• The site has now migrated to Xenforo 2. If you see any issues with the forum operation, please post them in the feedback thread.
  • Due to issues with external spam filters, QQ is currently unable to send any mail to Microsoft E-mail addresses. This includes any account at live.com, hotmail.com or msn.com. Signing up to the forum with one of these addresses will result in your verification E-mail never arriving. For best results, please use a different E-mail provider for your QQ address.
  • For prospective new members, a word of warning: don't use common names like Dennis, Simon, or Kenny if you decide to create an account. Spammers have used them all before you and gotten those names flagged in the anti-spam databases. Your account registration will be rejected because of it.
  • Since it has happened MULTIPLE times now, I want to be very clear about this. You do not get to abandon an account and create a new one. You do not get to pass an account to someone else and create a new one. If you do so anyway, you will be banned for creating sockpuppets.
  • Due to the actions of particularly persistent spammers and trolls, we will be banning disposable email addresses from today onward.
  • The rules regarding NSFW links have been updated. See here for details.

Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Reader mode
gustyeagle said:
She has both of her hands chopped off, and has been targeted by almost all of them, Taylor couldn't escape them if she killed herself right now.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I mean, I don't think they could do anything if she just flew away in a straight line. Jack wasn't even there when she woke up so she could have just Pattern Spider Touched Bonesaw. I don't think Taylor needs her hands for anything.

Without Cherish they have no special tracking ability unless Bonesaw put some traps in Taylor.
 
Daniel Snuts said:
"Sworn... not to... say." Then she abruptly stops laughing, looking completely poleaxed. Without another word she scrambles to her feet and staggers out the door.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Any idea what that's about? When did that happen?

About Faultline's necklace, what did it do exactly?

Also, Flechette, there's still a bit of Crawler left... I'm sure it won't cause any problem later on.
 
JustCurious said:
Any idea what that's about? When did that happen?

About Faultline's necklace, what did it do exactly?

Also, Flechette, there's still a bit of Crawler left... I'm sure it won't cause any problem later on.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I'm pretty sure Aisha described the wound on Taylor's abdomen and Evil Taylor concluded that the wolf baby was killed.
 
PlasticSoldier said:
I'm pretty sure Aisha described the wound on Taylor's abdomen and Evil Taylor concluded that the wolf baby was killed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh. OH.

Wasn't Evil Taylor cloned when Taylor was pregnant? What does that mean for herself? Is that why she's acting like that? And what would the consequence be for Ylva's clone?
 
Bets for the next chapter?

Jack mentionned leaving, it looks likely given the carnage that this visit has been and the fact that Taylor passed all the tests. Bonesaw will probably implant her full of control tinkertech that in no way will come back to bite Taylor in the ass, then she'll try to copy their powers only for Jack to somehow counter her in the most inconveniencing way possible. Like, accept the implants while betting that Bonesaw's powers will allow her to get rid of them, only for Bonesaw's copied powers to not work that way or have Jack make sure Bonesaw does not tinker where Taylor might see her. I can definitely imagine the latter option, it's a good way to string Taylor along and keep her compliant. That means Taylor would only get to copy Jack's power for sure, even if he can make it take a lot of time.

Evil Taylor can't shapeshift, so she's stuck with being Taylor. Her short term future rather depends on whether Poltergeist's identity leaks. She can't learn new powers either, except if there's a loophole in her contracts. She may be pregnant, in which case both Taylor and she will want to protect the baby (I think), which I can't see going well with Evil Taylor's boner for ruining everything precious to Taylor.

Then there's Shadow Stalker. If Regent is actually dead, she pretty much doesn't have any chance at getting revenge on Taylor (other than leaking Poltergeist's identity, just to make sure that everyone knows that there's a shapeshifting power copying Trump in the walking Kill Order trove), and no chance at joining the good guys again. She'll probably flee and disappear, or do something very, very stupid and get herself killed (or kill Evil Taylor, or -haha- do a Mannequin on Evil Taylor. That would be tragic). I can see Evil Taylor using her to leak intel on Taylor, just to make sure that the Original gets a Big Fat Bounty on her head.

I wonder what Trouser's planning.

EDIT:
Zax Zaubererglück said:
Taylors evil clone just turned loyal. This is amazing. I love it.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
You're RIGHT! Shadow Stalker and Evil Taylor's soul prices have been fulfilled! (Well, minus the potential detail of whether she holds Aisha dear, and of whether Taylor herself has to die). Oh, my, I can't wait to see how that shakes out.
 
Last edited:
Yeah the fact that she already expects Bonesaw to put involuntary tinkertech in her makes this even weirder. It's as if she would let Bakuda put a bomb in her head so she could study the ABB's powers.
 
ses said:
?

Power nullifying doesn't work on oaths/VEE debts. And I don't see how any of her oaths would be negated. Being Unacceptable Orders wouldn't do it since they both would have noticed it fail to attach in the first place. Not sure what's going on here.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Taylor killed her own father. The last piece/attachment she still had. There is nothing left, that she really cared about and she destroyed him/it herself.

Taylor might have fulfilled evil clone Taylors soul price. To destroy Taylor utterly. The charm requires participation by Taylor, which did happen.

Additionally, evil clone Taylors motivation can from a certain point of view also be seen as completed. She 'looses' the old one and is free to get a new one.

Taylors evil clone just turned loyal. This is amazing. I love it.
 
zapking5 said:
Yeah the fact that she already expects Bonesaw to put involuntary tinkertech in her makes this even weirder. It's as if she would let Bakuda put a bomb in her head so she could study the ABB's powers.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I could understand that if Bonesaw's soul price was achievable, since Mastering the biotinker is a way to minimize the risk, but at it is... Yeah, Taylor doesn't seem rational right now. I don't remember if she's able to analyse what individual pieces of Tinkertech do, but it seems she's more or less able to do that, right? Also, maybe she can use her own Tinker powers to come up with a counter to Bonesaw's implants.
So, it's incredibly risky, but not completely suicidal.
 
Zax Zaubererglück said:
Taylor might have fulfilled evil clone Taylors soul price. To destroy Taylor utterly. The charm requires participation by Taylor, which did happen.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Oh fuck. Wait no she has to watch Taylor die screaming. That doesn't work. (Also she still has a positive intimacy towards Aisha.)
 
zapking5 said:
I mean, I don't think they could do anything if she just flew away in a straight line. Jack wasn't even there when she woke up so she could have just Pattern Spider Touched Bonesaw. I don't think Taylor needs her hands for anything.

Without Cherish they have no special tracking ability unless Bonesaw put some traps in Taylor.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Thank you for pointing out to me, why Taylors second hand was amputated. Pattern spider touch requires touching with a physical hand.
Way too dangerous for Jack. So he cut off the other hand too.

On Taylor. She is broken. 99% of her motivations are gone. Left is only greed for more powers and revenge. But the emotion of revenge values suffering of the target. Which is often opposed to clean, quick and deadly plans. Taylor is stuck and likely in Exalted 'limit break' as well as at 0 Willpower. Absolute apathy is expected here.

Your plan above should have been enacted as soon as Shatterbird was confirmed. Grab Danny and the minions, then run.
But, well, hubris. One might hope that Lisas death cured Taylor of that, but true humility requires soul searching and changing ones approach to life. Too out of character for her.

How many stories do you know, where the protagonist decides that running is the winning move and actually goes through with it?
(I can only think of The Mummy and may be miss-remembering it)
 
Zax Zaubererglück said:
Thank you for pointing out to me, why Taylors second hand was amputated. Pattern spider touch requires touching with a physical hand.
Way too dangerous for Jack. So he cut off the other hand too.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Does it specifically require a hand? When I looked it up it just said successful unarmed attack. I'd figure a kick or poking someone with a stump would work.
 
Wonder if evil Taylor went up in essence rank? Your soul price, and your motivation are generally the same thing. Getting up to E4 makes her a good deal stronger.
 
Daniel Snuts said:
Did she think the prospect of free powers would make you forget about Shadow Stalker, and what her superiors let her do? You'd rather join the Slaughterhouse 9 than the Wards.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Ayyyyyyyy





Found in the third chapter. Aware this isn't the only story where she voices this sentiment, but most don't actually force her to put her money where her mouth is!
 
It ironic, Evil Taylor doesn't even need to do anything to accomplish her goals. Taylor is already going to do them to herself.

Also, ooooh, I really want Amy and Taylor as Slaughterhouse buddies, that sounds like a lot of fun. Ah well, hopefully she can at least make friends with Riley, the cutest member of the S9
 
Am pretty sure Taylor's clones does not have any powers besides the first one and since souls price is from Lisa it would not have it

Still impressive that Taylor joined th s9 for their powers and she is still 0\9
 
zapking5 said:
I was more talking about finding Taylor. But I guess she was probably just waiting around where she talked with Shatterbird for the Siberian to find her, given how naive she has been about the Nine.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

You have to keep in mind that Cherish was their most recent recruit, and they've been doing perfectly fine without her for the entire rest of their history - including Siberian's traditional multi-day all-city hide-and-seek. I'm positing that Siberian can track people by scent.
 
zapking5 said:
Does it specifically require a hand? When I looked it up it just said successful unarmed attack. I'd figure a kick or poking someone with a stump would work.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

I get what you mean and agree. At least a stunt should let her use a headbutt or kick.

But consider this:
Daniel Snuts said:
You find and delete another rat, confirming that it is, in fact, limited to touch range. You can't even channel it through your mind-hands, you have to actually touch the rat with your actual hands. No ranged combat for you.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Taylor thinks she is limited to 'manual' use.
Therefore, Jack slash thinks her hands are the danger. They might even be right. Charms do not cleanly translate to powers.
 
B.15
  • Threadmarks
    • Keeping your conscience clean as a member of the S9 looks like it's going to be shockingly easy. Your fellows are just so eager. All you had to do as you stopped for gas was to be slightly slow to unbuckle your seatbelt. To pause and stretch as you got out of the car. By the time you catch up to the crowd, the only survivors are the ones Bonesaw called dibs on.

    You join them in ransacking the service station for snacks. It's not even theft, because the previous owners are dead through no fault of your own. Oh, what's this? Krystal KlearTM​ brand spring water? At $7.99 per carbon-neutral designer glass bottle, it's something only the most punchable hipster imaginable would buy.

    "They've got my brand!" you exclaim happily, and grab an entire pallet with a mind-hand. Yes, you're fully aware that it's chemically indistinguishable from any other potable water. But precisely because it's shunned by every human being with even the vaguest sense of fiscal responsibility or shame, it's not sold in very many places. Which gives you an excuse to lug it around.

    Any other non-crazy recruit would, you suspect, be a nervous wreck right about now. Surrounded by unstable killers, wondering which one is going to snap and turn on their comrades in a murderous frenzy. You don't have this problem, because you already know who it is.

    It's you.

    ---

    Jack's secret combat Thinker power is incredibly paranoid, you've discovered. It's constantly pinging every single member of the S9, even when you're not in a combat situation and despite you being nominal allies. It doesn't even stop when they're asleep, or when Jack is asleep.

    Which gives you a free eight hours worth of power study per day, because you don't sleep. Standing next to the people who do and staring at them all night doesn't even make you the creepiest person in the room. In that sense, joining the S9 worked out perfectly: You have more access to powers than you could possibly need.

    You say more than you need, because even if you don't need sleep, you clearly still need free time. Past a certain point your brain just zones out and stops being productive no matter how long you stare at parahumans.

    You should find a power to fix that.

    Jack's current objective appears to be padding your numbers back towards the 9 range. Rather than engage in another grand production like the one in Brockton Bay, he's simply tracking down villains who are already bloodthirsty psychos and fast-tracking their recruitment process. Your general tardiness continues to keep your hands more or less clean, and no one is expected to spend more than a token effort on testing the recruits.

    Really, your biggest issue with the S9 lifestyle so far is that you keep gaining weight. Not because of a poor diet, but because every so often Bonesaw knocks you out and installs another pound or two of metal. Not that you're complaining about free state-of-the-art subdermal armor. No, it's mostly the spinal override control harness that bothers you.

    At least she was happy to make everything shapeshifting-compatible, on the condition that you donate your body to mad science when you die. You were happy to agree, because it's not as if she wouldn't desecrate your corpse without your consent. Nor are you quite religious enough to confidently say that undeath doesn't beat the alternative.

    ---

    Fun fact: Jack doesn't have two powers. His knife-beams are actually the same kind of 'ping' his Thinker power uses to keep track of threats, just with a million times the power behind them.

    You figured that out two days ago, but gave it no further thought. It's the Thinker part that makes him dangerous, after all. But as always your painstakingly constructed copy of his power twists as it settles into your soul, and this time you clearly see the Thinker aspects being torn away. You got knife-beams without benefits, didn't you?

    You get up and head outside, moving quietly to avoid waking anyone. Now to confirm that... You make a token attempt to fire knife-beams using only your bare hands. It doesn't work, but it could have. You've had far stranger power mutations. You summon your knife, and slash at a tree some five yards away. A stream of golden fire shoots out from your knife and blasts halfway through the trunk.

    Huh. That's a lot less subtle than Jack's invisible knife-beams. But it's also a lot more damage than a knife would do to a tree. As trade-offs go, you'll happily take it.

    Maybe the golden fire thing is an effect of being channeled through an orichalcum blade, though? It certainly shares the color. You dismiss your knife pick up a stick from the ground, then thrust it like a rapier at nothing in particular. Another blast of golden fire roars from the tip, and travels a hundred feet or so before dissipating. About the same range as your mind-hands, give or take. You wonder if that's a coincidence, or an inherent limitation of your Trump meta-power.

    ---

    Just like with Lisa, now that you've fully comprehended Jack's Thinker power you can interpret what it's telling him. Turns out he isn't a combat Thinker so much as a 'danger' Thinker. Which makes him a combat Thinker too, because combat is dangerous. But his power tracks far more abstract threats as well.

    Like people planning to betray him.

    You'd panic, but the other day Bonesaw complained to you about your predecessor Cherish, who was going to betray the S9 but got herself killed before she could put her plan into action. Bonesaw was really upset that she missed out on their carefully planned and artistically crafted counter-betrayal. She was really looking forward to it.

    So, Jack knows that you're going to stab him in the back as soon as you've gotten what you want from the S9. And now that you know that he knows, he also knows that you know that he knows. But you're going ahead regardless, because you have no other choice. And Jack is going to let you, because he's excited to find out what you're going to do.

    He doesn't know, because his power isn't precognition or deduction. It's constantly scanning the intentions of everyone around him, and doesn't give detail beyond 'plans to kill you at some point in the future'. Hell, you don't know how you're going to kill him yet. But Jack is eagerly anticipating the day when you try, and utterly confident he can beat you when you do.

    Poltergeist won't try to kill you in your sleep, it whispers as he goes to bed at night. Nor will she try to run away. A self-fulfilling prophecy. You won't try, because he'd find out if you would, and kill you before you could.

    You wonder if Bonesaw was trying to subtly warn you off. Did Jack tell her? Does she like you that much?

    ---

    We're just about to board the Pendragon when they show up: The two remaining members of Bitten, as well as a young man in civilian clothes (his face is largely covered by bandages, but judging by the visible burns on his exposed skin this is not an attempt to hide his identity). I send a warning ping to Colin's suit, causing him to turn around and level his halberd at them.

    "Whoa, easy there," Imp says, holding up her left hand in a conciliatory gesture (her right hand rests on the ground - it, and the oversized arm it's attached to, clearly used to belong to Crawler). "S-class truce, yeah?"

    "Explain," Colin says.

    "We heard you were going after the S9-"

    "Where?"

    "Oh, you know. Around." While she's talking, I compose and send off a quick message to the PRT warning them of a leak. "Anyway, we're coming with."

    "No you're not."

    "Yes we are."

    "No y- why?"

    I shoot Colin an exasperated glance - not that he can tell beneath the armor. It's obvious enough what happened to them, between the burns and the arm. It's true that there were no reports of Bitten tangling with the S9... But communications are always spotty in the wake of Shatterbird, and they have a history of pitting recruits against their former teammates. Of course Imp wants revenge - or so I thought, but her answer surprises me.

    "Uh, hello? They took our boss, of course we're gonna rescue her. 's called loyalty."

    "You expect me to believe that thing is capable of loyalty?" Colin growls, gesturing angrily towards Ghost - the former Shadow Stalker.

    "You never tried to find out," Ghost retorts. "Submission was always good enough for you."

    I lay a hand on Colin's shoulder before he can continue the argument. "We could always use more help," I say. There's a fair chance they will die on this mission, I send over a private channel, feeling guilty as I do so. Both statements are true, I just wish the first one was enough to convince him on its own.

    "They'll just slow us down," Colin says. "And Poltergeist joined the S9."

    "Pshyeah, right," Imp scoffs. "That's what she wants them to think. She's just waiting for the right moment to turn on them. She's not a joiner."

    If that's true, if we have a potential asset inside the S9, it's worth bringing them along for that alone, I send. Out loud, I say "If you're wrong, if they have turned her, we'll expect you to execute her kill order like any other."

    "No prob, won't happen," Imp says cheerfully, and starts walking up the ramp. The others follow her.

    Colin moves to block their path. "Who's he?" he asks, indicating the bandaged man.

    "Oh, don't mind him. He does the sex with us."

    "He what?" Colin is taken off guard by this frank declaration.

    "Uh, you do know about 'the sex', right? See, when a mommy and a daddy-"

    "He's not coming along."

    "Why not? You are."

    "Excuse me?"

    Instead of answering him directly, Imp turns to me. "You've killed people from the S9 before, right?"

    "Three of them," I confirm. "Miasma, Carn-"

    "See?" she interrupts, turning back to Colin. "Everyone who's killed an S9 member gets to bring their boytoy on the road trip, them's the rules. She's bringing you, I'm bringing him."

    "You did not kill a S9 member," Colin says.

    "Yeah? Tell that to Hatchet Face- oh wait! You can't, because I killed him."

    Nothing they've said so far has tripped the lie detector, I remind Colin. At least now we have confirmation of what happened to Hatchet Face, if not Cherish or Mannequin.

    Colin grimaces, conceding my point - but not Imp's. "I'm not a boytoy."

    "You keep telling yourself that, champ."

    "I've been an active parahuman longer than your entire team combined!"

    "Fat lot of good that did against the S9. Heard you got your leg cut off." I compose another message for the PRT, emphasizing the severity of the leak. Imp casually shrugs her right shoulder. "I admit I got a bit cut up myself - but only one of us walked away with Crawler's wanking arm as a trophy."

    She places the palm of said arm against Colin's chest, attempting to push him aside. "Come on Pierre, Ghost. We're wasting daylight."

    Colin does not move. "That's not his real name," he says, the lie detector finally having pinged on something Imp said.

    "No shit it's not his real name," Imp says. "I don't know his real name. He wants to be called Pierre, I'mma call him Pierre. Now scoot." No lies.

    We're seriously letting them aboard? Colin sends to me, but he steps back and allows the Bitten to enter the craft along with their plus one.

    I shrug. Rather than reiterate old arguments, I send Should we not rejoice when villains step up to do the right thing? He grunts in response.

    "Swanky," is Imp's verdict about the interior. They stake out the second row of seats, Imp on the right and the young man - Pierre - in the middle, so that each girl can throw a (human) arm around his shoulders. He leans back, looking incredibly smug about this.

    "Are you sure you want to come along?" I ask him while Colin goes through the preflight checks. "It's going to be dangerous."

    "I can't just leave the girls alone, you know," he says, causing the girls in question to coo at him. "Just look at how adorable they are." This second declaration draws growls instead.

    "I told you," Imp says. "I'm badass, not adorable."

    "Of course you are," he says indulgently. Perhaps I'm not the best judge of such things, but I get the impression that their relationship is deeper than a mere sexual arrangement. If nothing else, he's willing to join them in chasing after Burnscar before his injuries have even healed, his voice still raspy from smoke inhalation.

    He won't fight personally, of course, but when we catch up to them I won't have time to drop him off before engaging. I've lost craft to the S9 before.

    "You seem good together," I say. Colin may be sulking, but if we're going to be working together we should try to get along.

    "You know it. I like my women the way I like my coffee - silent and in the kitchen." Both girls remove their arms from his shoulders and thwack him upside the head, almost in synch - but gently, and carefully avoiding the bandaged areas. "Ow. I meant 'black and hot'. And bad for my blood pressure."

    "Are you... in a relationship... with Poltergeist as well?" I ask.

    "Nah," Pierre responds cheerfully. "She prefers to watch."

    "Shut up," Ghost hisses.

    Kids these days, Colin sends to me.

    They're technically older than I am, I respond, though I don't dispute the sentiment.

    ---

    A second argument breaks out when Imp won't stop kicking the back of Colin's seat. Pierre catches my eye with a wry smile as we pull them apart.

    "Children, eh?" he says, despite surely not being of legal age himself. It makes both of them bristle and turn on him, which at least distracts them from each other.

    After Jack, your next target is... Murder Rat? Yeah, Murder Rat. Her sell-by date clearly came and went a while ago, so it's now or never. She's broken down to the point her powers are going out of control, teleporting her in random directions (though usually only a few inches) and ravaging her own flesh. Really convenient for you, in other words - provided you can finish before she dies.

    Fortunately Bonesaw also takes an interest when she discovers the self-ravaging, and steps up her maintenance schedule. "She's overcoming her Manton limitation without a second trigger!" she exclaims happily. "I have to study this!"

    That's an... optimistic view of things. You didn't lie to Faultline. Manton limits are inherent to the structure of a power. It's less 'overcoming' and more that the various power-controlling regions of Murder Rat's brain(s) are rotting at different rates. Not that this deters Bonesaw, who is cheerfully sketching out a series of experiments involving carefully targeted brain damage for the next time she has spare capes on hand.

    ---

    A third argument breaks out when Imp wants to stop for the night.

    "We're not stopping," Colin says. "If you need to sleep, recline the seats."

    "Nuh uh," Imp says. "We need real beds. And showers, and food that isn't your gross nutrient paste."

    "Every minute you waste is another-"

    Colin, be reasonable, I send. They do not have your enhancements.

    "We'll drop you off at a motel," I say out loud. "We'll keep going, and I'll detail another vehicle to pick you up in the morning."

    ---

    "Sleep tight," I say.

    "No peeping," Imp responds. "Old boring people like you, you'd have heart attacks if you saw the kinky shit we got up to." She shuts the door to their motel room.

    "Do you think they'll peep on us anyway?" Pierre whispers to her, inside.

    "Of course they will," she responds at normal volume. "They're heroes. No sense of right and wrong."

    Despite her words, Imp takes off her mask. Oh. Oh dear. Imp is Aisha Laborn. Colin must never find out.

    "Please," Ghost says. "I can't- I can't..." Her whole body is trembling.

    "Shhh, shhh, we got you." Pierre gently helps the shaking girl out of her clothes, while Imp fetches - are those manacles? - from her backpack. She looks around the room, but ultimately can't seem to find what she's looking for.

    "No respect for kinky people," Imp mutters.

    It appears she was looking for a secure attachment point for the manacles, because in the end they carry bedding into the bathroom and chain Ghost to the toilet. She relaxes as soon as the manacles close around her wrists and neck. A small red light on the collar starts blinking. Tinkertech, to restrain her shadow form?

    "There," Imp says. But rather than do anything 'kinky', she leaves. Pierre remains, stroking Ghost's hair.

    "You're safe now, aren't you?" he says.

    Ghost nods.

    "No way you could get free?"

    Ghost shakes her head.

    "We won't let you hurt anyone else, promise. Now try to get some sleep?"

    Ghost shakes her head again.

    "Look-", Pierre begins.

    More insistent head-shaking.

    "Those things aren't good for you, you know," he says, but when Ghost keeps looking at him he sighs and gets up.

    He goes to fetch a pair of pills and a glass of water. High strength sleeping pills, according to the packaging, though the name on the prescription label has been scribbled over, and two tablets is definitely not the recommended dose for a girl Ghost's size.

    She eagerly swallows them, though, and curls up in her blankets. She's crying. She put up a brave front earlier, but in private there's not a hint of the angry, abrasive girl Colin used to complain about. What did the S9 do to her?

    Imp, meanwhile, has constructed something like a pillow fort to contain her inhuman arm as she lies on the bed. A bandage on her right leg suggest that she may have injured herself on the claws previously.

    "It hurts," she whispers when Pierre joins her in bed. "It never stops hurting."

    "Shhh," Pierre says, cuddling up to her. "We'll figure something out."

    "Well?" Colin says, distracting me from the camera feeds.

    "Nothing you need to know about," I say, shaking my head.

    He raises an eyebrow. "That kinky, huh?"

    Shatterbird has been incredibly smug ever since you left Brockton Bay. With some justification. A bunch of members died, and they only got one recruit out of it. Her recruit.

    "Thanks for the tips," you say softly. "They really helped with passing the tests." That's a lie. They would have, if you'd been smart enough to understand them.

    Shatterbird nods magnanimously, still smug.

    "I'll have to repay you somehow," you continue. Smug, smug, smug. "Maybe put in a good word with Jack. Get him to see that a certain person is not just a teammate, but also a beautiful young woman?" Smug turns into stricken.

    "How could you tell?" she demands in a very loud whisper, grabbing you by the shoulders.

    "Woman's intuition," you lie. "Don't worry, I'll make him realize what he's been missing out on."

    "Do you really think you could?"

    ===

    Charms:
    Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer's Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
    Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
    Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
    Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
    Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
    Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
    Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
    Lung: By Rage Recast
    Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
    Cricket: Mantis Form
    Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
    Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
    Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
    Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
    Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
    Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
    Circus: Graceful Crane Stance
    Ballistic: Crack the Sky
    Crusader: Shell-Cracking Atemi
    Purity: Eagle-Wing Style
    Flechette: Pattern Spider Touch
    Regent: Distracting Finger-Gesture Attack
    Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating
    Jack Slash: Blazing Solar Bolt

    Taylor hasn't studied Bonesaw. Subcutaneous Armor Plating is an alchemical charm - that is to say, it's a magitech device you can install in an alchemical exalt (alchemicals are cyborg-golems). Or in regular people, if you happen to be Bonesaw.

    In the morning I take Imp aside for a moment.

    "Look, does Ghost need-"

    "You saw nothing, copper," Imp interrupts. "Nothing admissible in court."

    "That's not-"

    "Nothing, you hear?" she emphasizes, poking my armor in the chest with a Crawler claw.

    I shake my head sadly, and let the matter drop. I want to help, but if they don't want help...
     
  • Threadmarks
    • Very creative way to get the Alchemical affirmative action in. I approve.

    Attempts to google the charm text for Blazing Solar Bolt have gotten different charm texts, for different editions presumably. The Essence x 10 yard range fits the charm text I found that claimed it was also a Perfect attack. Unblockable and undodgeable, yes? That'll certainly come in handy.

    I was honestly starting to expect Reflexive Sidestep Technique for Jack with the emphasis on his danger sense.

    I don't get the joke on why she needed the water bottles. Can someone explain to the 2 int?
     
    Last edited:
    Reader mode
    You must log in or register to reply here.

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Total: 1 (members: 0, guests: 1)
    Back
    Top