:
Saturday 26th November 2010
I wake up screaming.
Not from a nightmare this time, oh no.
Remember that charge the forge was building up?
It just decided to expend itself all at once into my brain.
WHILE I WAS SLEEPING!
600CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Crafting Biotech – Success!
Guardian Angel – Overwatch – 600CP
0CP Remain
My brain is melting.
Legitimately
I just lived the entire life of a career doctor and surgeon of unparalleled skill in the space of thirty minutes of screaming.
Head of a hospital before 18, Creator of medical technology so advanced that people believe it is legitimately magic. No-one in the known world capable of matching her skill in her areas of expertise.
No-one until now.
Encyclopaedic medical knowledge, mechanically precise hands for surgery. Impossible standards of medical technology. Grandmaster of nanobiology. Staves that can regenerate and heal at range, The ability to slow the rate of aging. A form of battlefield resurrection. Flight capable semi powered armour for healing around a battlefield.
I was already knowledge wise, a pretty good if limited doctor. Between the knowledge of genetics and biology from Magos Genetic Engineering and my ability to implant and convert cybernetics and cyborgs from Cybernetics I already had a lot of the theoretical knowledge covered.
This, however, Is an entirely different level of ability and knowledge and more importantly, experience.
I am Mercy, I am Archon, I am Mercy, I am Archon
I am ThomasHaleAngelaZiegerThomasHaleAngelaZiegerThomasHaleAngelaZieger
I slap myself in the face. I look in the reflection coming from one of the armours silver plates.
I see a black-haired young man|blonde haired woman looking back.
I slap myself again.
It actually helps this time; the memories start to slot into place as EFA starts to soothe me.
"Boss, it's ok, come back to me. They aren't your memories; they're just integrating into your brain and expanding into brand new neuron activity. Don't lose yourself in there."
As soon as it begins, it begins to soothe. The memories start pulling back, like waves lapping from an outgoing tide, leaving behind impersonal memories of learning, and the skills honed over a lifetime of hospital and battlefield healing.
I am Thomas Hale.
I cringe and wait for the psychic shock of a second set of memories again.
It doesn't come, the forge has changed me forever with all the mechanical precision and care of someone putting their socks on in the morning.
I feel, distorted, not quite right.
I need to get some equilibrium. I'm worried now about the deeper perks. This was If I remember correctly a 600.
What will happen to me when I get an 800?
Hell, there are 2000s and greater in there somewhere. What happens to me when I pull one of those?
Will I even be me anymore? I already feel different. I wasn't someone prone to killing before anyway, but now? I never took a Hippocratic oath and yet those principles are now up there in my head warring with the fact that I may need to take actions that go directly against them to save the world. The mental war between a pragmatist who already decided to sacrifice some of his principles to retain his humanity, and a pre-eminent healer of people who advocates always for peace.
The memories are now gone, that light feminine touch upon my psyche that was only there for a moment but felt like decades. And I feel like I both gained and lost something of immense importance. A trade in souls I never agreed to.
We are all products of our experiences, so if I keep gaining decades of experience in mere minutes, what will I become?
With trillions upon trillions of lives at stake, and me taking the slightest nudge towards the first step of the staircase to pseudo godhood, is it selfish of me to still want to remain me?
But if I get caught up in pseudo-philosophical feeling sorry for myself, I will never get anywhere.
The trillions come later. For now, I'm struggling to find a way to save one measly territory in the asshole of the northeast United States.
I can only become what I am. Nothing more.
I take a relaxed morning. I was going to work on my generator straight away, but I am still discombobulated from the mornings events. I decide to perform my usual workout and bloodletting to get my stimpak routine running.
The fresh medical knowledge in my head informs me that I need to eat much more Iron and B-12 than I am to replenish the blood I am losing.
Shut up brain, the stimpaks convert what I need into blood. Funnily enough that actually works and the medical knowledge in my head self-updates to account for stimpaks. I'll probably need to also do similar with medi-gel and the healing food from the cookpot.
Not to mention Hypatia's potions. Damn I really need to take some time out on alchemy for myself rather than dumping a clone on it and absorbing memories of it. I feel like I'm missing out even though I get the memories anyway.
Speaking of which, my clone yesterday managed to make up some good paralytics, soporifics and tranquilizers. The medical scientist in my head insists on testing. I'll use myself as a guinea pig later.
Ok, much later.
How do you side eye your own brain? Elaborate series of mirrors maybe? I could probably rig something up with a few of my perks.
So on to the generator. I finished up most of the components last night. I create a shadow clone with orders to assist me in order to finish the housing. For now I'm going to mount it centrally in the warehouse and run cabling through to the forge/cybernetics workshop. This will finally allow me to use my Cybernetics workshop and set up or build some of the machines I bought parts for earlier in the week.
Some of them will be slightly redundant given what I have access to in my cybernetics workshop but if me and my clone are ever working on a project together, well you can never have too many machines.
Fabricating the final parts with the omni tool, I am thankful that I had created the circuit boards last night by hand, as doing so allowed me to scan and blueprint them so I can fabricate them going forward.
Progress!
Me and clone run into a few issues. Like how two of us will load the reactor core with only one set of power armour, however after rigging up a pulley we manage to get it all seated.
It looks, well it looks intimidating, artistic architect has pulled some weight here. All hard lines and glowing rectangles.
But you don't spend half your money making a generator because of how it looks.
Me and the clone initialise the start-up sequence, I am extremely glad I have him because this would have likely been near impossible without. We load up the fuel cells and catalyse the reaction.
A pleasant hum enters the air as the reactor kicks in to life.
We have power in the workshop! Finally! No more stupid emergency lighting for me.
I quickly dispel the clone and recast the technique.
I get the clone started off on the next project. 4 mini reactors using the leftover heavy water. Well not so much "mini" as normal size as they are typically used for powering cybernetics. It's time to plan some real armour upgrades.
Plus, I just gained a tech that will allow me to fly!
I move to the nearby table and decide to spend a few hours drafting upgrades for my current suit, and the layout for my next set of armour. I won't be cannibalising my current armour for this project, this is a completely separate project.
My current set of armour will be adapted to be my primary patrol and combat armour. This is the man-to-man combat suit for combat with the gangs and parahumans up to mid tier. I'm naming it the THOR.
The THOR armour will continue with the lightning weapon aesthetic, working with tasers, electrified weapons and overpowering strength. In future once I get access to better materials, or even fantasy metamaterials from the forge, this suit will be developed to be my duellist suit. Capable with 1v1 combat with almost any parahuman on the planet.
I quickly draft out a few sets of theoretical upgrades, an antigravity core to allow for flight, I'm a long way from being able to make this even with my new workstations, but this suit will benefit from this form of flight most of all. I draft up plans for plasma upgrades to the sword, to truly open new echelons of anti-brute action. Plans for probeless tasers with build in safeties are next, followed by a series of nano-upgrades for the actuators. Finally, a portable foldable railgun for ranged encounters is theorised, and I can make this particular weapon work with only what I have access to now albeit at a lesser power than if I had better materials.
It's all currently theoretical work, I'll have a clone run viability studies later but from my initial research it should all be mostly viable.
Finally I move on to metamaterial analysis. Using the scanner in the Omni Tool combined with the fab, in addition to my new diagnostic computer in the Cyber Workshop, I manage to come up with a few novel compounds, one of them an interesting artificial resin that remains relatively flexible when cured but retains immense deflective strength. I put a reminder on my omni-tool to have a clone start fabrication on the tools to make this in decent quantities. I could theoretically make it in the alchemy lab but not in bulk.
Then it's time to leverage Guardian Angel along with its synergy with my other perks to plan out a truly separate project.
I've always enjoyed being a healer in games, it's a unique form of pressure that feels altogether different to the other roles for me.
I'm not going to 1-1 the Caduceus staff, but I'm most definitely going to leverage nanobiology healing at range. This will be a large part of my identity in future. "Archon the miracle healer" has a nice ring to it, and mass healing at range will be a huge gamechanger for S-Class threats and Endbringers.
With that in mind I start to draft my next set of armour. The weapons can wait, the staff I won't even be able to make in short scale as it requires me to work with nanobiology which has a growth time requirement. They aren't "nanomachines" more "nanoscale directed organics" that cannot do anything other than follow basic standing orders without the direction of specific technology that Mercy created. The technology creates an adaptable carrier wave between the projector and the target, through which nanobiotics are applied en masse. They can be used to heal, and also to enhance temporarily.
My theme of "budget bay parahumans" continues. Othala this time.
Although in this case, Othala will be more a budget me.
The forge fails to grab a perk, but I barely pay it any mind
100CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Failed!
After this morning I am not enthused about the idea of growing a huge charge any time soon, so I hope the next one is successful.
Continuing on nanobiotics, this form of healing is even more all-encompassing than medi-gel or even the stimpaks. I can theoretically heal *anything* with this. Although a large portion of the healing is directed directly by the user. You have to know what you are doing and what you want to do.
Skin Regeneration? Easy.
Regrowing that heart valve because you ate yourself into a heart attack? Hard.
Rolling back an invasive cancer that has metastasized? Very very difficult.
I write out a list of things I will need to create the nanobiotics, I can synthesise some of the things I need in my Cybernetics lab and the omni tool can pull some weight too, but I will need to create a completely sterilised tank to seed the initial growth of them. They can reproduce under specific user direction and with biologic material as fuel so once I have seeded them I shouldn't need to seed any more. The best part of using them is unless destroyed they don't ever get used up unless destroyed. They simply return to the projector to refuel off electricity or biologic material before going out in the next carrier wave.
You can lose them if healing is aborted early, but they instantly die and get absorbed by the body if this happens.
Mercy kept the well of nanobiotics in her staff.
I plan to keep them stored partially inside whatever projector I make, but mostly inside my own body in symbiosis.
They can be used for self-directed regeneration too. The procedure too risky for Mercy to perform on herself. She was the only healer good enough to heal her if something went wrong, so she went with a weaker self-directed carrier wave.
I, however, have a forge backed perk that guarantees any self-modification to be to succeed regardless of how risky. Sometimes it's good to be me.
The armour will focus on mobility more than anything else. The wing projectors will be scaled down slightly but the wings themselves will be lengthened. I think I should be able to pull out a deep crimson red colour for the wings. The armour will be full body, red with gold and white highlights. No face helmet on this one, a red and white visor with the halo tech integrated, completely opaque from the outside and transparent from the inside.
I have to use the halo tech, as it's required to use the biotic interface technology.
The primary weapon will be a biotic rifle that allows me to attack with chemical and biological agents. Mostly my syringes from the Fallout alchemy as well as buffing and debuffing alchemy potions. My staff will be double sided, one side will be the projector for the heal or buff carrier wave, and the other side will be a light railgun capable of impressive throughput. The staff will of course double as a melee weapon.
This loadout will be called "ARCHANGEL". Mercy went with Valkyrie, but I don't think I can pull that off.
It is an extremely ambitious project. The nanobiotics alone will take a mass amount of development. The halo tech for the mental control of the biotics, the new metamaterials to keep myself safe so they don't just "target the healer".
This project will make me a legend. This armour isn't really for parahuman combat at all. It's the search and rescue armour, the keep people alive suit. This is my first draft of tech I will be deploying in personally for combat against Endbringers.
It should hit me harder than it has, but after the morning I had, it feels almost… banal.
After six hours of pure design work, research and drafting, I need some fresh air before my next actual crafting project.
I decide to go shopping. In my civvies. Give EFA chance to connect out to the outside world and work on her projects while I pick up some decent clothes and grab a haircut, get a meal I didn't make, and generally just spend a little time relaxing.
Going out to the city feels a lot different when you actually have cash.
I throw on the nicest of my clothes and my only decent jacket. Put on the matter manipulator gauntlet for just in case. omni tool + manipulator will allow me to escape from 95% of the situations I can envision.
I step out of the door in a public bathroom just off the boardwalk. The first time I've been out without a mask or armour in what feels like forever.
Walking through downtown, I can't help but reflect on my progress in the last few weeks. My initial time in the bay was rudderless. Paralysed by fear and unable to really progress myself or the forge.
It almost feels bittersweet. Even without having a legal existence I've gone from vagrant waster, to up-and-coming hero. From being utterly destitute, to having multiple sources of income.
I feel like I'm only really scratching the tip of the iceberg in progress even with what I have already rolled. But I commit myself to not rushing. I have plans to fulfil, and roughly 45 days until Taylor should be triggering. As long as I can get THOR and ARCHANGEL completed, I should be able to deal with a large amount of what early canon can throw at me. If the story even progresses the same now, I've introduced my own butterfly to the mix.
The lack of interference from Coil is also making me nervous. Leaving me alone doesn't match his personality profile. I might have to manufacture a collision between myself and the Undersiders soon if only to get some insight.
Tattletale worries me, but not as much as Coil.
Shaved, with a fresh hair cut, and new clothes I look at my reflection in a nearby window. I don't look like myself anymore. I'm healthy, well built. I don't look I'll anymore.
I finally feel like I'm moving on from getting in my own way.
A quick fast-food meal later gives me the realisation that the magical cooking pot has utterly ruined standard food for me. I still find comfort in a handful of bread and grease, however.
I'm about to move on when EFA pings me.
"Boss, I've finished my infiltration of the local government systems. There are thirteen unaccounted for social security numbers I can use to generate an identity for you. I can use this to legitimise anything else missing as a local paperwork error. The ID systems seem to be decentralised so setting you up here should be able to feed up the chain."
"Ok, good work EFA, do you need anything my end to continue?"
"No, but the best fit for your age and circumstance is one Aiden Smith, seems he was killed in a boardwalk shooting incident, but the death certificate was misfiled and he is still counted as *alive*. I can delete the certificate and assign his ID to you. He died young with no biometrics on file so I can fill them with your own from here. I will then file for a change of name for you in order to match your proper name. I will have to intercept the upload to the central database of the name change and instead modify the file header to a correction instead. This will legitimise your name."
"Any living family?"
"No, his mother died in childbirth, his father in a gang related incident not long after his death. Both sets of grandparents are dead, no siblings or cousins. plus once the name change goes through, there won't even be a family name connection. I will also fabricate a family connection in England to legitimise your accent."
"OK EFA, please go ahead with the hack."
"OK Boss, you will need to stay out connected to the internet for at least three hours for me to complete the job."
Well, that won't be too much of a hardship I think.
I head down to a local arcade and play a few games. The gaming scene is weird here. With no Nintendo or Japanese games at all really the arcade scene is a lot more homogenous.
It's relaxing to get outside of the forge like this, I'll have to do it more often.
I head out and walk the evening boardwalk. Being out here among regular people just going about their lives
I swing by a few pawn shops and hobby shops to grab some small quantities of common crafting materials that my forge doesn't come with such as glass, crystal, clay. I'll need them for the nanobiotic project.
Before I even know it, the sun is setting. I decide to sit outside a nice restaurant and order treat myself to a nice dinner.
I pull up my phone and browse PHO while I wait.
Apparently I have a capewatch thread! EFA did mention she would summarise my presence on the web if I asked but seeing this myself for the first time is an experience.
There are a lot of pictures of me from my various times in public. They have me in my original knight armour, the new powered armour. And even a distant shot of me in my undersuit and mask from somewhere.
I decide on a whim to make a cape account and "Archon_Official" is available.
Not 5 minutes later I get a DM
Tin_Mother: Hi Archon_Official – Please note that cape names followed by official are reserved for the cape in question, please submit proof of ID within 6 hours or the account will be forcibly renamed.
Archon_Official: Noted thanks Tin_mother, I'll get some pictures up from my workshop later and send them over.
Tin_Mother: Thank you. Please note you won't be able to post in the boards until verified.
Archon_Official: That's fine thanks.
I amuse myself browsing the boards on my PRT phone.
My capewatch thread is a hoot. People can't classify me. I'm apparently – Tinker: WTF given my proven abilities up to now. And someone has a sweet video of my power dropping Mush from the sky.
I quickly save a gif of it. That's so being my avatar when I get approved.
I eat slowly, savouring the cool nights air and my meal, while dropping in and out of threads about myself.
In no time at all it feels, EFA is finished.
"All done boss. Can't guarantee it holds up to scrutiny, but it's about as real as anyone could make."
"Thanks, EFA."
I finally have a legitimate ID. And this opens some incredible opportunities for me.
For one, I can get legitimate housing. Even legitimate jobs not that I need them.
But most importantly, I can now work towards building a civilian identity.
I have taken the next step towards opening my own company.
I head back out and make my way to a door for extraction back to the workshop.
And the forge gets my attention again.
200CP are available.
Attempting Expansion!
Vehicles – Success!
Black Thumb – Mad Max Gauntlet – 100CP
100CP remain
Attempting Expansion!
Toolkit Mundane – Success!
Chemical Synthesizer – Hive Queen Quest – 100CP
0CP remain!
Two very useful, interesting and above all, non brain melting perks.
Black thumb makes me a master mechanic. I can now repair, maintain and tune vehicles to an impressive degree. I already had a lot of base mechanical knowledge, and this will sync up and allow me to make and maintain vehicles to a much higher standard.
Chemical Synthesizer is a microwave sized machine added to my workshop, that allows me to synthesize up to 350ml of any non-magical chemical per hour. Unfortunately, I can't use it to make blood for the stimpaks as blood isn't considered a chemical.
It will be very useful for making chemical elements I need in future if I need things such as heavy water, however.
After spending this evening outside of the forge I've decided I spend far too much time in there.
I'm going to spend some more time out and about seeing the city, patrolling.
And I still need to strategize how to save the merchant territory from the gangs if I free it from Skidmark.
I head back into the forge, and I'm satisfied with the day. I have completed power generation for the workshop, had my world utterly rocked by a perk, then leveraged said perk to plot two separate paths of upgrades to plan for my future.
I quickly snap a picture of myself fully armoured up in front of some of my tools holding a sign that has my username on it. I stick my head out of the workshop and quickly DM it over to Tin_Mother. That should take care of my approval.
I head back into bed, but not after creating a fresh shadow clone to work on viability testing my previous plans. I'll grab those memories in the morning.
Tomorrow we patrol and look for opportunities in my civilian guise to legitimise myself as a citizen of the city.
Notes:
Perks gained this chapter -
Guardian Angel - Overwatch – 600CP – Crafting Biotech
Doctor Angel Zieger, also known as Mercy, was renowned as an unparalleled medical genius even in her teens, being recruited to the medical division of Overwatch before she was even 18 and becoming the head of a hospital even before that. Her medical skills have literally brought the dead back to life and her technology is so advanced that it seems like magic. there is no one in the world able to even compare to her in her area of expertise. No one, that is, save for you. Your base medical knowledge is encyclopedic, your hands are almost mechanically accurate when performing surgery. Your technology is advanced to almost impossible standards, including things such as a staff that can engage a healing stream to rapidly regen people from a distance. Your knowledge may even allow you to slow the rate of aging.
Black Thumb - Mad Max Gauntlet – 100CP - Vehicles
You have the skills of an expert mechanic, able to keep vehicles running even in the most inhospitable conditions. Repairing and tuning up engines is your bread and butter, even while they're still operating. You also have a feel for how to upgrade cars in more esoteric ways; hey, it takes skill to add that many spikes and not hurt the handling!
Chemical Synthesizer - Hive Queen Quest – 100CP - Toolkit Mundane
This microwave sized machine is truly a wonder of modern science, able to synthesize any non-magical chemical known to man in up to 12 oz batches. Synthesizing a chemical takes roughly an hour and works via a small Tablet interface.
* A bit under-priced for any matter creator, even with the small volume and time needed, born from lacking knowledge that ever matter falls under chemical.
+50 PRCP Gained
200PRCP rolling!
Success!
Extranet! – 200PRCP
Extranet (Personal Reality) 200: This handy add on connects your Personal Reality with the local Data Networks of the Universe you're currently in… not only that, but it gets the kind of performance only really ever seen by ISPs at their hubs. If your current Reality of Residence does not have a Data Network, this will connect to the nearest equivalent.. yes, even if that is nothing more than a town gossip and a local library.