Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

[Imperialaxis]

Good god I can't believe that Alec of all people has somehow stumbled into genuinely caring relationships

 

[zapking5]

Very curious how they took out Cherish while staying out of range of her dead man's switch. Does her power not work on Sophia while she's in her breaker form?

Is Taylor still handsless? I'd figure Bonesaw fixes any maiming that happens when recruiting new members.

 

[Alucard 109]

Imagine if anyone found out that Armsmaster was with dragon, and that dragon was technically very underaged...

 

[omni001]

Very curious how they took out Cherish while staying out of range of her dead man's switch. Does her power not work on Sophia while she's in her breaker form?

Is Taylor still handsless? I'd figure Bonesaw fixes any maiming that happens when recruiting new members.

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Regent and Cherish's powers screw with each others.

 

[Omnomimous]

Is Taylor still handsless? I'd figure Bonesaw fixes any maiming that happens when recruiting new members.

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Why would Bonesaw bother fixing a non-debilitating injury? She may as well waste time cleaning up scars and give breast implants as give Taylor a superfluous set of hands. I don't particularly find the double-amputee look sexy either, but this story isn't really that kind of material (closest it came was that scene with Regent, Taylor, and Sophia, which was more black comedy than erotic).

 

[zapking5]

Regent and Cherish's powers screw with each others

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I know, wondering what was different compared to their Canon confrontation.

 

[John Doey]

Why would Bonesaw bother fixing a non-debilitating injury? She may as well waste time cleaning up scars and give breast implants as give Taylor a superfluous set of hands. I don't particularly find the double-amputee look sexy either, but this story isn't really that kind of material (closest it came was that scene with Regent, Taylor, and Sophia, which was more black comedy than erotic).

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There's something funny about you assuming having hands is a sexual thing.

 

[Paralein]

This was a very nice update. Aisha's and Alec's antics were very amusing to read.

Although Sophia probably disagrees. At this point I really, really wonder what's even left of her.

 

[Zxzx24]

I do feel bad for them.

Team of...

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, parahumans?

Its basically a feast for Jack.

Though he will probably inexplicably lose his astounding combat ability when the author decides its time for him to die.

 

[Omnomimous]

There's something funny about you assuming having hands is a sexual thing.

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I mean, this is QQ. Honestly though, it's more just assuming the reason someone cared was for aesthetic reasons, since, as Taylor mentioned internally, anything outside her torso/head is purely cosmetic now that she has mind-hands and motile levitation.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Bonesaw (sort of): Subcutaneous Armor Plating

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So many options. Guessing Solar Medicine Charm, but Abyssal Craft would supply good options. Medicine from any Exalt type would also work. Some Yozi Charms, but nothing is clicking as a "Oh my God of course" option. Alchemical also has a number of possibilities, especially if it combines with implants made by Bonesaw.

 

[zapking5]

I mean, this is QQ. Honestly though, it's more just assuming the reason someone cared was for aesthetic reasons, since, as Taylor mentioned internally, anything outside her torso/head is purely cosmetic now that she has mind-hands and motile levitation.

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Some people were saying Pattern Spider Touch is hands only.

 

[Omnomimous]

Some people were saying Pattern Spider Touch is hands only.

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It's from exalted: it can't be that restrictive. If removing a Sidereal's hands prevented them from using PST, then they wouldn't be awesome. Taylor's tests earlier in the story concluded not that it's her physical hands only that could confer the bad touch, only that her mind hands could not. Any martial arts attack can have PST applied to it. She can kick, headbutt, hip-check, bodyslam, you name it. As long as it's an unarmed martial arts attack, it works.

 

[Zxzx24]

So many options. Guessing Solar Medicine Charm, but Abyssal Craft would supply good options. Medicine from any Exalt type would also work. Some Yozi Charms, but nothing is clicking as a "Oh my God of course" option. Alchemical also has a number of possibilities, especially if it combines with implants made by Bonesaw.

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Void tech?

It's from exalted: it can't be that restrictive. If removing a Sidereal's hands prevented them from using PST, then they wouldn't be awesome. Taylor's tests earlier in the story concluded not that it's her physical hands only that could confer the bad touch, only that her mind hands could not. Any martial arts attack can have PST applied to it. She can kick, headbutt, hip-check, bodyslam, you name it. As long as it's an unarmed martial arts attack, it works.

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Unless Snuts bends the rules again. Doesnt seem likely though.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Potentially that's not the result of any Exalted-related typing on his attacks - it could just be Broadcast being Broadcast.


Considering its ability to tell other shards to please make their hosts job in their fights against Jack from canon Worm, plus Taylor's shard at least not no-selling this influence, it could just be it telling Taylor's shard that Jack's attacks have "power priority" over her shadow state.

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Pretty sure her Shard is still QA, and thus it outranks Broadcast, which undercuts that option, especially when we consider that it loves HELPING Taylor.

More seriously, the first part is why I didn't consider it a possibility

 

[Daniel Snuts]

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.

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It's not perfect, and technically not unblockable or undodgeable either. It can only be dodged/blocked by using a charm - but it doesn't matter which charm. The technical term is 'semi-unblockable'.

A fully unblockable attack, on the other hand, can only be blocked by charms that specifically note "this can block even unblockable things".

A perfect attack can only be blocked by charms that specifically note "this is a perfect block".

Solars usually don't worry about such subtleties, because their standard defenses (Heavenly Guardian Defense and Seven Shadow Evasion) are both perfect and applicability-trumping.

"Uh, the Exalted combat system sounds a wee bit fucky?" I hear the audience murmur. They're wrong. The Exalted combat system is completely fucking broken. The only thing worse than 2e combat is 2e mass combat. And 2e social combat. And theoretically 2e shaping combat, but no human being has ever successfully run shaping combat (R. Sean is something more than human, presumably fae-blooded).

Very curious how they took out Cherish while staying out of range of her dead man's switch. Does her power not work on Sophia while she's in her breaker form?

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I know, wondering what was different compared to their Canon confrontation.

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"He's bumping uglies with a consensual slave puppet?" Cherish exclaimed as she scanned the building in front of her. "I must put a stop to this flagrant degeneracy posthaste!" She quickened her steps, excited to interrupt her brother mid-coitus and so ruin his day just a little bit more.

"How was I supposed to know that the consensual slave puppet was a high-caste parahuman assassin?" she complained bitterly just before she exploded. "And when did he get so much practice Mastering recalcitrant subjects? Wasn't he undercover?"

Pretty sure her Shard is still QA

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Nekomancer was the girl who got canon Taylor's power - but tuned to cats instead of bugs.

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Taylor has a completely different shard this time around.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Taylor has a completely different shard this time around.

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That is a big difference. Considering how it is either rapidly developing or co-opting Shards, I had assumed it was a Monarach Shard, and since canon Shard is one (and Trump is one of the classifications it can develop based on WoG, I assumed it was QA in this). If Taylor develops enough power will her Shard become a Monarch Shard?

Edit: Will studying Nekomancer lead to learning a High Essence Social Solar Charm?

 

[John Doey]

I mean, this is QQ. Honestly though, it's more just assuming the reason someone cared was for aesthetic reasons, since, as Taylor mentioned internally, anything outside her torso/head is purely cosmetic now that she has mind-hands and motile levitation.

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Ignoring extra utility, the fact that Bonesaw explicitly has spent time giving her implants, power nullifiers, and that Jack's power pinged off her hands but apparently not her other limbs.

 

[QuickSilverD]

"He's bumping uglies with a consensual slave puppet?" Cherish exclaimed as she scanned the building in front of her. "I must put a stop to this flagrant degeneracy posthaste!" She quickened her steps, excited to interrupt her brother mid-coitus and so ruin his day just a little bit more.

"How was I supposed to know that the consensual slave puppet was a high-caste parahuman assassin?" she complained bitterly just before she exploded. "And when did he get so much practice Mastering recalcitrant subjects? Wasn't he undercover?"

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Who's the consensual slave puppet? Not Sofia, is it?

 

[Zxzx24]

Who's the consensual slave puppet? Not Sofia, is it?

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Imp.

 

[Omnomimous]

Edit: Will studying Nekomancer lead to learning a High Essence Social Solar Charm?

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Ooh, I've got some bad news for you.

You don't have time to gawk, though, because that's also when your bracelet springs alive with notifications.

Nekomancer deceased, CD-5. Oaf down, CD-5. Triumph deceased, CD-5.

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[QuickSilverD]

Imp.

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Why would Aisha let herself be mastered?

 

[Zxzx24]

Why would Aisha let herself be mastered?

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It's a kink.

Aisha is there too, because as you mentioned, Alec's lair is nicer than yours. She insisted on being the 'senior slave puppet concubine', and you agreed. It amuses her to have nominal authority over you, and you don't particularly care who waves the fan and who peels the grapes. There is one major difference between how you play your roles, though.

"I can't believe you let him actually slave puppet you," you say.

"Don't kinkshame," Aisha says, making you raise an eyebrow. Are they bumping uglies for real, too? You disapprove, but objecting would make you quite the hypocritamous yourself.

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[zapking5]

Why would Aisha let herself be mastered?

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She did it canon too. She can use her power to make Regent forget she exists so it isn't quite as stupid as it looks in her case.

 

[ses]

I wonder if Damsel of Distress is going to end up as a positive intimacy. Taylor needs friends and replacement minions after lisa and purity got got after all.

 

[Alucard 109]

I wonder if Damsel of Distress is going to end up as a positive intimacy. Taylor needs friends and replacement minions after lisa and purity got got after all.

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Tay may end up Stockholmed with the 9, seeing how this is going. Which would actually make "evil" Tay do anything in her power to try to kill them...

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

It's almost as if you were meant to do this, as if fate guided them to you at this point in time. Provided you with a target so juicy you couldn't possibly pass it up, despite the price. You'd inform fate of how you feel about its machinations, but you're all out of middle fingers.

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Taylor, no! Greed is a sin!

"He killed Ylva," you say. Now that you've said it out loud, now that you've admitted it's real, now the tears come.

"Ylva? Who's Ylva?"

"My daughter!" Finally there's silence, letting you cry in peace.

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Nooooooooooooo! Future Woofler even had a beautiful Nordic name... only the flesh garden can save her now, but at what price?

"Yoo khill Nannekhin. Ghoo enouch foh nee!"

Killing the examiner gives bonus points. If you'd just... if only...

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If only you'd... organized with the normal human beings to fight the Nine?

There's a note taped to your left stump, in a cipher only you can read.

You have the necklace. Summon the knife.

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Aisha, no! You're 2INT, you shouldn't have to be told twice!

You look at your left wrist in confusion. You swear there was something important about it. It's still missing a hand, you knew that already, that's not it. What's going-

Bonesaw's head falls off.

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Aaaaand zero percent chance that works, but I don't know how Aisha could do a called shot on a corona pollentia that's probably non-standard and relocated. Maybe a firm stirring motion out from where the brain stem normally is?

"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.

The fuck was that about?

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It'd be hilarious if a whole scene of multi-layered master commands was negated by Aisha.

Is Brockton Bay a shadowland yet? There sure has been a lot of wanton slaughter and defilement.

No, it's her soul that calls to me, grown so small and bitter by her own hand. Some - like that prideful, scheming Poltergeist - simply beg to be broken, but she screams to be rebuilt. To think that someone like her would pretend to be a healer, and quietly nurse her petty sorrows, her neglect and unrequited lust... when she could have made the city her plaything, and held the world at ransom. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't infuriating.

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I'm surprised Jack hasn't already laid Taylor off. The trouble with staffing shortages, I suppose.

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.

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An attempt at establishing an alibi by leaving a trail of identifiable items, perhaps?

As for Taylor's conscience being clear, I imagine it like this:



I then imagine a district attorney having a different opinion. Birdcage arc in place of Wards arc?

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?

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Heh. With the shard mechanics played straight in this story, Taylor involving herself with Jack might have been one of the worst moves possible. It practically guarantees that her power-learning will be steered away from things that would hard counter him.

"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.

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Awful and adorable. Awforable?

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

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krabapplelaugh.jpg

"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.

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Taylor seems to be rubbing off on her subordinates and allies. This plan is genius on paper, hilarious, and likely to fly apart on contact with the Nine.

 

[ses]

If only you'd... organized with the normal human beings to fight the Nine?

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It's a followup to

You climb to your feet and face the newcomers, but don't do or say anything further. You hope they've come to kill you for what you did to Mannequin. You hope that, because if killing the examiner is permitted you could have- you could-

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Taylor is beating herself up for having Wits 0 and failing to simply Joy In Violence her way into murderkilling Mannequin. Which frankly she should. There was zero excuse for not shadowdodging and somehow not thinking that Join Battle was being rolled when she refused.

Aisha, no! You're 2INT, you shouldn't have to be told twice!

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Aisha is 3int currently. She's been VEE'd twice for +INT.

 

[Zxzx24]

Aisha is 3int currently. She's been VEE'd twice for +INT.

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So she probably has a plan for tangling with the nine (use heroes as meatshields? Sacrifices?)

But it's almost certainly not good enough. Harder people than her have tried. Maybe.

 

[Whitesnake Pelinal]

It's a followup to

Taylor is beating herself up for having Wits 0 and failing to simply Joy In Violence her way into murderkilling Mannequin. Which frankly she should. There was zero excuse for not shadowdodging and somehow not thinking that Join Battle was being rolled when she refused.

Aisha is 3int currently. She's been VEE'd twice for +INT.

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Come to think of it, you're right -- the training effect didn't expire when Taylor re-upped Aisha so as to have a do-it-or-else card on hand.

The other part was mockery for poor life choices.

So she probably has a plan for tangling with the nine (use heroes as meatshields? Sacrifices?)

But it's almost certainly not good enoug. Harder people than her have tried. Maybe.

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I'm a little surprised Tagg didn't carpet bomb the Nine into oblivion somewhere between Taylor being tortured into submission and Taylor learning her first power from them. He seems like the sort to keep the superfreaks out of the loop, and all of America cheering while Taylor whined about missed powers? Lulzy.