have shoved meters of rock into you without asking. And not without a lot more easing into it either."
"Well." Taylor's giggles taper off into a moment of stillness before she continues flatly. "I guess you really are fine if you're making sex jokes again."
"Hey! I did no such animal- Oh. Ewww!" I try to facepalm, but my arms are busy holding me up. Probably for the best, I shouldn't be smacking my head right now anyway.
"Huh." Taylor squints at me. "It's almost more impressive if you're doing it without even realizing it."
"Taylor, I know Winslow is… Winslow and so probably never taught you how metric anything works but dildos are measured in centimeters because meters of anything isn't a sex joke anymore. That'd just fucking kill even you and your…size-pollution levels of tallness."
And no, Brain, I most certainly do not need to leave a pair of giant stone dildos in front of the Medhall building for the twins. Why are you like this?
"I know what meters are, Jane." I can't see her well enough to say for sure, but I'm pretty sure Taylor just rolled her eyes at me.
"Uh huh…" I put as much doubt as I can into my voice. "And you understand how- Nope! Nevermind." I shake my head and start standing up. Tutoring my cousin in math is one thing. Sex Ed is another. That way lies madness and banjo music playing while people get stuck in washing machines and Aisha laughing her ass off at me again if I try to whine about it at school. "Let's just get your spiders squared away."
Adding the last set of tiny little alcoves into the wall, I cut off [Stoneshape] and stagger over to the stone dais I raised in the middle and flop my exhausted ass down.
"Need a minute?" Taylor asks, taking a seat next to me while her swarm of Black Widows all disperse themselves one to an alcove.
"I do, yeah, but first…" Just wanting to be done, I ignore the throbbing in my head, take a deep breath, and then [Mana Shape] a donut shaped bug [Ward] along the edge of the room. "Okay, now I'm all done! Double check none of them can escape without your help?"
Taylor's head tilts to the side a little as the walls all briefly look like they're trying to wiggle. The myriad shadows my far-more-successful-but-still-pretty-dim lightward casts on the alcoves as it flickers like a candle despite being basketball sized combines with the random movements of thousands of black bodies into a truly disturbing sight.
Disturbing as it may be though, it still brings a grin to my lips as her spiders, temporarily released from her rigid control, all try and– to my great joy– fail to leave their newly assigned dorm rooms.
I look around, not seeing even a single escapee. "We're good?"
"We're good." Taylor nods.
"And… you can still force them to cross the ward line if you try hard enough?" I double check, since [Ward] has leveled up again since we last tested that.
"It's not comfortable, but yeah."
Yeah, well, I don't know how comfortable I am with the fact that QA can apparently just, like, make the spiders ignore my Bug [Ward]s either.
But I try not to let how put out about it I am show on my face since having a way to restrain her minions' cannibalistic tendencies while she's at school is more than a little convenient for Taylor. Plus, you know, it also means that there are now a few thousand less of the cannibalistic Black Widows in the house where I sleep!
Speaking of which, I finally let myself sag in place until my elbows are on my knees, my hands propping my head up, and start up [Meditation]. "Okay. Great. Then I'm going sit here until my Thinker headache goes away."
Be the me that raised her right hand instead!
[Blink]
Wumph.
Level up! +2 Ability Points |
Woo…
Still my left hand in the air, but hey, that does rather neatly rebuild my rainy day fund after this afternoon's… misadventure.
[Blink]
Wumph.
The repeated bounce landings at the end aren't exactly pleasant for my throbbing head, even as cushioned as my landings are on Taylors bed, but I want [Teleport] some time this century dammit so I force myself to keep at it.
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
| Blink level up! |
My eyes flit back and forth between the blue level up box and my raised right hand.
Sure, the idea occurred to me that maybe the issue was my spell level or even stats were just too low to do what I was trying to. What didn't occur to me is how hard my sense of accomplishment would get fucking murdered by the discovery I wasn't doing anything wrong, I just hadn't cast the stupid spell enough times yet to be allowed to do it.
Still, on the plus side… Be the me that was standing up!
[Blink]
Wumph.
Well, nope, that still didn't work.
So either there's something more to it than that, or going from laying down to standing up requires even more levels in Blink.
…Meh. That sounds like a future-Jane problem.
Rolling over to the edge of Taylor's bed, I use one last [Blink] to blip myself onto my nest and snuggle in before bringing a finger up to my face and booping my own snoot with [Treat Wounds].
The healing magic sweeps through me, but I don't feel anything change other than my mana exhaustion headache ratcheting up another notch which is, I hope, a good sign. I've been ignoring the problem all afternoon, but now that I'm laying down to try and sleep… QA trying to overshare was not one of the spaces I thought to put on my 'Earth Bet sucks and will try to kill you' bingo board. And I can't even be that mad about it because I literally justified doing almost the exact same thing to Taylor on the assumption that QA would handle smoothing out any issues.
It could have just as easily been Taylor that passed out on the floor down there.
No longer wanting to think about it anymore, I lift my finger, fully intending to boop the shit out of myself repeatedly until I pass out from mana exhaustion but… I do have a favored spell slot open. And, unlike with Blink, which I'll be replacing with Teleport the moment I can, I only get the one healing spell.
I call up the box.
| Treat Wounds 2, instant, touch, 50 mana Heal the injuries of the target. Increases the natural healing of the target for 8 hours. Increases Health Regeneration. Effect breaks if damage is incurred. Exp: 150/200 |
…It's already level 2? Jeezus. I really was out of it if I missed a blue box popping up.
And because I'm just masochistic enough to stare at things I can't have, I search up the box for Treat Greater Wounds.
…No such spell? What the fu- Oh! Stupid exact match only nonsense. How the hell is anyone ever supposed to find- …Registrars. Right.
Shaking my head, and then regretting it when it makes my head twinge harder, I rerun my search query minus the accidental D&D syntax.
| Greater Treat Wounds 1, instant, touch, 250 mana Greatly heal the injuries of the target. Greatly increase the natural healing of the target for 6 hours. Greatly increases Health Regeneration. Effect breaks if damage is incurred. Accept Quest for Greater Treat Wounds? Yes/No |
Uhh… Yes!
| Spell Quest! Provide great aid to the terribly wounded 0/1000 OR Buy [Greater Treat Wounds 1] for 5 points. Reward: [Greater Treat Wounds 1] |
One thousand people?
I guess that explains why Treat Wounds X isn't a prereq. A thousand casts at fifty mana a pop already has that… uh… wait, no. I wrote out the Fibonacci sequence and level 9 was 5500 all by itself.
Still though. What the shit, Powers? Judgey much? Pretty sure OG Jane only needed 50 rescues and I need to help a thousand?
Unwilling to deal with my own powers calling me a terrible person, I go back to my plan of booping the shit out of myself until I pass out from mana exhaustion. [Treat Wounds]!
| Treat Wounds level up! |
Woo… Wait, fuck! I can't even start working on that quest until I have [Teleport] to get to and from the hospital without leaving a trail home.
Hell, at that point I might as well just do my rounds in…
Heeeey… Yeah, wait. Why wouldn't I do my rounds in a different city? Far far away from Coil's grubby mitts.
Ugh. Now I really need to hurry up and get Blink to 10. With a groan, I force myself to stand up and climb back onto Taylor's bed and resume my blipping grind.
[Blink]
Wumph.
[Blink]
Wumph.
"Hey." Taylor shakes me awake. "Jane."
"Hummina…" I blink blearily at her in the dark. "Whatsit?"
The shaking stops. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"Ye-" I yawn. "Yeah. I'm fine, just tired. What time is it anyway?"
"A little after nine."
"Oh, oka- oh shit." I lurch upright. "Why didn't you wake me up earlier!?"
"Nine PM, Jane."
I pause halfway through pulling off my shirt, turning back to face her off as I stumble towards the laundry basket I'm using as a dresser for the moment. "When why the fuck-
I have a brief moment to wonder why Taylor is so much shorter than usual before my foot finds air instead of the floor. The realization that I fell asleep in Taylor's bed rather than my nest hitting me right as I fall off of that bed.
| Fell for 15 HP damage! |
"...Ow."
"You're sure you're okay?" Taylor asks me again as I slowly roll myself back into a sitting position.
"Yes, Mom." I sigh, climbing to my feet. Then I feel bad as Taylor goes perfectly still and I remember her Mother is a whole thing with her. Maybe my powers have a point. "Sorry." Grabbing her quilt, I drag myself back onto her bed. "That was… uncalled for. I'm just grouchy because my head hurts and now I'm going to have to blip myself to sleep all over again."
"Again?"
"Yeah." I lay down and wiggle into position. "My Thinker Headaches don't exactly make me tired per se and I just napped so…" I shrug, holding up my left hand. "Blipping until I pass out!"
"In my-"
[Blink]
"-bed?"
Wumph.
"Yeah, my nest isn't nearly padded enough for this." I look over at her, waving my now raised right hand at her. "Also, check out… what's with the face?"
Taylor takes a deep breath, the weird— even by Taylor standards— look she was giving me disappearing. "Nothing." She shakes her head. "Nevermind."
"…Kay. Watch this."
[Blink]
Wumph.
Left arm in the air.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Left leg in the air.
13
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
"Jane." Missy nudges me with her foot. "What did you get for number 7?"
"Uh, hold on." Digging my worksheet out of the pile of papers on my desk I check which one that was. "13x+3."
"...Huh." She frowns at whatever's on her own paper. "Not plus one?"
"Nnnooo…?" I lean forward, trying to see her paper to figure out how she got that. "Because-"
"Oh, whoops!" Missy blows a raspberry at her paper while erasing something. "I see what I did now."
"Kay." I shrug, making sure to keep my worksheet separate from my pile of story pages this time as I go back to writing.
Rune shoved him, hard, and Kid's world flashed white as the back of his head bounced off the wall. He was pretty sure he was about to die.
But when he finally recovered his wits a moment later Rune was nowhere in sight. The only proof she'd ever been there was his growing collection of very real bruises and… a lingering taste of-
Uhh…
Hmmm.
"Hey, Ruth. Pssst. Ruth! You're an Empire wannabe." I whisper, nudging her with my boot under the desks. "What flavor chapstick do you wear?"
"What? Cherry." Ruth answers before frowning. "...What?" She finally actually looks up from her worksheet to stare at me, her face growing more and more suspicious as I lose the fight not to giggle over the idea of Ruth rocking out to Katy Perry.
"Sorry. I'm not-" Pushing my fist against my mouth in an effort to contain the giggles, I try to wave her off but she just gets more incensed. "I'm not laughing at you. There's just this silly song and… no. Nevermind. It doesn't matter."
Getting myself under control I go back to my writing.
-cherry chapstick on his lips?
"What just happened?" he asked the air.
Putting my pencil down, I eyeball the scene. Okay, that… is probably way longer than Miss Sawyer asked for but whatever. I add it to my folder for English class and look around for something else to distract-
"Ow!" I pull my legs up onto my seat and rub at the spot that just got kicked even if my HP means it just fades to tingling immediately. "What the hell, Missy?"
"Huh?" My glare fades as Missy looks up at me in obvious confusion.
"Hey!" Ruth leans over next to Missy, glaring at me. "That was me, dumbass."
"Oh. Sorry, Missy." I shift my glare to Ruth. "Rude."
"What song?"
"Huh?"
"Jesus fucking Christ." Ruth's glare shifts upwards as she shakes her head. "The song you were just laughing about."
"Oh! Uh…" I grimace. "I don't really think it'd be your kind of mus-"
Ruth glares at me. "What. Song?"
Well, I mean... she asked for it.
Leaning in, I grin as I sing the line quietly. "I kissed a girl and I liked iiit…" I waggle my eyebrows up and down at Ruth. "The taste of her cherry chapstick."
"Ooooh!" Aisha leans in while I'm still giggling at the grossed out face Ruth is making. "Is this for that-"
"Jane." Ruth hisses, trying to interrupt after scavenging some semblance of her composure. "Are-" she cuts off, looking almost comically offended as Aisha shoves a hand at her face to shush her.
Aisha, face lit up with troll-ish glee, plows onward even as Ruth shakes her sleeve out over her hand to push Aisha's away without touching her. "-shit-fic you're writing in English?"
"Are. You. A dy-"
"Ship-fic." I hold up a finger for Ruth to wait while I glare at Aisha. I hesitate to call the expression on her face a shit-eating grin given the topic at hand, but a spade's a spade. "Shi-Puh. With a P!"
"Woah…" Aisha leans back, eyes wide in blatantly feigned shock. "They're gonna pee on each other?" She grins again. "Kinky."
"...Nnnooo! They are not going to pee on each other! Kid Win and Rune are gonna make out and angst about it. Maybe they'll even go as far as holding hands, but not… Not that. Jeezus."
The troll-ish glee is still going strong in Aisha's eyes so I end my rant with a huff and turn away from her as emphatically as I can.
Ruth is staring at me with a kind of constipated look on her face. Understandable given the places Aisha's aspersions upon my story just tried to drag our conversation but, in the interest of keeping Aisha from getting another word in edgewise, I try to re-rail our earlier discussion. "Sorry, Ruth. What was it you were trying to ask me?"
Ruth almost ruins everything by dropping the ball completely as her mouth opens and then closes without saying anything, but fortunately she manages it on her second try. "You're writing a story about Rune?"
"And Kid Win!" Missy adds with obvious, if maybe a little conflicted, mirth.
"Hey! Kid Win's cool." I 'defend' myself, latching on to Missy's comment more to keep the conversation going in safer directions than out of any real need to justify my pairing decisions. "Well, no, I mean he's a Tinker so he's probably a dorkasaurus but still! He was the best fit for what I'm doing with Rune."
"Really?" Missy asks, eyebrows climbing but otherwise maintaining an impressive level of non-reaction to my calling her teammate a dorkasaurus.
"Yup." I nod. "I mean, probably not like in real life or whatever. I have no idea. But in a story where I'm making up their civilian backstories? Yeah. He's easy to turn into the perfect mirror for Rune."
"Okay." Aisha takes advantage of my being too focused on watching Missy's reaction to lean her way back into both my field of vision and the conversation. "But like… why Sabrina the Teenage Nazi of all fuckin' people if you aren't doing it just to shit on her?"
"You are weirdly obsessed with- Nope. Not touching that. But yeah: Rune." I point at Ruth. "That's actually all her fault."
"What?" Ruth hisses, looking startled. "Me? No!"
"Yeah." I nod. "That talk we had about Kaiser and The Twins? That was still on my brain when Miss Sawyer told me about the daily free write assignment and it got me thinking: How fucking awkward must that be for his kids?"
"His…" Ruth frowns. "Kids?"
"Yeah." I wave a hand at my pile of papers. "I'm doing a bit of a Romeo and Juliet thing where the gangs are all, like, extended families and stuff so Rune is Kaiser's kid and Kid Win is Hal-beard's."
"Okay, so it all starts with her and Kid accidentally fighting Mush together. They end up trapping him in a dumpster that Rune then yeets into the bay and then miraculously manage to not immediately start fighting each other and instead end up bonding over the fact that they both fly around on skateboard things while watching the sunset."
"You know," Aisha frowns, "you made this sound like it was going to be way more exciting than… that."
"Yeah…" I scratch the back of my head. "It's probably the weakest part of the whole thing but and if I'm being honest a decent chunk of my reasoning was that there was this one-liner about 'taking out the trash' that I let myself get overly attached to using. I mean, they also both have daddy issues and stuff but that didn't seem like something they'd talk about on a first date and 'we both like flying around on things' is still more than she has in common with any of the other Wards so…" I shrug. "I mostly just needed something to bring them together since that was, like, the entire premise, you know?"
"Right… Right. So. You were serious about that hand holding crap then?" Aisha's disappointment is as immense as it is obvious.
"...You do remember I'm doing this for a homework assignment, right?" I pick up my stack of scenes and wave them at her.
"So?"
"I'm not handing in porn to Miss Sawyer."
Aisha pauses. "Oh, yeah. She's all old and stuff. She'd probably flunk you."
"Or worse." I shudder. "What if she says she likes it?"
"…Eww." Aisha mimes retching, pauses, and then pouts at me. "Does that mean the twins aren't gonna bang either?"
Before I can reassure Aisha that the very next scene heavily implies Rune walked in on exactly that, Ruth snarls. "Fenja and Menja aren't like that you disgusting-"
"Ruth!" I cut her off before she can say something even today's incredibly chill sub would have to respond to.
Ugh. As useful as having a weather vane on hand for what the average Empire groupie finds plausible is… actually managing said groupie's unfortunate racist tendencies is a serious pain in the ass and I could really do without having to listen to another racist tirade.
To which end, given how well it worked last time, I spin up the proverbial bus and prepare to distract her by running over Kaiser again. "Even if they aren'tinto it, do you really think they're allowed to say no?" I roll my eyes as Ruth's incensed look shifts my way. "They're trophies Kaiser uses to make himself feel like a man after Purity had the audacity to divorce him."
"How do you know that?"
"He's a rich old dude and they're a pair of pretty coeds. The power-dynamic there isn't exactly mysterious even before you add actual powers into the mix."
"Not-" Ruth twitches in her seat-
-as she kicks me, apparently. "How do you know they got divorced?"
"I…" have no reason to know that.
And now Missy looks curious too. Shit.
"I.." try to buy myself time to think.
Shockingly, this does nothing to assuage Ruth's increasingly suspicious stare.
"I…" can't tell them the truth, obviously, er. Wait, no. 'I read it online' totally works! "Umm... I think we've met?" I slowly hold out my hand to Ruth, while giving her a confused look. "I'm Jane, from the internet. I click on links I probably shouldn't and end up seeing things I can never unsee a lot." Plaster on my best 1000 yard stare. Check. "One of those things was a uh… detailed analysis… proving that Purity had a kid." Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Check. "With pictures." Nod head, eyes unfocused and widening in 'recollection.' Check.
"She did?" It's Missy that takes the bait rather than Ruth, but I'll allow it.
"Yup! Or at least that seemed to be the consensus. Apparently, she put on a little weight right before vanishing from the public eye for almost a year and then, when she finally popped back up again, she had, and I quote, 'Mommy Milkers.'" I pause to let Aisha giggle while Missy and Ruth make faces. "But as far as my divorce theory goes, that's just 'cause she still hasn't been seen in the same place as Kaiser since. I mean, admittedly, I don't really know they got divorced 'cause, like, I don't know if they were ever actually married or not but I want to have Purity be Rune's 'Evil Stepmother that she only realizes was totally looking out for her the whole time after the divorce' in my story so-"
The bell rings and I basically made my point so I don't bother continuing when it finishes.
"Keep your worksheets, everybody." The substitute announces. "Y'all are gonna turn them in to Mr Vernon tomorrow. If you didn't finish your worksheet, that's your homework for tonight."
Hopping down onto the elevator-disc, I continue telling Taylor about my day while I float the quartz ant farm and the stone plate holding the bags of sugar down after me.
"We were almost late to Parahuman Studies!" I'm being whiny. I know it. But I'm doing it anyway because what's the point of being turned into the protagonist's tween girl of a younger sister if you aren't going to embrace the role?
"And then!" Planning ahead this time, I grab a bit of the leftover quartz and [Stoneshape] it into something resembling a cloudy light bulb while Taylor climbs down the slide-turned-stepladder herself. Hopefully the mental association will help. "Then Ruth made uh… whatshisface, the boy that usually sits next to me? I don't think I've ever actually talked to him?" I shrug. "But yeah, she made him move so she could sit there and then she. Just. Kept. Talkingto me about it!"
"I can't imagine what that's like."
"She almost got us both detent- Huh? Why- Oh. Yeah. Shit." I sigh. Hearing me talk about my friends at school is probably awkward for my involuntary-outcast of a cousin. "Sorry. We can talk about something other than school if you'd rather?"
"That's not-"
"It's fine." I shrug it off. Not like we don't have plenty of other things to talk about.
For now, deep breath in… and out. Picture a lightbulb illuminating a room and-
"So… You know who Purity is?"
[Ward]!
My world turns white with the fury of a thousand camera flashes, and then goes dark as I reflexively shove the 'lightbulb' away from my face.
"...Ow."
"Are you okay?"
"Nope! [Treat Wounds]! Ah, that's… mostly better?" I still can't really see, but the giant sunspot in the middle of my vision is rapidly fading despite the spell's feedback claiming it barely did anything. "Yeah, the spots are clearing."
"I take it you didn't mean to make a two hundred watt flashlight?"
"No, no, I totally did. I mean, I was going for more of a lamp or ceiling light than… well, this." I wave the portable spotlight I seem to have made back and forth a few times before holding it up to show Taylor. "I definitely didn't mean for it to be quite that bright or so… focused." I blink a few more times just from the memory. "Or, you know, for it to be aimed right at my face." I point, probably completely unnecessarily, at where the tightly focused beam of light is coming out of the part that, on an actual lightbulb, would get screwed into the socket. "Mostly because I didn't expect all the light to come out of the bottom."
And it's not even coming out straight down either, but slightly off center and at a funky angle.
Actually… looking closely, the light almost looks like it's twisting or spinning in place. Kinda like how Purity's- Ah… Note to self: Special [Ward]s are finicky enough without trying to hold a conversation while working one.
"So, you know who Purity is?" Taylor repeats her earlier question, almost as if hearing the direction of my thoughts. Which, to be fair, I'm only like 90% should be impossible given that I turned [Telepathy] off to conserve mana but Queen Administrator is… well, Queen Administrator.
Not wanting to contemplate that line of thinking any further, I shove it into the back of my mind and answer my cousin. "Yup!"
"And you aren't going to tell anyone?"
"Nope!"
"Why not?"
"Officially? Because that's how the unwritten rules work."
"...Right." Taylor scuffs her shoe on the disc, frowning mulishly. "And the actual reason?"
"Purity doesn't just magically stop being a flying Blaster 8 when she takes off her costume to feed her daughter. And Coil would absolutely find a way to fuck with her arrest so that as many people as possible end up dead just to mess with Director Piggot."
Taylor groans. "And we can't just bother him at home because he'd use his stupid power to have never been there."
"Bingo!" I snap my fingers and point at her. "But," I add as I bring the disc to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. "If it makes you feel any better, I do at least have an idea for how to get Purity to yeet herself out of the bay."
"You do?"
"Yup!" I nod. "I mean, it's something like item umpteen bajaillion and one on the list of shit we can't do until I get [Teleport] but…"
"Uh, hold on." Digging my worksheet out of the pile of papers on my desk I check which one that was. "13x+3."
"...Huh." She frowns at whatever's on her own paper. "Not plus one?"
"Nnnooo…?" I lean forward, trying to see her paper to figure out how she got that. "Because-"
"Oh, whoops!" Missy blows a raspberry at her paper while erasing something. "I see what I did now."
"Kay." I shrug, making sure to keep my worksheet separate from my pile of story pages this time as I go back to writing.
Rune shoved him, hard, and Kid's world flashed white as the back of his head bounced off the wall. He was pretty sure he was about to die.
But when he finally recovered his wits a moment later Rune was nowhere in sight. The only proof she'd ever been there was his growing collection of very real bruises and… a lingering taste of-
Uhh…
Hmmm.
"Hey, Ruth. Pssst. Ruth! You're an Empire wannabe." I whisper, nudging her with my boot under the desks. "What flavor chapstick do you wear?"
"What? Cherry." Ruth answers before frowning. "...What?" She finally actually looks up from her worksheet to stare at me, her face growing more and more suspicious as I lose the fight not to giggle over the idea of Ruth rocking out to Katy Perry.
"Sorry. I'm not-" Pushing my fist against my mouth in an effort to contain the giggles, I try to wave her off but she just gets more incensed. "I'm not laughing at you. There's just this silly song and… no. Nevermind. It doesn't matter."
Getting myself under control I go back to my writing.
-cherry chapstick on his lips?
"What just happened?" he asked the air.
Putting my pencil down, I eyeball the scene. Okay, that… is probably way longer than Miss Sawyer asked for but whatever. I add it to my folder for English class and look around for something else to distract-
| Hit for 1 HP damage! |
"Ow!" I pull my legs up onto my seat and rub at the spot that just got kicked even if my HP means it just fades to tingling immediately. "What the hell, Missy?"
"Huh?" My glare fades as Missy looks up at me in obvious confusion.
"Hey!" Ruth leans over next to Missy, glaring at me. "That was me, dumbass."
"Oh. Sorry, Missy." I shift my glare to Ruth. "Rude."
"What song?"
"Huh?"
"Jesus fucking Christ." Ruth's glare shifts upwards as she shakes her head. "The song you were just laughing about."
"Oh! Uh…" I grimace. "I don't really think it'd be your kind of mus-"
Ruth glares at me. "What. Song?"
Well, I mean... she asked for it.
Leaning in, I grin as I sing the line quietly. "I kissed a girl and I liked iiit…" I waggle my eyebrows up and down at Ruth. "The taste of her cherry chapstick."
"Ooooh!" Aisha leans in while I'm still giggling at the grossed out face Ruth is making. "Is this for that-"
"Jane." Ruth hisses, trying to interrupt after scavenging some semblance of her composure. "Are-" she cuts off, looking almost comically offended as Aisha shoves a hand at her face to shush her.
Aisha, face lit up with troll-ish glee, plows onward even as Ruth shakes her sleeve out over her hand to push Aisha's away without touching her. "-shit-fic you're writing in English?"
"Are. You. A dy-"
"Ship-fic." I hold up a finger for Ruth to wait while I glare at Aisha. I hesitate to call the expression on her face a shit-eating grin given the topic at hand, but a spade's a spade. "Shi-Puh. With a P!"
"Woah…" Aisha leans back, eyes wide in blatantly feigned shock. "They're gonna pee on each other?" She grins again. "Kinky."
"...Nnnooo! They are not going to pee on each other! Kid Win and Rune are gonna make out and angst about it. Maybe they'll even go as far as holding hands, but not… Not that. Jeezus."
The troll-ish glee is still going strong in Aisha's eyes so I end my rant with a huff and turn away from her as emphatically as I can.
Ruth is staring at me with a kind of constipated look on her face. Understandable given the places Aisha's aspersions upon my story just tried to drag our conversation but, in the interest of keeping Aisha from getting another word in edgewise, I try to re-rail our earlier discussion. "Sorry, Ruth. What was it you were trying to ask me?"
Ruth almost ruins everything by dropping the ball completely as her mouth opens and then closes without saying anything, but fortunately she manages it on her second try. "You're writing a story about Rune?"
"And Kid Win!" Missy adds with obvious, if maybe a little conflicted, mirth.
"Hey! Kid Win's cool." I 'defend' myself, latching on to Missy's comment more to keep the conversation going in safer directions than out of any real need to justify my pairing decisions. "Well, no, I mean he's a Tinker so he's probably a dorkasaurus but still! He was the best fit for what I'm doing with Rune."
"Really?" Missy asks, eyebrows climbing but otherwise maintaining an impressive level of non-reaction to my calling her teammate a dorkasaurus.
"Yup." I nod. "I mean, probably not like in real life or whatever. I have no idea. But in a story where I'm making up their civilian backstories? Yeah. He's easy to turn into the perfect mirror for Rune."
"Okay." Aisha takes advantage of my being too focused on watching Missy's reaction to lean her way back into both my field of vision and the conversation. "But like… why Sabrina the Teenage Nazi of all fuckin' people if you aren't doing it just to shit on her?"
"You are weirdly obsessed with- Nope. Not touching that. But yeah: Rune." I point at Ruth. "That's actually all her fault."
"What?" Ruth hisses, looking startled. "Me? No!"
"Yeah." I nod. "That talk we had about Kaiser and The Twins? That was still on my brain when Miss Sawyer told me about the daily free write assignment and it got me thinking: How fucking awkward must that be for his kids?"
"His…" Ruth frowns. "Kids?"
"Yeah." I wave a hand at my pile of papers. "I'm doing a bit of a Romeo and Juliet thing where the gangs are all, like, extended families and stuff so Rune is Kaiser's kid and Kid Win is Hal-beard's."
"Okay, so it all starts with her and Kid accidentally fighting Mush together. They end up trapping him in a dumpster that Rune then yeets into the bay and then miraculously manage to not immediately start fighting each other and instead end up bonding over the fact that they both fly around on skateboard things while watching the sunset."
"You know," Aisha frowns, "you made this sound like it was going to be way more exciting than… that."
"Yeah…" I scratch the back of my head. "It's probably the weakest part of the whole thing but and if I'm being honest a decent chunk of my reasoning was that there was this one-liner about 'taking out the trash' that I let myself get overly attached to using. I mean, they also both have daddy issues and stuff but that didn't seem like something they'd talk about on a first date and 'we both like flying around on things' is still more than she has in common with any of the other Wards so…" I shrug. "I mostly just needed something to bring them together since that was, like, the entire premise, you know?"
"Right… Right. So. You were serious about that hand holding crap then?" Aisha's disappointment is as immense as it is obvious.
"...You do remember I'm doing this for a homework assignment, right?" I pick up my stack of scenes and wave them at her.
"So?"
"I'm not handing in porn to Miss Sawyer."
Aisha pauses. "Oh, yeah. She's all old and stuff. She'd probably flunk you."
"Or worse." I shudder. "What if she says she likes it?"
"…Eww." Aisha mimes retching, pauses, and then pouts at me. "Does that mean the twins aren't gonna bang either?"
Before I can reassure Aisha that the very next scene heavily implies Rune walked in on exactly that, Ruth snarls. "Fenja and Menja aren't like that you disgusting-"
"Ruth!" I cut her off before she can say something even today's incredibly chill sub would have to respond to.
Ugh. As useful as having a weather vane on hand for what the average Empire groupie finds plausible is… actually managing said groupie's unfortunate racist tendencies is a serious pain in the ass and I could really do without having to listen to another racist tirade.
To which end, given how well it worked last time, I spin up the proverbial bus and prepare to distract her by running over Kaiser again. "Even if they aren'tinto it, do you really think they're allowed to say no?" I roll my eyes as Ruth's incensed look shifts my way. "They're trophies Kaiser uses to make himself feel like a man after Purity had the audacity to divorce him."
"How do you know that?"
"He's a rich old dude and they're a pair of pretty coeds. The power-dynamic there isn't exactly mysterious even before you add actual powers into the mix."
"Not-" Ruth twitches in her seat-
| Hit for 1 HP damage! |
-as she kicks me, apparently. "How do you know they got divorced?"
"I…" have no reason to know that.
And now Missy looks curious too. Shit.
"I.." try to buy myself time to think.
Shockingly, this does nothing to assuage Ruth's increasingly suspicious stare.
"I…" can't tell them the truth, obviously, er. Wait, no. 'I read it online' totally works! "Umm... I think we've met?" I slowly hold out my hand to Ruth, while giving her a confused look. "I'm Jane, from the internet. I click on links I probably shouldn't and end up seeing things I can never unsee a lot." Plaster on my best 1000 yard stare. Check. "One of those things was a uh… detailed analysis… proving that Purity had a kid." Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Check. "With pictures." Nod head, eyes unfocused and widening in 'recollection.' Check.
"She did?" It's Missy that takes the bait rather than Ruth, but I'll allow it.
"Yup! Or at least that seemed to be the consensus. Apparently, she put on a little weight right before vanishing from the public eye for almost a year and then, when she finally popped back up again, she had, and I quote, 'Mommy Milkers.'" I pause to let Aisha giggle while Missy and Ruth make faces. "But as far as my divorce theory goes, that's just 'cause she still hasn't been seen in the same place as Kaiser since. I mean, admittedly, I don't really know they got divorced 'cause, like, I don't know if they were ever actually married or not but I want to have Purity be Rune's 'Evil Stepmother that she only realizes was totally looking out for her the whole time after the divorce' in my story so-"
The bell rings and I basically made my point so I don't bother continuing when it finishes.
"Keep your worksheets, everybody." The substitute announces. "Y'all are gonna turn them in to Mr Vernon tomorrow. If you didn't finish your worksheet, that's your homework for tonight."
Hopping down onto the elevator-disc, I continue telling Taylor about my day while I float the quartz ant farm and the stone plate holding the bags of sugar down after me.
"We were almost late to Parahuman Studies!" I'm being whiny. I know it. But I'm doing it anyway because what's the point of being turned into the protagonist's tween girl of a younger sister if you aren't going to embrace the role?
"And then!" Planning ahead this time, I grab a bit of the leftover quartz and [Stoneshape] it into something resembling a cloudy light bulb while Taylor climbs down the slide-turned-stepladder herself. Hopefully the mental association will help. "Then Ruth made uh… whatshisface, the boy that usually sits next to me? I don't think I've ever actually talked to him?" I shrug. "But yeah, she made him move so she could sit there and then she. Just. Kept. Talkingto me about it!"
"I can't imagine what that's like."
"She almost got us both detent- Huh? Why- Oh. Yeah. Shit." I sigh. Hearing me talk about my friends at school is probably awkward for my involuntary-outcast of a cousin. "Sorry. We can talk about something other than school if you'd rather?"
"That's not-"
"It's fine." I shrug it off. Not like we don't have plenty of other things to talk about.
For now, deep breath in… and out. Picture a lightbulb illuminating a room and-
"So… You know who Purity is?"
[Ward]!
My world turns white with the fury of a thousand camera flashes, and then goes dark as I reflexively shove the 'lightbulb' away from my face.
"...Ow."
"Are you okay?"
"Nope! [Treat Wounds]! Ah, that's… mostly better?" I still can't really see, but the giant sunspot in the middle of my vision is rapidly fading despite the spell's feedback claiming it barely did anything. "Yeah, the spots are clearing."
"I take it you didn't mean to make a two hundred watt flashlight?"
"No, no, I totally did. I mean, I was going for more of a lamp or ceiling light than… well, this." I wave the portable spotlight I seem to have made back and forth a few times before holding it up to show Taylor. "I definitely didn't mean for it to be quite that bright or so… focused." I blink a few more times just from the memory. "Or, you know, for it to be aimed right at my face." I point, probably completely unnecessarily, at where the tightly focused beam of light is coming out of the part that, on an actual lightbulb, would get screwed into the socket. "Mostly because I didn't expect all the light to come out of the bottom."
And it's not even coming out straight down either, but slightly off center and at a funky angle.
Actually… looking closely, the light almost looks like it's twisting or spinning in place. Kinda like how Purity's- Ah… Note to self: Special [Ward]s are finicky enough without trying to hold a conversation while working one.
"So, you know who Purity is?" Taylor repeats her earlier question, almost as if hearing the direction of my thoughts. Which, to be fair, I'm only like 90% should be impossible given that I turned [Telepathy] off to conserve mana but Queen Administrator is… well, Queen Administrator.
Not wanting to contemplate that line of thinking any further, I shove it into the back of my mind and answer my cousin. "Yup!"
"And you aren't going to tell anyone?"
"Nope!"
"Why not?"
"Officially? Because that's how the unwritten rules work."
"...Right." Taylor scuffs her shoe on the disc, frowning mulishly. "And the actual reason?"
"Purity doesn't just magically stop being a flying Blaster 8 when she takes off her costume to feed her daughter. And Coil would absolutely find a way to fuck with her arrest so that as many people as possible end up dead just to mess with Director Piggot."
Taylor groans. "And we can't just bother him at home because he'd use his stupid power to have never been there."
"Bingo!" I snap my fingers and point at her. "But," I add as I bring the disc to a stop at the bottom of the shaft. "If it makes you feel any better, I do at least have an idea for how to get Purity to yeet herself out of the bay."
"You do?"
"Yup!" I nod. "I mean, it's something like item umpteen bajaillion and one on the list of shit we can't do until I get [Teleport] but…"
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14
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
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A/N - Whoops! Skipped 13 while crossposting things. Scroll up one post to what used to be 14 to find it if you haven't already read it when you see this.
Eyeing the XP bar on the box, I crack my neck both ways and get ready to catch myself. Once more into the breach dear me! Be the me who was already standing!
[Blink]
I land feet first on the bed.
…It worked!?
It worked!
Finally! I do a celebratory wiggle. Only took me what? A week to get from 5 to 9?
I mean, okay, yeah… that is absurdly fast to go from minor adjustments to full repositioning and yet… ugh… it'll be another week to get from 9 to 10. Another week of doing almost nothing else with my mana.
No! No moping. This is still huge, I forcibly remind myself. I can blip properly now! Up to ninety meters no less. That's basically an entire football field's worth of peace out if anyone tries to bother me.
Refusing to let the geometric cliff that is Fibonacci sequence XP requirements get me down, I take an extra moment to jump around in victory.
Be the me who was laying down!
[Blink]
WUMPH!
Okay… Note to self: Next time, maybe make sure to specifically think about being horizontal on the bed, rather than at head height above it.
[Blink]
Standing.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Much better!
…Be the me who was doing a handstand?
[Blink]
Woo! This is- Oh shit! Falling!
[Blink]
Wumph.
"Curse you, Gravity! I'll get you yet!"
"You figured it out?"
I look over to see Taylor has managed to not only sneak into the room while I was distracted by my own happy giggling, but made it all the way to her dresser.
"I did!"
"Cool. Showers all yours."
"Woo! But first, check this out!"
[Blink]
I reappear in the air maybe a centimeter away from Taylor, arms and legs already starfished out in the perfect position to Koala her. Which I do immediately. "J- urk!"
Taylor, sadly, fumbles the catch, toppling us over…
…and then landing on top of me.
…Worth it!
Hmmm…
Tapping my pencil against my notebook I realize I don't actually know the names of most places in Brockton Bay apart from The Boardwalk, the Trainyard, and Downtown.
Oh! And the Docks. That place where I, you know, live now.
"Hey, where's a good place to ambush a Wards patrol?"
No one responds, so I glance up and find my deskmates all staring at me.
"Fuckin' what?" Aisha laughs.
I roll my eyes, waving my notebook at them. "Where's a reasonable place to have a Wards patrol be when Rune attacks them."
"The Boardwalk?" Missy offers.
"Already used that one. Twice, I think?" I frown, flipping back a couple of pages. Did I actually specify where- Oh, yeah. That says Boardwalk right there. "Yup. Twice."
"Uh…" Aisha frowns. "They do school visits?"
"Oooh… yeah." I nod along. "I like that. Rune wouldn't even need to, like, steal their schedule to know where they'd all be- Wait no. They'd all be there."
"So?"
"So." I laugh, rolling my eyes at Ruth. "Rune can't solo the entire Wards roster by herself. "
"Why would she be by herself?"
"Because she usually works with Hookwolf?"
"Exactly!"
"Ruth…" I sigh as Ruth's face turns smug like she's won a point. "Would you bring your weirdass uncle with you on a date?"
"…Date?" Ruth asks. "I thought you said she was attacking them."
"Yeah." I nod. "To try and separate Kid Win from the others to… you know."
"Hold hands?" Aisha sighs, making a disappointed face at me.
"And make out!" I grin back at her. "But yeah, I figure she can like drop a dumpster on Clockblocker-"
"Wait," Ruth blinks. "So she just fucking kills him?"
"Yeah, come on." Aisha leans in. "Clock's funny. At least have it be fuckin' Shadow Stalker or something."
"Not like-" I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. "Like how people trap spiders under cups." I try to demonstrate by doing the paper covers rock thing with my hands. "Only it's, you know, a dumpster so it's heavy enough that he and Kid can't just lift it off of him." I turn to Aisha. "And no, because Stalker would just phase out of it."
"Oh." Aisha's nose scrunches up in disappointment. "Right."
…I guess that answers the question of whether or not she knows about Stalker trying to murder her brother?
"Right. So, she drops the dumpster on Clock and then flies off-"
"What!?" Ruth huffs. "She wins the fight and then runs away?"
"Yeah, so that Kid Win will chase her-"
"He wouldn't chase her." Missy laughs. "That'd be stupid."
"Well obviously." I acknowledge. "Even if he wanted to chase after her I'm sure Console would be-"
Aisha holds up a hand. "Who?"
"...Rune?"
"No, I know who Rune is." Aisha makes a 'duh!' face at me. "Who's Console? Did I miss a new-hero thing?"
"Oh, no." I shake my head. "Console is what the tour guide lady says they call their dispatcher people on the radio."
"Riiight." Aisha nods. "Okay, so Clockblocker was clam-jamming Rune and then..?"
"Oh, I didn't even think of that!" I laugh happily. "His name is extra perfect for being the reason Rune can't get Kid Win to chase her, isn't it?"
"...That wasn't on purpose?"
"No! He was literally just the only one I thought Rune could trap in a dumpster."
"Huh." Aisha shrugs. "Why does Rune want Kid to chase her, anyway? If Clock's trapped then they're already basically alone."
"Ah, well… I figure that if she's Kaiser's kid then she's basically going to be kind of an old timey princess about things so I'm giving her a 'baby, it's cold outside' vibe."
"What, like… the Christmas song?"
"Yeah, the girl in the song isn't really allowed to 'say yes' culturally so she's basically trying to say no in the least convincing manner possible and hoping the guy takes the hint or something."
"That's…" Aisha looks at the others who are also making faces. "Kinda stupid."
"I mean, yeah. Playing 'hard to get' usually is. Plus the song is from the, like, 40's or something." I shrug. "A lot of stuff from back then is messed up. Nazi's for instance." I smile cheerfully at Ruth as she flips me off. "Hence Rune, whose family is mired in that era in so many ways, trying to set things up so Kid Win will chase after her and then whatever happens after that… well that obviously can't be her fault."
Missy grins. "Except it doesn't work."
"Exactly! So eventually Rune gets frustrated, flies back over, beats him up, breaks his stuff, kisses him, and then flies away in a huff while he stands there wondering what the fuck just happened. Again."
"Again?"
"Oh, yeah, this'll be the second time she's done it to him."
"Okay," Aisha nods. "That's kinda funny."
"No no, the funny part is where the reason Kid isn't into it is that he has a massive crush on this girl Sabrina at school."
"...Sabrina? Who the fuck is- Oh." Ruth pauses and glares at me. "Fucking, really?" She huffs.
"MmmmHmmm!" I nod happily. "She and Kid Win make up two separate love triangles all by themselves. Two! Or is it a double-triangle? Is there a word for it when they share an edge…"
"Yeah yeah, whatever…" Ruth waves a hand in front of my face. "Did you really need to name her Sabrina?"
"Need to? No. And originally I was gonna go with something pretentiously German like Wilhemina or super southern like Annabelle but I didn't wanna catch flack for 'speculating on cape identities.'" I airquote, rolling my eyes before nodding at Aisha. "So I took her 'Sabrina the Teenage Nazi' joke and ran with it."
Ruth glares at Aisha and then at me but then shrugs, huffing. "Fiiine..."
"I'm… Glad you approve?" I shrug back. "So yeah, Rune is Sabrina, obviously." I start ticking off the character list on my fingers. "Purity is Hilda because I couldn't remember the other Aunt's name at the time. Hookwolf is Salem. Kid Win is Harvey, and, since I couldn't remember Harvey's dad's name either, Armsmaster is Archie."
"...Archie?" Missy asks, making me look up. Ruth and Aisha look just as lost.
"Yeah, as in Archie Comics?"
Three even blanker looks great my statement.
"...as in the Publisher for Sabrina the Teenage Witch? From the, like, 70's? I think? Might have been the 60's". Either way, it was before Scion showed up so I know it at least still happened here.
Ruth blinks, looking like she's just had some sort of life altering epiphany. "Is that where that joke comes from?"
"Yes, Ruth." I sigh, dropping my head into my hands and feeling very old despite being all of twelve according to my character sheet. "Aisha's favorite joke about the girl you clearly idolize is basically a dad-joke."
"Hey!" AIsha protests. "I wouldn't say it's my favorite… it's not like she dies or anything."
Fortunately, the bell rings before they can do more than glare at each other.
…Huh.
Those descriptions aren't even close. Is Husbandry not just Grow but for livestock?
But that's literally what animal husbandry is!
...Isn't it?
Ugh.
Erick really didn't know how good he had it. Or, okay, maybe he did. I don't really remember. I just… I wish I had someone I could ask about these things before I potentially waste a point!
It wouldn't even need to be an actual Registrar or anything, just having my own version of Al to explain things in general would be great. Fantastic even! Seriously, where's my incredibly tall exposition charact…er… Right, right…
I snort, glancing over at where Taylor is setting out today's sugar delivery for our ant farm. Or rather where she is, despite being too short to be an Orcol, basically acting like a giant bipedal crane to help the ants farm themselves. Which is… kinda morbid now that I think about it given that they only exist to turn sugar and leaves and stuff into more ants to feed to the spiders but whatever.
Speaking of Al though, I cast [Cleanse] again just in case. It hasn't been that long since I last cast it but relying on it's probably fine doesn't seem like a good idea when the fail state involves suffocating to death on dead air.
Plus, now I don't feel like I need to pee anymore.
…Wait.
Al was a Sewer Master. Or something like that.
Why was Al running sewers if [Cleanse] makes 'girls don't poop' an objective fact rather than a joke?
I mean, the Rads obviously. Those were super useful and I think he was rich because of it. But how…
Oh, shit– Literally!– 'Intestinal Rads' was a whole thing on Veird, wasn't it? Three guesses how that happened and the first two don't count. And I've been doing it, or not doing it I suppose, for weeks now!
I mean, I'm pretty sure intestinal Rads was only a problem if it progressed from the dust stuff that passes naturally to a, like, actual Rad which then... turns you into a Shade?
No, that was a whole thing you had to do deliberately with DD, wasn't it? Intestinal Rads probably just monsterizes you the normal way.
Ha. Yeah, it just eats your soul and turns you into an omnicidal monster.
Probably.
Ugh. I have no idea. I really only remember that Rads were useful for stuff like enchanting but that Erick was, like, super upset when his monster-dehydrating spell killed a few people by accident cause of the intestines thing.
I still can't justify risking it when it's just a matter of using the bathroom like some... normal person... every now and then.
Wait.
…oh no.
Fuck my life.
Rads are useful.
Not to mention that flushing magic glitter down the toilet seems… wildly irresponsible… when that glitter might potentially be able to monsterize whatever eventually eats it. And that's not even counting the part where the local director is a Nilbog survivor and would absolutely flip her shit.
"Something wrong?" Taylor looks over at me as I flop backwards on the dais with a groan.
"Yeah but… you probably don't want to know." Hell, I don't want to know and I'm the one who's going to need to poop in a bucket and then check for glitter every week or so now forever just in case.
Demonstrating the wisdom older siblings are meant to have, or possibly just having adapted to living with me, Taylor barely even blinks before going back to her work with a shrug.
On the bright side, I can potentially add 'feed the spiders Rads' to the list of things to try before I potentially waste a precious point on [Husbandry.]
A/N- it belatedly occurs to me that I should specify for those who aren't familiar with "arkenthingy" that Jane cares so much about intestinal rads because it isnt just fatal… It's "if the rads build up enough they start clawing their way to your heart to eat your soul and turn you into a monster" level of bad albeit usually easily treatable if you remember to try at all.
Eyeing the XP bar on the box, I crack my neck both ways and get ready to catch myself. Once more into the breach dear me! Be the me who was already standing!
[Blink]
| Blink level up! |
I land feet first on the bed.
…It worked!?
It worked!
Finally! I do a celebratory wiggle. Only took me what? A week to get from 5 to 9?
I mean, okay, yeah… that is absurdly fast to go from minor adjustments to full repositioning and yet… ugh… it'll be another week to get from 9 to 10. Another week of doing almost nothing else with my mana.
No! No moping. This is still huge, I forcibly remind myself. I can blip properly now! Up to ninety meters no less. That's basically an entire football field's worth of peace out if anyone tries to bother me.
Refusing to let the geometric cliff that is Fibonacci sequence XP requirements get me down, I take an extra moment to jump around in victory.
Be the me who was laying down!
[Blink]
WUMPH!
Okay… Note to self: Next time, maybe make sure to specifically think about being horizontal on the bed, rather than at head height above it.
[Blink]
Standing.
[Blink]
Wumph.
Much better!
…Be the me who was doing a handstand?
[Blink]
Woo! This is- Oh shit! Falling!
[Blink]
Wumph.
"Curse you, Gravity! I'll get you yet!"
"You figured it out?"
I look over to see Taylor has managed to not only sneak into the room while I was distracted by my own happy giggling, but made it all the way to her dresser.
"I did!"
"Cool. Showers all yours."
"Woo! But first, check this out!"
[Blink]
I reappear in the air maybe a centimeter away from Taylor, arms and legs already starfished out in the perfect position to Koala her. Which I do immediately. "J- urk!"
Taylor, sadly, fumbles the catch, toppling us over…
| Fell for 24 HP damage! |
…and then landing on top of me.
| Crushed for 13 HP damage! |
…Worth it!
Hmmm…
Tapping my pencil against my notebook I realize I don't actually know the names of most places in Brockton Bay apart from The Boardwalk, the Trainyard, and Downtown.
Oh! And the Docks. That place where I, you know, live now.
"Hey, where's a good place to ambush a Wards patrol?"
No one responds, so I glance up and find my deskmates all staring at me.
"Fuckin' what?" Aisha laughs.
I roll my eyes, waving my notebook at them. "Where's a reasonable place to have a Wards patrol be when Rune attacks them."
"The Boardwalk?" Missy offers.
"Already used that one. Twice, I think?" I frown, flipping back a couple of pages. Did I actually specify where- Oh, yeah. That says Boardwalk right there. "Yup. Twice."
"Uh…" Aisha frowns. "They do school visits?"
"Oooh… yeah." I nod along. "I like that. Rune wouldn't even need to, like, steal their schedule to know where they'd all be- Wait no. They'd all be there."
"So?"
"So." I laugh, rolling my eyes at Ruth. "Rune can't solo the entire Wards roster by herself. "
"Why would she be by herself?"
"Because she usually works with Hookwolf?"
"Exactly!"
"Ruth…" I sigh as Ruth's face turns smug like she's won a point. "Would you bring your weirdass uncle with you on a date?"
"…Date?" Ruth asks. "I thought you said she was attacking them."
"Yeah." I nod. "To try and separate Kid Win from the others to… you know."
"Hold hands?" Aisha sighs, making a disappointed face at me.
"And make out!" I grin back at her. "But yeah, I figure she can like drop a dumpster on Clockblocker-"
"Wait," Ruth blinks. "So she just fucking kills him?"
"Yeah, come on." Aisha leans in. "Clock's funny. At least have it be fuckin' Shadow Stalker or something."
"Not like-" I sigh, dragging a hand down my face. "Like how people trap spiders under cups." I try to demonstrate by doing the paper covers rock thing with my hands. "Only it's, you know, a dumpster so it's heavy enough that he and Kid can't just lift it off of him." I turn to Aisha. "And no, because Stalker would just phase out of it."
"Oh." Aisha's nose scrunches up in disappointment. "Right."
…I guess that answers the question of whether or not she knows about Stalker trying to murder her brother?
"Right. So, she drops the dumpster on Clock and then flies off-"
"What!?" Ruth huffs. "She wins the fight and then runs away?"
"Yeah, so that Kid Win will chase her-"
"He wouldn't chase her." Missy laughs. "That'd be stupid."
"Well obviously." I acknowledge. "Even if he wanted to chase after her I'm sure Console would be-"
Aisha holds up a hand. "Who?"
"...Rune?"
"No, I know who Rune is." Aisha makes a 'duh!' face at me. "Who's Console? Did I miss a new-hero thing?"
"Oh, no." I shake my head. "Console is what the tour guide lady says they call their dispatcher people on the radio."
"Riiight." Aisha nods. "Okay, so Clockblocker was clam-jamming Rune and then..?"
"Oh, I didn't even think of that!" I laugh happily. "His name is extra perfect for being the reason Rune can't get Kid Win to chase her, isn't it?"
"...That wasn't on purpose?"
"No! He was literally just the only one I thought Rune could trap in a dumpster."
"Huh." Aisha shrugs. "Why does Rune want Kid to chase her, anyway? If Clock's trapped then they're already basically alone."
"Ah, well… I figure that if she's Kaiser's kid then she's basically going to be kind of an old timey princess about things so I'm giving her a 'baby, it's cold outside' vibe."
"What, like… the Christmas song?"
"Yeah, the girl in the song isn't really allowed to 'say yes' culturally so she's basically trying to say no in the least convincing manner possible and hoping the guy takes the hint or something."
"That's…" Aisha looks at the others who are also making faces. "Kinda stupid."
"I mean, yeah. Playing 'hard to get' usually is. Plus the song is from the, like, 40's or something." I shrug. "A lot of stuff from back then is messed up. Nazi's for instance." I smile cheerfully at Ruth as she flips me off. "Hence Rune, whose family is mired in that era in so many ways, trying to set things up so Kid Win will chase after her and then whatever happens after that… well that obviously can't be her fault."
Missy grins. "Except it doesn't work."
"Exactly! So eventually Rune gets frustrated, flies back over, beats him up, breaks his stuff, kisses him, and then flies away in a huff while he stands there wondering what the fuck just happened. Again."
"Again?"
"Oh, yeah, this'll be the second time she's done it to him."
"Okay," Aisha nods. "That's kinda funny."
"No no, the funny part is where the reason Kid isn't into it is that he has a massive crush on this girl Sabrina at school."
"...Sabrina? Who the fuck is- Oh." Ruth pauses and glares at me. "Fucking, really?" She huffs.
"MmmmHmmm!" I nod happily. "She and Kid Win make up two separate love triangles all by themselves. Two! Or is it a double-triangle? Is there a word for it when they share an edge…"
"Yeah yeah, whatever…" Ruth waves a hand in front of my face. "Did you really need to name her Sabrina?"
"Need to? No. And originally I was gonna go with something pretentiously German like Wilhemina or super southern like Annabelle but I didn't wanna catch flack for 'speculating on cape identities.'" I airquote, rolling my eyes before nodding at Aisha. "So I took her 'Sabrina the Teenage Nazi' joke and ran with it."
Ruth glares at Aisha and then at me but then shrugs, huffing. "Fiiine..."
"I'm… Glad you approve?" I shrug back. "So yeah, Rune is Sabrina, obviously." I start ticking off the character list on my fingers. "Purity is Hilda because I couldn't remember the other Aunt's name at the time. Hookwolf is Salem. Kid Win is Harvey, and, since I couldn't remember Harvey's dad's name either, Armsmaster is Archie."
"...Archie?" Missy asks, making me look up. Ruth and Aisha look just as lost.
"Yeah, as in Archie Comics?"
Three even blanker looks great my statement.
"...as in the Publisher for Sabrina the Teenage Witch? From the, like, 70's? I think? Might have been the 60's". Either way, it was before Scion showed up so I know it at least still happened here.
Ruth blinks, looking like she's just had some sort of life altering epiphany. "Is that where that joke comes from?"
"Yes, Ruth." I sigh, dropping my head into my hands and feeling very old despite being all of twelve according to my character sheet. "Aisha's favorite joke about the girl you clearly idolize is basically a dad-joke."
"Hey!" AIsha protests. "I wouldn't say it's my favorite… it's not like she dies or anything."
Fortunately, the bell rings before they can do more than glare at each other.
| [Husbandry 1], instant, touch, 50 MP + Variable An animal's opinion of you improves. Purchase [Husbandry 1] for 1 point? Yes/No |
| [Grow 1], instant, touch or close range, 5 MP Cultivate a single plant, or induce plant growth in a sphere of diameter equal to spell level in meters. Purchase [Grow 1] for 1 point? Yes/No |
…Huh.
Those descriptions aren't even close. Is Husbandry not just Grow but for livestock?
But that's literally what animal husbandry is!
...Isn't it?
Ugh.
Erick really didn't know how good he had it. Or, okay, maybe he did. I don't really remember. I just… I wish I had someone I could ask about these things before I potentially waste a point!
It wouldn't even need to be an actual Registrar or anything, just having my own version of Al to explain things in general would be great. Fantastic even! Seriously, where's my incredibly tall exposition charact…er… Right, right…
I snort, glancing over at where Taylor is setting out today's sugar delivery for our ant farm. Or rather where she is, despite being too short to be an Orcol, basically acting like a giant bipedal crane to help the ants farm themselves. Which is… kinda morbid now that I think about it given that they only exist to turn sugar and leaves and stuff into more ants to feed to the spiders but whatever.
Speaking of Al though, I cast [Cleanse] again just in case. It hasn't been that long since I last cast it but relying on it's probably fine doesn't seem like a good idea when the fail state involves suffocating to death on dead air.
Plus, now I don't feel like I need to pee anymore.
…Wait.
Al was a Sewer Master. Or something like that.
Why was Al running sewers if [Cleanse] makes 'girls don't poop' an objective fact rather than a joke?
I mean, the Rads obviously. Those were super useful and I think he was rich because of it. But how…
Oh, shit– Literally!– 'Intestinal Rads' was a whole thing on Veird, wasn't it? Three guesses how that happened and the first two don't count. And I've been doing it, or not doing it I suppose, for weeks now!
I mean, I'm pretty sure intestinal Rads was only a problem if it progressed from the dust stuff that passes naturally to a, like, actual Rad which then... turns you into a Shade?
No, that was a whole thing you had to do deliberately with DD, wasn't it? Intestinal Rads probably just monsterizes you the normal way.
Ha. Yeah, it just eats your soul and turns you into an omnicidal monster.
Probably.
Ugh. I have no idea. I really only remember that Rads were useful for stuff like enchanting but that Erick was, like, super upset when his monster-dehydrating spell killed a few people by accident cause of the intestines thing.
I still can't justify risking it when it's just a matter of using the bathroom like some... normal person... every now and then.
Wait.
…oh no.
Fuck my life.
Rads are useful.
Not to mention that flushing magic glitter down the toilet seems… wildly irresponsible… when that glitter might potentially be able to monsterize whatever eventually eats it. And that's not even counting the part where the local director is a Nilbog survivor and would absolutely flip her shit.
"Something wrong?" Taylor looks over at me as I flop backwards on the dais with a groan.
"Yeah but… you probably don't want to know." Hell, I don't want to know and I'm the one who's going to need to poop in a bucket and then check for glitter every week or so now forever just in case.
Demonstrating the wisdom older siblings are meant to have, or possibly just having adapted to living with me, Taylor barely even blinks before going back to her work with a shrug.
On the bright side, I can potentially add 'feed the spiders Rads' to the list of things to try before I potentially waste a precious point on [Husbandry.]
A/N- it belatedly occurs to me that I should specify for those who aren't familiar with "arkenthingy" that Jane cares so much about intestinal rads because it isnt just fatal… It's "if the rads build up enough they start clawing their way to your heart to eat your soul and turn you into a monster" level of bad albeit usually easily treatable if you remember to try at all.
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15
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
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And… [Cleanse]!
Finally able to stop holding my breath, I float today's lightward attempt over with [Stoneshape] and shine it down into the bucket– Or I guess it'd be a chamber pot? –that I made for this.
Well… I think to myself as I peer in. It's not much, but it's official: I am enough of a fucking magical girl that I shit glitter.
Sparkly, faintly glowing, glitter no less.
…Or wait. Does that make me a Unicorn?
No, no…. Unicorns shit rainbows and show up to swinger parties by themselves. I'm definitely a Magical Girl. Even if I can't quite justify buying [Clothe] just to be able to do the Transformation Sequence properly.
I mean… Maybe if I combined it with-
No! What the fuck, Brain? No means no!
In fact, I call up my menus and commit the 5 points I'd been debating over adding to Focus just to remove the temptations. If nothing else, the extra 150 mana per regen-pool will help with getting Blink to 10.
Now, where was I? Oh, right, casting another [Cleanse] and then a [Treat Wounds] on myself just on general principle. I really need to come up with a more sustainable method of doing this that doesn't involve forcing myself to eat way too much Taco Bell followed by chugging laxatives because that was awful on both ends.
But! That's future-Jane's problem.
Current-Jane has !!SCIENCE!! to do!
Stoneshaping open the 'door' of this little bathroom stall that I added to the wall of our lair and carrying out the pot of glitter, I [Telepathy] my cousin.
=Taylor! I'm all done! Your spiders can come back out now.=
Standing very, very still as the horde of spiders pour out of the walls and split into two teams that each head over to one of the stone mannequins sized to match me and Taylor, I run through what I'm planning to do in my mind one last time looking for any evidence the good idea fairy is visiting.
1) Feed spider Rad dust.
Which, now that I'm thinking about it, kinda looks like pixie-dust ala Tinkerbell.
2) Spider monsterizes and either:
A) Remains under Taylor's control and becomes the earliest progenitor of Project Shelob.
Or
B) Breaks free of her control and gets dogpiled by the others while I smoosh it with stone.
Is there an option C I'm leaving out?
…I guess I could roll snake eyes, land on 'Saint Murphy Tax' and go directly to Shelob without passing any of the spaces in between?
Yeah… Why risk it?
Setting the pot down on the dais in the middle of the room, I evacuate to the elevator shaft and then shift some stone into the doorway until it's fully sealed apart from a view slot that has extra stone around it to close it with just in case.
=What are you doing, anyway?=
=Trying very hard to not be John Hammond.= Floating the dais up off the floor and then moving the pot under it, I turn the dais into a stone cage with most of the remaining mass at the top ready to squish a frenzied spider monster. Then I have the pot shift itself first into a cone shape to move all the glitter to the center and then flatten it out to become the new floor.
=...Who?=
=The old guy from Jurassic Park.=
=Jane… what are you doing?=
=Me? Nothing. You? You're having a spider go eat some of the glitter in the middle of the stone cage I just made.=
=Why?=
=Remember when we talked about making a Shelob?=
=Explain.=
=But that'll take forever!= And be super embarrassing for both of us.
=Jane…=
=Ugh. Fine! But for the record, I want you to remember that I tried to spare you the details about how the pixie-dust gets made!=
=...Huh.= I watch as the third test-spider spasms one last time before finally going still, leaving behind another misshapen corpse barely recognizable as belonging to a spider.
A misshapen corpse that is now, like the first two, roughly the size of my fist. Sure, my hands are pretty small and dainty, but still.
=And that one felt like it was starving too?=
=Yeah, but it was… weird. I don't think the feeling is coming from their stomachs if that makes any sense.=
=I mean, I guess it does? No amount of forced gluttony at normal black widow size was ever going to let it grow into… that… on calories alone.=
Taylor and I lapse into mental silence, presumably both pondering variations on the same question: How do we feed them more magic/powers-bullshit if having them stuff their faces with Rad dust isn't enough?
Actually, on that note: =Meh. We're out of pixie-dust anyway. = I spin my [Stoneshape] aura back up and start returning the room to normal. =We can try again next weekend.=
Just as I'm about to move the stone blocking the doorway back to where it started, I pause, eying the spider corpses suspiciously.
Weren't plenty of monsters on Veird well past 'clever girl' levels of smart?
Fortunately for my sanity, the spiders don't spontaneously spring to life and go on a rampage as I make a point of having the dais squish them flat and then rotate a few dozen times to grind them into a paste.
"I'm who you taught me to be." I sing quietly to myself, counting out the beats on my fingers. 7.
"Why isn't that enough?" 6. Damn. "Why can't that be enough? Nope! Still 6."
Hmmm…. Maybe if I change the first like to 'I'm the me you taught me to be?' No, that's 8.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out lyrics for a song. Or, failing that, at least get these two lines to be the same length."
"Oh..." Aisha stares at me for a moment.
"Yeah it's… not going well." Slumping forward I rest my head on my desk. I can't even Google the lyrics because even if I'm right about the song I half-remember being by American Authors, they don't seem to exist here. Or, I suppose, in fairness to Earth Bet, it also might just be that they don't exist yet in 2011. Not like I can Google that either.
"Okay, but… Why?"
"Oh. Well, I wanted Harvey's crush on Sabrina to have something more to it than just, 'oh no, she hawt,' so… I'm trying to have a scene with her singing a song that would resonate with both of them, you know? And beyond the-"
"Rune sings?"
"Yeah." I glance up and find Ruth staring at me with raised eyebrows. "In a band with- Well, no. Technically, Sabrina sings and Harvey likes to watch-"
"I bet he does!"
"Watch her band practice." I stick my tongue out at Aisha. "Ugh. Maybe I'll just have the scene be Harvey walking in on Rune struggling to write the damn song instead of singing it? That way I only need a few lines rather than-"
"Waiwaiwait!" Aisha's perks up. "Rune sings?"
"Yeah. I literally just said that." I pause, side eyeing Aisha who seems suspiciously happy about that. "I mean, again, it's Sabrina who's in a band with her friends-"
"Rune has friends!?" Aisha cuts me off in an impressively faux shocked-disbelief tone. "Ow!" She pulls her legs up from under the desk, glaring at Ruth. "Bitch! I will fuc-"
"Aisha!" I put my hand over her mouth to shush her as today's sub frowns in our direction. "No swearing in front of the grown ups!"
"She kicked me!"
"Yeah… She's kind of feral like that."
"I am not feral." Ruth protests, despite having just proved my point.
"Uh huh…" I make a point of only barely glancing her way before turning back to Aisha and theatrically rolling my eyes. "Seriously, just wear your shin guards like the rest of us."
Aisha snorts, peeking under the desks. "You're wearing shin guards?"
"Nah." I hold up two fingers. "I have two classes with her so I went with full on steel toed boots for my PPE." I pull one of my legs up and Vanna White at the glory that is my Stompy Boots before staring pointedly at Ruth. "And I will start kicking back if you keep it up."
Ruth glances at the sub and then flips me off.
"Rude!" I laugh before turning back to Aisha. "As you can see, city living is clearly having a positive effect on her already. I'm sure it'll sand off the rest of the edges from whatever barn her horde of brothers raised her in eventually."
"Fuck you." Ruth huffs. "I don't even have any brothers."
"You don't? Then why-" I pause, frowning. "...Not gonna object to the barn?"
Ruth shrugs. "My parents have a farm."
"Oh!" I perk up. "That's cool. Where-"
Aisha covers my mouth with her hand, shushing me. "Go back to Rune singing in a band."
I can't exactly be mad at her for it, I literally did the exact same thing to her a moment ago, but I don't let that stop me from licking her hand in retaliation.
"Jane!" Aisha snatches her hand back. "She licked me!" She looks over at Missy for sympathy, but our resident Ward is actively ignoring us to do her worksheet.
"Gross." Ruth says, despite smiling at me instead of- "You don't know where it's been."
Right. Of course.
"Hmmm, tastes like…" I make a show of smacking my lips and trying to look thoughtful as I debate what will offend Ruth's delicate racist sensibilities the correct amount but… "Uh, yeah. Nevermind. I can't actually think of anything that isn't, like, super mean or wildly inappropriate and Aisha's cool so…" I shrug at Aisha. "Yeah, let's just go back to Rune singing in a band. Or, well." I gesture grumpily at my still blank page. "It'll probably just be a cover band because it turns out songs are hard."
"A cover band? Even better!" Aisha's eyebrows go up and down. "Does that mean she's gonna sing a cover of that other song you-"
"She better not!" Ruth glares at Aisha and then me.
"Nah." I laugh. "Rune wears the cherry chapstick."
"Oh, okay. So Rune gets kissed by… uh…" Aisha frowns, nose scrunching up in thought. "...Vista?"
"Vista?" I have to hand it to Missy, she keeps a good poker face even as Ruth's attempts to murder Aisha with her eyes turns derisive. "Seriously?"
"Also, ewww." I add for good measure.
"Ewww?" Aha! I got Missy to react! A little. She looks offended for a moment there, I swear. Also a little hurt and betrayed and now I feel the need to explain. Ugh.
"Hey!" Aisha also protests, backhanding my shoulder lightly. "Vista's cool."
Ruth sneers. "Vista's a-"
"Vista's, like, ten." I hiss, trying to cut Ruth off before she can make things worse with Missy.
"-little bitch." Ruth finishes anyway.
"Vista's not ten, she's twelve!" Amusingly, between being outright insulted and being aged down, Missy picks my comment to huff at. "...At least!"
"That's not better!" I roll my eyes. "I mean, okay, yeah, I guess it is. But Rune's like… fifteen? Sixteen? Whatever. Either way, half plus seven is more than twelve!" I huff, turning back to Aisha and trying to move the conversation back to less dangerous territory. "But more importantly: No, Rune can't be gay."
"Of course she isn't!" Ruth glares at us as if daring us to say otherwise.
Aisha, of course, opens her mouth to, I assume, do just that but then has a visible 'aha' moment and looks over at me instead. "Oh, right, right… Because she and Kid Win are peeing on each other."
"That's not…" Slumping down, I bang my head against my desk.
Huh. That is surprisingly cathartic when it doesn't hurt for more than an instant. I do it again a little harder.
I start to do it again before realizing this can't be healthy. HP to spare or not.
"First of all!" Picking my head up, I decide not to give Aisha the reaction she's- Too late. Okay, not give her any more of the reaction she's so clearly looking for with her antics and just skip right over the whole peeing thing. "Bi-people do exist. But no, Rune has to be straight or it fucks up her whole character development arc."
"Her what?" Ruth finally stops glaring at Aisha long enough to glance my way.
I sigh, forcing myself to sit up again. "The entire point of this is to have Rune to slowly, inch by uncomfortable, unlubed, personal-revelations-inch, realize that the Empire isn't… well, you know, any of what it claims to be, least of all a family. It's just a bunch of terrible fucking people that she wants nothing and less to do with, some of whom happen to be related to her. Rune being gay, or bi, or whatever would cheapen the whole thing by making her an outsider to the Empire's ideology. It'd be like… giving her an excuse to leave. I want her to choose to be better even while still being the perfectly blonde haired, blue eyed, straight edged, whiny bitch of an imperial princess poster child."
[Blink]
Wumph.
Laying on the bed, exhausted, sweaty, and with a pounding headache from being OOM, I call up the box just to stare at it for a moment.
I mean, yeah, it's not my first. Meditation claimed that title when it hit 10 yesterday but that's, you know, Meditation.
This little blue box though? I think I might have gotten this one framed and hung it up on the wall if that was, you know, a thing one could actually do with what might as well just be a particularly vivid hallucination. I guess I could type it out at school and then print it? Yeah… I might get a weird look from the teacher but that just means the day ends in Y at this point.
But now… I pull up my shirt to bongos a drumroll on my abs as I run the search for [Teleport] in my menu.
Ahem! I clear my throat and then take a deep breath. "YES!"
A/N - The song Jane is struggling with is 'Luck' by American Authors and the actual lyrics are a 7-6 beat. Jane is just being forced to endure a portion of what it took for me to figure out what the words I only half remembered were so I could Google the name of the song I was thinking of when I originally came up with this scene.
Finally able to stop holding my breath, I float today's lightward attempt over with [Stoneshape] and shine it down into the bucket– Or I guess it'd be a chamber pot? –that I made for this.
Well… I think to myself as I peer in. It's not much, but it's official: I am enough of a fucking magical girl that I shit glitter.
Sparkly, faintly glowing, glitter no less.
…Or wait. Does that make me a Unicorn?
No, no…. Unicorns shit rainbows and show up to swinger parties by themselves. I'm definitely a Magical Girl. Even if I can't quite justify buying [Clothe] just to be able to do the Transformation Sequence properly.
I mean… Maybe if I combined it with-
No! What the fuck, Brain? No means no!
In fact, I call up my menus and commit the 5 points I'd been debating over adding to Focus just to remove the temptations. If nothing else, the extra 150 mana per regen-pool will help with getting Blink to 10.
Now, where was I? Oh, right, casting another [Cleanse] and then a [Treat Wounds] on myself just on general principle. I really need to come up with a more sustainable method of doing this that doesn't involve forcing myself to eat way too much Taco Bell followed by chugging laxatives because that was awful on both ends.
But! That's future-Jane's problem.
Current-Jane has !!SCIENCE!! to do!
Stoneshaping open the 'door' of this little bathroom stall that I added to the wall of our lair and carrying out the pot of glitter, I [Telepathy] my cousin.
=Taylor! I'm all done! Your spiders can come back out now.=
Standing very, very still as the horde of spiders pour out of the walls and split into two teams that each head over to one of the stone mannequins sized to match me and Taylor, I run through what I'm planning to do in my mind one last time looking for any evidence the good idea fairy is visiting.
1) Feed spider Rad dust.
Which, now that I'm thinking about it, kinda looks like pixie-dust ala Tinkerbell.
2) Spider monsterizes and either:
A) Remains under Taylor's control and becomes the earliest progenitor of Project Shelob.
Or
B) Breaks free of her control and gets dogpiled by the others while I smoosh it with stone.
Is there an option C I'm leaving out?
…I guess I could roll snake eyes, land on 'Saint Murphy Tax' and go directly to Shelob without passing any of the spaces in between?
Yeah… Why risk it?
Setting the pot down on the dais in the middle of the room, I evacuate to the elevator shaft and then shift some stone into the doorway until it's fully sealed apart from a view slot that has extra stone around it to close it with just in case.
=What are you doing, anyway?=
=Trying very hard to not be John Hammond.= Floating the dais up off the floor and then moving the pot under it, I turn the dais into a stone cage with most of the remaining mass at the top ready to squish a frenzied spider monster. Then I have the pot shift itself first into a cone shape to move all the glitter to the center and then flatten it out to become the new floor.
=...Who?=
=The old guy from Jurassic Park.=
=Jane… what are you doing?=
=Me? Nothing. You? You're having a spider go eat some of the glitter in the middle of the stone cage I just made.=
=Why?=
=Remember when we talked about making a Shelob?=
=Explain.=
=But that'll take forever!= And be super embarrassing for both of us.
=Jane…=
=Ugh. Fine! But for the record, I want you to remember that I tried to spare you the details about how the pixie-dust gets made!=
=...Huh.= I watch as the third test-spider spasms one last time before finally going still, leaving behind another misshapen corpse barely recognizable as belonging to a spider.
A misshapen corpse that is now, like the first two, roughly the size of my fist. Sure, my hands are pretty small and dainty, but still.
=And that one felt like it was starving too?=
=Yeah, but it was… weird. I don't think the feeling is coming from their stomachs if that makes any sense.=
=I mean, I guess it does? No amount of forced gluttony at normal black widow size was ever going to let it grow into… that… on calories alone.=
Taylor and I lapse into mental silence, presumably both pondering variations on the same question: How do we feed them more magic/powers-bullshit if having them stuff their faces with Rad dust isn't enough?
Actually, on that note: =Meh. We're out of pixie-dust anyway. = I spin my [Stoneshape] aura back up and start returning the room to normal. =We can try again next weekend.=
Just as I'm about to move the stone blocking the doorway back to where it started, I pause, eying the spider corpses suspiciously.
Weren't plenty of monsters on Veird well past 'clever girl' levels of smart?
Fortunately for my sanity, the spiders don't spontaneously spring to life and go on a rampage as I make a point of having the dais squish them flat and then rotate a few dozen times to grind them into a paste.
"I'm who you taught me to be." I sing quietly to myself, counting out the beats on my fingers. 7.
"Why isn't that enough?" 6. Damn. "Why can't that be enough? Nope! Still 6."
Hmmm…. Maybe if I change the first like to 'I'm the me you taught me to be?' No, that's 8.
"What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out lyrics for a song. Or, failing that, at least get these two lines to be the same length."
"Oh..." Aisha stares at me for a moment.
"Yeah it's… not going well." Slumping forward I rest my head on my desk. I can't even Google the lyrics because even if I'm right about the song I half-remember being by American Authors, they don't seem to exist here. Or, I suppose, in fairness to Earth Bet, it also might just be that they don't exist yet in 2011. Not like I can Google that either.
"Okay, but… Why?"
"Oh. Well, I wanted Harvey's crush on Sabrina to have something more to it than just, 'oh no, she hawt,' so… I'm trying to have a scene with her singing a song that would resonate with both of them, you know? And beyond the-"
"Rune sings?"
"Yeah." I glance up and find Ruth staring at me with raised eyebrows. "In a band with- Well, no. Technically, Sabrina sings and Harvey likes to watch-"
"I bet he does!"
"Watch her band practice." I stick my tongue out at Aisha. "Ugh. Maybe I'll just have the scene be Harvey walking in on Rune struggling to write the damn song instead of singing it? That way I only need a few lines rather than-"
"Waiwaiwait!" Aisha's perks up. "Rune sings?"
"Yeah. I literally just said that." I pause, side eyeing Aisha who seems suspiciously happy about that. "I mean, again, it's Sabrina who's in a band with her friends-"
"Rune has friends!?" Aisha cuts me off in an impressively faux shocked-disbelief tone. "Ow!" She pulls her legs up from under the desk, glaring at Ruth. "Bitch! I will fuc-"
"Aisha!" I put my hand over her mouth to shush her as today's sub frowns in our direction. "No swearing in front of the grown ups!"
"She kicked me!"
"Yeah… She's kind of feral like that."
| Hit for 1 HP damage! |
"I am not feral." Ruth protests, despite having just proved my point.
"Uh huh…" I make a point of only barely glancing her way before turning back to Aisha and theatrically rolling my eyes. "Seriously, just wear your shin guards like the rest of us."
Aisha snorts, peeking under the desks. "You're wearing shin guards?"
"Nah." I hold up two fingers. "I have two classes with her so I went with full on steel toed boots for my PPE." I pull one of my legs up and Vanna White at the glory that is my Stompy Boots before staring pointedly at Ruth. "And I will start kicking back if you keep it up."
Ruth glances at the sub and then flips me off.
"Rude!" I laugh before turning back to Aisha. "As you can see, city living is clearly having a positive effect on her already. I'm sure it'll sand off the rest of the edges from whatever barn her horde of brothers raised her in eventually."
"Fuck you." Ruth huffs. "I don't even have any brothers."
"You don't? Then why-" I pause, frowning. "...Not gonna object to the barn?"
Ruth shrugs. "My parents have a farm."
"Oh!" I perk up. "That's cool. Where-"
Aisha covers my mouth with her hand, shushing me. "Go back to Rune singing in a band."
I can't exactly be mad at her for it, I literally did the exact same thing to her a moment ago, but I don't let that stop me from licking her hand in retaliation.
"Jane!" Aisha snatches her hand back. "She licked me!" She looks over at Missy for sympathy, but our resident Ward is actively ignoring us to do her worksheet.
"Gross." Ruth says, despite smiling at me instead of- "You don't know where it's been."
Right. Of course.
"Hmmm, tastes like…" I make a show of smacking my lips and trying to look thoughtful as I debate what will offend Ruth's delicate racist sensibilities the correct amount but… "Uh, yeah. Nevermind. I can't actually think of anything that isn't, like, super mean or wildly inappropriate and Aisha's cool so…" I shrug at Aisha. "Yeah, let's just go back to Rune singing in a band. Or, well." I gesture grumpily at my still blank page. "It'll probably just be a cover band because it turns out songs are hard."
"A cover band? Even better!" Aisha's eyebrows go up and down. "Does that mean she's gonna sing a cover of that other song you-"
"She better not!" Ruth glares at Aisha and then me.
"Nah." I laugh. "Rune wears the cherry chapstick."
"Oh, okay. So Rune gets kissed by… uh…" Aisha frowns, nose scrunching up in thought. "...Vista?"
"Vista?" I have to hand it to Missy, she keeps a good poker face even as Ruth's attempts to murder Aisha with her eyes turns derisive. "Seriously?"
"Also, ewww." I add for good measure.
"Ewww?" Aha! I got Missy to react! A little. She looks offended for a moment there, I swear. Also a little hurt and betrayed and now I feel the need to explain. Ugh.
"Hey!" Aisha also protests, backhanding my shoulder lightly. "Vista's cool."
Ruth sneers. "Vista's a-"
"Vista's, like, ten." I hiss, trying to cut Ruth off before she can make things worse with Missy.
"-little bitch." Ruth finishes anyway.
"Vista's not ten, she's twelve!" Amusingly, between being outright insulted and being aged down, Missy picks my comment to huff at. "...At least!"
"That's not better!" I roll my eyes. "I mean, okay, yeah, I guess it is. But Rune's like… fifteen? Sixteen? Whatever. Either way, half plus seven is more than twelve!" I huff, turning back to Aisha and trying to move the conversation back to less dangerous territory. "But more importantly: No, Rune can't be gay."
"Of course she isn't!" Ruth glares at us as if daring us to say otherwise.
Aisha, of course, opens her mouth to, I assume, do just that but then has a visible 'aha' moment and looks over at me instead. "Oh, right, right… Because she and Kid Win are peeing on each other."
"That's not…" Slumping down, I bang my head against my desk.
| Hit for 2 HP damage! |
Huh. That is surprisingly cathartic when it doesn't hurt for more than an instant. I do it again a little harder.
| Hit for 3 HP damage! |
I start to do it again before realizing this can't be healthy. HP to spare or not.
"First of all!" Picking my head up, I decide not to give Aisha the reaction she's- Too late. Okay, not give her any more of the reaction she's so clearly looking for with her antics and just skip right over the whole peeing thing. "Bi-people do exist. But no, Rune has to be straight or it fucks up her whole character development arc."
"Her what?" Ruth finally stops glaring at Aisha long enough to glance my way.
I sigh, forcing myself to sit up again. "The entire point of this is to have Rune to slowly, inch by uncomfortable, unlubed, personal-revelations-inch, realize that the Empire isn't… well, you know, any of what it claims to be, least of all a family. It's just a bunch of terrible fucking people that she wants nothing and less to do with, some of whom happen to be related to her. Rune being gay, or bi, or whatever would cheapen the whole thing by making her an outsider to the Empire's ideology. It'd be like… giving her an excuse to leave. I want her to choose to be better even while still being the perfectly blonde haired, blue eyed, straight edged, whiny bitch of an imperial princess poster child."
[Blink]
| Blink level up! |
Wumph.
Laying on the bed, exhausted, sweaty, and with a pounding headache from being OOM, I call up the box just to stare at it for a moment.
| Blink X, instant, 25 MP Instantly move from your location to another within <sight>, max range 10m per level of Blink |
I mean, yeah, it's not my first. Meditation claimed that title when it hit 10 yesterday but that's, you know, Meditation.
This little blue box though? I think I might have gotten this one framed and hung it up on the wall if that was, you know, a thing one could actually do with what might as well just be a particularly vivid hallucination. I guess I could type it out at school and then print it? Yeah… I might get a weird look from the teacher but that just means the day ends in Y at this point.
But now… I pull up my shirt to bongos a drumroll on my abs as I run the search for [Teleport] in my menu.
| Teleport 1, instant, 250 MP per person You and <hands> number of people appear in a known location, max 100 km distance. Purchase [Teleport 1] for 1 point? Yes/No |
Ahem! I clear my throat and then take a deep breath. "YES!"
A/N - The song Jane is struggling with is 'Luck' by American Authors and the actual lyrics are a 7-6 beat. Jane is just being forced to endure a portion of what it took for me to figure out what the words I only half remembered were so I could Google the name of the song I was thinking of when I originally came up with this scene.
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Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
"...No!" I whine as I realize that I don't actually have enough mana left to actually cast [Teleport] right now.
Grumbling, the angry noises incoherent even to me, I double check that [Meditation] is active and then roll my OOM ass out of Taylor's bed and tromp downstairs.
"Something wrong?" Taylor's sitting on the couch with what I think is her costume ideas sketchbook out, but has already set it down in her lap to stare at me as I reach the bottom of the stairs. Danny, over at the kitchen table with a pile of paperwork, is doing the same thing though so it's probably not her power that tipped her off.
"No." I shake my head, turning on [Telepathy]. =Yes.= "Just a headache."
Taylor raises an eyebrow at me as I trudge my way over to the couch, flopping down bonelessly on my side of it.. =I got Teleport, but I'm too…= Double checking that Uncle Danny can't see me from where he is, I wiggle my fingers at the side of my head. =...to use it right now.=
"Ah." Taylor nods before going back to her drawings. I'm a little surprised that she's doing it with Uncle Danny right there but then again, even knowing I'm looking at doesn't make it any less abstract art looking given she seems to be drawing different ideas for very small things from the point of view of her spiders.
"Yeah, I'm sure I'll be fine by school tomorrow." I wiggle my feet until my cold toes are under Taylor's warm leg. =And! We don't need to take the bus anywhere, like, ever again now.=
"Uh." Taylor's pencil pauses. "Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"We have the week off."
"What? Why?" I bolt upright, staring back and forth between Taylor and Uncle Danny. "Did something get wrecked?"
Uncle Danny laughs and Taylor stares at me funny while I try to puzzle out why they'd cancel school. I mean, yeah, I don't really watch the news or pay attention to stuff but anything that cancels school for both of us would have to be a, like, big deal. Wouldn't it? Something like... Bakuda? No. We are waytoo early for Bakuda and nothing about that would be funny. Umm-
"It's… February vacation?"
February? What happens in February? Wait, didn't Ziz hit Canberra- "Oh…." I nod as the entirety of what Taylor said finally clicks. "Right. February vacation. That's totally a thing." That makes way more sense than me sleeping through an End- "Wait, it's February? When did that happen?"
Uncle Danny laughs at me again as he points towards the calendar on the fridge. "Two weeks ago."
"Oh. Well… okay then." I settle back down on the couch. =I guess that'll make it easier to find time to visit a hospital.=
=Your costume isn't even ready yet.= Taylor sighs into my brain, 'rolling her eyes at me' without actually doing so or transmitting an image of either of those things.
=Even if they were…= I 'shrug' back at her, annoyed at the fact that I can feel my shoulders twitch physically as I do so. It would be kind of depressing how much better she's getting at that than me given that she's not the one casting the spell if I didn't know who her passenger was or how her powers worked. As it is, I try to just ignore it and carry on. =I don't know if what we came up with is really appropriate for… is it still candy striping if we have powers?"
Amusingly, given my recent thought on her skill with telepathy, Taylor takes the time to pause what she's doing and turn to look at me, using her face to very clearly conveying a sense of 'how the fuck would I know?'
=Fair.= I sigh. =But I think all we really need for this is a pair of domino masks and some clothes we wouldn't normally wear.=
=You still want me to come with you then?=
I can practically taste the conflicted feelings she has about her question, let alone 'hear' them, so I make sure to push as much absolute certainty as I possibly can into my answer. =Yes, Taylor, I want you to come with me.= Then I hit her in the brain with a cartoon fish. =As an 'unattended healer,' I may as well roll around in catnip and wear a 'please kidnap me' sign on my back. And as difficult to kidnap as I may now be, I'd rather not actually need to test that. Or let people know how much I can do. Or... you know. Simply not being alone will probably stop plenty of that by itself and having a biblical plague on obvious standby should I go missing ought to at least make the others take longer to think about it.=
=Ah.= Taylor nods, looking like her world makes sense again.
I squint at her, something about her acceptance setting my sibling-senses a-tingling. It sounds kinda mean, now that I'm thinking about it but, like, seriously, my cousin's depressive tendencies require a not inconsiderable amount of percussive maintenance to keep in line.
=And!= I make the cartoon fish bigger, imagining it looming over us like a Sword of Damocles. =Afterwards we can go get New York pizza together from some hole in the wall and, like, hang out and stuff. I do enjoy-=
I blink, my train of though dying as I suddenly make a connection I whiffed completely on before. "Oh no." Pulling up my sleeve, I stare at my clean, as in multiple-cleanses-and-a-shower clean, arm. "Shit-take mushrooms!" I barely catch myself, only remembering Danny's in the room at the last second.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Taylor asks as I bury my head backwards into the pillow and groan.
"Yes. No… I just. Ugh! I'm fine but now I feel like a total… biscuit." I roll off the couch and onto my feet. "Uncle Danny, do we have a phone book?" How many Laborns can there be in one town?
"In the chimney closet." He points.
"Thank you!" I make my way over to the indicated closet and rummage around. Oh, wow, this thing looks new. I guess, Earth Bet's technological hodge-podge works out in my favor for once?
Carrying the nearly pristine tome of a book over to the table, I sit down across from Uncle Danny and start flipping through it. "Laborn… Laborn… L! L-A…"
"That's…" Danny visibly thinks for a moment. "One of the girls you mentioned making friends with at school?"
"Yeah, Aisha. She wrote her phone number on my arm on Friday and I kinda forgot all about it until just now." Switching which hand is running a finger down the L-A-B section of the phonebook looking for the start of the O's, I hold up my now bare arm. Mentally, I add, =I purged it alongside everything else during the pixiedust thing.=
"She… wrote it on your arm?" Danny's voice has an odd tone to it.
"Yeah." I nod distractedly.
"Was she asking you out on a date?" Danny's odd tone intensifies while suddenly making sense. Sort of… I'm not sure why he went there immediately, but being uncomfortable with it is part of being a parent.
At which thought, I pause my search for a moment to look at him. "Nah." I shake my head before pausing to think about it. "I mean… kinda? Like, she did sort of word it that way, but I'm pretty sure she just did that to fffu- mess with Ruth."
"Ruth?"
"Ruth Herren. Empire groupie chick that sits with us at our desk-table-thing. She's… not awful… but Aisha's black so… Yeah." I shrug. "Rehabbing her is a bit of an ongoing project so I didn't really think anything of it when Aisha started hamming it up while talking about doing something next week. Or this week now. But I also figured I had three classes with her so of course I'd see her next- this week." I sigh, going back to my search.
LAB… O!
Ooof.
That is a lot of Laborns.
"And you're sure she wasn't asking you out?" Danny asks, sounding like doing so is almost physically painful.
"Meh." I look up at him again, and yeah. He looks super uncomfortable right now. "I mean, it's Aisha so, like… call it maybe 90% sure? I know she likes boys but I also wouldn't bet money against her winning a game of gay chicken against an actual lesbian so…" I shrug, throwing him a bone. "Whatever. It's not like it matters."
"Why wouldn't it matter?" Taylor turns around on the couch to join the conversation before Danny can bring himself to respond.
"Taylor." I frown as hard as I can at her. "I'm twelve." A statement I'm starting to think might be more true than not even considering my unusual origins.
I try not to laugh at how obviously relieved Danny suddenly looks.
I don't succeed, but I do try.
O… kay then…
"Sorry for bothering you ma'am." I hold the still screeching phone away from my ear as I reach up and press down on the hook thing to end the call.
"Not that one either, I take it?" Danny asks, everyone in the house having been able to hear Laborn number 7's incoherent… whatever that was. Hell, I think the neighbors might have caught some of that.
"Dunno." I shrug. "That might have just been her mom tweaking out."
"What?" I add when Taylor and Danny both make faces at me. "There's a reason I'm taking this so seriously."
Turning back to the phone, I start dialling the eighth number from the phone book.
It rings a few times before being answered with a fairly distinctive, "Yo!"
"Hey, Aisha!"
"Who is this?"
"Rude!"
"Oh. Hey, Jane! …Why didn't you call my cell?"
"Cause my dumb ass took a shower before I remembered to write your number down."
I sigh as Aisha starts laughing at me."You really are a fucking Goldfish."
"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, Squish."
"Okay!" I announce after hanging up and turning around again. "Good news! Aisha is at her dad's this week."
"We heard." Uncle Danny smiles.
"Right." I nod, giving him two thumbs up.
"Yeah." Taylor raises an eyebrow at me. "Apparently I'm taking you to the mall on Tuesday?"
"Yup!" I nod like a bobble head, giving myself time to add a bit for just Taylor. =You are invited but I don't actually need you to take me there, obviously. I'll just blip us over.= "The Wards are doing one of those meet-and-greet PR things."
"And it's not a date?" Uncle Danny double checks even though he obviously heard me verify that myself.
"Not a date." I agree happily, skipping my way back to the couch and flopping back down. "Still only twelve."
=But speaking of blipping…= I wiggle my toes back under Taylor's leg. =I feel like we should revisit the topic of telling your dad about our- well, my powers-=
Taylor instantly goes stock still. =You agreed-=
=I did!= I reassure her. =And I will stick to that if you want me to.=
=...But?=
=Butts!= I grin. =There's something extra to consider now.=
Taylor sighs. =And what's that?=
=It occurs to me that it would be significantly harder to kidnap a man who has an open telepathy connection to a teleporting biblical plague. Not to mention the whole healing thing if something unfortunate happens at work.=
=Is that…= She frowns. =Likely?=
=I don't think so? But… we can't ever really know that Coil hasn't stumbled over our existence in a timeline that never was and, again, he's kind of… the obvious point of leverage on either of us.=
=I'll think about it.=
=That's all I ask.= My stomach gurgles loudly, and I amend that statement. =Oh. Well, I guess I'm also asking how you feel about getting…= I take a moment to poke at my stomach and ask it what it wants. =...Italian?=
=I don't think there's any Italian places around here that deliver?= Taylor frowns uncertainly. =And I'd rather not run into any of the kids from school.=
=Taylor.= I poke her with my foot. =I want Italian, not…= I trail off rather than outright insulting the warzone she grew up in, though I'm sure some of it leaked out anyway. =We'd be eating in Boston.=
Grumbling, the angry noises incoherent even to me, I double check that [Meditation] is active and then roll my OOM ass out of Taylor's bed and tromp downstairs.
"Something wrong?" Taylor's sitting on the couch with what I think is her costume ideas sketchbook out, but has already set it down in her lap to stare at me as I reach the bottom of the stairs. Danny, over at the kitchen table with a pile of paperwork, is doing the same thing though so it's probably not her power that tipped her off.
"No." I shake my head, turning on [Telepathy]. =Yes.= "Just a headache."
Taylor raises an eyebrow at me as I trudge my way over to the couch, flopping down bonelessly on my side of it.. =I got Teleport, but I'm too…= Double checking that Uncle Danny can't see me from where he is, I wiggle my fingers at the side of my head. =...to use it right now.=
"Ah." Taylor nods before going back to her drawings. I'm a little surprised that she's doing it with Uncle Danny right there but then again, even knowing I'm looking at doesn't make it any less abstract art looking given she seems to be drawing different ideas for very small things from the point of view of her spiders.
"Yeah, I'm sure I'll be fine by school tomorrow." I wiggle my feet until my cold toes are under Taylor's warm leg. =And! We don't need to take the bus anywhere, like, ever again now.=
"Uh." Taylor's pencil pauses. "Jane?"
"Yeah?"
"We have the week off."
"What? Why?" I bolt upright, staring back and forth between Taylor and Uncle Danny. "Did something get wrecked?"
Uncle Danny laughs and Taylor stares at me funny while I try to puzzle out why they'd cancel school. I mean, yeah, I don't really watch the news or pay attention to stuff but anything that cancels school for both of us would have to be a, like, big deal. Wouldn't it? Something like... Bakuda? No. We are waytoo early for Bakuda and nothing about that would be funny. Umm-
"It's… February vacation?"
February? What happens in February? Wait, didn't Ziz hit Canberra- "Oh…." I nod as the entirety of what Taylor said finally clicks. "Right. February vacation. That's totally a thing." That makes way more sense than me sleeping through an End- "Wait, it's February? When did that happen?"
Uncle Danny laughs at me again as he points towards the calendar on the fridge. "Two weeks ago."
"Oh. Well… okay then." I settle back down on the couch. =I guess that'll make it easier to find time to visit a hospital.=
=Your costume isn't even ready yet.= Taylor sighs into my brain, 'rolling her eyes at me' without actually doing so or transmitting an image of either of those things.
=Even if they were…= I 'shrug' back at her, annoyed at the fact that I can feel my shoulders twitch physically as I do so. It would be kind of depressing how much better she's getting at that than me given that she's not the one casting the spell if I didn't know who her passenger was or how her powers worked. As it is, I try to just ignore it and carry on. =I don't know if what we came up with is really appropriate for… is it still candy striping if we have powers?"
Amusingly, given my recent thought on her skill with telepathy, Taylor takes the time to pause what she's doing and turn to look at me, using her face to very clearly conveying a sense of 'how the fuck would I know?'
=Fair.= I sigh. =But I think all we really need for this is a pair of domino masks and some clothes we wouldn't normally wear.=
=You still want me to come with you then?=
I can practically taste the conflicted feelings she has about her question, let alone 'hear' them, so I make sure to push as much absolute certainty as I possibly can into my answer. =Yes, Taylor, I want you to come with me.= Then I hit her in the brain with a cartoon fish. =As an 'unattended healer,' I may as well roll around in catnip and wear a 'please kidnap me' sign on my back. And as difficult to kidnap as I may now be, I'd rather not actually need to test that. Or let people know how much I can do. Or... you know. Simply not being alone will probably stop plenty of that by itself and having a biblical plague on obvious standby should I go missing ought to at least make the others take longer to think about it.=
=Ah.= Taylor nods, looking like her world makes sense again.
I squint at her, something about her acceptance setting my sibling-senses a-tingling. It sounds kinda mean, now that I'm thinking about it but, like, seriously, my cousin's depressive tendencies require a not inconsiderable amount of percussive maintenance to keep in line.
=And!= I make the cartoon fish bigger, imagining it looming over us like a Sword of Damocles. =Afterwards we can go get New York pizza together from some hole in the wall and, like, hang out and stuff. I do enjoy-=
I blink, my train of though dying as I suddenly make a connection I whiffed completely on before. "Oh no." Pulling up my sleeve, I stare at my clean, as in multiple-cleanses-and-a-shower clean, arm. "Shit-take mushrooms!" I barely catch myself, only remembering Danny's in the room at the last second.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Taylor asks as I bury my head backwards into the pillow and groan.
"Yes. No… I just. Ugh! I'm fine but now I feel like a total… biscuit." I roll off the couch and onto my feet. "Uncle Danny, do we have a phone book?" How many Laborns can there be in one town?
"In the chimney closet." He points.
"Thank you!" I make my way over to the indicated closet and rummage around. Oh, wow, this thing looks new. I guess, Earth Bet's technological hodge-podge works out in my favor for once?
Carrying the nearly pristine tome of a book over to the table, I sit down across from Uncle Danny and start flipping through it. "Laborn… Laborn… L! L-A…"
"That's…" Danny visibly thinks for a moment. "One of the girls you mentioned making friends with at school?"
"Yeah, Aisha. She wrote her phone number on my arm on Friday and I kinda forgot all about it until just now." Switching which hand is running a finger down the L-A-B section of the phonebook looking for the start of the O's, I hold up my now bare arm. Mentally, I add, =I purged it alongside everything else during the pixiedust thing.=
"She… wrote it on your arm?" Danny's voice has an odd tone to it.
"Yeah." I nod distractedly.
"Was she asking you out on a date?" Danny's odd tone intensifies while suddenly making sense. Sort of… I'm not sure why he went there immediately, but being uncomfortable with it is part of being a parent.
At which thought, I pause my search for a moment to look at him. "Nah." I shake my head before pausing to think about it. "I mean… kinda? Like, she did sort of word it that way, but I'm pretty sure she just did that to fffu- mess with Ruth."
"Ruth?"
"Ruth Herren. Empire groupie chick that sits with us at our desk-table-thing. She's… not awful… but Aisha's black so… Yeah." I shrug. "Rehabbing her is a bit of an ongoing project so I didn't really think anything of it when Aisha started hamming it up while talking about doing something next week. Or this week now. But I also figured I had three classes with her so of course I'd see her next- this week." I sigh, going back to my search.
LAB… O!
Ooof.
That is a lot of Laborns.
"And you're sure she wasn't asking you out?" Danny asks, sounding like doing so is almost physically painful.
"Meh." I look up at him again, and yeah. He looks super uncomfortable right now. "I mean, it's Aisha so, like… call it maybe 90% sure? I know she likes boys but I also wouldn't bet money against her winning a game of gay chicken against an actual lesbian so…" I shrug, throwing him a bone. "Whatever. It's not like it matters."
"Why wouldn't it matter?" Taylor turns around on the couch to join the conversation before Danny can bring himself to respond.
"Taylor." I frown as hard as I can at her. "I'm twelve." A statement I'm starting to think might be more true than not even considering my unusual origins.
I try not to laugh at how obviously relieved Danny suddenly looks.
I don't succeed, but I do try.
O… kay then…
"Sorry for bothering you ma'am." I hold the still screeching phone away from my ear as I reach up and press down on the hook thing to end the call.
"Not that one either, I take it?" Danny asks, everyone in the house having been able to hear Laborn number 7's incoherent… whatever that was. Hell, I think the neighbors might have caught some of that.
"Dunno." I shrug. "That might have just been her mom tweaking out."
"What?" I add when Taylor and Danny both make faces at me. "There's a reason I'm taking this so seriously."
Turning back to the phone, I start dialling the eighth number from the phone book.
It rings a few times before being answered with a fairly distinctive, "Yo!"
"Hey, Aisha!"
"Who is this?"
"Rude!"
"Oh. Hey, Jane! …Why didn't you call my cell?"
"Cause my dumb ass took a shower before I remembered to write your number down."
I sigh as Aisha starts laughing at me."You really are a fucking Goldfish."
"Yeah, yeah, yuck it up, Squish."
"Okay!" I announce after hanging up and turning around again. "Good news! Aisha is at her dad's this week."
"We heard." Uncle Danny smiles.
"Right." I nod, giving him two thumbs up.
"Yeah." Taylor raises an eyebrow at me. "Apparently I'm taking you to the mall on Tuesday?"
"Yup!" I nod like a bobble head, giving myself time to add a bit for just Taylor. =You are invited but I don't actually need you to take me there, obviously. I'll just blip us over.= "The Wards are doing one of those meet-and-greet PR things."
"And it's not a date?" Uncle Danny double checks even though he obviously heard me verify that myself.
"Not a date." I agree happily, skipping my way back to the couch and flopping back down. "Still only twelve."
=But speaking of blipping…= I wiggle my toes back under Taylor's leg. =I feel like we should revisit the topic of telling your dad about our- well, my powers-=
Taylor instantly goes stock still. =You agreed-=
=I did!= I reassure her. =And I will stick to that if you want me to.=
=...But?=
=Butts!= I grin. =There's something extra to consider now.=
Taylor sighs. =And what's that?=
=It occurs to me that it would be significantly harder to kidnap a man who has an open telepathy connection to a teleporting biblical plague. Not to mention the whole healing thing if something unfortunate happens at work.=
=Is that…= She frowns. =Likely?=
=I don't think so? But… we can't ever really know that Coil hasn't stumbled over our existence in a timeline that never was and, again, he's kind of… the obvious point of leverage on either of us.=
=I'll think about it.=
=That's all I ask.= My stomach gurgles loudly, and I amend that statement. =Oh. Well, I guess I'm also asking how you feel about getting…= I take a moment to poke at my stomach and ask it what it wants. =...Italian?=
=I don't think there's any Italian places around here that deliver?= Taylor frowns uncertainly. =And I'd rather not run into any of the kids from school.=
=Taylor.= I poke her with my foot. =I want Italian, not…= I trail off rather than outright insulting the warzone she grew up in, though I'm sure some of it leaked out anyway. =We'd be eating in Boston.=
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Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2015
- Messages
- 370
- Likes received
- 16,989
=I can't believe I let you talk me into this.= Taylor whines into my brain as we blip into the North End, becoming the us who were always wandering the city in search of deliciousness.
=Honestly?= I turn to look at her. =I can't either.=
No. Wait, Brain, no. We're in public, and sort of in 'costume,' so it's Weaver who was whining into my brain. And it's Weaver I'm looking at now.
Like me, she's wearing one of her hoodies with a 'Hi, my name is: Weaver/Lexicon' sticker added to it, a pair of jeans, and a domino mask that I stuck a shaped 'hostile visual disruption' [Ward] onto. Honestly, even if it isn't at all what I originally set out to do, having anyone that looks under our hoods see nothing but a staticky blue glow while still letting us see and eat normally is definitely… glowing on me. I might need to make way dimmer for any kind of stealthy field work, but if I never figure out a way to make everyone just magically see their own face staring back at them from under my hood– Or helmet,or… whatever I settle on– then I think I might just keep doing this.
Unlike me though, she's standing stock still in that way she does when she's uncomfortable. Which, looking around, I can kind of understand. For all that Veirdian [Teleport] is the quiet, non-air-displacing variety, two people suddenly appearing on a crowded street in a flash of midnight blue light draws a lot of stares.
Hmmm… Two unknown people at that, which probably explains why everyone looks suddenly almost as nervous as my cousin.
Welp! The only out is through and the best way to fix that reaction to seeing us is time and exposure. So, with a shrug, I force myself into motion. Gluing the[Scry] eye I used to find us an empty patch of sidewalk to the back of my head, I twirl around and beckon Weaver to follow me as I skip backwards down the street. "Come on, Weaver! I'm hungry!"
When she doesn't start moving immediately, I add, =If it helps, just remember they're way more afraid of you than you are of them.= For good measure, I tack on my [Scry] eye's view of people scrambling to get out of my way.
=Right.= Taylor starts forward and… I think she just nodded at me?
Hmmm… I didn't really think about how much they'd hide any sort of emoting when I set up the [Wards]. Something to consider for next time, I guess? For now I'll have to remember to really ham up my body language where possible. Then again… maybe I'll keep it? I mean, oh no, my costume forces me to be a Giant Ham? However shall I survive!?
…I wonder if 'the scenery' is tasty?
Ugh, I'm hungry. Why did getting ready have to take so… forever? Neither of us even wear makeup!
=Where are we going, anyway?= Weaver asks as she catches up.
=Nuh uh.= I twirl back around to face forward, [Scry] eye zipping off to peruse some menus. =You have to ask that out loud.=
=Seriously?=
=Yup!= I make a show of looking around. =Powers are like loaded guns.= I shove over a mental image of cartoon, chibi-fied, versions of us wandering down the same street waving Ak-47's at the crowd. =Caping is as much about reassuring the panicky villagers that you won't drown them in bees if they ask for help as it is convincing the villains that you absolutely will if they start shit.=
=...Fine.= Taylor huffs. "Where are we going anyway?"
=Try to be louder, but that was good.= I spread my arms and gesture at the myriad restaurants, shops, and such that are packed into both sides of the street. "I don't know yet! Right now we're just looking around at menus for anything that looks good." I let myself gawk like the tourist I guess I technically am, embracing the almost uncanny valley effect of being in the North End but also very much not. Like, I'm pretty sure that pizzeria right there should be a pastry shop.
...And now I want a cannoli! But no, Stomach, those are dessert not dinner. We need to find a-
"OH!" Reality intrudes upon my half-planned skit as I spot what I'm looking for way sooner than I expected to. I'd be upset but, you know, delicious food spotted! "Nevermind! We're eating there!"
Grabbing Weaver's arm, I drag her along behind me up to the hostess station of what the sign says is some place called 'Venetian Moon Ristorante.'
"Uh." The hostess's face flickers briefly through 'are we being robbed?' on its way to 'strained customer service smile' but that's fine. "...Welcome to the Venetian Moon."
"Hi." I wave. "Table for two please!"
"Right this way?" Her smile is still very strained and body language stiff as she turns to start leading us to a table.
Hmmm… I look down at myself and then over at Weaver.
Maybe… Maybe next time we do this we should buy some brighter color hoodies rather than just grabbing a few of Taylor's old ones and hastily [Mend]ing the shit out of them?
Or, you know, wear my actual costume when Tay- Weaver finishes making it.
Then again... Am I really gonna wanna get dressed all fancy and stuff up just to pick up food? If this place's Tortellini al Forno is any good then probably I'll be here often enough for them to just get used to me...
Hot hot hot!
Pulling my forkful of stuffed pasta, melted cheese, and port wine whatever-it-is goodness out of my mouth, I blow on it a few times before stuffing it back in.
=Mmmmm… so good! Are you sure you don't want to try any?=
=I'm fine.= Weaver shakes her head, slowly twisting up a forkful of her scampi and then putting it in her mouth without dripping anything on herself.
=More for me!= I shrug, only remembering to put more of my arms into than usual at the last moment. =Where were we?=
=You said you had some ideas about distancing our 'cape personas' from our civilian lives.=
=Right.= Taking a sip of water, I explain. =So, obviously the bit I said before we left about taking all those complaints I had about you needing to, like, at least pretend you need to look where you're going and yeeting them out the window while in costume will be a good start. Very Clark Kenting and whatnot.=
=...Who?=
Oh my god.
I stare at my cousin for a moment before remembering she can't actually see the face I'm making at her.
=He's…= Oh. Right. Alexandria kind of ate his whole shtick here. =Nevermind. Just… imagine some guy walks into a gay bar. He's good looking or whatever, and even has the same hair and face as, say… Legend. But… he slouches, and he's shy to the point of avoiding eye contact when he talks and… you get it, right? No one's going to think he's actually Legend even if plenty of people tell him the resemblance is uncanny.=
Weaver slumps forward, resting her face in her hands. =Did you just out Legend?=
=What? No. Taylor, everyone knows he's gay. It's, like, his thing.=
=Not that. I- Why do you know who Legend is?=
=Oh…= I laugh. =Yeah, no. I have no idea who Legend is.=
Which is kinda funny, really.
I mean, it might be fanon but I'm pretty sure Eidolon's name is David and obviously Alexandria is Becky. Hell, I'm even like… 90 percent-ish that Legend's husband is named Arthur. But Legend himself? I've never been able to remember his name. Mike? No, I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
And either way, none of that has anything to do with anything we were talking abou-
=He's not that 'Clark Kenting' guy you mentioned?=
=...No!= As much as I try not to outright laugh at my cousin, given the terrible associations that likely has for her from school, I can't help it. Fortunately, [Telepathy] means I don't need air to talk so even being nearly in tears from laughing too hard can't stop me from reassuring her. =I mean, he probably isbut, like… Clark Kent is Superman, from those old-timey comics and stuff?= I push across a mental image of the guy in question. The one I'm using is from the animated series which probably never existed here, but whatever. ='Clark Kenting' is just what people call the way he could like… hide in plain sight using just a pair of glasses and a lot of body language as a disguise.= I have the mental image of Superman do the spinning costume change thing, swapping his costume for glasses and business suit as he slouches into being Clark Kent.
=...Oh.=
=Yeah. Honestly, I'm probably the one that's going to have to work on that side of things the hardest given that I tend to be very… me… like all the time.=
=You don't say?=
"Pbbbbt!" I stick my tongue out at her as far as it will go and blow a raspberry. =Anyway…my next idea was that I think we should 'let slip' that we're sisters some time when we're out in costume.=
=I'm not saying no, but… Why?=
=Because it's both technically true-ish yet also not at all how we'd show up in any records if someone breaks the rules and goes looking.=
=You're… really concerned about that, aren't you?=
=Brockton Bay has Coil, who kidnaps Thinkers. Boston…= I wave my fork in a circle at the restaurant full of people watching, or in a few cases, aiming their phones at us. =...has Accord, who sells people that annoy him to the Yangban.=
=Seriously?=
=I'm fuzzy on the details but I'm pretty sure that's what happened to one of the Travelers.= I nod, bobbing my whole body up and down so she can see it even through the distortion ward. =I assume New York and etc all have their own less flashy but equally less savory sorts of villains even if the only ones I can name off the top of my head are, like, March and Butcher who are both more the 'murder the fuck out of your face' sort of dangerous.=
=Mmmm…= Weaver grunts in agreement. =Who's Mar…= Weaver trails off, suddenly sitting up and staring at… the wall?
=Something wrong?= I ask, stuffing another forkful of deliciousness into my face just in case we need to run.
=...Maybe?= I get an impression of a map with an arrow pointing at a fairly large section of a street a few blocks over. =A lot of people are moving towards their windows to stare at something and I think some of them are screaming?=
=Uh.= I set my fork back down on my plate. =Hang on.=
Putting a [Scry] a couple hundred meters above the buildings around us, I share the view with Weaver as I try to orient myself relative to her map. =Uh… Where?=
=Over this way.= She imagines an arrow into existence over the eye's field of vision and I send it careening off in the indicated direction.
Which quickly leads to us finding a… uh… =Is that a gorilla?=
=I think so?=
Okay then.
A large, as in twelve feet tall, leafy-green, gorilla-looking thing is absolutely booking it down Hanover street while a metallic teenager– Weld, presumably– sprints after it.
Welcome to Bizarro Boston, everyone.
=Honestly?= I turn to look at her. =I can't either.=
No. Wait, Brain, no. We're in public, and sort of in 'costume,' so it's Weaver who was whining into my brain. And it's Weaver I'm looking at now.
Like me, she's wearing one of her hoodies with a 'Hi, my name is: Weaver/Lexicon' sticker added to it, a pair of jeans, and a domino mask that I stuck a shaped 'hostile visual disruption' [Ward] onto. Honestly, even if it isn't at all what I originally set out to do, having anyone that looks under our hoods see nothing but a staticky blue glow while still letting us see and eat normally is definitely… glowing on me. I might need to make way dimmer for any kind of stealthy field work, but if I never figure out a way to make everyone just magically see their own face staring back at them from under my hood– Or helmet,or… whatever I settle on– then I think I might just keep doing this.
Unlike me though, she's standing stock still in that way she does when she's uncomfortable. Which, looking around, I can kind of understand. For all that Veirdian [Teleport] is the quiet, non-air-displacing variety, two people suddenly appearing on a crowded street in a flash of midnight blue light draws a lot of stares.
Hmmm… Two unknown people at that, which probably explains why everyone looks suddenly almost as nervous as my cousin.
Welp! The only out is through and the best way to fix that reaction to seeing us is time and exposure. So, with a shrug, I force myself into motion. Gluing the[Scry] eye I used to find us an empty patch of sidewalk to the back of my head, I twirl around and beckon Weaver to follow me as I skip backwards down the street. "Come on, Weaver! I'm hungry!"
When she doesn't start moving immediately, I add, =If it helps, just remember they're way more afraid of you than you are of them.= For good measure, I tack on my [Scry] eye's view of people scrambling to get out of my way.
=Right.= Taylor starts forward and… I think she just nodded at me?
Hmmm… I didn't really think about how much they'd hide any sort of emoting when I set up the [Wards]. Something to consider for next time, I guess? For now I'll have to remember to really ham up my body language where possible. Then again… maybe I'll keep it? I mean, oh no, my costume forces me to be a Giant Ham? However shall I survive!?
…I wonder if 'the scenery' is tasty?
Ugh, I'm hungry. Why did getting ready have to take so… forever? Neither of us even wear makeup!
=Where are we going, anyway?= Weaver asks as she catches up.
=Nuh uh.= I twirl back around to face forward, [Scry] eye zipping off to peruse some menus. =You have to ask that out loud.=
=Seriously?=
=Yup!= I make a show of looking around. =Powers are like loaded guns.= I shove over a mental image of cartoon, chibi-fied, versions of us wandering down the same street waving Ak-47's at the crowd. =Caping is as much about reassuring the panicky villagers that you won't drown them in bees if they ask for help as it is convincing the villains that you absolutely will if they start shit.=
=...Fine.= Taylor huffs. "Where are we going anyway?"
=Try to be louder, but that was good.= I spread my arms and gesture at the myriad restaurants, shops, and such that are packed into both sides of the street. "I don't know yet! Right now we're just looking around at menus for anything that looks good." I let myself gawk like the tourist I guess I technically am, embracing the almost uncanny valley effect of being in the North End but also very much not. Like, I'm pretty sure that pizzeria right there should be a pastry shop.
...And now I want a cannoli! But no, Stomach, those are dessert not dinner. We need to find a-
"OH!" Reality intrudes upon my half-planned skit as I spot what I'm looking for way sooner than I expected to. I'd be upset but, you know, delicious food spotted! "Nevermind! We're eating there!"
Grabbing Weaver's arm, I drag her along behind me up to the hostess station of what the sign says is some place called 'Venetian Moon Ristorante.'
"Uh." The hostess's face flickers briefly through 'are we being robbed?' on its way to 'strained customer service smile' but that's fine. "...Welcome to the Venetian Moon."
"Hi." I wave. "Table for two please!"
"Right this way?" Her smile is still very strained and body language stiff as she turns to start leading us to a table.
Hmmm… I look down at myself and then over at Weaver.
Maybe… Maybe next time we do this we should buy some brighter color hoodies rather than just grabbing a few of Taylor's old ones and hastily [Mend]ing the shit out of them?
Or, you know, wear my actual costume when Tay- Weaver finishes making it.
Then again... Am I really gonna wanna get dressed all fancy and stuff up just to pick up food? If this place's Tortellini al Forno is any good then probably I'll be here often enough for them to just get used to me...
Hot hot hot!
Pulling my forkful of stuffed pasta, melted cheese, and port wine whatever-it-is goodness out of my mouth, I blow on it a few times before stuffing it back in.
=Mmmmm… so good! Are you sure you don't want to try any?=
=I'm fine.= Weaver shakes her head, slowly twisting up a forkful of her scampi and then putting it in her mouth without dripping anything on herself.
=More for me!= I shrug, only remembering to put more of my arms into than usual at the last moment. =Where were we?=
=You said you had some ideas about distancing our 'cape personas' from our civilian lives.=
=Right.= Taking a sip of water, I explain. =So, obviously the bit I said before we left about taking all those complaints I had about you needing to, like, at least pretend you need to look where you're going and yeeting them out the window while in costume will be a good start. Very Clark Kenting and whatnot.=
=...Who?=
Oh my god.
I stare at my cousin for a moment before remembering she can't actually see the face I'm making at her.
=He's…= Oh. Right. Alexandria kind of ate his whole shtick here. =Nevermind. Just… imagine some guy walks into a gay bar. He's good looking or whatever, and even has the same hair and face as, say… Legend. But… he slouches, and he's shy to the point of avoiding eye contact when he talks and… you get it, right? No one's going to think he's actually Legend even if plenty of people tell him the resemblance is uncanny.=
Weaver slumps forward, resting her face in her hands. =Did you just out Legend?=
=What? No. Taylor, everyone knows he's gay. It's, like, his thing.=
=Not that. I- Why do you know who Legend is?=
=Oh…= I laugh. =Yeah, no. I have no idea who Legend is.=
Which is kinda funny, really.
I mean, it might be fanon but I'm pretty sure Eidolon's name is David and obviously Alexandria is Becky. Hell, I'm even like… 90 percent-ish that Legend's husband is named Arthur. But Legend himself? I've never been able to remember his name. Mike? No, I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
And either way, none of that has anything to do with anything we were talking abou-
=He's not that 'Clark Kenting' guy you mentioned?=
=...No!= As much as I try not to outright laugh at my cousin, given the terrible associations that likely has for her from school, I can't help it. Fortunately, [Telepathy] means I don't need air to talk so even being nearly in tears from laughing too hard can't stop me from reassuring her. =I mean, he probably isbut, like… Clark Kent is Superman, from those old-timey comics and stuff?= I push across a mental image of the guy in question. The one I'm using is from the animated series which probably never existed here, but whatever. ='Clark Kenting' is just what people call the way he could like… hide in plain sight using just a pair of glasses and a lot of body language as a disguise.= I have the mental image of Superman do the spinning costume change thing, swapping his costume for glasses and business suit as he slouches into being Clark Kent.
=...Oh.=
=Yeah. Honestly, I'm probably the one that's going to have to work on that side of things the hardest given that I tend to be very… me… like all the time.=
=You don't say?=
"Pbbbbt!" I stick my tongue out at her as far as it will go and blow a raspberry. =Anyway…my next idea was that I think we should 'let slip' that we're sisters some time when we're out in costume.=
=I'm not saying no, but… Why?=
=Because it's both technically true-ish yet also not at all how we'd show up in any records if someone breaks the rules and goes looking.=
=You're… really concerned about that, aren't you?=
=Brockton Bay has Coil, who kidnaps Thinkers. Boston…= I wave my fork in a circle at the restaurant full of people watching, or in a few cases, aiming their phones at us. =...has Accord, who sells people that annoy him to the Yangban.=
=Seriously?=
=I'm fuzzy on the details but I'm pretty sure that's what happened to one of the Travelers.= I nod, bobbing my whole body up and down so she can see it even through the distortion ward. =I assume New York and etc all have their own less flashy but equally less savory sorts of villains even if the only ones I can name off the top of my head are, like, March and Butcher who are both more the 'murder the fuck out of your face' sort of dangerous.=
=Mmmm…= Weaver grunts in agreement. =Who's Mar…= Weaver trails off, suddenly sitting up and staring at… the wall?
=Something wrong?= I ask, stuffing another forkful of deliciousness into my face just in case we need to run.
=...Maybe?= I get an impression of a map with an arrow pointing at a fairly large section of a street a few blocks over. =A lot of people are moving towards their windows to stare at something and I think some of them are screaming?=
=Uh.= I set my fork back down on my plate. =Hang on.=
Putting a [Scry] a couple hundred meters above the buildings around us, I share the view with Weaver as I try to orient myself relative to her map. =Uh… Where?=
=Over this way.= She imagines an arrow into existence over the eye's field of vision and I send it careening off in the indicated direction.
Which quickly leads to us finding a… uh… =Is that a gorilla?=
=I think so?=
Okay then.
A large, as in twelve feet tall, leafy-green, gorilla-looking thing is absolutely booking it down Hanover street while a metallic teenager– Weld, presumably– sprints after it.
Welcome to Bizarro Boston, everyone.
18
Aetheron
Flinger of Spaghetti, Recorder of Results.
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My focus wavers between my [Scry] eye and my dinner plate.
From what I can see from on high, the 'gorilla' has already caused a couple car accidents as people hurry to pull over and get out of its way but otherwise doesn't really seem to be attacking anyone per se apart from that. So… honestly, it's not that much worse for the already stop and go traffic than an ambulance with its lights on would be.
We could just continue eat-
Weaver, of course, immediately stands up and starts toward the exit.
I sigh. =What are you.= I stop myself, pushing my view of how many of the other patrons' eyes are now locked on to her. "What are you doing?" I ask a little louder than necessary for their benefit.
Fortunately, Weaver seems to grok what I'm doing pretty quickly, turning back to look at me and answering just as loudly. "...Stopping it?"
Part of me wants to ask her how exactly she plans to do that with bugs– In the middle of winter no less– but on top of having spent a not inconsiderable amount of effort trying to build up her opinion of her power… bugs are probably way better equipped to handle a gorilla made of leaves than they are Lungand… yeah.
Also, Weaver doesn't seem like she's in a mood to appreciate a half-joking suggestion that we become snowbirds, so instead I go with my other legitimate concern. "I know it's probably one of Blasto's… whatever-they're-calleds, but I don't think we're supposed to call them an 'it' until we confirm that they're not a Case 53." Which, as much empathy as my current situation may give me for their plight, Weaver and I are not the right people to handle.
Weld, on the other hand, is. Which is probably why a Ward is involved in this not-so-high speed chase to begin with?
…Or was the Brockton Bay wards being the only ones that saw combat regularly a fanon thing?
Weaver's head tilts to the side. "How do we tell the difference?"
I shrug, letting her question pull me from my tangent. "Probably by…" I groan. "…going out there and talking to them."
I can't see her face, obviously, but I don't need [Telepathy] to feel the impatience wafting off her as she makes an 'after you' gesture towards the door.
"Fiiine…" I sigh, glancing forlornly down at my delicious food before grabbing my napkin off my lap and tossing it on the table. "Let's go be heroes."
If nothing else, my statement seems to make our rapidly approaching waitress relax a little. Her smile even stops looking quite so forced as I dig my wad of cash out of my pocket and wave a bunch of it at her.
…Did she think we were going to just up and leave without paying? Are 'dine and dash villains' some kind of, like, thing here on Bet?
Whatever. Rounding up what I remember of the prices and then adding another twenty on top of that means I'm probably over paying by, like, a lot, but on the other hand… "Thanks…" I don't so much glance at her name badge as take full advantage of it being directly at eye level. "...Amanda. Can you box this up and set it aside for us?"
Halfway to the door already, Weaver whirls around and, I think, stares at me for a moment before remembering I can't see whatever face she's making at me. =Seriously!?=
"What?" I put my arms into shrugging at her. "I don't even know where you're going. It's not like we're walking there."
"...Right." Weaver doubletimes it back to me, holding out a hand.
=Get ready to run.= I grab her hand. =I'll drop us just behind Weld.=
I don't bother waiting for the blast of acknowledgement to become words before casting [Teleport].
The world flickers midnight blue and suddenly Weaver and I are the us that were already sprinting down the road after Weld.
Weaver stumbles the first step, not really having any way to actually be ready for the first step of suddenly-running! But she manages to use the hand I'm holding to catch herself and quickly finds her stride.
"Yo, Weld!" I yell, waving at him as his head whips around to stare at me. He doesn't stop running though, and only barely stumbles a little which is impressive, even if he immediately veers off to put some distance between us.
Ugh. Brighter color hoodies are moving from the maybe pile to the definitely pile. I'd roll my eyes at him, but it's not like he'd be able to tell, so I just ignore it and press on with the important question: "Is that a person?" I point, probably unnecessarily, at the leafy-gorilla-thing we're now all chasing. "Or one of Blasto's… whatchamacallits?"
Weld hesitates briefly, hand going to his ear, but then it drops back down as he veers back closer to us. "One of Blasto's!"
"You're sure?"
He nods. "The Teeth hit one of his labs and a bunch of these things came out to defend it before running off when the Protectorate showed up."
Ooooh… Yeah, 'everyone else is busy dealing with The Teeth,' does explain how a Ward might be let out on their own. "So… we're stopping it?"
Weld shakes his head. "Just keeping track of it until-" He cuts off, putting a hand to his ear and then looks our way. "If you can stop it, that'd be appreciated."
"Kay!" I try to nod, but putting my whole upper body into it to compensate for my current lack of face is… kinda hard… while sprinting down the road so I have no idea if he can tell.
Then I turn back to staring at the fleeing leaf-gorilla.
Damn. Can I stop it?
I eye my mana pool and run through my options.
…I should still be good to get us home? Well, as long as I don't fuck around any more than necessary.
That in mind, I use [Blink] rather than [Teleport] to become the me who's always been waiting in the middle of the road right where the cars have all already pulled out of the way.
=Jane!=
=What?= Aurifying [Stoneshape] and crossing my fingers, I pull a bunch of the road's underlayers out from under it, leaving the top centimeter or so in place, held up only by my will, while forming a low wall in between myself and the leaf-gorilla.
=You left me behind!=
=Bitch, I am not made of mana!=
Fortunately, the leaf-gorilla– Which, from the front, looks like it picked a fight with a wood chipper and somehow won.– decides to try and go over my deliberately insufficient barrier rather than around and I let the hollowed out road collapse right as it tries to put its weight on it.
=I don't even-= Weaver's response dissolves into a blast of irritated discontent. Or maybe I just lose focus on it, being too busy shoving the 'wall' forward as the gorilla's momentum forces it into my impromptu pit trap. Having the stone flow around its flailing limbs as it crashes down and re-solidify without letting it use that same stone as a handhold to grab onto to stop itself is a lot harder to do than describe.
I manage to get both legs and an arm, but the other arm slips free and takes a swing at me before I can grab it.
It misses, barely. A green blur just suddenly in my face before I can so much as blink, and then gone again as the wind of its passing buffets me, startles me into belatedly throwing myself backwards where I fall on my ass in an undignified heap.
Only 2?
…Hooray for landing squarely on the only part of me with any padding worth mentioning, I guess?
The leaf-gorilla continues struggling, even punching the ground to try and break free. Which, just in case I missed the green hand-shaped advert that whizzed past my face a moment ago, serves as a fairly stark reminder for future-Jane: Punch Wizards can cast [Fist] a lot faster than the one second global cooldown my spells work off of.
Fortunately, even at twelve feet tall, punching its way free from solid stone isn't really a viable solution in the short term. Just in case though, I crab walk backwards a bit and then stand up before letting…
…[Stoneshape] lapse.
Fucking now you level up? Whatever. More important things to worry about at the moment.
Like, for instance, watching to make sure the fused stone holding it doesn't immediately give out without my will backing it up.
It… doesn't seem to be? So, dusting off my pants, I try talking to it. "Yo!" I wave. "Are you a person in there? Can you talk or anything?"
Apart from continuing to try and break free, there's no reaction. Nor, as far as I can tell, are any of the noises it's making any kind of attempt to communicate with me. Not even to, like, flip me off or whatever.
Right. So… Person vs Thing hopefully settled, I guess it's time to… uh…
Huh.
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next here.
Should I even be doing anything more here?
Shuffling sideways, I keep an eye on the leaf-gorilla as I make my way around it towards where Weld and Weaver seem to have been joined by some out of breath looking lady in purple spandex a short ways off.
No one's been covered in bees, which I assume is a good sign, even if they're both keeping their distance and Weld has his hand to his ear again.
"Hey!" I wave at them. "Old people!" I give the two teens and maybe-teen/maybe-twenty-something a moment to have their confused 'wait, does she mean me?' moment before I Vanna White at the leaf-gorilla. "What do we do with it now?"
Purple-lady looks up from her hands on knees catching-my-breath position but all she 'says' is a wheezing noise before flailing an arm at Weld who gamely picks up the slack. "Do with it?"
"Yeah." I smack a fist into my palm. "Does Console just want us to squish it so it stops trying to escape?" I point at where it's continuing to try and do just that. "Or are these things, like, a hazmat issue now?"
"Ah." Weld gestures at his earpiece. "That's what we've been discussing."
Purple-lady loudly sucks in a deep breath and then tries talking again. "Can you even 'squish' it? They've proven surprisingly durable in the past."
"Really?" I ask. "The thing's front half is kinda shredded."
"This one ran through one of Vex's fields and kept going."
Vex… Vex… "Oh. That's the razor glitter force field… uh… dude-lady-person, right?"
"I don't think anyone would call her a Lady, but yes."
"Fair enough and in that case…" I call up [Stoneshape]'s new box.
Oof. Now there's a transition level if I ever saw one. Very promising implications for what level 10 will look like, but still, oooooof.
"...Maybe?"
Purple-lady nods. "We have the go ahead for you to try then."
I make a point of looking to Weaver.
=What?=
=Pretty sure she means 'my boss wants to know more about what you can do without actually asking you about what you can do' so… I'm being equally obvious about saying she's not the boss of me it's your call without actually saying I care more about your opinion than theirs.=
=That's...= Weaver more huffs than laughs, but it's a start. =They've already seen you do the rocks thing, and…= Weaver shrugs. "It's not like we can just leave it there."
"Fair enough." Cracking my knuckles I turn back toward the gorilla thing. "I would feel kinda bad about adding to the city's pothole collection, let alone something like, well… that." I gesture broadly at the huge mess I made out of the road.
I get three steps forward before pausing and turning back around as I realize I never actually got an answer on the hazmat thing. "And we're sure it's not, like, toxic or anything?"
Purple-lady shakes her head. "None of the others have been."
"Kay." I nod, skipping back over to my leafy opponent and watching it for a moment.
Hmmm… I was originally going to hit it with a big rock or maybe a stone spike but if it can run through Vex's razor field with only cosmetic damage then…
Aurifying [Stoneshape] I- Woah…
…I get distracted briefly by the much larger radius of my stonesense aura. I guess this might be doable after all.
Double checking there's nothing that feels like a pipe under or between the gorilla and I, I start slowly lifting up another section of road a short distance away. I try to keep the asphalt and it's supporting sand and gravel layers together a single chunk as best I can as I expose the base dirt buried way down there, setting it all down all out of the way for later. Then, I start shifting said dirt and random rocks out from under the gorilla by pulling it all down, over, and then up though the new hole in the road until I have a large pit beneath the gorilla and an equally large blob of dirt floating next to me.
Lowering the gorilla into the pit by the fused stone wrapped around three of it's limbs, I dump the dirt on top of it until its filled in enough that I can grab the other arm and force that down too as I add even more dirt on top and level the top off. That done, I put the slab of road, sand, and gravel from the new hold back into place, re-fusing the asphalt together.
Now what do I do with the left over dirt?
…Oh, right, duh,
Keeping hold of the dirt in the pit and pressing it down so the gorilla can't escape, I-
…Oh.
From what I can see from on high, the 'gorilla' has already caused a couple car accidents as people hurry to pull over and get out of its way but otherwise doesn't really seem to be attacking anyone per se apart from that. So… honestly, it's not that much worse for the already stop and go traffic than an ambulance with its lights on would be.
We could just continue eat-
Weaver, of course, immediately stands up and starts toward the exit.
I sigh. =What are you.= I stop myself, pushing my view of how many of the other patrons' eyes are now locked on to her. "What are you doing?" I ask a little louder than necessary for their benefit.
Fortunately, Weaver seems to grok what I'm doing pretty quickly, turning back to look at me and answering just as loudly. "...Stopping it?"
Part of me wants to ask her how exactly she plans to do that with bugs– In the middle of winter no less– but on top of having spent a not inconsiderable amount of effort trying to build up her opinion of her power… bugs are probably way better equipped to handle a gorilla made of leaves than they are Lungand… yeah.
Also, Weaver doesn't seem like she's in a mood to appreciate a half-joking suggestion that we become snowbirds, so instead I go with my other legitimate concern. "I know it's probably one of Blasto's… whatever-they're-calleds, but I don't think we're supposed to call them an 'it' until we confirm that they're not a Case 53." Which, as much empathy as my current situation may give me for their plight, Weaver and I are not the right people to handle.
Weld, on the other hand, is. Which is probably why a Ward is involved in this not-so-high speed chase to begin with?
…Or was the Brockton Bay wards being the only ones that saw combat regularly a fanon thing?
Weaver's head tilts to the side. "How do we tell the difference?"
I shrug, letting her question pull me from my tangent. "Probably by…" I groan. "…going out there and talking to them."
I can't see her face, obviously, but I don't need [Telepathy] to feel the impatience wafting off her as she makes an 'after you' gesture towards the door.
"Fiiine…" I sigh, glancing forlornly down at my delicious food before grabbing my napkin off my lap and tossing it on the table. "Let's go be heroes."
If nothing else, my statement seems to make our rapidly approaching waitress relax a little. Her smile even stops looking quite so forced as I dig my wad of cash out of my pocket and wave a bunch of it at her.
…Did she think we were going to just up and leave without paying? Are 'dine and dash villains' some kind of, like, thing here on Bet?
Whatever. Rounding up what I remember of the prices and then adding another twenty on top of that means I'm probably over paying by, like, a lot, but on the other hand… "Thanks…" I don't so much glance at her name badge as take full advantage of it being directly at eye level. "...Amanda. Can you box this up and set it aside for us?"
Halfway to the door already, Weaver whirls around and, I think, stares at me for a moment before remembering I can't see whatever face she's making at me. =Seriously!?=
"What?" I put my arms into shrugging at her. "I don't even know where you're going. It's not like we're walking there."
"...Right." Weaver doubletimes it back to me, holding out a hand.
=Get ready to run.= I grab her hand. =I'll drop us just behind Weld.=
I don't bother waiting for the blast of acknowledgement to become words before casting [Teleport].
The world flickers midnight blue and suddenly Weaver and I are the us that were already sprinting down the road after Weld.
Weaver stumbles the first step, not really having any way to actually be ready for the first step of suddenly-running! But she manages to use the hand I'm holding to catch herself and quickly finds her stride.
"Yo, Weld!" I yell, waving at him as his head whips around to stare at me. He doesn't stop running though, and only barely stumbles a little which is impressive, even if he immediately veers off to put some distance between us.
Ugh. Brighter color hoodies are moving from the maybe pile to the definitely pile. I'd roll my eyes at him, but it's not like he'd be able to tell, so I just ignore it and press on with the important question: "Is that a person?" I point, probably unnecessarily, at the leafy-gorilla-thing we're now all chasing. "Or one of Blasto's… whatchamacallits?"
Weld hesitates briefly, hand going to his ear, but then it drops back down as he veers back closer to us. "One of Blasto's!"
"You're sure?"
He nods. "The Teeth hit one of his labs and a bunch of these things came out to defend it before running off when the Protectorate showed up."
Ooooh… Yeah, 'everyone else is busy dealing with The Teeth,' does explain how a Ward might be let out on their own. "So… we're stopping it?"
Weld shakes his head. "Just keeping track of it until-" He cuts off, putting a hand to his ear and then looks our way. "If you can stop it, that'd be appreciated."
"Kay!" I try to nod, but putting my whole upper body into it to compensate for my current lack of face is… kinda hard… while sprinting down the road so I have no idea if he can tell.
Then I turn back to staring at the fleeing leaf-gorilla.
Damn. Can I stop it?
I eye my mana pool and run through my options.
…I should still be good to get us home? Well, as long as I don't fuck around any more than necessary.
That in mind, I use [Blink] rather than [Teleport] to become the me who's always been waiting in the middle of the road right where the cars have all already pulled out of the way.
=Jane!=
=What?= Aurifying [Stoneshape] and crossing my fingers, I pull a bunch of the road's underlayers out from under it, leaving the top centimeter or so in place, held up only by my will, while forming a low wall in between myself and the leaf-gorilla.
=You left me behind!=
=Bitch, I am not made of mana!=
Fortunately, the leaf-gorilla– Which, from the front, looks like it picked a fight with a wood chipper and somehow won.– decides to try and go over my deliberately insufficient barrier rather than around and I let the hollowed out road collapse right as it tries to put its weight on it.
=I don't even-= Weaver's response dissolves into a blast of irritated discontent. Or maybe I just lose focus on it, being too busy shoving the 'wall' forward as the gorilla's momentum forces it into my impromptu pit trap. Having the stone flow around its flailing limbs as it crashes down and re-solidify without letting it use that same stone as a handhold to grab onto to stop itself is a lot harder to do than describe.
I manage to get both legs and an arm, but the other arm slips free and takes a swing at me before I can grab it.
It misses, barely. A green blur just suddenly in my face before I can so much as blink, and then gone again as the wind of its passing buffets me, startles me into belatedly throwing myself backwards where I fall on my ass in an undignified heap.
| Fell for 2 HP damage! |
Only 2?
…Hooray for landing squarely on the only part of me with any padding worth mentioning, I guess?
The leaf-gorilla continues struggling, even punching the ground to try and break free. Which, just in case I missed the green hand-shaped advert that whizzed past my face a moment ago, serves as a fairly stark reminder for future-Jane: Punch Wizards can cast [Fist] a lot faster than the one second global cooldown my spells work off of.
Fortunately, even at twelve feet tall, punching its way free from solid stone isn't really a viable solution in the short term. Just in case though, I crab walk backwards a bit and then stand up before letting…
| Stoneshape level up! |
…[Stoneshape] lapse.
Fucking now you level up? Whatever. More important things to worry about at the moment.
Like, for instance, watching to make sure the fused stone holding it doesn't immediately give out without my will backing it up.
It… doesn't seem to be? So, dusting off my pants, I try talking to it. "Yo!" I wave. "Are you a person in there? Can you talk or anything?"
Apart from continuing to try and break free, there's no reaction. Nor, as far as I can tell, are any of the noises it's making any kind of attempt to communicate with me. Not even to, like, flip me off or whatever.
Right. So… Person vs Thing hopefully settled, I guess it's time to… uh…
Huh.
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do next here.
Should I even be doing anything more here?
Shuffling sideways, I keep an eye on the leaf-gorilla as I make my way around it towards where Weld and Weaver seem to have been joined by some out of breath looking lady in purple spandex a short ways off.
No one's been covered in bees, which I assume is a good sign, even if they're both keeping their distance and Weld has his hand to his ear again.
"Hey!" I wave at them. "Old people!" I give the two teens and maybe-teen/maybe-twenty-something a moment to have their confused 'wait, does she mean me?' moment before I Vanna White at the leaf-gorilla. "What do we do with it now?"
Purple-lady looks up from her hands on knees catching-my-breath position but all she 'says' is a wheezing noise before flailing an arm at Weld who gamely picks up the slack. "Do with it?"
"Yeah." I smack a fist into my palm. "Does Console just want us to squish it so it stops trying to escape?" I point at where it's continuing to try and do just that. "Or are these things, like, a hazmat issue now?"
"Ah." Weld gestures at his earpiece. "That's what we've been discussing."
Purple-lady loudly sucks in a deep breath and then tries talking again. "Can you even 'squish' it? They've proven surprisingly durable in the past."
"Really?" I ask. "The thing's front half is kinda shredded."
"This one ran through one of Vex's fields and kept going."
Vex… Vex… "Oh. That's the razor glitter force field… uh… dude-lady-person, right?"
"I don't think anyone would call her a Lady, but yes."
"Fair enough and in that case…" I call up [Stoneshape]'s new box.
| Stoneshape 7, 1 minute per level, medium range. Slowly move large amounts of stone and sand OR gain fine control over medium amounts of stone and sand for 2 minute per level of Stoneshape. 55 MP Quickly move minor amounts of stone and sand around you for 1 minute per level of the spell. Fine control. 50 MP |
Oof. Now there's a transition level if I ever saw one. Very promising implications for what level 10 will look like, but still, oooooof.
"...Maybe?"
Purple-lady nods. "We have the go ahead for you to try then."
I make a point of looking to Weaver.
=What?=
=Pretty sure she means 'my boss wants to know more about what you can do without actually asking you about what you can do' so… I'm being equally obvious about saying she's not the boss of me it's your call without actually saying I care more about your opinion than theirs.=
=That's...= Weaver more huffs than laughs, but it's a start. =They've already seen you do the rocks thing, and…= Weaver shrugs. "It's not like we can just leave it there."
"Fair enough." Cracking my knuckles I turn back toward the gorilla thing. "I would feel kinda bad about adding to the city's pothole collection, let alone something like, well… that." I gesture broadly at the huge mess I made out of the road.
I get three steps forward before pausing and turning back around as I realize I never actually got an answer on the hazmat thing. "And we're sure it's not, like, toxic or anything?"
Purple-lady shakes her head. "None of the others have been."
"Kay." I nod, skipping back over to my leafy opponent and watching it for a moment.
Hmmm… I was originally going to hit it with a big rock or maybe a stone spike but if it can run through Vex's razor field with only cosmetic damage then…
Aurifying [Stoneshape] I- Woah…
…I get distracted briefly by the much larger radius of my stonesense aura. I guess this might be doable after all.
Double checking there's nothing that feels like a pipe under or between the gorilla and I, I start slowly lifting up another section of road a short distance away. I try to keep the asphalt and it's supporting sand and gravel layers together a single chunk as best I can as I expose the base dirt buried way down there, setting it all down all out of the way for later. Then, I start shifting said dirt and random rocks out from under the gorilla by pulling it all down, over, and then up though the new hole in the road until I have a large pit beneath the gorilla and an equally large blob of dirt floating next to me.
Lowering the gorilla into the pit by the fused stone wrapped around three of it's limbs, I dump the dirt on top of it until its filled in enough that I can grab the other arm and force that down too as I add even more dirt on top and level the top off. That done, I put the slab of road, sand, and gravel from the new hold back into place, re-fusing the asphalt together.
Now what do I do with the left over dirt?
…Oh, right, duh,
Keeping hold of the dirt in the pit and pressing it down so the gorilla can't escape, I-
| You have slain Leaf-Gorilla D! 40% Participation +39480 exp |
Level up! +2 Ability Points |
…Oh.