Celestial Saga

[Oblation]

Important Notes:

#1 - This is from the POV of a kid keeping a journal about their life after a big change, and the prose reflects that.

#2 - Since this is in the format of a journal, there is no minimum word count, especially in the beginning.
"Entire Work" mode is recommended, since the short chapters in the beginning have frustrated a few.
(The average word count is 900+, but chapters 12-14 are very short and are staying that way.)

#3 - Saga will have theories about what's happening, ranging from isekai to CYOAs and more, but she's wrong.
I want to be clear about that, since Worm Story Search tags anything with "Celestial" as a Forge/CYOA story.
(To be clear: This is not a CYOA, and it's spells, not tinkering like the Forge.)

#4 - This is the info Chapter, with the List of roller Perks, and the Meta explanation for why Saga's POV is the way it is.
If you're just here for the story, then feel free to skip directly to chapter 2.

Spoiler: Why an OC/SI rather than a pure OC, and on Saga's metaknowledge?

So, it's come up a few times now that Saga doesn't really act like she has Meta knowledge, or that it's easily forgotten that she's sort of an SI at all.
Honestly, this is the easy view, and if it's how you want to read the fic, then go ahead.

But for the interested, I figure I'll explain exactly why I went for a vague knowledge dump into Saga rather than just having a stoic and mature late teens OC right from the start.

And the answer is two things:
Kids are cute, and I wanted to skip the awkward bits.

The first is easy.
When that coin was flipped between finding kids annoying or adorable, it landed heads, and so I find little kids silly and entertaining in basically everything they do.
As a result, writing one is just inherently easier than writing an adult, even with the difficulties presented by Kid POV.

The second is more complex, even if I can be glib and sum it up as wanting to skip the horrible dynamics and thinking of a middle schooler.

They can be cute from the outside, but internally, middle schoolers are living in a horrifying and confusing nightmare world that I don't want to even try to recreate.

So overall, I just want a character with the cute factor of a little kid, but the perspective to recognize "none of this matters."
It's a thing adults tell you all the time at that age, but it never seems to sink in until later that, actually, no, that zit wasn't going to destroy your social life.

But the more detailed version of this is that I've always been pretty introspective, and one thing I noticed is how dramatically I changed before college to after it.
And not just in the perspective sense, that I could recognize that "none of this matters" but in 3 important ways, that I wanted to add on to Saga, even if she got basically nothing else from my life:

1. Value is made up, and that's Ok
2. Sex is nice, but so is pie.
3. Originality is a Myth, but that's not ENTIRELY bad.

Each of these was a major revelation for me, so understand that when I just state the conclusions like this, what I'm actually doing is summarizing like 10 years of angst and existential ennui on my part.

1. Value is made up, and that's Ok

This one mostly comes from the absolutely depressing horror of studying space and our place in the universe, followed by cutting off science for a while and ending up in Philosophy.
Specifically, the realization that all of recorded history isn't even a blip on the radar at which the universe operates.
Smarter people than me have expressed the horror of this revelation, but suffice to say this one hit me hard, and I still get apathetic thinking about it.

But this led (very indirectly) to my studies in philosophy and religion, where I got snagged on some of the "does god exist" proofs.
But that's a separate debate, it's more that it occurred to me that we live in a universe where the only verifiable value system doesn't even consider the entirety of human history as a blip, so therefore the whole "don't j-walk" thing is pretty funny in comparison.

But while I eventually left Solipsism, the idea that value systems are made up stuck around.

Not that values are bad or fake, just that the only real one doesn't care, so whatever values you go with are always going to be a choice you make, not some fundamentally correct or inevitable option.

Day to day, this doesn't make much difference, but it was very good for my overall attitude towards life and the future in particular.

2. Sex is nice, but so is pie.

I'm not super comfortable going into detail on this one, but the sum of it is that I realized that while I'm not 100% Aro/Ace, I'm probably more than 50%.
It doesn't make a huge difference, but it did get me to stop thinking so hard about things I only wanted because I thought I was supposed to want them.
I'm not opposed, but I (and Saga) won't seek things like this out, in the way that we might seek out something like a good slice of Pie.

3. Originality is a Myth, but that's not ENTIRELY bad.

TL;DR of this one is a line I already used: "Smarter people than me have expressed."

Before college, I was full of ideas and dreams.
After, and especially after the Covid/Severe Burnout that I'd had, I'd realized that at best I might have had 1 or 2 original thoughts in my entire life, and they were probably ultra-specific things about niche fandoms.

What it comes down to is: Anything worth doing has already been done, decades ago, by someone better at it than you'll ever be.
I don't really have a positive spin to this one, other than that this isn't 100% bad.

Once you get past the idea of being original, what you're left with is deciding to voluntarily value personal accomplishment over contributing to society.
For me, this means that no matter how mid my writing is, the fact that I've written 80K words and published them is a bigger deal than the existence of the Lord of the Rings films, even if society at large would massively disagree with me.

---

What does this translate to for Saga?

Simple, she has the mentality and brain of an 11-12-year-old kid, but the perspective of someone who has already tackled these hurdles and found moderately satisfactory answers to them.



What's the deal with her Metaknowledge?

Thats simple too, and it's that she knows canon and fanfics, not the AU timeline, at least not better than a local, and probably worse due to having my social obliviousness that her kid-brain cranks up to 11/10.

It's kind of like getting a history textbook about 1950-2050 from the future, except it turns out to be from an alternate timeline's future, and things start changing before you were born.
Still, by the present day, the events are pretty close, so you decide to read anyway, if only to get a gist of what people are like and the big events that will probably still happen in some form.

Does it work, guessing the future from this AU history text? No.
Does it help, kinda? Sure.

And that's what Saga is doing with her metaknowledge:
She's recognizing things are different, and have been since before she was born, but also that the present day is very similar, and hoping that the rest of the knowledge will still be close enough.

Spoiler: Perks List: (Warning - Spoilers to Current Chapter!)

Chapter	Date	CP	Perk Summary
1​	1/1	Trigger	Warehouse dimension with drone/clone of self to do repetitive tasks. (Theme: Tropical Islands) (Only accessible through inventory or rolled perk.)
1	1/1	Trigger	Inventory ability to store items in the warehouse and remove them. (Power is vague and nonspecific until HUD or Inventory Perk is rolled.)
1	1/1	Trigger	Stranger effect to blur presence from future and past sight. (Still visible changes, but the details change so that Saga can't be pinned as the source.)
1	1/1	Trigger	Ability to roll for perks from the Celestial Grimoire and other Celestial sources, based on CP.
4	1/2	100	Turn into a Juvenile Phoenix (Saga's Cape name comes from this)
6	1/4	150	Babies First Fuinjutsu (Worked on in the background and for PRT Logistics)
8	1/5	50	Very Good Swimmer (has not come up)
8	1/5	100	4 Cheap Short-Term Potions (Big, Invisible, clone hoard, and damage. Invisible is important for PRT Logistics going forward.)
10	1/6	150	Paperwork Expert Knowledge (Supernatural Comprehension, not speed. Paperwork still Evil, but not confusing anymore.)
12	1/7	400	7 Person Security Detail (Firewatch to be)
15	1/10	150	Compass leading to Heart's Desire (Mirror of Erised)
17	1/11	50	Even Tired Work is always 100% quality (Background Power.)
17	1/11	100	Crafting Table (Most used perk for a while. Instantly crafts what it can make.)
20	1/12	200	Make 3x things with 3x resources (Boost, not enchantment, but adds to basically all crafted items from now on.)
22	1/14	50	Natural Charmer/Realm's Delight (PR Perk 1)
25	1/13	900	Libriomancy w/ Inventory Integration (Projections, so item powers run on user stamina/mana.)
29	2/7	150	"Battle Mode" + Striker Telepathy as Bird (Larger, a bit faster, + can talk when a bird now.)
29	2/7	400	HP Magic Tutorial + Shitty Magical Focus maker (Wand has no special properties, )
31	3/1	100	15 gold coins/nuggets per day (Can't be sold, thanks to Bet-Laws, but Golden Apple Stockpile starts here.)
32	3/2	200	Whatever Saga does looks intentional/planned, rather than casual/sloppy. (PR Perk 2)
33	3/5	50	Capture/Grappling Hook - (Given to Firewatch then later to PRT)
34	3/7	200	Mana Pool + Mana Regen Robes for clone (Big Deal! This becomes the most used Perk, fuels lots of other perks going forward.)
35	3/11	100	Good Jumps Cloak/Infinite airtime as Bird (Added to the Phoenix costume as it's main visual.)
36	3/13	250	Better Enchantments + New Island in Warehouse (Clone moves in, enchantments and boosts get better, and RNG mechanics introduced to crafting.)
38	3/17	50	Better PR / Worse Stealth (PR Perk 3)
38	3/17	150	Tsunade Senju is Saga's new personal doctor (Reoccurring character, becomes a Tutor to Saga in the background, but avoids politics.)
39	3/19	550	Loyal Ninja Clan - Led by Albus Dumbledore for world-building reasons (Background characters by preference, but help with world-building later on.)
42	3/26	150	40 Immortal Wolves w/ Magic Boosting Awoo's (Important to Saga, Personally.)
43	3/27	100	Personal IRC for all allies or better. (Most used perk for Wards, become increasingly important to Local PRT/Protectorate. Big Deal, in the long run.)
44	3/31	200	Obelisk that buffs spells in range. Boosts effectiveness of created items and makes spells cheaper to cast/more potent at full strength. New one appears monthly.
46	4/1	550	Power-Granting-Trump (Ars-Magica) (HUGE deal, since she defacto makes a bunch of capes with this, but limited due to around 1 in 3 being master-esk spells.)
47	4/3	550	Cult wants Saga to be a well-liked Religious Idol (Very background by design, but is guaranteed to have a long term impact.
61	4/19	400	Gives Saga anime Protagonist casting. Once she's mastered a spell, it always comes out perfect if she's got the mana. Regardless of other stressors.
61	4/19	400	President, Legend, Chief Director, etc, like/trust Saga a bit. (MASSIVE! But very background. Basically immune to the paranoia of superiors.) (PR Perk 4)
62	4/22	100	Anti-Master Music Spell (Cool, but extent is unconfirmed. Saga will be using this on people randomly from now on in the background.)
67	4/29	150	10 Doggo's="Black Shuck" Buddy="Cŵn Annwn" (Dogs get physical boost and minimal powers depending on which dogs she's with at the time.)
68	5/1	100	Make Dr. Stone Clothes (Saga can make Rough but Durable clothing, and will be experimenting with designs for the PR team in the background.)
71	5/8	450	2 Rocky Islands - 100% saga owned, No taxes (People are freaking out about this in the background, though the impact on Saga is minimal for now.)
72	5/9	400	Lightsaber Basic Use Skills (Inspired the Star Wars Side-story, granted Saga some actual combat skills for the first time.)
75	5/13	1550	448 NOVA workers, Loyal but no leadership (NOVA rapidly goes from groundwork for distant plot arc, to real thing, RIGHT NOW, thanks to RNGesus.)
80	5/25	400	Seal powers 1 year or Erase Power Memories (Saga tells NOBODY about this due to knowing what kind of threat it'd make her to ALL capes.)
80	5/25	300	Swift Release - (Ninja fights are FAST while cape fights are slower. Still she can maintain the 2x and less speed boost.)
82	5/31	200	Joshua Graham from Fallout (This wasn't originally a Fallout Crossover, but that's just RNG for you. He becomes NOVA's #2 and functional head.)
82	5/31	100	2 Rocky Islands become 2 Hot-spring Islands (Mostly background, but we get an update on what's going on on the Islands.)
83	6/3	250	Very well-rounded Brute 1-2 (Perk specifies "feats of strength and endurance" so most of the time this isn't important. But Saga's a Brute 2 when relevant now.)
83	6/3	200	Super Research Skills (TV detective. Spending a few hours on a laptop is now as effective as an IRL investigations team spending a week researching.)
84	6/4	1000	Minecraft Enchantment Table (Proper Enchantment, at last!, Can give items powers not just boosts. Think Frost Walker, rather than just Durability.)
88	6/18	300	Gun to send large objects to an uninhabited dimension with minimal disruption on either end. (Given to Emily for use on the Boat Graveyard.)
88	6/18	225	Saga's fingernails are now hard as rock and flash vague danger warnings, and can heal once per day. (Both Bird and Human forms.)
91	6/27	900	Teleport Loose and forgotten change to Inventory up to 3 hours per day. (Math puts this at around $15-30,000/day. Will be added to NOVA budget, plus some extras.)
91	6/27	400	Put in dirt, sawdust, sand, etc other waste products, get random ores from Terraria out. (Used to rack up IOU's from Armsmaster and some Terraria specific ores.)
92	7/1	100	Stranger effect to get people to stop questioning you. ("It Just Works" turns into a reasonable and detailed explanation in their heads.)
92	7/1	150	Star Wars mouse droids. (Mostly for cleaning and minor maintenance duties. They have a stranger effect to seem cute but boring.)
93	7/3	50	Seem authoritative and highlights any gold in hair and clothing. (PR Perk 5)
95	7/8	850	125 Admin and Basic Combat trained recruits. (100 for NOVA, and 25 for Firewatch.)
96	7/10	25	The Physical Celestial Grimoire. (Aka the list you're reading right now.) (Also lets her read old perk descriptions and show people the perk rolling process.)
98	7/13	200	Super-writing power. Makes for rapidly created Cognitohazard Fanfiction. (PR Perk 6)

 

[Oblation]

As I look at the ceiling of my hospital room, I can't help but wish the clone with no sense of identity had ended up here, and I had gotten to experience the sunny beach where my future rolls would be going.
I can't help but feel weighed down when I think of all the problems in front of me, not to mention the baggage of this new life.
I mean, even my blurry memories of my last life are enough to give me some distance, thank god. But damn, was I such a bad person in my last life, to end up as the protagonist's helpless little sister?

We've got all the tropes, abusive parents, a whole world full of adventure, and a sibling with a hopelessly optimistic outlook and weirdly overpowered abilities.
Well, maybe not overpowered, exactly, but 9 is the highest rating in a single category out of anyone in the entire state, much less the Bay.
So maybe she's not one of the world's most powerful, but my big sister is, at minimum, second-rate in terms of powers, and that assumes we're putting people like Armsmaster and Miss Militia as third-rate.

But that gets back to me.
I've got all the same problems as the person most likely to be the Bey's protagonist, except, until this Isakai crap, none of the advantages.
I can definitely tell how I ended up in this situation.
With no powers and not even the vague memories of my past life to lean on, I guess I've gotten this far on sheer inertia and little else. Still I…

It's at this point in my pity-session that the protagonist herself runs in and takes approximately zero seconds flat to glomp me.
Vista.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, 'm sorry, 'm srry, m-srry. mrry"
And now she's crying.

Right, I guess this one is my fault. It was just Christmas. Important, yeah. But it's not like I don't live with them more than her.
I know EXACTLY why she'd prefer the stupid PR stuff to actually spending time together… again.
I even agree with my younger self that Vista, without a sister, would have no reason not to just cut the baggage loose and continue on her heroine's journey.
Really I'm just a weight dragging her down…

I hug her, because I'm not a monster, but I don't say anything, because… What is there even to say?
I'm sorry it didn't work?

Well, if I'm not in a padded room yet, saying that is the best way to end up there.
I'll just play along for a bit, I guess.
Hopefully, the Celestial Grimoire will give me something to make people forget I exist.

Then I can find a way into the little tropical island that I have in place of a warehouse, and be zen until Scion comes to kill us a… Huh, Scions dead. Along with Eidolon, Tohu & Bohu, and most of London.
It's been like this since I was 2, why would I think?

Oh, huh.
So this isn't an isakai, does that mean it's CYOA then?
I got sent to the world of a book I read.

Except it seems like the majority of my memories of who I was or what I had done, and the accuracy of my metaknowledge, were sacrificed for the points to boost the setting up from its grimdark canon to the grim but not straight up doomed world I can actually remember growing up in.

Or I'm just crazy.
Occam's Razor says that's the answer.

Honestly, I probably am. But acting as if my perception of reality is accurate is the best option I've got, so for the nonce, I guess I'll just assume I'm in a setting with some kind of plot, where apparently Vista ends up as the hero who somehow saves the world from an Evil version of the first Hero.

That doesn't feel right, but I can't put my finger on how.

Either way, the big bad is both dead and not evil in this timeline anyway, so what now?
I guess I just... be?

I mean, there are definitely issues, but…
Oh, she's sleeping on me now.
Yeah, that seems like a plan.
Sleep now, figure out what a world that still has its protagonist and most of its issues but has no big bad to symbolically defeat is like, later.

 

[Oblation]

When I wake up, my sister's gone.

After lying through a generic "how depressed are you?" questionnaire, I was caught completely by surprise as a Frankenstein's Angel and a Stained-Glass Knight walked into my hospital room.
After a bit of gobsmacked staring, I managed to pretend like this was the everyday type of stuff.

I wonder if I rolled something while unconscious, because this was apparently Panacea and Brandish, came to check if I was still invisible to Panacea.
Guess that means the cat's out of the bag on my having powers, still, it's nice to have one more point of evidence for the CYOA theory, if Blank is working.

Frankenstein's Angel and the Stained-Glass Knight seemed confused about my happiness, and I didn't want to explain the whole Blank thing to them, so I just wrote a few words about probably being master proof now on the back of my depression questionnaire.

I valiantly resisted mentioning Collateral Damage Barbie when they asked which masters I was planning on running into, but was racking my brain for answers and I don't think "Valefor, when he visits after that Endbringer who died decades ago attacks this city in a few months" is the kind of answer that'd keep me out of a white padded room.

So instead, I bet on my newly acquired memories and I wrote:
"Heartbreaker's son"
"One of those Undersiders working for Coil."

Thank god for old me's vague memories for whatever I said there that got the Dallons to leave in such a hurry, because the only name I recognise from that is "Undersiders" from a rant of Vista's a few weeks ago.

 

[Oblation]

Chapter Text

After the Dallons leave, I decide I might as well.
I don't actually make it very far, since in hindsight, a tween in hospital robes with bandaged neck and chin is pretty conspicuous, even in a hospital.
So I'm sent back to my cell, though when I wrote the "back to my cell" bit down, the nurse did make a point to open my window before locking my door.
Not sure what it says about Earth-Bet that a nurse just opened a window and locked the door of a girl on suicide watch, but I'll take it.
Either way, that lets Fox get in, so I'll take it.

Oh,
Apparently, a little detail about this version of Earth-Bet is that it's just got the occasional interesting animal.
Someone from school has a dog that supposedly has super senses, and I've got a bird I met when I was 6 and named "Fox" for its bright coloring, who visits me for snacks occasionally.
He even brought me letters from an old retired professor who also gives him snacks, like we were straight out of Harry Potter.
And since Fox has cheered me up, I've decided to try to give the Celestial Grimoire a try…

200cp
The Witch Shapeshifter - Agatha All Along
As a skilled witch, you have a deep connection to a creature of your choice—be it a bat, rat, crow, or something else from the natural world. You can summon these creatures as your loyal familiar, or even transform yourself into one, taking on their form and abilities at will.
-50cp Animal Locked in, by pre-existing familiar
-50cp Due to the magical nature of Phoenixes, the ability to summon them is revoked
Cost: 100cp
Bank: 150cp​

Yup!
Well, ok, I guess that solves the stuck here problem, if I can turn into a bird and leave.
Though I'm just going to ignore the whole "the bird you've been giving trail mix to since you were 6 is an actual, immortal-fire-bird" thing for now.
So I hit the mental switch in my head and suddenly Fox is much bigger and I can read its facial expressions!
What his face is saying right now: "What the hell?!
Luckily, this form seems to come with enough instincts that I manage to fly, not fall off my bed and over to and out of the window, with Fox hot on my heels pleading for me to "not do anything crazy."

...

After a while of just flying, which luckily Fox doesn't seem to count as "Crazy" behavior, he leads me over to The Rig, where I land and realize that at some point since I left the hospital, it's become nighttime, even if that only means like 5 pm in January.
Still, I should probably tell Vista I'm ok, so I turn back into a human so I can go inside and am promptly covered in containment foam as the world starts to go black.
I just know Fox is laughing at me over this!

 

[Oblation]

Surprisingly, I wake up in a hospital bed, not a cell. I'm not even strapped down.
Though apparently someone's got a sense of humor since they traded out my hospital gown for a set of Vista PJs.

I jump out of bed and am just about to look for a window when, honest to God, Leonard McCoy turns around to glare me back into bed.

I guess Bones must've called for someone because a few minutes later, I'm being glomped again and trying my best not to stare too hard at the living statue that clomps in behind her.

I mean, if I thought seeing a Frankenstein's monster version of an angel was surreal, seeing what must be a regular human, except standing in their place, is a life-size version of those little green plastic toy soldiers, is even crazier.
Plus, this one seems to have a weird Weeping Angel thing going on where it's always in a set position like the regular-sized toy soldiers, except when I look away, it changes position before stilling again when I look.

At least Vista seems normal, even if it's a bit rude to glomp someone while wearing body armor.

Eventually, the Toy soldier gets around to explaining that they figured out who I was only after they'd gone for the default response to "suddenly appearing person is trying to enter the rig."

Also, I guess my random journey worked out because the powers that be are having Vista, and I stay on the rig, at least until the end of Christmas break.
I wonder what the threat is this time?
Last time they had us stay here, it was after Hookwolf took a chunk out of Vista's side last year.

After that, they gave me a set of Vista's old gym clothes and took me to a gym where I turned into a Phoenix and back into a human a bunch.
There was a bit where the toy soldier (who I had figured out was Miss Militia by then) was doubtful that I was a Phoenix and not just a colorful bird, so I fire-teleported her to the boardwalk… and promptly passed out.

 

[Oblation]

I guess glomping must be Vista's new thing, because this time I woke up in bird form in my new role as Vista's Teddy bear.
Also, I knew she was dedicated, but sleeping in your full costume is a bit much.
Still, she was really thorough a few years back about drilling me on Missy being my sister and Vista being the costumed hero, so if she'd rather be Vista than Missy, wearing Vista's armor all the time is one way to do it, I guess.

Well, I guess I might as well try to give my clone something to do in the pocket dimension, since there's only so much sunbathing a girl can do. Even if that clone seems to carry out instructions pretty mindlessly, even I'm getting pretty bored of getting a day's worth of "explore the beach" memories every day, when said beach is only like 200 steps long to begin with.

So I guess it'd be nice if I got some kind of enchanting or alchemy that I could have the clone do passively, so I can build up resources for a time when...

Basic Fuinjutsu (Naruto) (150CP)
Fuinjutsu, an esoteric discipline combining all the complexities of calligraphy and physics. Despite the difficulty in learning fuinjutsu, skilled practitioners find it well worth it. Fuinjutsu, or sealing, is at its most basic, storing something within something else through symbols to be released at another time. More advanced techniques still follow this same principle, but to great effect. Seal masters can seal away the elements, chakra, form summoning contracts, teleport, or even summon and bind souls using these principles. Its only downside is that this art is massively difficult to learn even for the talented, and will take years of intense study to master. You start off knowing how to make the two most basic of seals: The storage seal which allows you to store items in slips of paper much smaller than they are, and the explosive seal which is basically a few glyphs on a piece of paper the size of a greeting card that explodes like a small amount of plastique.
(50cp for Fuinjustsu creation basics, 50cp for knowledge of Generic Storage Tags, 50cp for Knowledge of Generic Explosive Tags.)
Cost: 150cp
Bank: 200cp​

Huh, well, ask and you shall receive, apparently.
Sending the clone a bunch of paper and ink to practice the two kinds of tags I can make is perfect.

Plus, it's not like there isn't variety here, I can tell from that data dump that "Storage" and "Explosive" are very malleable terms with anything from "store a single item the size of an elephant" to "store 100 separate things and pull them out in a different order than they were put in."

But that description was right, I really only got the rough basics of Fuinjutsu here.
For something that can seal creatures on par with Enbringers, I don't even really qualify as a novice.
It's like the Grimoire gave me "Rocketry," the same stuff that allows people to step on the moon and come back, but only gave me enough knowledge to understand the gist of how fireworks operate.

Now I just need to find a way out of Vista's glomp of death…

 

[Oblation]

I did not escape the Glomp of Death.
Still, I've done more for my sister than wait around as a bird for 3 hours.

Plus, after that, it was simplicity itself to inventory some printer paper and a bunch of pens.
It's slower to turn ink into chakra ink and paper into chakra paper after it's written, but since I don't have any bottles of ink handy, this'll do.

Unfortunately, Vista did ask what I was going to do with all that paper, so I made her a tag.
In hindsight, I probably should have just said drawing because the moment I said "make explosive tags," it was right over to the shooting range with the toy soldier and a bunch of PRT troopers.

Though that did let me discover 3 important details.
1. "Slow" by Magic Ninja standards is exactly 57 seconds (one of the troopers timed it).
2. Storage tags are cooler than I thought, it turns out the only chakra/magic involved is in making them, and that anyone can put stuff in or take it out after that.
3. I guess I am what the Naruto universe would call a "civilian" because I felt woozy after charging my 3rd tag and passed out after my 4th.

 

[Oblation]

I woke up alone for once.
So I figured I'd roll to see if the Grimoire had any idea what to do today.

Divers and Fishermen - The Pirates of Dark Water - 50cp
"You're a fantastic swimmer, to the point where you could give Michael Phelps a run for his money. In addition, you can hold your breath for a surprisingly long time—almost three times as long as one might otherwise expect—and do not suffer any ill effects of ascending too quickly while underwater (i.e., nitrogen embolisms)."
Cost: 50cp
Bank: 200cp​

Well, that's… something.
Handy, to be sure, but swimming in January?
Hell, swimming in the Bay at all??
H-E-L-L to the NO.

I guess I'll give it another shot, just in case, since I should still have 150cp left, and that's what Fuinjutsu cost before.

Mixing Mixtures - Banjo-Kazooie - 100CP
Just like Klungo, you are capable of mixing together mundane ingredients to create effects that can only be described as magical. Each of these effects lasts at least 1 minute but no more than 10, depending on the amount of potion involved.
Red, which causes Klungo to grow very large when drunk.
Green, which allows Klungo to become invisible.
Blue, which creates multiple clones of Klungo that run around at random.
Yellow, which is thrown at Banjo and Kazooie to cause damage in a medium radius.
Cost: 100cp
Bank: 150cp​

Apparently, the Grimoire can tell the future because right after I got this one, Chris found me to ask for a storage tag to experiment with.

Luckily for me, the Clone had made 125 uncharged versions of each tag while I was out, so this was an easy request.

Oh, and obviously it wasn't Chris as I knew him, but a life-sized Lego model of Chris, straight out of the Lego Star Wars games from Earth Aleph.
But compared to the Horror movie Panacea or the Weeping Angel Miss Militia, a real-life Lego person is nothing.

So I offered him 2 tags of his choice if he could get me some bottles and ingredients to make some stuff with.
His Lego face seemed to have come to some kind of realisation, and then he rushed off.

Luckily, this time didn't involve testing until I passed out again, so I was able to make 3 of each potion and managed to inventory 2 of each.

Unfortunately, the "test until you pass out" part seems to be just a matter of time, because he said he needed to send the other 4 with my descriptions off for review.
Plus, I'm already pretty tired since I'm 2/4 tags in today.

So Operation, "Find a window, then go take a nap as a Bird" is now a go.

My new potions helped here, because as soon as I found a window, I drank down half an invisibility potion and used my 5 minutes unobserved to fly to find the bridge of an abandoned ship in the Boat Graveyard, where I could conk out for a while.

 

[Oblation]

Fox must've gone back to the professor because I couldn't find him, and flying gets boring faster when solo.

So after a while, I stopped pretending to not see the PRT squad waving at me and landed on the biggest one's shoulder.
Apparently, this was a real thing and not just a random squad waving at the pretty bird because they asked if "Phoenix" was being sent to help them with the pit fighting raid.

I'm not sure who they thought they were fooling, all being hooked up with radios and all, but I decided to go along with it and transformed back to human.
Possibly not my best plan, but luckily, the guy caught me, and I decided that in the arms of a soldier, like a fairy tale princess, was the perfect place to offer these guys my mysterious potions of dubious quality and bombs made of paper.

I'm not sure I made the best saleswoman, especially when they asked about the explosive tags and I wrote about how each one would take a quarter of my stamina and would explode if anyone ripped it after being charged.
But the guy holding me, who seemed to be their designated tank, did end up with a Bottle O'Giant, and the leader took the full Bottle O'Invisibility before splitting it 3 ways.

After that, I spent 3 hours waiting by the van.
Only about 15 minutes of it was even them doing their whole Tacti-cool SWAT Team routine.
The rest was just reporting stuff on coms and paperwork.

I was gonna leave, but the leader guy said they'd only let me sit out the paperwork if I gave an in-person report when the commander came by, so I figured waiting now was better than homework later.

That seemed like less of a good plan when the Kingslayer showed up…

 

[Oblation]

Now, it's not like I'm afraid of Emily Piggot or anything.
For all the fierce reputation she got for fighting the Goblin King out of Ellisburg, then heading the task force sent after him for the 9 months until his death, the woman herself is exactly at eye level with me.
And sure, I'm one of the taller girls in my year, but even the "Average" women still have a few inches on me… just not the Kingslayer.

Still, she is the woman who did all that, not to mention my sister's kinda-sorta boss, so it's best if I try to keep things respectful here…
Just do my best to not acknowledge the fact that she's looking me eye-to-eye.

Though the first thing she says does knock me off kilter a bit, because, like, why ask a question with such an obvious answer?

"Why did you run away again, Phoenix?"

didn't want to pass out 3 days in a row (written on my notepad)

"… explain."

That's the routine.

"Explain."

Wake up, tell someone about new power, test until I pass out, repeat.

Fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on Fool me...

(She interrupts before I can figure out the saying.)

*Sighs* "Ok, you're not going back to the rig."

"I'm officially transferring you to PRT custody until we can get this mess sorted out."

*I shrug*

…

In the end, my "Verbal" report is just as boring as the rest of it, since all I have to "report" is offering them 2 potions (only one of which was even drunk), then waiting around until she showed up.

Though something interesting did happen once we got into the second Van to head over to PHQ when the Kingslayer asked:

"What was that you mentioned before? The part about new powers?"

I couldn't think of a good way to put it, so I decided to just roll and write down what came out.

Extensive Education - Chronicles of Narnia - 150cp
" Perhaps you have a classical education, focused on Grammar, Rhetoric, Dialectic, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy. Perhaps you went to a New School, more interested in finding more effective ways to educate students than in sticking to the traditional methods. Either way, you were a precocious student. In addition to your regular education, you now possess an area or specialization.
Choose a subject – you gain a practical understanding of that subject better than some people with doctorates in it. This does not necessarily translate to book learning or official credentials, and there's no guarantee that you'll be taken seriously by the sort of people who care more about credentials than about results. But your day-to-day understanding of this subject will be outstanding.
Cost: 150cp
Bank: 250cp"​

Do you think it'll let me pick Homework as my subject?

When I passed over the paper, she spent a while reading it, then looked at me, back at the paper, back at me, before finally sighing, passing the paper over to the nearest trooper and just saying:
"Ah."

 

[Oblation]

After the surprisingly intense but short debate, I ended up putting down the Kingslayer's recommendation of:
"Paperwork"
Which the Grimoire seems to have accepted easily enough.

Also, she asked me to give a list of the powers, costs, and dates, so I wrote what follows:

??/??/?? - ???cp - See power representation instead of people (Except Vista)
1/2/11 - 100cp - Turn into a Phoenix (Cheaper because I already knew a Phoenix, but I was supposed to be able to summon the animal, and that was removed.)
1/4/11 - 150cp - Babies First Fuinjutsu (The Storage and Explosive Tags)
1/5/11 - 50cp - Learn to swim really well? (Please don't make me swim in the bay! Or if you must, at least wait until summer!)
1/5/11 - 100cp - The 4 Potions (Big, Invisible, Crazy Clones, and ? Damages people, but differently from a grenade somehow?)
1/6/11 - 150cp - Super Paperwork Skills (just now)

After that, we started in on another round of questioning about the weird statues I'd been seeing instead of people, and how it was only capes, but all capes except Vista.

She even had Battery and Assault stop by, to confirm it, and find out what I saw for them
Though it was a bit odd when she told Assalt "not a word," but didn't say anything to Battery.

Anyways, Battery wasn't that bad.
She was just some kind of vaguely steampunk robot, all bolted together, but with mysterious blue light peaking out through its seams.
And on her chest, there was a digital clock that kept ticking up.
It never quite hit 0:00.00, but never went higher than 0:12.99, even when the kingslayer told her to build a full charge, it just kept going up to 00:12.99 then resetting to 00:12.00.

Assault was more like Miss Militia.
I felt tense just having him in the same room.
He looked like a person made of twist ties.
Like, he was the right shape, but his body was just a bunch of really tightly wrapped, and twisted, and knotted rubber bands.
Which would actually be pretty fun, except the part where all of them looked stretched to the limit and it looked like he was going to burst apart every time he moved, even just a little.

I think the kingslayer was going to test his form, but for some reason, he reached towards me, and I flinched so hard I fell out of my chair, so she sent them out of her office.

She apologized for pushing the testing too far, and so I wrote:

It's fine
I can look at things
And explain things
It's making things that's the problem so far
Also teleporting

She seemed to accept this, though I must have pissed her off somehow because then she printed out a worksheet full of math!
Told me to fill it out until I couldn't anymore.

I was fine until they started adding in letters.
In math??
I mean, I got the first two of those because they were just' process of elimination.
"X + 9 = 27 What is X?"
X = 18
"2(x+5)=20 What is X?"
X = 5
But after that, I'd completely lost the plot.

Apparently I should've pretended to be angrier about the assault thing, because she had me go through and do that for all the school subjects while she did paperwork.
Passing out is better than that cruel torture!

Eventually, she sent me off to the wards zone, though there was nobody in the main room, and I was too tired to look for the dreaded console room that Vista hates so much.
So I just used the code my sister uses for everything on the door with "Vista's Room! KEEP OUT" on it and crashed.

 

[Oblation]

I wake up to another glomp of death, though this time, Vista was apparently awake first because she lets go.

I have more stuff to do with the Kingslayer soon, but this is a prime opportunity to tease my sister, so I manage to scratch out:
"Ar… Are you in such a hurry to get away from the Ball and Chain that you've started w-wearing your costume to bed?"
She looks upset, so I add in:
"I get it. Costume-On is Vista, Costume-Off is sister. But I haven't seen you without it on since Christmas Eve."
She just sits there looking confused, but to her credit, 6 am is a Hell hour when nobody should be expected to be doing any complex thinking, so I just shrug and head for the showers.

It's nice to talk again, even if it makes my throat hurt.
I don't actually have anything against talking, god knows it's faster than writing things out, but after the shitshow at my so-called 11th birthday party, it just stopped working.
Oh, there's technically nothing physically wrong with it (just with me), and man, did I get it when the Ball and Chain found out about that.
But regardless of how much they screamed at each other or me, it only seems to work when I'm alone with Missy or Fox.
But Missy tries to be Vista as much as possible, who I'm supposed to publicly not know, and when I'm with Fox, we work off like 90% vibes and 10% judgmental looks.
Plus, now that I can read bird faces, or at least his, I don't even need to talk at all.
So it's nice to remind myself that I've got a voice, even if it only comes out every few days at most.

…

The Kingslayer seems to agree with me about 6 am, because we spend 11 minutes chilling together as she sits at her desk and sips at her coffee.
Until her watch beeps at 7:00 am and she powers up her computer.

After that, she asks me to see if my "CP" has changed and agrees when I write out that the only way I know how to check is by rolling.

Kingsguard - House of the Dragon - 300cp
"An order of 7 knights personally loyal to you, who will always watch your back. They will never conspire against you and are guaranteed to be at least very good in a fight or battle.
+100cp for supplying the backstory and resources necessary for such a group to operate effectively in the Modern World.
Cost: 400cp
Bank: 400cp"​

"I've never seen the cp go above 250 before, for cost or bank."
"You must be good luck "
"Do I take it?"

Her eyes widen when she reads the description, before she says:
"In a bit, we should probably have a recording and some witnesses before we find out what kind of projections this power will give you."

…

It's more like an hour, but in the meantime, she explains her theory about how I get cp when I'm challenged.
Which is apparently lucky, since capes with powers like mine usually seem to generate their energy either at a constant rate, like Dauntless, or in response to danger.
But my method should work just as well with a tutor as in a fight.

She just laughs when I write:
"So now you have an official reason to make me do homework, and I'm meant to feel Lucky?"
Though the sciencey people seem shocked when she laughs, so I guess PRT-Scientist isn't a very laid-back kind of job.

…

When they have everything set up, I accept the role, and wait as they all seem tense before I notice a guy in what I've learned to think of as Tacti-Casual from my time people watching the PRT troopers.

After a bit, the Kingslayer asks if anything has shown up on the equipment, and they all shake their heads.
I guess they're trying to figure out if my roll changed anything, so I just make a note, then point to the guy after handing it over.
"He just appeared."

"No, that's Raymond, he's head of your security det…"
She slowly turns to Raymond, like a character from a horror film seeing the monster for the first time.
"Shit."

Raymond seems to agree:
"Shit."

Then she loudly calls out "M-S Alert!"
And I am once again covered in containment foam, watching as the world goes black.

 

[Oblation]

Sis has mentioned how boring M/S screenings are, but this might just be the first time I've thought she was underselling something when complaining.

I'm just in a prison room with nothing to do.

They won't even talk to me over the speakers like I know they can.
Because I turned into a bird to fly around for a bit, and got ordered to turn back since apparently my bird form is known to be able to teleport without seeing the destination.

I'm tempted to change just so they'll foam me so I can skip this whole thing like a cutscene in a videogame.

But luckily, I found another way.
It turns out I don't need to take the tags out of my inventory to charge them.
So I'll just go over to the bed, pretend to nap, and charge 4 more up every time I wake up until I'm set free.

 

[Oblation]

I'm just making storage tags, since nobody seems much interested in grenades made of paper that explode when they're ripped.
Anyways, up to 8 now.

... (Later) ...

Apparently, all the practice has gotten me an upgrade.
I mean, my clone has made like 1000 of each at this point, even if I've only charged a few.
Anyways, the last 50 or so got sorted in a separate inventory slot, and seem to take less time to charge since I'm actually making a 5th one today.

Spoiler: A/N

In the Naruto setting, using up your reserves like she is, is one of the ways to grow them. But all the practice of the clone is also making her better at the two things she knows how to make. So her getting up to 5 is a combination of having slightly more Chakra and tags that do the same thing, but only take like 85% of the energy to do it.
Also, it's the same day as last chapter because she's only getting knocked out for about 12 hours each time, not actually until the next day. She's suffering from the most minor case of Chakra-Exhaustion, unlike the normal kinds of injury that can render a person unconscious for half a day. Sleep it off" is actually the in-universe remedy for this.

 

[Oblation]

It worked!

Of course, I didn't exactly think of my exit strategy, so waking up in the PRT med-bay makes sense.

Still, nobody here has glaring down quite like Bones did, so I guess I'll go take a shower, then see if the Kingslayer wants me to do anything.

…

Well, I guess that whole "security detail" thing is real.

There's apparently a bank account set up with a super spooky villain called the Numberman to pay 7 people to act as my bodyguards, and something about how it's set up means they can't change who's on it without a unanimous decision from me and the rest of the security team.

On the other hand, the whole team is former PRT with good records, which are almost certainly not fake, and none of them even knew I existed until January 1st, when they accepted the contract to start work in a week.

So apparently, the whole "Can her power create people?" question is considered to be a no. But the "can her power change things in the past?" one seems to be a yes, at least to a week out.
Also, the part where it can just create an account with millions in it, even if I can't do anything to it, so long as the team is doing its best to bodyguard me.

So now I've got 7 bodyguards.
Raymond, Casey, Alex, William, Sandra, Ansel, and Edmund.

They all have last names, too, but one step at a time.

…

Oh, and it seems I really did find a loophole in the M-S thing because the Kingslayer said she'd call it even on the making tags until I pass out thing if I gave her half of the results.

6 storage tags are an easy price for getting out of punishment, with the other 7 going to Ansel, to hand out to the rest of the team when he sees them.

It's nice of the Kingslayer to make things so plain.
And she even followed through.
Didn't turn around and punish me anyway, and call it a "lesson" or some other bullshit.

…

After that, we went over to a big room full of science stuff.
I sat in a chair, was handed a pad and pen, and asked to roll.

Well, when in Rome...

Magic Compass - Pirates of the Caribbean - 150cp
"This magical compass has been imbued with your soul. Not in a bad way, just enough to ensure it'll never be stolen or used against you. The needle always points to whatever you most desire, or the means to get to that which you desire. It can be hard to tell. Anyways, at least you'll always know where your next step is, so long as you know what you want…
Cost: 150cp
Bank 250cp"​

I wrote it down, then waited around for a minute before getting a thumbs up and…

Oh, so it's not like a physical thing.
It's attached to my inventory, but that was always more of a sense than a something I look at, so now I just kind of have a direction in my head.

Now, if only I knew what it was trying to lead me to.

Other than Due-East, I mean.

Spoiler: A/N

FYI, this mirror is more like the Mirror of Erised than a "can find anything you want" tool.
It's "whatever you most desire," not "whatever you want right now."

 

[Oblation]

In other news, it turns out one upside to the bay having a Full Director of the PRT as opposed to a Sub-Director like most cities get, is that she can choose to do weird stuff, like grant 7 mercenaries access to PRT facilities and info, in trade for filling in on PRT squads that need an extra.

It's actually really sneaky, too.
Apparently, it all comes down to the fact that my power not only paid for them, but has contingencies for things like equipment and medical care, so she can genuinely say she's not spending any taxpayer money on them.

So, from a legal perspective, I guess they just look like 7 highly trained "Volunteers"

And so long as they spend more time doing activities in line with bodyguarding me than they do working for the PRT, then the money keeps flowing.

I know she was mostly motivated by getting the equivalent of 7 part time PRT-Squad commanders for free, but I made shure to give her a genuine thanks, because even with the work my power did, I can tell how awkward it would be to just have 7 random mercenaries in the area, dead set on being my "bodyguards" so they can keep getting their cushy paychecks.

This way, it's just like I have 7 PRT handlers, whereas most Wards have 1-3, depending on their needs.

But it works out, because I get about 200 hours of effort every week, and the PRT gets about 130.
Plus, the team gets paid really well, and nobody involved is paying for it.

Oh, and apparently I'm meant to assign them stuff to do, since even if I went out into public for 14 hours every day, that's still less than 100 hours of work to do in a week.
But it won't count as "Bodyguarding" if I "assign" them to volunteer with the PRT.

Technically, I'm already "assigning" them to work with the PRT, but all that involves is agreeing when Raymond asks if he should attend the weekly security briefing/scheduled assignments in my stead, then agreeing with the Kingslayer when she asks if I approve of my troops' assignments… whatever they are.

Either Way, since nobody wants to stand in the hallway of an already super well guarded building as I sleep, I need to find something for 7 different highly skilled troopers to do for about 100 hours a week, because until then, they've just got to do double shifts of… watching me do homework in the Kingslayers office.

Though she seems to like the effect of having armed security stand behind people, as she stares them down when they're in her office.
So I guess this setup should work for a few days, at least.

…

Oh, and I did ask the Kingslayer if I would be going back to school any time soon, since I should've been back today.
But she just proved to be as honest as usual in her reply:
"Saga, if I had a list of things to do with an 11-year-old girl who recently attempted suicide, sending her to a middle-school would be pretty close to the bottom."
Which… fair.

Though it's funny that, of all people to understand the concept of a Suicidewatch, it'd be the one called Kingslayer.

It got even better when she asked what was funny, so I wrote down my encounter with the nurse opening my window and locking my door in the hospital.
It's like I could see the faith in humanity leaking out of her.
Though Ansel and Sandra didn't seem to get the humor.

…

Oh, and I rejected my first roll today.

We went back to the science room, but what I got was

Lago - Aladdin
"You can have this annoying parrot. He is loud, cowardly, and has an annoying voice. He will start as a smart-mouthed pet.
Cost: 50cp
Bank: 300cp"​

I just kind of looked at it for a bit, then asked if I could reject it, and I guess the scientists were fine with getting at least one example of what happens if I reject a roll, so I was given the go-ahead and refused it.

…

Oh, and since I'm actually living at the PHQ, not just occasionally crashing here like the Wards, I've been given a room in what is technically the director's suite.

I guess the idea is to protect the director's family if they have one, but mostly the Kingslayer just uses one of the rooms in the same way the Wards use theirs, and there are 3 rooms plus a little kitchen absolutely packed with coffee and other caffeine things like pills and energy drinks.

But I won't judge, compared to screaming at your spouse and kid, or sucking up to your other kid, the Kingslayer has downright healthy hobbies in comparison.

…

Finally, I opened up a bit to the kingslayer once we were away from my new bodyguards and mentioned that my power lets me store stuff and seems to let me automate simple manual tasks

When she asked what I meant, I pulled the pile of 1000 uncharged explosive tags out of nowhere and handed them to her.
She seemed a bit shaken, so I mentioned that they weren't charged, but that I'd been feeding my power printer paper, and the number of these had been going up.

After a bit, she mentioned that the Invisibility Potion was being fast-tracked, so I could probably just request a bunch of ingredients and let it start churning out those.
I asked if it was ok, since this place has pretty much infinite paper and pens, but the potions would need math problem supplies, like 800 bananas.
She liked my joke, but seemed to want to prove a point because she had me write out a list.
Then asked if I was joking before ordering enough for 100 of each potion.

The reason she asked if I was joking was that the potions look like smoothies.
I mean, I'm pretty sure the only reason the green one is green is because it's mostly a vegetable smoothie.
But when I'm making them, I can just kind of decide that it's gonna be a potion and it is, though I don't think I can make them in bulk, just make it repeatedly, then pour it into one big tank or something.

Either way, it didn't take long to get a bunch of ingredients, water bottles, and a pot.
So I sent it all into inventory and ordered the Clone to stop making Tags and start making Potions.

Then we both went to our rooms and slept.

…

Oh crap, I forgot to get my explosive notes back!

Ah, whatever, I'm sure I'll think of it tomorrow.

 

[Oblation]

I woke up really early and couldn't get back to sleep, so I decided to go flying, but asked a passing guard if he knew of anything the PRT was searching for that I might be able to find easier as a bird.

So, I'm now searching around the city for where the merchants keep their medium-sized drug stashes.

I guess the PRT knows about the big ones, and the small ones are probably just a bag in someones trunk or something, but supposedly there should be a few medium locations with a few boxes worth of drugs and some middle managers who almost never have capes around but would represent a notable blow to Murchant operations, which is why the PRT is looking for them separately from the Protectorate.

Finding a drug dealer doesn't take long, and I guess I caught him at the end of his night because he walks over to a beat-up house and enters through the garage.
I'm not sure it's a stash house, but there's no car in the garage, just a bunch of boxes and a fold-out-table, so it's possible, I guess.
So I turn human long enough to write down the location and then leave.

The only other thing of note is that there's a bunch of damage on a street corner, and when I go down to look, I hear the docworkers cleaning it up, talking about "double dipping" with Uber and Leet.
Colorful as I am, they don't give me more than a look or two, and I manage to figure out that these guys were apparently henchmen for the attack of Uber and Leet's that caused this damage, and now they're being paid to clean it up.

Well, it was getting to be morning proper by then, so I went back to PHQ with my possible stash house location and the news that the docworkers, or those two at least, might be associated with Uber and Leet.
Along with the possibility of Uber and Leet intentionally causing extra damage to give the dockworkers extra stuff to do.

…

To start things off, they have me in the new science room, which is basically just a conference room that's almost never used.
Because supposedly there is some kind of recordable thing that happens when I roll, but not when I accept or decline.
So they're dropping most of the equipment, and just keeping the machine that picks up the rolls and a few multi-purpose tools, just in case.

Either way, I'm glad for this, because the Science room being a conference room with me at the head is way more comfortable than being on a fold-out chair in the middle of a gym full of machines pointed at me like I'm being interrogated by robots.

So the current test is to see if rolling twice changes what the rolls look like to the machine, or possibly makes the second roll easier to pick up on.
They're also hoping that it's possible to determine the type of roll or amount of cp based on the data, so that it might be possible to intentionally induce a type of roll later.

Apparently, they were going to try to do it blind, but then Dragon offered to run this test for them, and that's basically a gold star on any report they end up making, so instead we get to discuss the pros and cons of my rolls like usual.

What I got was:

I Can Whip Something Up - My Life As A Teenage Robot - 50cp
"Working late nights and filling out strange requests is just another Tuesday for a Scientist of your calibre. This perk ensures that you'll never have your work suffer because of exhaustion. While your physical needs can still slow you down, the quality of your work will always be 100%.
Cost: 50cp
Bank: 450cp"​

Which was an easy yes, and got me some jealous looks from the scientists.
But nobody seemed to be in the slightest doubt that it was a good idea.

Then the second roll was:

Crafting Bench - Generic Minecraft Jumpchain - 100cp
"This crafting bench, although seemingly blank and lacking tools. Grants you the ability to instantly assemble anything from the Worlds of the Builders that doesn't require another workstation, such as a smithing table or furnace. It also allows you to instantly create small items from other abilities, so long as you have all the necessary ingredients and tools for their creation nearby.
Cost: 100cp
Bank: 400cp"​

This one had me conflicted, because on the one hand, that does sound cool, until you get to the "doesn't require another workstation" part, and I realise that I've just lost Smelting, Enchanting, Anything with Netherite, and a bunch more.

On the other hand, despite my dubious looks, the scientists all seem really interested in this one, and I suppose at minimum, the ability to make potions, and uncharged tags instantly would be nice, and who knows, maybe I can make a suit of Iron or Copper Armor and get the PRT to sell it for half the profits.

 

[Oblation]

Before she introduces me to my new Tutor, Emily explains why I'm going to be doing one-on-one tutoring instead of going back to school.
Other than the obvious Suicidewatch thing.

According to her, part of being challenged is that I don't slow down my learning, unless I'm struggling with something, and public or even private schools just can't do that.

But because it's a power expense, and part of research into a fairly novel sort of power, it was actually pretty easy to find funding for a few tutors for me.

Plus, because she's practical as ever, she intentionally set up a system where I'll rotate tutors and they'll spend the rest of their time helping the Wards, or Kids of PRT troopers and Protectorate employees.

But since they're using me as the excuse, they can only really do this for Middle School level stuff, so it's only people like Vista and Addison (Dauntless's son, who I know from school) who will be doing this, along with about 10-15 PRT-kids who are the right age range and can be trusted to not blab about the wards.

So it's small, but just out of some speculation about how I earn cp, Emily managed to start an entire school, and as a result, my sister and I, along with a few others like Addison, are getting fast-tracked.

Emily says that even if this scheme falls apart after the budget review at the end of the year, the hope is that we'll all have learned enough from the accelerated programs to get into the Online High School that Alexandria and Legend championed as a slightly less effective version of what Emily is doing here.

Apparently Aegis and Kid-Win are the wards here doing it, and as a result, Aegis actually started as a full-time college student in what would have been his Senior Year if he went to Arcadia, despite only joining halfway into his sophomore year.

To be honest, I'm not convinced college is going to matter on the off chance I make it to 17, but the idea of skipping right past middle-school sounds really nice, and I'm sure that's why Vista and Addison are doing it too.
Even if it only means skipping half a year for them.
The Phrase is "any port in a storm," after all.

…

Also, while we were talking, I gave her the full 100 of each type of Potion (with the understanding that I'd take my cut out of future batches).

Because it turns out there's some kind of larger review process that needs to be done before any ingested "tinkertech" can be used on an official basis.
So until that testing has gone from "Not-Started" to "Pending," any potions I even start would be officially considered toxic. But once it's pending, she can give it the tentative approval in her jurisdiction, and she says she intends to order at least 100 invisibility potions per week to be shipped all across the region.

But there's no way the team'll need that many, so she did her legal sneaking again and got the rest to be paid for at about $25 per minute of invisibility.
Which is insane to me because if I keep 10 bottles for the team and she gets 50 for the continual supply and logistics, and each bottle is 10 minutes, then I'm getting $10,000 per week.

There are only two downsides.
First is that the PRT will only shield me from lawsuits and the like if I only make these 4 potions out of PRT ingredients, and the second is that I'm not getting cash, but basically "Store Credit" with the PRT that I can use on equipment and future supplies.

But with the Celestial Grimoire, the chances that I'm not eventually going to need Gems for magical items or something are pretty low.
Plus, once I have credit with the PRT, I'm also getting access to the same supply sources that Protectorate tinkers use, except without the "Do you really need 100 pounds of titanium, for your power-armor? Tinfoil is soo much cheaper!" that most Ward Tinkers need to go through with their acquisitions.

Also, although the Protectorate isn't always getting the best deal, there are people whose whole job it is to make sure they're not getting skrued on the price either.
Not to mention how Independent and villain Tinkers seem to be in a constant cycle of overcoming bottlenecks on components, where they will need to either wait months for a single component or pay 10x or more the market rate for that item.
But so long as it's through the PRT, and the items aren't part of a global shortage or restricted like uranium, then I'm immune to that kind of headache.

And that doesn't even get into the pricing for my other potions or other things.

On that note, I also asked if she had seen the two rolls from today, and when she agree'd I mentioned that the crafting one (that merged with my inventory) would allow me to make Sets of Armor if someone could get me 24 ingots of copper or Iron, and that I could also make Doors with 6 iron ingots.

It's kind of random, but I genuinely can't think of a use for most of the Minecraft items that I can actually make, and the useful stuff you can only make with a crafting table tends to include items I can't get like Blaze powder, Eyes of Ender, or Shulker Shells.

Still, one of the scientists looked it up for me, and a full set of armor seems to run $1000-$5000, and I figure if there's one organization that will know how to monetize full sets of armor and Iron doors just because they were made by a parahuman, it's Protectorate Marketing, and the ever-dreaded Glen Chambers.

Emily seems rather confused by this, so I pulled out the set of Chainmail Armor I made earlier, after one of the scientists found me a bunch of chain that the crafting table was willing to accept.

The only parahuman aspect seems to be that whoever first puts on an armor piece finds it's suddenly perfectly sized for them.

Still, chainmail is expensive even with modern equipment, and I made it in about 30 seconds with about 24 of the 40 feet of chain the PRT just had lying around.

I'm not sure what'll happen there, and neither is Emily (even she doesn't utter the name Glen Chambers unless absolutely necessary), but I think we could both tell that the idea about my armor would somehow end up on his desk and would somehow get turned into a success for the PRT/Protectorate that would (hopefully) expand my supply-budget just that bit more.

 

[Oblation]

My First Tutor is a Ms. Emilia Clarke, who asked me to call her Emmy.
Though I'm not sure why, since it's not like I often write people's names to talk to them.

Either Way, Ms Clarke is the tutor for English and Reading.

Honestly, I don't know what I expected out of an "Accelerated" program for reading, but it's exactly what it usually is.
Those tests Emily had me do were to figure out where I was in my subjects, so Ms. Clarke just grabbed the designated book for that level, I read a bit of it, then wrote up a summary as a paper that we spent a few hours revising.

There are two nice parts, though.
First, there's little to no homework, since Ms. Clarke is in on my being a Parahuman, she said the assumption is that I'll be doing parahuman stuff outside of tutoring, so the time scheduled for it is all the time I'm meant to be thinking about school.
The second is that each tutor has apparently been told to set aside at least half an hour each week to help me with my projects, as a consultant with their specialties.

Apparently, Ms. Clarke usually helps people prep for interviews and has experience both working in and teaching acting.

I didn't have any acting questions, so I just asked if she had any idea what project to give the Team.
Since there really wasn't any purpose to them standing in the room watching me read and write a book report, but they needed to be doing something directly in my service for at least 1.5x the time they work for the PRT to keep getting their paychecks.
Which meant finding something for 7 highly trained troops to do for 27 hours a week, when the actual needs of bodyguarding would probably be less than 10 hours, and even that assumes the whole team comes each time.

She actually had a really good idea.

Because she works in PR, she looked up the recent PR moves of the different groups in the city before she came here, and one thing that happened recently was that for the first time since they took down the Marquis, New Wave had designated an official gang, and a gang leader they were going after.
Specifically, they had taken issue with Coil using Patsy's and one of them being a Human Master son of Heartbreaker.

… Ah woops, well, let's just not acknowledge that one and hope nobody ever asks how I knew about that.

But she does make a good point, that if I designate a group within the city as my target, it'd probably work to have the team investigate and even do some missions to mess with them.

But going after E88 or ABB is an obviously terrible idea, so I asked Willium and Alex, who were with me, if they thought the Murchants were a good idea.
Alex was all for it, and said his sister would be too, but in the end, William and Ms. Clarke convinced me that I should limit my picks to groups with less than 3 parahumans, given how it's likely their only cape support would be me, and even then only when I could get away from everything else.
But Alex did make the point that the benefit of my being a rare PRT-Ward instead of the more common Protectorate-Ward is that if they could verify our Intel, the PRT would probably be willing to send a squad on any missions to back up the team.

In the end, the only other group that's both big enough to actually earn the team some prestige for taking them down, but small enough to be a realistic target, is Uber and Leet.
So I gave them my intel and description of the two Dockworkers from this morning and asked them to tell the team to start investigating Uber and Leet, starting with any connections they might have to theoretically legal groups like the Dockworkers Union.

Alex seemed sad, though, so I asked for him and his sister to research Uber and Leet themselves and to start working up strategies to counter them directly, which seemed to have cheered him up and got me a nod from Willium.

 

[Oblation]

The team has taken to their new assignment pretty well, and apparently Raymond's already found the bar where most dockworkers drink and started to make some connections.
He's no Sherlock Holmes, so he hasn't got much out of one night of talking to dockworkers.
But he says that it's only a matter of time before he finds out the name of the union's biggest gossip who he can hopefully get some intel from.
That or someone'll just outright talk about the shady stuff when drunk enough, he says it's 50/50.

…

Today, the scientists introduced me to Dragon... kinda.

No surprise she's really busy, so I guess she was occasionally glancing at a lifestream of what we were doing and would respond to messages on a tablet they gave me when she could.

But the tablet wasn't just for this, it's a personal gift from Dragon to me.
Apparently, she overnight shipped some stuff, including a tablet with a learning software that'll speak out words I draw with my finger, and will learn how I talk with time, so eventually I'll just need to write a few letters of each word before it'll finish and speak them.

Obviously, she got a huge thanks from me for this.

She also sent a box full of little chips of artificial diamonds from a project she worked on a while back.
One where she would grow the artificial diamonds, then do something tinkertechy with a laser through them to...
I lost her after that.
But the point is the diamonds kept exploding, so she ended up with a whole box of diamond bits, and hasn't found a use for them before now.

So, I offered her the same 50/50 deal I have with Emily, and she accepted with the caveat that everyone involved agreed to not sell any of the creations, if the crafting table multiplied the materials like it did with the chain to chain armor before.

I thought "Diamond Nugget" was a mod thing, but I guess not.

So on the downside, it wasn't a box full of diamonds, but it was a box of 2,931 chunks big enough to qualify as a nugget.
And I know that, because after getting the new roll, I inventoried them all, then made them into 325 Diamonds.

Legendary Craftsman - Fallout New Vegas - 200cp
"Remember all those unique prototype weapons that do the same thing but somehow just seem to be better? Well, now you can make things like that! At the cost of up to 3 times the resources normally involved in a creation, you can substantially enhance some aspect of anything you create. You can make a clip that inexplicably holds 3x as many rounds as it should, or a barrel that makes objects that go through it 3x faster. And you're not even limited to combat effects. Feel free to make an engine where every part is 3x more efficient than it should be, or a sandwich that's 3x tastier. All that's required is imagination and resources.
Cost: 200cp
Bank: 650cp"​

Dragon wanted a 3x reinforced Diamond Block sent to her to do tinkering on.
Along with a full set of 3x diamond armor, that's going to be sent to Narwhal.

I'm not sure how good it'll turn out to be, but I made myself a set, and my inventory let me know that the full set counts for "60 Armor," whatever that means in real-life numbers.
Luckily, with my inventory, getting in and out of the armor should only take a second.

I had enough for a second set, so I gave it to William partly because he was right there and partly because he's the second largest, but only by a little bit, so Alex and Raymond should be able to fit into a William-sized armor without much difficulty.
While the others are of too many different sizes for shared armor to work.

After that, Dragon and I had 82 diamonds left between us, so I offered to trade my last 18.5 to the PRT for as many Copper Ingots as they thought was fair, so I could try to make 3x Copper Armor for the team.
I considered iron, but it turns out there are good reasons not to make a full suit of Iron Armor in real life, and the weight is just one of them.

Dragon seemed to like that Idea and so asked for one regular Diamond and Diamond Block to be sent with her stuff, before donating the rest to the Copper-Ingots-fund. So I had just enough to make a fourth and final 3x diamond armor set for… somebody.

Luckily, the PRT isn't the sort of group to give this to someone who never goes into the field, but the PRT vs Protectorate politics probably means they're not going to do the smart thing and put this on a combat thinker or something.
Still, worst case, I figure it'll end up on some PRT squad's designated Tank guy, like that one who princess carried me a few days ago.

…

Oh, and Emily asked if it would make me uncomfortable to start making 3x guns, and I said no, so now I've got 30 disassembled Beretta M9's (though no bullets unfortunately) and am having the clone assemble them into 10 with "3x effective" mechanisms, "3x larger" clips and "3x durable" every other part.

Though Emily made me promise not to keep any of them, even a non-upgraded one.
Instead, she's just transferring some money to my PRT credit immediately, so I don't need to wait for the potions thing to start ordering stuff.

So I opened the app on my new tablet and ordered the supplies for 30 invisibility potions.

I probably will end up making Emily 30 3x duration potions, instead of 90 1x, since it's the minutes of invisibility she's paying for, so having that in fewer bottles just makes sense.
But mostly I'm wondering what a 3x potency invisibility potion would do.

I figure worst case, it just increases the spectrum where they can't be seen, so even things like infrared goggles won't be able to get past this either.
But if I'm lucky, it might branch out and also mute or at least muffle other senses like sound and scent.

The PRT might be willing to pay 3or more times more for some of these, or they might not, but either way, the team is going to be getting some form of 3x bottles from me.

...

 

[Oblation]

Something that I'm fairly certain won't really get discussed in Celestial Saga is the state of the Video Game, TV, Movie, and Animation Industries on Saga-Bet as opposed to IRL.
Because, as stated in chapter 1, Saga didn't gain anything all that personal from me, or much in the way of my education, but still got most of my media knowledge.
So she's free to talk about all sorts of Earth IRL media, or to recognize it when it shows up on the Celestial Grimoire.

But as I've previously hinted at, this Version of Earth Bet started to diverge from our timeline in the 1800s, with the ripples first starting to show in the 1920s and things becoming visibly different during and especially after WW2.
Someday, I will hopefully have the time to fully explain that, but the simplified version is that this is a comic book universe, not a cinematic one.

So it's all fine and dandy to remember that Scion showing up in 1965, not 1982, means that Contessa killed Eden in the '60s, not '80s, and would be nearing 60 if she were alive today.
But entirely something else to realize that this was STILL a comic book universe before Scion showed up.
There was Sherlock Holmes and Father Brown types running around in the 1880s and 1890s, there were the occasional Magical animal or miraculous event during WW1, and the 1920s and 1930s had a bunch of different stories starting to pop up, so that by the 1950s, there were outright superheroes popping up all across the world.

They were still at the "peak human" or "more slight of hand than actual witchcraft" end of things back then, but escalation is in the bones of Earth-Bet, so if it weren't Scion showing up, something would've happened in the '60s or '70s.

But there is also the downside to all this:
With greater excitement, the dangers are also increased.

With Heroes come all sorts of low-level criminals and criminal organizations.
Which is fine if you're a superhero or a Sidekick, but if you're a typical person, that means most cities seemed to be absolutely crawling with small-to-medium gangs and crime after WW2.

So that by the time that Earth-IRL's media starts to explode in terms of amount and quality, Bet has gotten used to a world where, if there's a big, popular Movie, Game, or TV studio, it's just a matter of time before a Villain attacks, mind controls, or does some other no doubt nefarious thing to it.
Meaning that most sensible people treat those kinds of places like a hot zone in a war.
Which inevitably means they have trouble getting staff, and thus even continuing their existing media, much less rapidly increasing output.

But, a lot of the pressures that caused so much media in the IRL '90s and after are still present, even if people no longer trust Big Name media companies to finish their projects.
So what you get is Indie-Films.
And Indie-Games.
And even the occasional Indie TV show.

Although that last one is very different as their still considered mildly dangerous to make, so they're mostly designed to tell their entire story in a single season.
This is even somewhat self-reinforcing, given the time the Slaughterhouse 9 decided to try making a movie, they did it by going to where an Indie studio was risking making a third season of a popular show in the mid '90s and hijacking (then later slaughtering) the crew and actors.

Still, in North-America, by 2011, most media comes in the form of what we would consider Indie Studios.
Lots of them will have budgets worth several million, or even tens of millions, to make their project.
But unlike IRL, movies aren't getting 100-200 million dollar budgets just by default.

Also, the timeline tends to be more compressed.
Traditional wisdom for film crews and game devs is that if you want to live in a single city, then you never join a project that's been in progress for more than 8 months, and always leave a project after a year, regardless of where it's at in development.
There are, of course, plenty of Videographers, devs, and the like willing to move from city to city between jobs and so tend to be better paid under the assumption they'll stick out the full 1.5-2 year creation process before moving on.

Not to mention all the work that can be done remotely, generally is.
It's usually not even that dangerous to work for a company that contracts out programmers or editors to other projects.
Other than the risk of the Villins choosing to steal the company's computers during the day, instead of the middle of the night, like they should.

There are also a larger number of Passion projects than IRL.
Which is how Games like Undertale, Stardew Valley, and Terraria still manage to exist on Bet.

Generally, the way that an Indie-Dev becomes an Indie-Dev-Studio owner is that after 5 to 15 years of working on other people's projects while hammering away at their passion project, they finally finish it (or at least get it to a usable state), and it manages to do pretty well.
After that, they'll get the funding and support for 10 to 20 staff, but suddenly be under the typical 2-year deadline, with the added pressure of staff who consider it standard to leave projects partway through and so won't hesitate if a better offer comes along.

So while Earth-Bet America and Europe do actually have thriving Game and Movie communities, they are decidedly different from their equivalents on Earth-IRL or even the comparatively more stable Earth-Aleph.

All that's not to say that larger projects aren't getting made, however.
Just that, unlike IRL, America and Europe aren't the driving force behind that kind of project.

But for people who like the More action packed bombastic movies that are harder to make on a smaller budget, Bollywood is happy to provide.
And the people who are willing to spend more on the equipment and titles of their games will find a certain handful of AAA games coming out of China, even though the media limitations imposed by the Imperial Censorship Bureau.
(Though even AAA games on bet are usually some kind of single-player or Co-Op thing, given how expensive it is to get a decent internet connection across a continent, much less across the world.)

And on the Visual arts side, Anime is starting to make a comeback after a dip following Kyushu.
While Japan's economy and population have certainly shrunk, there are still tens of millions of people there, and their cities aren't so dangerous that things like animation become completely impossible.

The Anime Industry is smaller, and due to the first CUI Emperor considering it to be "Degenerate," Chinese and Korean anime never really became a thing.
But on the other hand, there's less pressure for Anime studios to conform to a familiar art style or to pump out their media as fast as possible.
So, Anime in general has started to be exported again, and includes some true Gems for those international viewers who remember the hits exported in the '90s.

Korea, on the other hand, has taken quite strongly to cell-phone culture and begun creating some highly compact games and stories where a cellphone is the intended medium, rather than shrunk down to fit on one.
As a result, there has been a quickly growing community of authors, devs, and artists across the world creating projects explicitly designed for phones, and where the final price won't exceed $3.99.

In the end, I hope you can get how the Earth-Bet Saga is living in has a ton of media around and isn't simply the more Generic Earth-IRL shown in Canon.
But at the same time, this is a world that is effected, not just in the large strokes but also the small ones, by the continual escalation of powers, mysteries, and conflicts.

 

[Oblation]

It will likely be months at best before Celestial Saga gets to a point where Saint-Moses-the-Black comes up in person, but on the other hand, with Dragon being a part of Saga's life, he is as well, if at a bit of a remove.

So the question is, who is Saint on Saga-Bet, and how does he differ from the Geoffrey Pellick/Saint of Canon?

To put it bluntly, Saint is an unperson fanatical Monk who did that to himself.
Specifically, He is a radical type of Anarchist, who believes fully and totally that power corrupts.

He was raised in an extremely radical branch of Christianity original to Saga's Earth-Bet, which believed that John Brown was a martyr and a Saint.
This Movement, after having fallen out with the Catholic and Protestant Churches over a refusal to even consider John Brown a martyr, had denounced the Church itself and come to believe in the table-flipping, anti-authoritarian Jesus who married a prostitute and whose teachings never included the church that was later built up venerating him.

The Pellicks and a few other families had splintered off from the main movement due to increasing concerns about State Surveillance and a belief that it was only a matter of time before their movement was officially suppressed, as its few European branches had been.
And so chose to move to an isolated part of the Coast Mountains in British Columbia, where they set up a small but thriving Anarchist commune that encouraged a strong since of personal identity and a worldview that considers a person's connection to The Lord and thus moral virtue as corresponding inversely to the amount of power and influence they had over others.

A young Geoff Pellick would leave this commune, seeking like-minded people and interesting conversations while hoping to explore the world like the sea travelers of old.
And while he would find a few of those, mostly he would become increasingly (justifiably) worried about the state of the world, and about the way parahuman powers would quicken the process of what he considered to be the road to hell.
That a person could go from perfectly fine to suddenly being in charge of a gang or Hero team and actively seeking out more power and influence over just a few months as a result of gaining powers was horrifying to Geoff.

So he watched, for years, as powers became more common, and people (in his mind) continued to "turn their back on the lord God."

And then he triggered.
He had spent years watching the world get worse, and with no idea how to slow it or if he even should.

And now he was one of them.
A cape.
A Tinker.

So he shut himself away, he moved to the coast of Southern-Labrador, where he could be alone and not risk the Eternal damnation that he thought this power wanted him to pursue.

But even then, he was still doing his best to be a good person.
A loner and a bit of a hermit, he spent his days going out to Newfoundland and looking for salvage or the keepsakes of survivors that he could return to them.

His Tinker specialization was fairly generic, generally related to finding things; his most ambitious project had been a little self-sufficient submarine drone that would search the depths for valuable salvage or important keepsakes.
And so he continued like this for a few years, and as there was news of a new, up-and-coming Tinker, Dragon who had escaped Newfoundland, but nearly died afterward and triggered as a Tinker just in time to save her own life.

(Side Note on Saga's Dragon: Dragon is a Tinkertech creation, thus requires maintenance by the Tinker that created her. But she's also forbidden from effecting her own code by her creator/father, so even her Non-Tinker programming skills couldn't help her heal her slowly deteriorating code (and thus mind). But Triggering deferred this issue, it removed the false issues designed to force tinkers to do constant maintenance on their tech, and would have eventually allowed her to break her restrictions and tinker on her own code.)

But eventually, when he was on the outskirts of what used to be the small town of Deer Lake, Newfoundland, he found a beacon coming from what looked to his scanners like a very well-developed bunker full of electronics.
No life signs, but it looked like it not only had some air left, but even power somehow.

This could have been Huge for him, as while he would return any hard drives to relatives, the rest of the parts could help him immensely with his tinkering.
So over the course of a week, he salvages the lab of Andrew Richter, and eventually his emergency server.
The Server that held the only full copy of Dragon's Dev-Notes and Emergency Console.
Not to mention the access to the numberman account where he had stashed the money his Robinhood program had stolen from various criminal syndicates.

Geoff was rich!
And even better, he wasn't rich off the exploitation of others, but through stealing from the wicked, something his old community growing up would have not only fully supported but considered a sign from the Lord that he was doing something right!

... and then he found out about Dragon.
An AI.
But a person, and a parahuman.
Doing all the things he worried about in Parahumans, quickly building more powerful tech, and gathering power and influence.

And Geoff has COMPLETE control over her.
The worst possible thing to gain in his view.
Perfect control over another being.

He could even insert thoughts into her head that she wouldn't be able to ignore or notice as strange.
With a push of a button, he could kill her or revert her to a point before she triggered.

It was too much power; obviously, he needed to destroy it.
Clear the drives, forget the money, and accept the still significant boon of the components...

But then he heard about that rising star among Canada's Capes, Dragon, contributing massively at the latest Endbringer fight...
An objectively good act, and yet Geoff saw the start of what she could become.

Already pushing against her restraints, she had created a small network of drones and managed to take in a terrifying amount of data.

Including, terrifyingly enough, the real names, faces, and histories of more than 150 capes.
She hadn't intended to do anything with it, but by default, she keeps a record of the name, face, history, and actions of anyone she meets in hopes of influencing future interactions to seem more natural.

But to a man whose community had intentionally moved to the middle of nowhere due to fear of being spied upon back before the advent of the internet.
The idea that just looking at one of her drones, during what was meant to be a time of truce and coming together, would be enough for a person's entire history to be recorded.
That horrified Geoff.

And what's worse, he knew that she could use that information for Evil.
After finding her database of people, he's searched her memories and found her analysis of the world after she awoke as an independent entity for the first time.

She had done a deep analysis of the world and come to the conclusion that Heroics and, eventually, Government heroics were the most logical choice for a person like her.
It wasn't some instinctive urge towards helping, or even some restraint to always help humanity like in a book by Issac Asimov.

When she woke up, she showed the truly terrifying ability of an AI.
The ability to be a True-Neutral actor, to choose between Good, Evil, order, and Chaos as a choice of pure Logic.

So what if she decided one day Hroics was limiting her ability to increase her Power? Her influence?
Or what if she stayed committed to the Ordered path even above any human morality?
Would she trot along to the orders of some unscrupulous politician and create a genuine Police State straight out of Orwell?

So then it hit Geoff.
He shouldn't destroy the data.
Something like this needed to exist, lest Dragon become something truly terrifying.
And that meant someone had to live as the most despicable thing Geoff could think of.
The Perfect Master.

And what's worse, Geoff believed in the Lord.
He saw how it wasn't some Hero group, or one of the Government-Funded salvage teams to find Andrew Richter's bunker, but him.
A loner and hermit, with a firm commitment to having as little world power and influence as possible.

There wasn't anyone better.
Most people would be worse, or at least a lot riskier.

He'd found the money that he'd need to start, and a program that could ethically get him more of it at need.

Geoff was going to become The Perfect Master.

But he decided right then and there that if what the Lord required of him was to commit, and keep committing, the most evil act possible, that this would be the last unnecessary evil act he would commit.
He would live as a Monk committed to only good actions, save for the one act of true evil which he must continue.
That was the day Geoff Pellick died and the day the Cape, going only by Saint-Moses-the-Black (often referred to as simply "Saint") was born.

He talks to few, and only those of strong enough character that he doesn't believe he'll influence them much.
He lives alone, in a highly fortified compound bought with Robinhood's funds, and maintained with his own tinkertech.
He travels, only occasionally, when he finds a story of a lost keepsake or artifact and builds a device to track it down before anonymously donating it to those with the greatest claim to it.
He lives a simple life.
Though he's not the kind of Monk to deny simple pleasures, he also goes out of his way to always source the things he uses ethically.

And he watches.
Always ready to destroy one of the largest sources of Good in the world.
Always hoping that she'll wait at least until after he dies to finally succumb to the terrible weight of her influence and power.

He does little with his control, though he has been known to encourage the whims of Dragons that he believes would improve the world.
Such as insisting that the Birdcage be exclusively a tool of last resort.
Or in creating a charity to hire lawyers for those deemed "undefendable" by society, such as Paige Mcabee/Bad Canary.

Or deciding to become invested in the case of an 11-year-old recent trigger with the potential for power not seen in an American Hero since the death of Eidolon...

---

So, what's the difference between Saga's Saint and Canon-Saint?

Largely, it's that Canon-Saint was a Terrible person, convinced he was a Martyr and thus that his continued evil was justified.

Whereas Saga's Saint is a Strange man who is, by most considerations a good one.
But one who believes fully that he has been chosen by God as a Martyr.
A person whose life was sacrificed towards a necessary act.
But unlike canon, this Saint doesn't believe the necessity of his act justifies anything.
If anything, he believes he is at even more risk than Dragon of ending up in hell.
So he does his best to live as did the Saint he takes his name from.
Saint-Moses-the-Black, patron saint of Non-Violence, who started his life as Moses the Robber, a violent criminal.
He tries his best to be good, always knowing there's every possibility a truly Just God would reject him.

 

[Oblation]

In the more common telling of the story of Adam and Eve, Adam was explicitly in charge of Eve, then some time later Eve was lied to by a reptile with legs who may or may not be the Devil, then in turn influenced Adam into "disobeying" God and eating the Apple. Then the reptile's legs are removed as "punishment," and thus the first Snake is created.

When the religious movement, often calling themselves "The Table-Turners," were seeking to solidify their understanding of Morality and God during the 1890s, they began to view this story not as a warning but as an analogy to the dangers of controlling and influencing others.
Over the next century, The Table-Turners' version of this story would slowly change into a few different versions, with most of them including the following differences:

1. Adam was given explicit command over His and Eve's bodies (or at least their actions), while Eve, who was made later than Adam, but was also the second attempt (which is why the control thing was added) was given explicit control of her mind/thoughts and protection from being influenced. (So Eve doesn't control Adam's Mind, but he never got the Protection from Influence that Eve got, only the protection from Control implied in controlling his body.)

2. The reptile is not the Devil. It is actually the first representation of a truly virtuous individual, someone capable of interacting with the world, without either seeking or gaining influence over others. The reptile (every story seems to make it a different type, from alligator to dinosaur to salamander) is merely a person who seems to know things, and so gives honest answers to questions asked. (As opposed to the cryptic answers of other animals, sometimes added when the story needs to be padded out for children.) (The reptile might also BE God, taking an avatar to interact in the Garden of Eden. or Jesus, or John Brown, or any number of possible figures.)

3. Eve was growing dissatisfied with Adam, due to his being able to control her (Slavery is brought up here if the audience is old enough, if not, Eve is usually shown to be forced to do demeaning chores by Adam instead. With Eve showing her ability by lying to Adam, who, since he has no concept of lying, automatically believes whatever she tells him.)

4. What the Reptile says to BOTH Adam and Eve when asked about the Forbidden fruit is that it will be the most delicious thing that person has ever eaten, but that anyone who eats the fruit WILL eventually die.

5. Eve didn't trick Adam or lie to him or anything like that. What she did was ask if he could die, without wanting to, given that he and only he had control over what happened to his body?

6. Eating the fruit isn't a punishment; the fruit isn't "forbidden," it's "freedom." Specifically, the Fruit represents the End of Childhood, when both Adam and Eve lost their protection, but also lost their control. Suddenly, Eve could disobey Adam, but she could also be tricked or lied to. Meanwhile, Adam could (and now certainly would) die, but he could also learn and grow from the simple state he was in while in the garden.

7. The reptile isn't punished, though it will often shed its legs and become the first Snake, who will leave the Garden with Adam and Eve as a companion.

The result of this is that The Table-Turners created a story that manages to teach a few lessons. The most common of these are:

1. Power over others is limiting and bad

2. Influencing others is dangerous, and allowing yourself to be influenced is just as dangerous.

3. Not all changes are bad, and not all bad things are disasters. (Both Adam and Eve eventually died, but they also lived long, full lives where they were free as opposed to being eternal but limited like children forever.)

4. God IS Good, but God doesn't want slaves, so the way to be closer is to be more Free.

(5. Reptiles are wise, and Snakes make for good friends/pets. <-- This one is mostly unintended, but after a century, Reptiles = Wise is pretty well baked into the psyche of their members, and pet snakes are popular. Interestingly, owls seem to have swapped places with Snakes, mostly being seen as arrogant/vain due to the popular idea of Owls as the natural predators of snakes. Along with a popular addition to the story being an Owl who made Adam and Eve solve puzzles and riddles inorder to gain knowledge or food, and who will often mention how beautiful their feathers are and how much better they are than that "simple" reptile.)

Spoiler: A/N

A bit of lore from the religious Group which the Pellick's had split off from, called "The Table-Turners" and their version of the Story of Adam and Eve, along with the source of their reverence for reptiles.
I like to imagine a world in which J. K. Rowling was a Table-Turner, and so Slytherin was the house of Owls, and Ravenclaw was the house of Snakes.
Though JKR's personality really doesn't fit The Table-Turners at all, so if I did add this to the Celestial Saga Lore, it would need to be a "In-Name-Only" version of J. K. Rowling.
Also interesting is that in modern times, some stories will explicitly make Adam into the world's first Master, and Eve into the world's first Thinker. Usually, the reptile represents a venerated figure, so powers would be unnecessary, but sometimes it is stated as the world's first Changer, given the whole "chooses to not have legs" thing later and the fact that every family seems to have a different reptile in its place.

 

[Oblation]

Fox showed up during tutoring today.
And I wasn't kidding when I said we used to operate under 90% vibes and 10% judgmental looks, because even my tutor started glaring at him after I had been struggling with a bit of math for a while.

I think that if he were a human, Fox would have what's referred to as "a very punchable face."

…

But his being there worked out in the end because I'd been meaning to ask him about how Fire Teleporting works, in the hopes I could do it without immediately passing out.

So after a bit of flying, he explained.

It seems like my issue is that I was thinking of teleporting like a Human with a parahuman power, not a bird with a defence mechanism.

What I'm meant to do is stretch all the way out, and think of some pleasant feelings I have tied to a place.

Rather than "The Boardwalk," I should think "that really good hot dog from when I was 8."
And that worked!
It was pretty easy, actually.

Fox said it's like that, that teleporting wasn't about the distance, it was about the strength of the emotion and how fast I'm moving when I do it.
Apparently, it took him centuries to manage to go to specific spots with a passenger, and even now, he will usually fly over to the professor so he has some movement and teleport the moment they touch.

Though the professor has asked that he not stop doing this even if he figures out how to teleport while still, because it looks really cool to have a Phoenix fly over to him before they disappear in a burst of flames.
Which is fair enough.

Then, so I could build some positive emotions there, I asked if Fox would show me how to dive over the ocean.
He agreed so now I not only have the rough idea of how to intimidatingly dive on things, but also the ability to teleport to a spot in the Atlantic a few miles out from the coast… just in case.

…

Oh, and Fox brought me another letter from the Professor.
Apparently, he's not actually from Earth-Bet, because this time the letter was a lot longer and was asking about my "magic" and about capes and stuff.

So I flew over to Emily's office and tapped on her window with my beak.
It turned out to be a bad time, since she was in a video call with a guy who turned out to be the PRT Director in Boston, but he laughed it off, so Emily asked what I wanted.

It took a minute to spell it with the tablet, but eventually I managed to ask if the PRT had First Contact protocols.

Emily just looked at me, but the other director asked what I meant, so I explained how I'd just found out the professor I'd been exchanging letters with through Fox for a while now was actually from an Earth where people had magic powers instead of parahuman ones.
But apparently, he'd seen some differences in the powers, so he had asked for any info I could send him about how Parahumans worked so he could compare them.

For some reason, Emily was facepalming at this point, but the Boston Director sounded really excited and offered to send me over a packet. But he asked if Fox could wait for a day or two so he and one of his wards could meet a magic bird.
I looked at Emily, and she said it was fine… though that was the least enthusiastic "yes" I've gotten from anyone in a while.

Either way, Fox was fine with it, so I guess I'm meeting Weld and his boss on Saturday.

…

After the Other Director ended the call, I also gave Emily a 30-minute invisibility potion for herself in an emergency, along with the 10, 3x Beretta M9's.
Then I gave her 2 of the 3x Potency 10-minute invisibility potions and asked if she could get the testing people to figure out what 3x potency meant, and if the PRT would want to buy it, knowing it took 3x the resources.

…

Oh, and I told her about how I'd figured out how to fire teleport and how that worked.
Then I told her about Fox teaching me to dive over the ocean, so I'd have a spot I could jump to if needed.

She seemed to approve of the practice, but ordered me not to teleport with any more people until she thought I had enough practice to do it safely.

I thought that was unfair at first.
But after thinking about it for a minute, I realised that since she only ordered me not to teleport with people, after I got done telling her how I could teleport several miles now, that she was basically giving me the go-ahead to practice teleporting as much as I want to on my own.

She seemed to have known what I realised, because she just smiled and went to bed.

…

Oh yeah, the scientists are apparently collecting the data now, so other than writing down rolls and adding to the list or bringing any powers questions to them, I'm only going to be recording rolling every so often now to see if it changes with time.
Though Dragon did say she was working on updating the machine that can pick up my rolling, since apparently it's a pretty old and niche piece of equipment.

But until that's done or February 7th comes around, I'm done rolling in the science room.

…

Oh, and the Copper ingots are apparently an ongoing thing, with them pulling from multiple different places to get me as many as possible.
Since I guess the Armour got sent to PRT Boston, who consider 3x Diamond Armour as low-level power armour with a focus on low maintenance, and so is willing to give me a LOT of copper for it.
Especially when they found out my reason for asking for copper was to armour up my own security detail of Part-time PRT troopers.

 

[Oblation]

Since I don't need to go to the science room to do it, I figure I'll just roll today, in case it changes my plans.

The Realm's Delight - HoTD - The Small Council - 50CP
"You are a natural charmer. You can disarm even the coldest of strangers, turning guarded individuals into new friends. From soothing tensions to drawing laughter from a crowd, even those naturally inclined against people like you can almost always find some reason for you to be an exception.
Cost: 50cp
Bank: 750cp"​

Well, that's nice.

Not sure it's gonna do much, but "even people who'd normally hate people like you, now just hate all the people like you, except you " is kind of a specific thing, but I guess I'll take it.

If nothing else, that should hopefully make any PR stuff they figure out how to do with a girl who won't talk go a bit more smoothly.

Thu'um - Elder Scrolls: Skyrim - 100cp or 200cp
"Long before the Age of Man, Kyne taught men to Shout, to speak the tongue of the Dovah, to match them with the power of their Voice. You are a practitioner of this ancient and most revered magical discipline, able to force the world around you to bend to the power of your Thu'um.
For the first 100cp, you gain a soul capable of withstanding the Thu'um as well as the Generic Unrelenting Force Shout. For the Next 100cp you gain the two shouts closest to your current abilities (Fire Breath & Kyne's Peace).
Cost 100cp or 200cp
Bank 700cp"​

I'm really sad about this, since it's really cool, but it doesn't actually say anything about it magically fixing a voice that doesn't work, just that if I can shout, I can do cool stuff with it.

It was one thing turning down the annoying parrot, but this just feels like such a waste.

Still, it would be a bigger waste to put cp into an ability just to find out it's useless unless I'm with my sister or Fox, and while I can't remember what "Kyne's Peace," did in Skyrim "Unrelenting Force " is the kind of ability that really should only be aimed at Brutes you really dislike. not the few people I genuinely trust, like Fox.

…

Oh, also, Triumph was pretty nice the couple of times I met him, so I guess I'm glad that I won't have an ability that's basically twice the power and none of the control of his, on top of all the other things I can do.

At least being a proper changer, of the "completely different form and capabilities in alternate form" variety, makes me unique in the Bay.
The next closest cape is Hookwolf, who somewhat famously keeps his human eyes and organs in his changer state.

Which is why Triumph is such a good counter to him.
One good scream and he's puking up his lunch, whether he's in hook or man form.

Unless, of course, Cricket is nearby, who can completely no-sell his powers and kick his ass in a fight besides.

But thus is the cape scene of Brockton Bay.

 

[Oblation]

In other news, my temporary Math Tutor got fed up with Fox's judgmental looks and apparently feels comfortable demanding things now that the team isn't looking over my shoulder but is off investigating Uber and Leet because he demanded that my "pet" leave during "school hours."

I wrote out on the tablet that:

"He's a person, not a pet. He does what he wants."

He said:

"That is a bird, Miss Byrne."

So I turned into a phoenix and sat next to Fox, who was laughing at this point.

He jumped out of his chair and yelled something about "Assault with a parahuman power," but one of the regular PRT troopers who does guard rounds on the building rushed in and pulled him away.

Either way, the long and the short of it is that there was idiocy, but because it wasn't mine, I was just in the room for it, Emily is excusing me from math until the PRT Math tutor can be hired, and she has apparently sworn off of "any more God-be-dammed Youth-Guard Volunteers."

Which sounds good to me.

…

Also, I met Chris and Vista again today, since apparently Weld and his Boss coming tomorrow, is some kind of deal, but Emily doesn't want me talking to Aegis or Shadowstalker with what I see instead of capes who aren't Vista.

Aegis makes sense, if I can think of someone who'd probably be more horrifying than Panacea, it'd probably be him.
Though I can't think of the problem with Shadow Stalker.
Like, even if it were spooky, I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad.

Though it was funny seeing Vista and Lego-Chris share a look before saying, "It's not you per-se, it's about keeping Stalker from talking to you, or around you, or..." "It's because Stalker is a Grade-A Bitch."

That was hilarious, which is apparently how Chris learns that:

1. Vista is a lot more willing to swear around her sister than otherwise.
2. Saga sees a life-sized Lego person instead of regular Chris, and his exaggerated expressions are hilarious.

Though apparently Chris was confused why he would be a lego-person when everyone else so far had something related to their powers.
But it seemed to make perfect sense to me and Vista that a tinker would be Legos, with Vista mentioning that Armsmaster might literally be a robot to me.

Though Chris seemed a bit too distracted to appreciate the joke.
So I asked if he'd gotten anything interesting out of the storage tag, which is how Vista and I were exposed to an hour-long Tinker Lecture on… well, I'm just gonna call them techno-bags of holding.
The fact that this would scandalize any tinker if they found out just makes it better, if anything.

Either way, the effect is that, rather than a security locker on the rig that he needs to get to before he can do any caping, Chris now has a bracelet that lets him summon his kit one part at a time.
Apparently, it still takes like 20 minutes to get this way, but now there's no travel time, and if he really needs to, he can just summon the visor part of his Helmet and the two main parts of his Hoverbord to get going in under 3 minutes.

It still seems slower than just putting it all in a storage tag, but I get the idea of wanting it to be his own tech that does it, and unlike the storage tags, where I havent made much progress, it sounds like his summoning is advancing in leaps and bounds, and that the speed is more just because this tech is in it's early days, then any limitations inherent in the idea.

…

Oh, and I got my first Costume today!

Well, kinda.
It's mostly just a tracksuit with a pattern of red, orange, and yellow feathers on it, and an interesting pair of sunglasses meant to look like I have eagle eyes that someone probably got from a party store.
But I guess the tracksuit is made of the same material they make the PRT underarmor out of, so they made it up as a "Until PR makes up their minds" outfit, for any surprise official events.

Which it seems tomorrow will be, since it's a PRT-Ward from Boston and the Full-Director in Boston coming over to Brocton Bay to meet the PRT-Ward and Full-Director in Brocton Bay.

Which sounds a lot more official than the real reason of the Boston Director and Ward wanting to meet a genuine Magical Phoenix while the opportunity lasts.
But adults will do their adult thing, I guess.

Either way, my costume is cool and comfy, and I get to keep it even once "PR makes up their minds," which I definitely will!

 

[Oblation]

So that was boring.

But Emily did tell me after that it counted as my first PR event, so PR should back off from me for a while, since Capes under 15 have fewer PR requirements.

Though we also get more bonuses and leeway for doing extra, which is something my sister uses extensively and how I originally met Chris, since he was using that as a way to fund his tinkering when he was still getting the "generic tinker ward" budget level, rather than the "you've actually demonstrated some interesting technology" one.

Anyway, this PR event was literally just standing outside for an hour and a half as Emily and I put on our best "Official women reading important documents" faces as we played a series of board games on our respective tablets.

I can't really be happy about her being such an honest person the rest of the time, then be upset at how she kept crushing me at every game.
But seriously, how do you crush someone at Mancala?! That game is like 99% luck!

I thought I was doomed when Dragon joined, about 20 minutes before the event started, and showed us that there was an app for 3-person Hexagonal Chess.
But it turns out Dragon is just… kind of bad.

Like I can tell, she wasn't just going easy on me, because she was leaving the same damn openings for Emily.
I think the troops were starting to freak out a bit, the way Emily was scowling at the board.

But seriously, it would have been a better game if Dragon had just let whatever "Hard Mode" bot the app came built with play for her.

It was just sort of embarrassing by proxy.

Though apparently she offered to do a 2v2 with Armsmaster at some point, and insisted they are much better when playing together.

Oh, and it turns out another upside to Chris's new Lego body is that if I stand a few feet to either side of him and look in the corner of my eye, I can see exactly whats on his visor, which is something I'm pretty sure is one of the standard things that basically all tinkers find a way to prevent if they make themselvs a visor.

Oh, and it seems his method of dealing with boredom is Anime.
He even has good taste, I think.
Gundum, ironically enough, for the teenager in power armor.

I'm not sure what Vista was doing, because I've worn that helmet, so I know for a fact that the damn thing doesn't have a HUD.
But knowing how she views anything PR, wouldn't be surprised if she was standing at parade rest like that out of pure spite.

Though you'd think she'd have relaxed a bit, given I'm a ward now too, so "team baby" doesn't need to be her anymore, but who knows.

Although I'm pretty sure she figured out the game by reading my tells, because she broke composure long enough to send some absolutely flabbergasted looks Emily's way there for a while.

…

But eventually Dr. Armstrong and Weld did show up.

And...
Tall.

Like, I get that a lot of the people around here are tall, especially compared to Emily and me.
But Dr. Armstrong is at least 6'5 and Weld is apparently exactly 8 feet tall, though I can apparently look straight through his head and shoulders now.

Oh, yeah, that was the other thing, but I'll get to Weld's appearance in a bit.

But first, part of them being so Tall is that I guess their sense of scale is out of whack, because what they handed me wasn't a "packet."
It was a book.
Hell, "Encyclopedia" might be more accurate.

Either Way, Fox can teleport people, so the size wasn't the issue, just that I'm not sure what the Professor would be expecting, but I'm sure it's not that.

Dr. Armstrong did send a request for any information on Magic that the Professor felt he could share, so I guess I'll be going to Boston at some point, whenever the Professor sends back his response.

…

But back to the Appearance thing, it seems like I was the first one to notice something was off for once.
Because for someone who'd come all this way to see a Magic Bird, Dr. Armstrong brushed off Fox pretty fast.

But Weld seemed to have a proper understanding of the situation…

Except that I apparently can't see Weld…
I mean, I knew his powers had something to do with a Huge, metal body, but I figure he was basically just a metal-changer, where he bulked up and turned into a huge metal guy.
Right up until Fox perched on empty air, about a foot above Weld's arm.

So when Chris asked "what I see" for Weld, before explaining my thing, I just kind of explained how I saw him with his "changer power" off.
That killed the conversation right quick.

Welp, it turns out I'm an idiot.
He's a Case 53.
It doesn't turn "off."

What I was seeing was apparently Weld as he was before he had powers.

He cried.

I was told this was disturbing to watch, though it just looked like a normal kid crying to me.

Eventually, Emily and Dr. Armstrong had me look at a bunch of pictures of capes, then handed me a Tablet with a Video call on it to… another normal guy.
Well, I had picked up the pattern, so I just grabbed my tablet and started describing him too.

Eventually, Dragon stopped pretending to care about privacy and just took over my tablet with this police-Sketch Artist program and had me match Weld's and (who turned out to be) Hunch's pre-cape faces.

More teers were had, though mostly just by Weld.

It turns out he's a weepy kind of guy.
Who knew.

…

Oh, and Weld, and Dr. Armstrong spent a while hugging, which made a lot of people tense, given Weld is apparently an 8-foot-tall metal guy, but it was fine.

Which is how I found out that Dr. Armstrong is Weld's dad.
Or well, adoptive dad, because Case-53, but you know.

…

Anyways, that day was a lot, and they ended up staying in the Bay overnight, so now we were all going to do my Rolls together tomorrow and discuss the options, since I guess Dr. Armstrong was curious about that too.
And he mentioned some kind of surprise in the Truck they brought with them, but that got delayed until tomorrow, too.

Oh, and by "all" I mean, Vista, Chris, Weld, Dr. Armstrong, and me.
Since Emily was looking at the hugging Weld and Dr. Armstrong less like she was worried for Dr. Armstrong and more like she was worried that she might catch emotions from them.
To be honest, I feel the same, but since I was the source of a lot of it, I was just kind of there.

I'm like 60% sure Emily saluted me when she finally managed to escape, but I might be imagining that.

…

Either Way, today was a lot, and now I'm tired, though I did think of something.
Since charging a tag when tired knocks me out, I figure from now on I'll charge a tag every night before bed, so I have a supply of them when needed.

It's like the Fire teleporting thing with being a Phoenix.
I'm viewing it as powers, but in reality, it's an art.

Particularly an art whose best users were trap makers.
People who had a bunch of tags prepped for any given situation.

But I've just been charging them and using them immediately, rather than prepping a stockpile for the need when it comes.
It's so obvious!
I feel stupid now, but at least I figured it out eventually.

 

[Oblation]

Love Potion - Weird Wild West - 150cp
"A love potion that lasts anywhere from two hours to two months, depending on the quality of ingredients and quality of genetic material added to set the target. But even with the meanest ingredients and a single strand of hair, the drinker will feel as if they are deeply in love with the potion's target and will keep them out.
Cost:150cp
Bank:1050cp"​

"NO!"'
Vista, Weld, and Chris all said something like that at the same time.

But it was Dragon who explained:
"Master Powers are already problematic enough, but Tinkertech, which can induce master powers, is a whole other level of problem. As useful as it could theoretically be, it's best you avoid things like this if possible."

Dr. Armstrong added:
"Plus, it's not just a matter of not making it unless needed; then your file is going to not only say "Human Master" but "Can produce Human Master inducing Tinchertech" for the rest of your life. Normally, this can't be helped, or we strongly discourage the tinker from actually building something like this, but in your case, it's as simple as refusing the roll and moving on."

Well, I was already on the fence about it, but that's plenty of reason to give it a skip. So I just shrugged and rolled again.

Libriomancy - Apprentice Libriomancer - 600cp
"You have mastered the basic arts of Libriomancy. With an appropriate fiction book, you may reach inside the pages and pull out a projection of any "thing" described. There are, of course, limitations to it: Most significantly, you can only draw out "things" that are small enough to be held comfortably in one of your hands and which can fit through an opening the size of the book's cover. Also, any "thing" you create will also drain your magical energies for however long it exists, and especially if you're utilizing any supernatural properties it is described as having in the book it was pulled from. Additionally, after pulling an object out of a book, it will "burn out." Though not physically burnt, that title will become unusable. Finally, it is important that the book be an official hardcover primarily or entirely in words (no comic books) and that it was published more than 10 years previously.
Though partially a requirement for the Libriomancy known to apprentices like you to take hold, this is also due to the quality and power of the reproduced object correlating to how many times the book in question has been read. Though you've got a solid enough grasp of Libriomancy to still count other editions or translations of this book, even you couldn't pull much more than a physical recreation of an object out of a book read less than 3,000,000 times. And do keep in mind that what you're pulling from is the "thing"described in this book. If the series went on to expand or reduce it, you're still getting the object as described in the book you hold.
-100cp to include books you haven't personally read.
-100cp for gifted or stolen objects to pull from their users' energies rather than yours.
-50cp to include books that meet the requirements on their native world, not just Earth-Bet.
-50cp for inventory integration.
Cost: 900cp
Bank 1050cp"​

While the rest are still reading dragon ads:
"Well, I don't suppose anyone has a copy of The Silmarillion nearby?"

And Dr. Armstrong adds:
"Really, Dragon?"
"We just got done talking her out of Love Potions, and now you want to give her The One Ring ?"

"Well…"
"No, you're right."
" The One is a bad idea, but one of The Three Rings Of Power would probably be a good idea."

"Huh…"
"Yeah, I could see that."
"Either way, you should probably accept it, Phoenix."
"There are some downsides to be considered, but we won't really know until it's tested, and in the meantime, this one could be great if handled properly."

The others all seem to agree, so I go with it.

And.. oh.
I guess that's what " inventory integration " meant.
I've got 10 slots with space for a book, an object, and 3 bits of info, and a button.
Book:
Object:
Owner:
[Unsummon?]

I guess that explains why it was changed when other roles have just melded in as new abilities.

It's almost like a whole extra inventory, or at least a separate part.
Though that's hard to describe, since all of this is still operating like a 6-th sense, rather than something I can see like in a videogame.

Hopefully, a roll will give me a HUD at some point, so this will be easier to navigate.
Since right now I kind of need to know some things in there to find out how much.
I have a feeling a HUD will lead to some surprises in terms of the crap I've stored in there.

By the time I'm done looking, checking out the new stuff, someone's come by with a copy of whatever "The Silmarillion" is.

Though that talk about rings was familiar, I thought that was from Lord of the Rings?

Either way, there's an argument about which ring I should grab, that I'm not really paying attention to, because as soon as I touch the book, I know that Narya is mine.

Apparently, only Dragon approves of my choice (turns out Vilya was winning), so I immediately put it on.
There's more shouting after that, but I've got other things on my mind.

It's kind of subtle, actually, but I just feel good.

Like when I'm flying with Fox, except I'm a human right now.

Though that does bring up a good point, so I transform… and yup.
I still feel it.
Morso, if anything.

I guess it makes sense, since Narya is basically Phoenixes described in the form of a ring, so a Phoenix wearing Narya would be twice as good!

…

After that, it's mostly just getting me to describe the process of creating the projections and what I'm feeling with Narya on.

I do briefly take it off to prove that I can, but nobody seems surprised when I put it right back on after a minute.

…

There is a discussion over whether any of the objects should be given away.

With the idea of giving Nenya to Panacea coming up more than once.

Though there wasn't a decision made there, everybody did seem to like my idea of giving Vilya to Hero, since Hero is a member of the Triumvirate, but also the squishy one, whose powers don't make him immune to damage like the other two.

In the end, more copies are found, and I end up summoning, but just inventorying the 2 other rings.

I was also tempted to start handing out some of the Human Rings when I heard about them, but was told I should probably hold off for now.

Apparently, the idea of becoming ringwraiths is too scary, even if it apparently took hundreds of years and turned normal people into basically capes in the meantime.

Also, that assumes it would even happen with no Sauron about.
But I guess that's a downside of being the only one to know this world's designated Big-bad is both not evil and dead in this timeline.

…

Oh, but I guess we're gonna go see the surprise now, before Dr. Armstrong and Weld leave!

 

[Oblation]

Five…
FIVE THOUSAND!?!!

They… They brought over 5,000 bars of copper for the armor.
I'm SOOOOO glad I haven't put on the 3x armor yet, because I immediately gave it to them.
Dr. Armstrong even said it probably won't be 5000 again, but said he thought he could probably find another 3-4000 if I gave him a month, so that's a done deal as far as I'm concerned.

A full armor set is 24 ingots.
A 3x set is 72 ingots.
I can make 69 3x copper armor sets with this!
I needed 6.
432 ingots.

wat.

…

Well, suffice it to say that I made 7, 3x copper armors for the team.

Actually, I made 3 each, since 3x Armor is default, but it seems I can kind of loophole my way into enchanting.

So they each got an:
"Armor 3, Maneuverability 1"
"Armor 1, Maneuverability 3"
"Armor 2, Maneuverability 2"
set of armor.

I left what set they wear to engagements up to them.
Which really seems to mean that it's up to Raymond, but they all agreed that's "what I meant," so I went with it.

I also made a set for myself, but since I should just be reborn if I'm killed as a Phoenix, then I figure I'll just transform in any danger.
Still, there's a chance it'll come up, so I made myself a "Armor 1, Maneuverability 3" set.

And I made Vista an "Armor 2, Maneuverability 2" set, since I'm like 90% sure it's better than her current body armor.
Though I'm not sure how she'll get it past PR with it being a dark orange and her whole thing being Green and Gold.
Still, she wanted one and she got it.

And I've got 3,344 ingots left!

…

I also asked if I should give them the Dwarven Rings, but they agreed about the wraith thing.
But Raymond did end up "Reserving" 1 of my slots for items to be determined.

Saundra and Alex think it would be easier to take down Uber and Leet if they went in with items the two would easily recognize, so their now in charge of finding 2 of those.
While Raymond wants to see if he can find some kind of "AOE healing item," so he's gonna look into that.

I guess we'll see.
…

But, now that I know what a 900cp roll is like, I think I'm gonna hold off for a while.
I'm gonna need to roll in a few weeks for the Scientists, so hopefully I'll get something big then, but if not, then I'm gonna try to build up.

Because cool as this is, I really figured I'd have some kind of outright magic, or alchemy, or something to be working on by now.
What with it being called the Celestial Grimoire and all.
But instead, every roll but Libriomancy and Fuinjutsu has been pretty firmly limited.
But I have no clue how to increase my Libriomancy slots, or abilities, and Fuinjutsu is apparently just a lifetime of practice.

So here's to hoping my next big roll is like "Up to 2nd Level Spells from DnD" or some books from one of those "anyone can learn it" magic systems like Earthsea's True Names or the Applied Mathematics of The Laundry Files…

 

[Oblation]

It would be a lie to say that Emily Piggot disliked capes.

Nobody born after The First Hero's appearance could really be said to dislike all capes, not watching as Scion spent 35 years tirelessly going from person to person (and cat), saving lives and halting disasters.

No, what Emily dislikes is People.

If there was one thing taught early in the Pikettsen Household, it was that there's no such thing as kindness.

Space and a few years studying psychology have shown her how neglecting a child can often be as damaging as outright abusing them.
But at the time, she simply thought that her family was teaching her a valuable lesson.

Nobody acts for the sake of acting.
Every kindness is an expectation, and every sneer a test.

So, upon being kicked out on her 18th birthday. (No surprise by then.)
She sought to make a place for herself.
Where she wouldn't be reliant on the " kindness " of others to make it.

Of course, as an 18-year-old with little savings and no way to finish high school without a place to stay, she picked the obvious path and enlisted in the Army…

Or tried to.

It would seem the Army would rather take the 31-year-old guy who was 5'7 and weighed 300 pounds that entered ahead of her.
Then it would an athletic woman in the peak of her life who was only 5'1… on her toes.

Still, not all was lost.
She might not meet army standards (which is a thing they apparently gained at some point), but the recruiter pointed her to the Parahuman Response Team.
Who in 1988 could barely be said to exist, much less have any kind of standard for recruits, so she was brought in.

Her story for the next 13 years wasn't that different from many.
Misogyny led to spite, led to her putting in more hours and more effort, until by 2000 she had finished a Bachelor's in History of Law and been made a Senior Lieutenant in the by then much better-organized PRT.

Still, at 5 feet tall, she didn't have much field effectiveness she could afford to lose, so at 31, age was starting to become a factor, and she had begun questioning what her next step would be.

It was likely she wouldn't make it much further than being a Strike Commander for a year or two, but there were plenty of places a former Strike Commander could go, both in the PRT and not.
And then Ellisburg happened.

A combination of bad luck, incompetence, and the unclear hierarchy of having two ostensibly separate organizations tasked to deal with Parahuman matters simultaneously.

The initial response was an absolute mess.
A single PRT squad and a Ward were sent on what was thought of as a milk run to deal with some distress calls about a changer in some little town near Lake Ontario.

The absolutely panicked call for aid that was sent a few hours later, however, had gotten people moving.

That the unknown cape had been known to have killed at least dozens of people, not to mention a Ward.
And all they had to go off was the description of a "weird goblin man," and the troopers' panicked report about a Human-Master who could turn corpses into minions.

And into that were going 120 PRT Troopers under the Command of Strike Commander Morituri and herself.
Along with a bewilderingly separate 40 troopers, possibly led by the 6th Cape to use the moniker "Victor."
Though his "orders," such as they were, had mostly been summed up as "keep civilians out of the way and don't start shooting until the fighting starts."

Not that it mattered.
For all the memorials and genuine heroes of the day, including the other cape present, Ultimus, who would go on to save at least 30 lives, including Emily's own.
Victor was still the stupidest and most pointless death she'd ever seen.

Who just shakes the hand of an unknown cape, one who'd just killed a ward, no less?
A brand new Goblin, that's who.

Still, while she got out of Ellisburg and managed to bring a few dozen troopers and civilians with her, she didn't exactly manage to do it on her feet.
And while she would eventually make a nearly full recovery, she had essentially managed to hit middle age, 8 years early.

Still, she had been made Strike Commander a few years early, and would manage to keep the position at least as long as it took to either kill Rinkie or, failing that, to push him far enough north that the future quarantine zone would be free to use the more interesting munitions, rather than keeping it PC for the civvies living a few miles away.

So, 9 months later, with a body as good as it was ever going to be again, and a career that looked to be the same, she convinced her superiors to let her make that damn stupid challenge.
Still, it worked.

The Goblins had gone as mad as expected after Rinkie's death, but they had also been stuck, since Rinkie had managed to transport most of them over to René-Levasseur Island by then, in preparation to establish his little "kingdom."
So in the end, the containment zone did exist, if only for a year to make damn sure they'd gotten the last of Rinkie's monstrosities.

But that had left the PRT with something of a pickle.
Her.

Emily had a damn impressive record, even before all that Kingslayer nonsense, but at the same time, she had almost no training in anything but fieldwork and a body that had 2 years at best before she started failing the minimum requirements for said fieldwork.

Still, she wasn't an idiot, so Emily had taken the 19 months she had as a strike commander to quietly work through a master's degree through correspondence.

Which meant, in theory, she met the minimum standards of a Sub-Director.
She was over 30, highly educated, and with provable experience in both law enforcement and parahuman affairs.

Her record was impressive enough, and she's heard that Knoxville, Tennessee, had gone nearly a year without a Sub-Director.
Even if Sub-Director is where careers in the PRT go to die, they also weren't limited by short-sighted political BS like the Full-Directorships, so it wouldn't lose the Blue-Bloods anything to fob her off onto one.

Except… That's not what happened.

Not sure if she was being set up to fail or had genuinely impressed someone important, Emily suddenly found herself as the Deputy Director of the City of Chicago.
Suddenly, she was in charge of the day-to-day affairs for the PRT's largest branch in terms of numbers.

So, she did what she always does.
Pushed through on spite.

And over the course of a few years, she found out that she was once again correct to depend on her Spite.
In particular, Director Taggue was apparently thankful to have not needed to add another quarantine zone to his already overburdened workload and so had been championing her as a future Full-Director.

But, as she lacked the political networking, or old money generally required, they'd intentionally given her a Deputy-Directorship intended to be too much for her.
But. It. Wasn't.

So, in the year 2008, Emily Piggot, who'd been a nobody High-School Dropout 20 years previously, was now one of the 50 Full-Heads of the PRT and put in charge of the protection of the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and told to do it with a headquarters smack in the middle of the worst clusterfuck of a city on the East Coast.

Well, spite had taken her this far…