Ponzi (Worm/Celestial Forge)

When Courtney and I got back, we were ready to just chill out and relax the rest of the day. I also thought it was a good time for us to have lunch. Courtney had lost a fair amount of weight from all of her healing and needed some nutrition to recover. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but joined in just to give her company. I also wanted to ask her what she talked about with Amy. She said that Amy was just worried about her and kept trying to give her directions to women’s shelters and witness protection. I gave her a kiss and let her know that I was happy she didn’t feel she needed those.

Of course, life still went on, despite us not doing much. I received a delivery from that tinker who does Captain America style vita-chambers for the Elite. Apparently, the Elite has a teleporter who can be hired for inter-city delivery. Final delivery was done with Entourage’s guys and a truck. I wanted to see his work for research reasons and had given him some designs from SMAUG in exchange.

I also took this rest as an opportunity to check the internet for news. It helped to remind myself that I wasn’t the only one in the city making waves.

■​

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♦ Topic: Tinker Tech Plane Flying Around
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Posted On Mar 4th 2011:
I can't be the only one seeing this, right? There's some plane flying around Brockton Bay. It's clearly a tinker tech vehicle, but it doesn't look like Squealer's style. Thoughts?

(Showing page 2 of 31)

►Procto the Unfortunate Tinker (Not a tinker)
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
I can assure you that I had nothing to do with this. Maybe it's Ponzi's? We know he can do giant robots, so a plane wouldn’t be that much of a stretch.
►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
I think it came from what used to be Merchant territory, so maybe Squealer escaped and decided it's no longer time to be lying low?
►Brocktonite03 (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
Hey, I just took another look, and it looks like the plane is carrying some kind of bike around.
►Space Zombie
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
Brockton is weird. News at 11.
►BadSamurai
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
I definitely think it's Ponzi. It's not much of a stretch given what he's already built and where else would he test a plane but in the town where he lives?
►Laotsunn (Kyushu Survivor)
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
Space Zombie: Yeah, weird stuff happens all the time, but what else would we do? Not talk about it?
►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
It sort of looks like a Sukhoi Su-33, but a real Su-33 would've stalled from flying so slow.
►Space Zombie
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
Laotsunn: Alternatively, you could go outside and live your life instead of being on PHO all day.
Mac: It's tinker tech, since when does physics apply to tinker tech?
►Brockton_Fever
Replied On Mar 4th 2011:
Chill guys. If you must argue, can't you argue over something useful?
End of Page. 1, 2, 3, 4 ... 29, 30, 31

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♦ Topic: Max Anders Kidnapping
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Posted On Mar 5th 2011:
Not sure what the context of this is, but someone sent me a video of what looks to be a kidnapping of Max Anders. You can see the van pull into his driveway (shown from tax records here), then a bunch of normals run in, and then they come back looking a bit worse for wear, but with someone handcuffed and with a bag over their head (who sort of looks like the Max in these pictures).

(Showing page 1 of 8)

►ArchmageEin
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Oh, come on! Brockton Bay just starts to get better and this crap happens?
►Mac's Dual Rocket Propelled Grenades
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Yeah, total bullshit. Medhall is like Brockton's only big company. Here's hoping he's returned safe and sound.
►AverageAlexandros (Cape Husband)
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Don't those guys kinda look like Bastard Son's guys?
►Bagrat (Original Poster) (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
AverageAlexandros: Maybe, but why would he be all the way out here?
►SenorEel
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
I have no idea why this is happening. I just really hope I'll still get my paycheck next week.
►WagTheDog
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Yeah, let's hope the cops work fast.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Why not the Protectorate? This seems like something Dragon could solve in her sleep.
►SenorEel
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Void: I would also appreciate the Protectorate rescuing my boss.
►JWilson (Verified PRT Agent)
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
SenorEel: We usually only get involved in cape things, but I'll ask around.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 6, 7, 8

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♦ Topic: Light Show Joins the Brockton Stars
In: Boards ► Places ► America ► Brockton Bay
Squad (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Posted On Mar 5th 2011:
The Brockton Stars are proud to announce their fourth member, Light Show! She's a feisty flier, a beautiful blaster, and a heroic heroine! Expect an official unveiling at today's press conference!

(Showing page 1 of 3)

►Laser Augment
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Nice! It's always cool to see someone who likes lasers as much as me.
►SenorEel
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
The Brockton Stars are barely a week old and already have four members? They must've spent a ton of time recruiting.
►BadSamurai
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
SenorEel: Yeah, but their members aren't that impressive. The steampunk cyborg is awesome, but the other two are barely stronger than normal people. Light Show could solo the rest of the team easily.
►Laser Augment
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
SenorEel, BadSamurai: Regardless, this is something to celebrate! More heroes are always good.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Isn't she obviously Purity?
►GstringGirl
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Void: Come on, why would Purity join a hero group, when the Empire she spent the last decade in is right next door?
►BadSamurai
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
No, I think he's right. If Purity wanted to leave the Empire, but didn't want to go very far some new hero team desperate for recruits would be a perfect place to go for protection.
►Squad (Original Poster) (Verified Cape)
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Laser Augment: I'll make sure she hears your appreciation.
For the record, I would like to deny unequivocally the suggestion that Light Show has any relation to Purity. This is a distraction from the hard work of helping Brockton Bay.
►XxVoid_CowboyxX
Replied On Mar 5th 2011:
Squad: Of course, you would say that.
End of Page. 1, 2, 3

■​

Those threads were actually pretty interesting to me, and my new power was only a momentary distraction. Even if Max Anders isn’t actually Kaiser, he’s still someone important to the Empire and shouldn’t be a pushover. I, also, shouldn’t need to explain why the Empire wouldn’t just let Purity join another group. It seems like the Elite went after the Empire pretty hard. There’s a decent chance that they will drag me in, and I’ll feel the aftershocks regardless.

With that unhappy revelation, I decided to enjoy my lazy afternoon with Courtney in case I was busy in the future. We pounded out the first two seasons of Cape Adventure Squad. I had not heard of the show before, but it was supposed to be a parody of those cheesy Protectorate Pals cartoons for children, and Courtney said it was good. We also made a drinking game out of it, which we wound down after we ordered some pizza for dinner.

I could tell after the season two finale that Courtney would fall asleep if I let her, that meant right then was the last chance for her to drink the vial if we didn’t want to put it off for another day. Putting it off for another day seemed like a bad move, since there was always the possibility of a crisis happening that I needed her power to solve. The first step of that was to go to the Laboratorium and check on it. The results were interesting. The vial didn’t actually have the ability to grant superpowers. It was closer to a trans-dimensional locator beacon. The substance they made it out of was also pretty interesting, it was definitely crystal, but behaved like organic life. If I had a spare vial, I would definitely want to try tracing that locator beacon and maybe even doing destructive testing on it, but that seemed really expensive. I’d at least want to upgrade my knowledge of dimensional science before I did any in-depth research.

I thought it might be useful to compare the lab results to Cauldron’s instructions, but it wasn’t. The instructions were just instructions. They contained important info like making sure the vial is well-mixed before use and not having any other cape standing within sixteen feet, but they didn’t have any details on how the vial actually worked.

With me having extracted all the knowledge I could from the vial, there was no reason to delay Courtney drinking it and plenty of reasons to accelerate it. I took the instructions and the vial in its canister over to her and she said she wanted a few minutes to psych herself up first.

I took those minutes to get ready. The instructions said for capes to stand away from the drinker, but there weren’t any warnings about the drinker standing in the middle of a bunch of sensors. I set up on the other side of the store with a few sensors. I also had modified the “Privacy Please” sign that I used to prevent thinkers from spying on me to have a timer which could be used to temporarily turn it off. I suspected the vial might have trouble inside an anti-Thinker field, so I wanted to have it temporarily turned off when Courtney drank it. It would reactivate after about a minute, so it wasn’t that big of a vulnerability.

Eventually, we were both ready. I activated the timers and the sensors and gave Courtney the signal. She chugged it in one gulp, just like the instructions suggested, and then we settled in to wait. She started screaming after a few seconds, but I didn’t recognize that as anything wrong, since the instructions said it might hurt. However, when a flash of silver light cut off the screaming, that’s when I really knew something had gone wrong. I just had to hope it didn’t go too far wrong.

When the glow faded, I realized that my hopes were in vain. There was a hole in reality that had sliced through some of my sensors and a bit of the floor. Within that hole was a floating, Courtney-shaped mass of silver light.

“COURTNEY!” I yelled as I rushed forward.

“Hmm?” She said as I came to a stop a few feet from her.

“Sorry, I was just freaked out,” I said, hopefully, “but maybe you have a breaker state?”

The silver mass undulated a bit, almost as if it was trying to look at itself, before I heard a scream come from it.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” I said. “This will be easier to deal with if you just take a few deep breaths.”

“Deal with it?” She shouted. “How am I supposed to deal with being a glowing blob?”

“I guess trying to turn back isn’t working?” I said.

“Of course not,” she said, “that was the first thing I tried.”

“I’ll have to think about what to do then.” I said.

“It should be obvious.” She said. “FIX ME!” She shouted, and I got an unnatural urge to do just that. I felt a rush of power as her command settled into my mind and gained the ability to process raw adamantine into adamantine strands that I could sew into clothing or smelt into wafers. That was reasonably useful, especially if I can use Waste Not to substitute other material for raw adamantine, but its secondary ability which let me recover from failure better was probably going to be more useful. I knew letting her get a Master vial was a bad idea, but at least this came with some benefits. Still, orders are orders.

I started trying to cure her by walking her to an open spot in my lab and then surrounding her with scanners. Her new body wasn’t even really a body. It was more like a projection made of this energized silver. I could remove some of her silver, but that was both painful for her and useless since the material faded away once it got more than a few inches from her body. As for her senses, I had no idea how she was seeing or hearing, but she said she could see and hear through her body’s surface. That made putting an illusion on her complicated. An illusion of normal skin would go on her easily, but it would be hard for her to see through it and even a partial illusion would be very distracting.

Trying surgery on her didn’t work. Anesthetics didn’t work on her and I couldn’t remove anything without hurting her and the removed part disappearing. My sensors saw nothing within her besides undifferentiated silver. I switched to trying transformation techniques since surgery had failed utterly. None of Leet’s transformation gadgets worked on her at first, but when I had enough experience using them, I switched them to work on silver instead. That got them to mostly work, but her body would quickly rearrange herself back to normal. She thought that being rearranged like that was painful, so I didn’t want to continue trying. I would probably need to customize the gadgets to work on her energized silver if I wanted to make any lasting changes that way. I wasn’t enthusiastic about that customization, since it would almost require torturing her with failed attempts.

I could feel Courtney’s power compelling me to do something to fix her, but the ideas I had worked on were dead-ends at that point. The greatest expert on mutant monsters I’ve met was Blasto, but I made a deal with Accord not to work with him. I could already tell that Courtney’s order would compel me to break that deal, so I should find a way out of it, but for now, I needed to think of something new. I remembered giving Faultline a bunch of emails about case 53s that I stole from the NY PRT. I reviewed those since Courtney was if not exactly a case 53, at least pretty close.

The reading took a while, long enough that I could start to feel Courtney’s command fade and become less powerful, but not long enough to free me. The compulsion didn’t matter anyway, since I would try to fix Courtney even without it. The reading was pretty depressing. No cape with a healing power had ever healed a case 53’s mutations, plastic surgery only very rarely works, and the only treatment that seems to work are Trump effects to fix the case 53s power. Even with Trump effects, they have only treated minor mutations successfully.

My power again tried to give me a power I already had, but I felt good about that since I suspected my power gave me stronger powers the longer it takes to find a suitable power and I wasn’t expecting curing case 53s to be easy.

I called Faultline to talk to her about it.

“Eugh…” Faultline said, “It’s like four in the morning!”

“Sorry about that, I can call back later.” I said.

“You already woke me up, so just make it quick.” She said.

“Essentially, I’m trying to cure a case 53 and wanted to see if you wanted to help.” I said.

“I’ll get back to you in the morning, but I’ll likely say yes. I will bring the crew with me, but what exactly do you want me to do to help.” She said.

“Thanks, I just thought that you know more than me, so you might be able to point out what I’m missing.” I said. “If you know anyone that could help, feel free to spread the word. Bye now.”

I was almost tempted to create a PHO thread announcing my research project to cure case 53s and asking for assistance, but I decided to be a bit more subtle. I had already told Faultline to spread the word. Getting Entourage’s help would probably work best in-person. It would only be the start of them paying me back for what happened to Courtney, though. I finished by sending a message to Citrine saying that I would be working to cure case 53s, telling her that I would likely need to work with Blasto, and asking if Accord had anything to contribute.

When I felt like I had done everything I could at my lab, I remembered that I had another lab. The one the Elite gave me might have something relevant to this, and if not, I might as well find that out now. I got the key and directions for it last night, so I just needed to guide Courtney into the back seat and drive.

Citrine got back to me on the way. Accord still doesn’t want me working with Blasto, but he’s willing to provide samples of Blasto’s work and has a case 53 ally who is looking for treatment that he’s willing to pay room and board for. I sent back a tentative acceptance and request for details.

The Elite lab was great, much better than anything I ever expected to have outside my dimension. It was under a factory that was in the middle of being refurbished. I had a private loading dock with a locked and reinforced door. It might be a stretch to have it pass jets and titans, but it’s definitely big enough to pass normal trucks. Inside was the part that really impressed me. It almost looked like the Elite bought one of every piece of industrial equipment they could. Aside from the standard lathes and furnaces, there were also tools for circuitry, surgery, and cooking. Off to the side, they even had a reasonably sized apartment and office space. Courtney collapsed on the apartment’s bed as soon as she saw it. I made a note to call Entourage and thank her for the setup in the morning.

Just as I finished inventory, I got a call.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Hello, Ponzi.” A woman said. “I’m with Cauldron. I just wanted to express my deep sorrow at what happened overnight.”

“Yes,” I said, “I’m sure you only turned my girlfriend into the Silver Surfer by accident! That’s so much better!”

“I know there’s nothing we can truly do to earn your forgiveness,” she said, “but we’re willing to forgive Courtney’s favor and give you some of our notes on deviants to help you with your work.”

“That’s not good enough.” I said. “What I want is for her to be human again.”

“That’s something you’ll have to figure out on your own,” she said, “but we can sweeten the deal. We can arrange for Courtney to ‘go missing’ in a way that implicates neither your civilian nor cape identities. That way, when you do fix her, she can return and slip back into her old life.”

“I think I still want more.” I said, although Courtney’s order was pushing me to accept the offered deal.

“The only thing else I can offer is our permission to work with Faultline to cure case 53s.” She said. “The only condition is that you can’t let them know about Cauldron.”

“Fine.” I said before hanging up. The sound of a crate hitting on the ground surprised me from behind, but I quickly realized it was the research notes from Cauldron. A lot of my screw-ups in life were things that I could just recover and move on from immediately, but at that point, I realized this wasn’t something I could move past and it would take time to recover.

ARC END

Spoiler: Courtney’s Power

Her power is to give people orders. Targets feel compelled to follow the order, but receive a Thinker power to help them. In Ponzi’s case, he just receives a boost to his power’s progression. Compulsion lasts until the target completes the task or discovers it’s impossible. The granted power wears out after a reasonable amount of time for you to do the task. At first, compulsion is all-consuming, but it weakens over time. In the end, the target does not need to be working on the task 24/7, but must occasionally work on it and can’t go out of their way to sabotage the order’s fulfillment. Courtney can’t give people new orders until their old orders are either completed or invalidated.

The silver blob thing is just a case-53 style deviation. It’s basically a permanent breaker state. She can talk and fly about as fast as a person can run. Her senses are mildly enhanced, but barely beyond a Thinker 1 level.

Spoiler: Celestial Forge Bookkeeping

Leftover wc: 273
Wordcount: 3634 + 1000
Excess: 907

Craftsman – Dwarf Fortress (100 CP):

You gain the needed knowledge to perform a particular craft, be it farming, cooking, leather working or so on.
This Perk can be taken multiple times to better prepare you for what's to come.
You start as Skilled in the chosen skills: Adamantine Strand Extractor

Losing is FUN – Dwarf Fortress (Free):

"Losing Is Fun" refers to the inevitable destruction of your fortress, whether by goblins, elves, kobolds, humans, demons, and more! It really is what keeps many players going, wondering what will destroy their new masterpiece. And you too can now know how to have FUN. You learn to accept that sooner or later you will fail but you’ve also learned how to move past it. You can embrace your failures to learn from them and gain a deeper insight into how to not fail as badly as next time. As an added bonus, no matter how hard you are failing you can always find some amusement in it and laugh.

Saved 100 CP -> 100 CP