Wait... Did someone or something just pick up the storage room he was in and give it a toss!?
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(RFC) Untitled SI (Nanoha)
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Considering there was an explosion just beforehand, I suspect what picked up the storage building was a shockwave.
-- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012 
Sorry for missing yesterday. Work was an incredible pain, to the point where I didn't get time to write more than two paragraphs all day. I'm still dealing with the repercussions.
Jorlem: Point. I'mma gonna hafta Shrug of Demigod on this one- it's conceivable that Yuuno might've been at the camp, but for reasons that will be revealed later, that matters not one bit, so I can't be bothered to decide. BA, Rob: Yep. Explosion in the camp knocked some of the stuff off its shelves, and onto me. This place isn't exactly OSHA's best friend. ********** None of the boxes that had fallen on me were particularly heavy, by my new reckoning. None of them were impossibly large, either. If I had been asked to lift any one of them, or had been given warning that it was falling on me, I could've managed it. Heck, if they fell in just the right orientation, I could've held up five or six of them. The problem was that I hadn't had any warning. By the time I began to react, I was laying on my chest, at least six boxes and who knows how many loose rocks already on top of me... which lead to another problem. It's sort of hard to lift things when you can't move your arms. Fortunately, there was an easy solution to that. "Magic Missile." [MAGIC MISSILE] With a single chime, loud enough to mask the more typical sound effect, a magic circle spun into existence over my back, arms, and head, centered over Malleus' core. Over it, twenty balls of blue light formed, burning away a good bit of the junk that was holding me down. [Assign Missiles 1 and 2 to Group 1. Assign Missiles 5 and 6 to Group 2. Rotate Groups 1 and 2 perpendicular to my arms. Assign Missiles 8 and 9 to Group 3. Rotate Group 3 perpendicular to my legs.] [GROUPS SET. REMAINDER WILL LAUNCH VERTICALLY.] [Good.] "Fire!" The result was basically all I could hope for. The six shots I'd re-oriented burned up a good bit of the junk weighing my limbs down, letting me spring to my feet, grab the Relic case, and make a run for it. I dashed around the table, and out the door, recreating my cape as I ran. I got as far as the next building over before I heard the storage building creak and groan. I stopped there, my back to that building's wall, and watched it shudder and settle for a second. Watching a group of magic missiles fall out of the sky, pulling the building down in a single volley, was quite the shock. Bwah? What the? ...those were MY missiles! Why did they fall? HOW did they fall?! The spell doesn't work that way! "Imma! Status report!" Thank you, Tre. I needed a distraction. If memory serves, the extraction point is... over there. Got it. That established, I started running. "Objective achieved. Returning to extraction point." The view from Tre's comm window had me worried; Tre was running, backlit by flames. Every so often, an orange bolt would fly past my POV; some exploded on contact, while others seemed to drill into buildings and the ground. "Do you require assistance?" Another beam, looking for all the world like a phaser bolt, lit up the air next to Tre. She grimaced, and picked up the pace. "No. Focus on the mission. I will handle it myself." I heard the beeping sound of another comm window opening up, and looked to my left. Cinque? I'd almost expected Uno or Scaglietti. "Cinque to Imma. I'm closing in on the extraction point. ETA: twenty seconds. Where are you?" I skidded to a halt in a very familiar clearing. "I've reached the extraction point. No resistance. Contacting Uno now." A thought brought up a third window, this one in between my muted connections to Tre and Cinque. After a second, Uno's impassive face appeared in it. I took the time to unlock the Relic case, releasing the outer seal on the lost logia. "Imma here. Objective recovered. Lock on to the Relic signature, wait ten seconds, and teleport it and its holder back to the lab." Uno took this in stride, as I'd expected. "Signature locked. Countdown started. Good work." I grinned. "Thanks. Imma out." Five... four... As I counted down, Cinque finally reached the clearing. Two... one.... As she opened her mouth to speak, I threw the case at her. She caught it, of course; I'd expected that, and greatly enjoyed the sight of her looking down, realizing what she held, and opening her mouth in surprise... right before the countdown ended, and Uno beamed her out. Let's just say I'd be saving that memory in great detail. Maybe I can transmit it to my Device, and have him send it to the other Numbers later? Something to figure out later. As I contemplated that, I scanned the camp, looking for orange beams and explosions. Didn't take long to see them, especially as I got closer to Tre's position. Got it. That must be her. Let's get dangerous. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit. 
Heh, my guesses: Imma's going to get yelled at. Then he'll get demands to share that image. Then the sisters will show solidarity and gang up on their brother.
And is Imma a Darkwing Duck fan? ----- Will the transhumanist future have catgirls? Does Japan still exist? Well, there is your answer.
My muse is back online, and making up for lost time!
LilFluff: Welcome to the thread! I know I'll be holding onto that image, but I don't know what I'm going to have myself do with it. It'll take at least a decade to happen, though. As for names, Imma is what the Numbers and doctor call me. Ford is what I call myself out loud. I generally don't use any names in my head; if I did, it'd either be Blue or . Odd name, I know. Proginoskes, LilFluff: I've never seen an episode of Darkwing Duck in my life... or even more than five consecutive seconds of it, to be honest. I was, however, rereading UF for about the seventh time when I started writing this. By Crom, has it really been over two months?! ********** [Malleus, Magic Missile. 32 shots, single volley.] [READY.] The familiar circle spun itself into existence in front of me. With a high-pitched whine of power, the space in front of the circle became a wall of blue mana. I could see the target (or rather, infer its presence) in the sky in front of me. All I had to do was aim at where the orange bolts were coming from. [Distance to target established. Calculate angle, and update all missiles accordingly.] [UNDERSTOOD.] A beat later, I heard in my mind [READY TO FIRE]. I took the time to smirk viciously. Sayonara, sucker! On my command, Malleus intoned "ZAUBERRAKETE-"... ... and I finished the phrase. "-FIRE!" The mass of blue bolts shot up into the sky as one. After a second, one of them, impossibly, dropped out of the group, falling to the ground below. That one was followed by another, and another soon after. By the time the volley reached its target, over half of it had fallen. Out of what remained, six missiles missed entirely, flying off into the distance. The eight missiles that remained struck their target, splashing against its shield. Instead of dissipating as expected, the splashes of blue mana merged, becoming a rippling bubble of power. For one long second, nobody moved. Then the target shifted its staff forward, taking aim at Tre. Its bolt of orange light hit the bubble, popping it like it was made of soap... and sending the enemy inside it rocketing straight down into the ground at great speed. Everybody nearby could feel the WHUMP of it impacting the ground. Ford stopped in his tracks at the sight of it. What the deuce? That's not supposed to happen. Heck, that's not supposed to be able to happen- I did the math myself! How? Why?Tre's reaction, on the other hand, was eminently more practical. She made a break for it, scooping up Ford as she ran past, back towards the extraction point. Familiar orange beams stabbed into the ground around her as she ran. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
Clearly, the artifact Jail and Company went after isn't the main object of the dig's interest. There's something buried here that pulls all magic towards it.
Pfft. That's silly.
...admittedly, Ancient Belka could probably manage it. Things like that were probably children's toys in Al-Hazard. Why do you think that that's what's happening, though? ********** From where I was, I could see the sources of the beams- three enemy units, flying along slowly behind them. If I could shoot straight, they'd regret that. As it is... Tre, I hope to Odin you know what you're doing. [Mal, begin Dimensional Transfer. Use Saved Coordinate Set 1.] [BEGINNING DIMENSIONAL TRANSFER CALCULATIONS. STABLE PLATFORM REQUIRED FOR TRANSIT.] [I know. As soon as Tre sets us down, begin operations.] [TRANSFER FOR TWO?] [Yes.] [UNDERSTOOD. COMPLETION ESTIMATED IN TEN SECONDS.] 11.2 seconds later, I was carefully set down on the ground. [DIMENSIONAL TRANSFER ACTIVATED. SIXTY SECONDS TO TRANSIT.] She began to turn around, igniting a blade from her IS in one hand... only to stop when I put a hand on her shoulder. "Stay here. I have an exit." Tre blinked in surprise. "I didn't hear you call Uno." I smirked, a little more confident now. "Dimensional transit spell. It's... oh, about forty-five seconds from completion." [RECALIBRATING COUNTDOWN. TWENTY SECONDS TO TRANSIT.] My eyes went wide in surprise. "...or it might be closer to fifteen. Interesting." This was enough to shock Tre; she turned back around, grabbing my shoulders with both hands, her blade having vanished. "What did you do? You didn't skip any calculations, did you?" She actually looked panicked at the thought. "Do you know what that can DO?!" "Yes, I do, and no, I didn't. The transfer itself accelerated, and I don't know why! Malleus, is the spell still within safety limits?" "JA. ACHT SEKUNDEN. SIEBEN. SECHS." My circle formed at my feet; Tre noticed, and moved in closer. "DREI. ZWEI. EIN." Malleus didn't have to say 'Zero'. We were already in the lab by then. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
It might be a good idea to let the Doctor know that your magic is acting oddly, as both your shooting spell and your transport spell have acted in an unpredicted manner now.
----- Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea. "Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
Today involved less actual writing than usual, because I wrote about a page of worldbuilding notes. Took time, yaknow, but now I know my enemy a bit better. And now that I know my enemy, I can lead them onto an ark and beat the crap out of EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM.
Jorlem: Yes, it might. Then again, that's the sort of idea that could end in vivisections. Any plan that ends with being vivisected is a BAD PLAN. At this point, JS is my backup plan. ********** Entry 33 (Day 422) So I had my first combat mission recently. Not sure how to describe what happened. On the one hand, it was successful. We beamed into a small archaeological dig site, found a Relic, and got it back out, even though the camp was attacked by another force mid-operation. None of us were harmed, and we didn't kill anybody in the process. (Yes, I checked. Part of the debrief is uploading every team member's logs (or in my case, my Device's logs) to a common share, so each of us can see what the others did (or didn't do) right or wrong. Of the five people who died while we were there, none of them were killed by Tre, Cinque, or me.) On the other hand, one look at the logs shows how badly we did. Tre and Cinque are talented fighters, but neither of them really has any experience working with others. If I had to guess, they were programmed with solo combat skills, and haven't learned team dynamics yet. I've got the concept of teamwork, but need to work on my execution. Come to think of it, I need to work on my solo skills, as well. Let's just say I'm a work in progress, and leave it at that. At least the doctor was pleased. We got him the Relic he wanted, and he didn't have to do any difficult repair work on any of us. From his perspective, the operation was a total success. On the gripping hand, what in the Seven Hells was my magic doing!? That first Magic Missile barrage was supposed to burn up the stuff pinning me down, and then go flying off into deep space. Instead, it flew up into the air, only to come right back down again. More than that, it didn't come down as one, the way it was fired; each individual missile reversed course at a different time, and took a different trajectory back down. Somehow, my missiles spread out on the way back down- and then, when they got back down, they had the unsettling temerity not to explode. There was supposed to be a shed-shattering kaboom, dangit! Hmm..... I should add a spread mechanic to the spell. Might come in handy. The second barrage answered a few questions, which I appreciate. Tre's recordings clearly show missiles dropping out of the volley one by one, falling back to the surface on ballistic arcs. Malleus did some simulations, and was eventually able to produce a model that replicated that behavior. It's a rather simple premise, too- "At the projected time each missile drops out of formation, assume it was replaced by a steel construct of the same size and shape, with the same orientation and velocity." Unfortunately, this creates more questions than it answers. Why are my missiles acting like physical objects now? How did they propel the enemy into the ground- at most of the speed of sound (according to both Mal's logs and Tre's), no less? How do I prevent this effect from happening when I least expect it- and how do I invoke it when I desire it? Well, one thing's for sure. I'm not going to be developing my flight spell any further for a while. Not until I do enough testing to figure out this issue. If anybody goes plummeting to the ground at high speeds, it's not gonna be me. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
I think I detect a "Huh? That's funny..." moment of science... (You know, as opposed to the more conventionally well known "Eureka!")
What you actually detect is a fairly large collection of moments of science. There's quite a number of questions to answer, from 'why is it doing that?', to 'what mechanism is it using?', to 'how do I work with it?'. Each one of those needs sciencing.
********** Entry 34 (Day 425)...you know, it's ironic. I just spent the last three days systematically testing my magic. I re-did the math. I had Malleus run the numbers, check my math, and simulate the results of casting the spells I learned. I cast all four of the spells I've learned to date, with every variation I've managed to come up with, at every level of power they can handle. All of this, I have done- in a mere three days, no less!- because my cyborg body allows me to go without sleep for days on end. The irony is that that same body is responsible for the problem I've been dealing with. The first two days went smoothly. I couldn't find a flaw in my math, and neither could Malleus. The sims all looked good. When I tried to cast Magic Missile, it did precisely what it was expected to do... even when I tried it laying on my belly, or thrown over the shoulder of a bemused Tre. The breakthrough came on the third day, when I started testing my spells in (simulated) combat. Tre was gone (off on a mission, I just found out), so I got Cinque to serve as both target and motivating factor (read: ranged attacker) for the test. The instant I said "Begin", a pair of mana-infused daggers were flying at my face. I embraced my cyborg side, used the enhanced reflexes that gave me to dodge one dagger and deflect the other with a shield, and then cast Magic Missile. All six missiles fell to the ground before reaching Cinque. The blue magic splashed across the floor of the containment room, accomplishing nothing, before fading out entirely. I looked over at Cinque. "My eyes are gold right now, aren't they." It wasn't a question. Once I knew the what of the problem, I ran through all my spells again in cyborg mode, this time recording all the data for analysis. At the very least, it'll help me figure out the what of the problem, so I can compensate for it. At best, I might figure out the how of it, and see about getting the problem solved permanently. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
Hmmm. Your cyborgness is interfering with your sorcery-ness? Interesting... perhaps you're on the trail of an IS, even.
-- Sucrose Octanitrate. Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.
What? His IS is some kind of watered-down AMF?
What happens if you toggle into or out of cyborg mode midway through casting? (I am assuming that once the spell is already in midair, a mode switch will not effect it, though that would likely be worth testing as well.)
----- Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea. "Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
I'm just about ready to start rewriting/reposting to SB, and I'm considering whether I should keep posting here. What do people think?
ECS: You've already seen the IS. Look over the confrontation with Tre, when I got my cyborg mode working. BA: ...'watered-down AMF'?! Ha. It is to laugh. You may also want to look back over the one time I've used my IS. Jorlem: Almost certainly no change. There's a tiny window when it could alter the degree of effect, but hitting that while spellcasting isn't a practical possibility. ********** Entry 35 (Day 432) The analysis is complete. Shockingly enough, it actually managed to answer a good number of questions. I wasn't sure it would. The first thing I discovered was that my mana signature isn't static. It changes when I do, to put it bluntly. How? Why? I couldn't get any answers to those... but I did figure out what happens. The change is dynamically stable, oxymoronically enough. It's not a question of what my mana becomes- that seems to be the same every time- but how much it changes. Well, that, or how much of it changes. I don't really have the training or the instruments to figure out which is true. Either way, whenever I tap my full capabilities, my mana goes into a state of constant flux. I was able to record a maximum divergence of 80%, a standard divergence of 30-50%, and an absolute minimum of 2%. With that much information, calculating a theoretical 100% signature wasn't too hard... not that it's of any use to me. As for what this change does... that's a bit more interesting. Every ranged spell I attempted (for all that the math behind spells isn't typically shared, Scaglietti sure has a lot of them built up) showed the exact same loss of propulsion that my Magic Missile did. There's a correlation between signature divergence at the time of casting and when the projectile falls out of the sky. Once it does fall, the ballistic profile is determined by the speed of the spell when the effect kicks in, local gravity and air resistance, and the total mana in it multiplied by the divergence percentage. As for the effects of my spells... Every attack spell I tried caused the target to slam into the ground with great force. The higher the divergence, the greater the effect. Actual direct damage, of the sort the spell was meant to cause, decreases proportionately. Defensive spells redirect whatever hits them into the ground, in precisely the same way attack spells redirect the things they hit. The statistics- mana consumption, velocity, divergence levels- are exactly the same for both. The only utility spell I've learned at this point is Dimensional Transfer. Strangely enough, it wouldn't misfire, regardless of what I did, or how much my mana changed when I cast it. In fact, whenever my divergence level went up, DT would become quicker and more efficient. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
I wonder what would happen if you could do some tests in zero g.
Also, you might want to look into the possibility of this being some sort of Metal or Earth Affinity. Also also, earlier I was suggesting that you might want to see if you could toggle momentarily out of cyborg mode to cast the spell, so it doesn't alter the effect, then drop right back in to continue combat. Finally, I think you should continue posting this here, as well as SB. I don't know if everyone reading here uses SB, and the forum can be frustratingly laggy sometimes. ----- Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea. "Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia. Bluemage Wrote:I'm just about ready to start rewriting/reposting to SB, and I'm considering whether I should keep posting here. What do people think?Sure, keep posting here. We're your pre-readers... Bluemage Wrote:As for the effects of my spells...I wouldn't suggest doing a Dimensional Transfer to a point in the air - your spells appear to like having a ground effect. -- Rob Kelk "Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of the same sovereign, servants of the same law." - Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
The thing is that what I'm posting here isn't what the SB version is going to be. I could've been posting on SB a month ago, if that was my plan.
What you're getting in the thread here isn't the full thing, or even the first draft- more like the first draft of only 80%ish of the full story. That's part of why I was asking the question in the first place. I don't want to start posting the real thing to SB, only for some wag to come in and spoil everything because they came here and read ahead in v1.0. That, and I'm going to end up totally rewriting a bunch of what I've done as of late. The tone isn't quite right. Jorlem: The same thing that happens in 1G, except the definition of 'down' would be 'whichever direction my feet are pointed'. Why would metal/earth affinities make DT work better? Technically possible, and it'd make the spells work better, but I'd lose most of the benefit of having that mode if I used it that way. Rob: Not quite. This bit should point you guys in the right direction. ********** Given all of this, I've got a few theories about what's going on. Dimensional Transfer is a space-time manipulation spell- it works by basically bending space between the caster's location and the target location, forcing you to exist in both places simultaneously, before letting it snap back into place without you. For it to be more efficient would mean that the anomaly in my mana made it better at bending space-time. Add to that the odd behavior of my spells. Spells meant to defend cause attacks to fall out of the air. Spells meant to move move downward, as though they had mass. Spells meant to harm fling their targets into the ground. It seems like this anomalous mana has an affinity for attraction- possibly magnetism, possibly gravity... maybe even just adding mass. On top of that, I went back over the video of my... episode... with Tre. I manifested an IS circle, and then Tre was pulled to the ground. I'd initially assumed that the two events were unrelated, but now? I think there's a link. Add this all together, and you have an IS that causes mass/gravity effects, along with anomalous mana that causes mass/gravity effects and bends space-time better than usual. I'm not sure which it is; adding mass would cause more gravitic force, which could bend space-time... but just increasing gravitic force would do the same thing, and could provide the illusion of increased mass without testing for it specifically. I'd take it one step further, and suggest that I have a gravity-related IS, it works by altering some of my mana, and my spells are going wrong because that mana is being pulled into my linker core. It's the best explanation I can think of to fit the facts. I still don't know for certain, though- and even if I'm right, I have no clue how to gain control of it, why it's happening, or whether it's harming my system. Nothing else for it. I'm going to have to ask the doctor. May Anubis have mercy on my ka. "Doctor? DOCTOR!?" Despite the pure technological sophistication of the place, the manufacturing bays in the depths of Scaglietti's lab weren't really that different from a high-end factory back home. Parts were built additively, instead of being shipped in, but that wasn't too far off when I left. The robot arms that performed assembly appeared to be more versatile than the ones back home, but that was just a difference of degree. The place was just as loud as factories back home were. That was definitely a thing. After much exploring (and a good bit of gawking), I reached the doctor's workplace du jour- a force bubble in the center of the manufacturing complex. The field felt cool against my hand, rippling as I touched it; after a few seconds of resistance, it seemed to recognize I was an object it should allow through, and did so. The instant my head went through the bubble, the sounds of raw industrialism almost completely cut off. I could hear all the machines of the factory working away, each with its own distinct rhythm, without the overpowering noise that had dominated space outside. It was a thought-provoking symphony of construction, one I couldn't help but take some time to contemplate. (Of course, this had nothing to do with the sheer blessed relief of having my sound dampeners stop yelling at me about all the noise. That couldn't possibly be a factor. Nope.) My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit. 
Wow, it's been a while since I kept up with this - got distracted by a cold, then was reading the Bleach Quest and Peter Parker Quest archives. This'll probably be on the disjointed side of stream-of consciousness, since I'm writing it as I read the updates that have built up.
post 162 - "So there I was, flipping through the last few pages of Schwartzwald's The Structure of Magic (in the original Belkan; I'd not yet learned to speak it, but I could read it just fine by now), when Uno walked into the room." extra line break there, I'm guessing it happens to not stick out at the window width you're using 165 - "Il Numero Imaginario" - so we can definitely figure on you intervening in the Sakura situation if you end up in proximity to the Fifth Grail War? Good, Grandpa Rapeworm needs to be KWEP'ed as soon as possible in as many universes as possible. 166 - I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that what Ford sent to Lindy was less "Here's a rundown of some events that haven't happened yet" and more "Hey, the Book of Darkness showed up again, way out in the boonies, just thought you should know. Oh, and there's a kid who lives nearby with hella lots of mage potential, if you care at all." Lindy is one of the good ones, give her a lead and she'd follow it to protect the innocent even without the personal connection, and it's much more likely to be taken seriously framed that way. 171 - another extra line break: "Well, one of my barrier jackets- I had Mal designed to store two jacket styles at a time. The first one is basically a Number's bodysuit with black armor bits added over the top, a cape, and Black Mage's hat. Even managed to get the shadow thing and the voice changer working, so I should be safely anonymous." Huh, I posted #174... I thought this was new stuff now. Well, if I didn't remember it, it's just as well to get a refresher. I remember the discussion on familiars, though. Weird. 180 - I'll say it again: Tsundere mode activated. "No one would fail in love with a wretch like you!" just doesn't come up in combat banter unless the person saying it was already thinking about it. Of course, there are many forms of love, and she was also berating you about being a disappointment to the "family" so romantic feelings are not necessarily involved... just kind of likely given she's biologically a teenager, for however much biology counts with high-percentage cyborgs like the Numbers. 181 - "Tre, of course, noticed this, and resisted" probably doesn't need "noticed this, and" - it's really hard to not notice someone squeezing your throat. Like, really really, dude. I'd even say that if you aren't noticing someone squeezing your throat, either they're too weak to hurt you at all or you're already at the point where it just doesn't matter, like your spine already being detached higher up than where they're squeezing. 185 - Well, I suppose Jail could have ordered her to talk about love, that works. Not nearly as amusing as the other way round, though. An admirable point to include for trolling the genre savvy though, bravo. 189 - Seconding Blackaeronaut's sentiments, though I'd probably also have some buyer's remorse in Ford's situation - not as bad as Wave Convoy since it was something sought out and considered ahead of time, but Ford is even more cut off from his old life and routines than WC, and even when the new situation is an improvement change is something I deal with poorly. 191 - if you can defeat novices in close combat and hold your own against the moderately trained after just a couple of months, then yes, you are in fact an accomplished fighter for your level of experience, and in fact on par with shonen protagonist level learning curves. Don't you dare complain about that... until you land in an actual shonen series and have to deal with people who have that plus a battle-junkie mentality, I suppose. At least when Nanoha befriends someone she only does it once, Kenpachi or Ranma or Vegiita are always looking for another round, to see who's improved the most! MALLEUS BELLUM HAS ASCENDED TO SUPER-DEVICEJIN LEVEL TWO! And this is not even his final form... 193 - "What do I need with artificial lighting? MY BRILLIANCE ALONE LIGHTS UP THE LABORATORY LIKE ONE THOUSAND SUNS! Hahahahaha!" And, hey, a little sister at last! Just remember Ichigo's principles on that, 'cause little kids missing an eye is not cool. Yes, even if (probably when) she can normally kick your ass up down and sideways. 195 - Yup, up, down, and sideways. A handful of good plans that don't actually require combat success are the best kind of plans. Not so many that you have to spend time thinking about which one to use, but enough to provide a range of options to match what the situation actually is when when it arrives. As for getting your spacebattles card revoked... if it didn't already happen for becoming a minion, Jail is Spacebattler enough that being part of his organization covers most of the bases - collect all the shinies, massive firepower for fun and profit, TAKE OVER THE WORLD!!! etc. Really, the minion thing is the biggest obstacle, and positioning yourself to use his efforts as your tutorial level and continue to your own goals after he falls or you just part ways makes that A Cunning Plan on its own. Plus, you know, gaining the trust and loyalty of your "sisters." 198 - hee, "teleportarium." I like your word. Certainly better than "teledrome." Did Ford get around to adding the rubber soles on his armor form, btw? Not that they'd be doing much clanking on sandy gravel anyway, or that the rubber would help when most of the noise is generated by little bits underfoot moving against each other under your (presumably greater than a squishie's) weight. Funny how specific that feeling of doom was - oh, you're in a messy store room. Nevermind, carry on. 202 - Good job, big brother. Now the question is, will you get puffed out cheeks and stern-puppy eyes, a beatdown/lecture on how you're the least combat capable of the family, or both. And of course dealing with who- or what- ever is throwing around golden energy beams, but that much is obvious. 203 - Heheehee, I think I know what's up with the wonky magic. I can't remember if it was public info or not, though, so I won't risk spoiling it, beyond saying that slapping the enemy out of the sky looks a lot like what happened to Tre when Ford was prodded into activating his I.S. Or maybe it's just a Shi-shi Hokodan, and Herr Scaglietti installed a mental filter so you don't recognize how depressed you are about being cut off from home/turned into a shrimp/etc. I think those were green, though, not blue. 207 - Um... the key is also the lock and the gate? Ford has an easier time stepping out of this world and back in due to not being from it originally? Having a Relic in the area for a long time pulled the various dimensional layers closer together (it's the IC explanation for how magic works in MSLN) and they haven't yet realigned? Or he could have just discovered a new more efficient solution to block transfer equations without realizing it. There'd be more than one Doctor interested if that's the case. 209 - You do realize that technically, your plan to attract Jail's attention end in being vivisected, right? And it worked out so far. Then again, no need to press your luck, as it was no fun even the first time, and now you have a hat to think of as well. Even if you can recover from vivisection with only minor difficulty, any plan what involves losing your hat is definitely bad plan. 211 - I really love how SCIENCE! has become a verb and adjective as well as a noun - and the "Huh, that's funny..." moments are, if anything, more significant than the "EUREKA!" because you can't even start trying to find an answer until you know there's a question, even if you aren't quite sure what it is. 215 - I'm not really sure what to say about posting both here and at SB... either way works, I think. There's a fair amount of overlap among the regulars here as far as I can tell, but the atmosphere of the two is different enough that it could still be worth the different viewpoints. Maybe post here a day or so ahead of SB, so we can catch any holdout typos etc.? Up to you in the end, unless Bob has something official to say on the matter. So what you're saying is, you're the center of attraction? It's only natural I suppose. (Gah, stupid theme music, get out of my head. It wouldn't be so bad if the production values were higher, but without an effects track and action sequence visuals as distraction the Bleach music really fails flat.) 218 - ... having sound dampers that yell at you sounds kind of like having a bottle of hand lotion that complains about touching your freaky dry skin when you put it on, or a flight spell that sends you plummeting to the ground at random intervals. Oh. Yes. Nevermind, carry on  - dNN Edit: So. Many. Typos. I strongly dislike this chromebook keyboard. -- "Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows
^~^
Lots of awesomesauce reactions. I appreciate that. Still gonna make comment, but you know how it is. I think I'll continue to post my first drafts here, and then do my rewrite/expansion for SB. You will be kept well ahead of SB, so that I have time to reevaluate the SB-stuff from a fresh perspective. Also, SB gets things in chapters. You guys will get them as I write them, basically.162/171: The line breaks aren't in the original file. I have to add them when I copypasta on DW. Thing is, if I do it at the wrong spot, it can look like it's not there at all, because it doesn't actually move any text in the edit window. I'll correct them at some point or another. 165- Took me a minute or two to get that one. Heh. ^^ Remember how that transformation sequence had a blank neckplate-thingy on it? In future outings, there'll be a yellow lowercase i right there. I'd intervene in F/SN- not to help Shirou or Sakura, but to hang out with Lancer, slap Archer upside the head, give Caster beam envy, end every male Matou, demolish a church, and see if 'anti-Grail' deserves to be its own classification, or is a subset of anti-fortress. Oh, and kill Berserker, kill Berserker, kill Berserker... 166- Heh. Ha. Ha-ha... bwaHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!... sorry. 181- That was supposed to be an attempt at deadpan, 'this is bleedin' obvious' narrative voice. I'll change it in the rewrite. 185- Jail Scaglietti is made of equal parts sadism and SCIENCE!. How is this trolling? You guys already knew this by now. 191- You did catch that that unarmed style was uploaded into my current head along with me, right? I wasn't learning something new, but training in something I'd been made to already know. My learning curve with Mal is mentioned as being significantly slower, for that very reason- JS didn't have a skillsoft for wrist-mounted stick-fighting, or a consciousness upload to add his nonexistent skillsoft to. Now, Tre *is* just that good. I don't know this, but the style she teaches me? She learned a number of other styles (with skillsofts- being born to her body has at least one advantage), and built the style out of them to suit my weapon. 193- I have plans for Zest and his team. Cue more laughter. I'm fully aware that it's all fun and games until Cinque has to refuse a replacement. 195- See, this is why I'mma hafta make you my beta for the revised version. You Get It... though I'll refer you to my response to your reaction to #166. 198- Not my word. That's what they're called in 40K. Yes, he did- a detail which needs to get worked into the rewrite. 202- Again! Why can't I hold all these plot threads? I must rack discriprin. 207- Careful, there.  That wasn't to be revealed until the rewrite went up...209- See? SEE?! This is the sort of thing I need to sarcasm all over the place! 211- I'm not doing SCIENCE!, and you'll note that when the last word of a sentence is SCIENCE!, I add another punctuation mark after it, because the exclamation point is part of the word. I'm doing science, which is considerably more logical and regimented and considerably less mad. If anything, what JS does is actually sciencey SCIENCE!, because of how predictably it works. Trying to have it so I don't know the things that I know until I figure out enough to know that there's a question, and then deduce the answer. If you're saying that, then it's working. 215- What I'm saying is that it defaults to what's already there, unless nothing (or not enough) is there, in which case it defaults to my orientation. I've not learned to change it yet. 218- Flashing warnings at the edge of my field of view. Metaphorical yelling, referred to that way to provoke exactly that sort of image. If you flash back to 188, I sort of foreshadowed that I get some visual indications of what my body's doing. ********** Of course, I eventually had to interrupt the doctor's work. He'd been so deep in the task before him- tasks, I should say- that he didn't hear me entering the bubble. "Ahem. Doctor?" He turned, shutting a dozen or so windows with a swipe of a hand. "Ah, Imma! I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever drop by! Did you enjoy your little science experiment?"I managed to avoid showing any surprise at this... though a bit of annoyance leaked through. Right. He probably watches everything in the facility. Forgot about that. "Enjoy it? Why would I? I'd rather be moving forward... creating new spells, refining my control, practicing my skills... becoming both better and stronger. Instead, I'm stuck trying to figure out what's wrong with my magic." I gave Scaglietti my best piercing gaze. "You wouldn't happen to know what's wrong with my magic, would you?" He chuckled. "Oh, Imma. Of course I know! I built you, after all." He straightened his collar, slowly and deliberately, smirking smugly the entire time. "Why waste your time asking if I know? You should realize you'd be better off asking what I know about it." That's a trap I could fly the Garden of Time through. No, thanks. "Would I?", I asked. "Would I really be better off asking you that?" Time to lay a few cards on the table. A smirk of my own crept across my face. "How would it benefit me? I already know what's wrong with me, after all- what asking a question I've already answered do to help?" Scaglietti blinked, not quite having expected that. "You were able to figure it out?" He gave me a short round of mocking applause. "How wonderful for you. Please, explain your situation to me. Enlighten me, if you will." I indulged him, keeping it short and sweet. "You gave me an Inherent Skill, much like the rest of your cyborgs. I don't have a definitive answer on what it does, but I know part of it uses my mana to manipulate gravity. Some part of my cyborg state," I said, flashing my gold eyes at him for emphasis, "is causing that function of my IS to alter mana I'm using to cast spells, and I don't have control of it." The doctor thought that over, and smiled. "Your analysis is... surprisingly accurate, on a practical level. I suppose I can enlighten you further. Tell me; do you know what your IS is?" I tilted my head to one side, blinking in confusion. Oh, right. The Numbers all had ISes designed to serve specific purposes in combat. "I... hadn't actually considered that, Doctor. You gave Tre wings and blades. You gave Cinque daggers and explosions. What did you give me?" Jail waved a hand, rezzing up a series of pictures in the space between us. "This is a latus, a relic of Al-Hazard. It bears resemblance to the carri, the inspiration for Mid-Childan personal transportation. From my examinations of the device, it was essentially the military variant of the carri, equipped with fearsome weapons and armor." Huh. So it's basically a tank? Why bring this up? Where are its... oh. I see where you're going with this. "Some years ago, the TSA provided me a latus to examine- the first one they had ever seen, actually. Most of the technology was familiar to me, but the engine... the engine was something special." The images were replaced by another set, this one showing something that looked for all the world like a piece of modern art... right down to the headache I was getting looking at the thing. After a second or three, I realized that its proportions didn't make any logical sense, stopped looking at it- wincing as I moved my head- and deleted that bit of visual data from my memory. The headache immediately began to fade. In contrast, Jail was staring at the image don'tlookatit-don'tlookatit! with what looked to me like rapturous glee. "Is it not beautiful? The angles of it, the mathematical elegance... it never fails to inspire me..." I let the doctor stare at the emptyholeinspaceDON'TLOOK! for a while, mostly to see if he'd snap out of it on his own. After twenty seconds of that, the mumbling finally got to me; I edged over to him, carefully keeping my eyes on his shoulder, and gave him a good shake. "Doctor? Explanation now, ia Al-Hazard fthagn later." I got no response; the doctor continued to stare at his display, his eyes tracking to follow it even when his head moved. I noticed that he was mumbling something (and carefully avoided hearing what, precisely, it was); on top of that, his hands were busy typing out Odin-knows-what into another window that had appeared. Precisely fifty-nine seconds after he'd first opened pictures of the engine, his console gave out a beep, and the data entry window he'd had open closed itself. I risked a look up, and saw his eyes tracking around the room; flicking my focus down to where the thing-that-must-not-be-seen was revealed nothing. "Doctor?" Interesting. Now I know why some logia remain lost... and have a sudden interest in NEVER visiting Al-Hazard. EVER. Scaglietti's attention finally came to me. "Ah, Imma! What brings you here?" My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
So apparently for a combat cyborg, that which has been seen can, in fact, be un-seen. Handy in this case, though you'd definitely want to make sure your cyberwarfare defenses are up to scratch or things could get very Ghost in the Shell/Shadowruns Intensify/Matrix-y. And, judging from that bit and what you said about what I said, I either forgot something and spoilered it unintentionally or read your mind again? Sorry.
185 & trolling the genre savvy - what were all the responses you got, vs. the actual situation? A masterful ruse, man. If I'm missing your sarcasm at points,it's probably because I'm only vaguely aware of the act of reading, as long as the description is good enough to visualize the scene - I'm too busy watching the story and listening to the characters, narration goes straight by as literally accurate instruction to the props department, so to speak. (Then I try to watch a dub or a US cartoon or play a video game, and lackluster voice acting has me palming my face and wondering what the hell was up with that bullshit, because if I was doing voice work and turned in a performance that flat I'd expect to be fired five minutes into the job, yet the same people go on to one property after another and are considered top names... it's really no wonder I spend so much time reading compared to other forms of entertainment.) It does make me curious as to whether Uno set up safety cutouts to keep Jail from obsessing over the non-Euclidean geometries for too, long, he did himself but just forgets everything in the face of the GLORIOUS QUESTIONS OF THE UNKNOWN!, or if something is brainjacking him from its lair in Angles Estrangelos. And if Al-Hazard was THAT kind of antediluvian civilization in this continuity, does that mean the Bugrom are actually Byhakee? (The Eye of God would certainly qualify as an eldritch, cyclopean, and weird relic of the bygone age... and the Ifurita/Ifrit units! Not human but wearing the form of one, super-powerful and amoral, only restrained by the specific control devices created for the purpose... pipe that through the strange burbling fluid in HPL's hookah and you can get some serious bad trip material.) -- "Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows Quote:ClassicDrogn wrote:Personally, I would have slapped a tag on that file that would prevent my system from casually 'recalling' the image for me. Although I get the sneaking suspicion that my mind is surprisingly diabolical. As for security... decoys, traps, and counterattacks, and all of the nastiest varieties. Walls are just to keep the general riff raff out. Quote:ClassicDrogn wrote:I've spoken with a VA on this matter at Anime Odyssey here in San Antonio (it was their first year, so that's why you never heard of this con) and what she had to say was rather enlightening - they force the VA's to go at it, totally cold turkey because they don't want to pay the money for racking up the studio's hours. On top of that, they force them to match up as closely to the lip-flaps on the screen as possible. Even if they haven't been modified from the original animations. Even if the script isn't written to take those lip-flaps into account. And that, my friends, is why we are better off with the subs... Unless someone were to go to the length they did when they remastered Akira. Back on topic... Quote:ClassicDrogn wrote:I don't think that was Uno's doing, but either way that is pretty damn ominous. Were I in Imma's shoes, I take a step back and a good long round turn on the whole situation just to make sure that everything is really on the up-and-up. After all, every slice of the multiverse out there is just a couple of degrees off from making something like Dead Space look like a picnic.
This post was delayed because SB is a pain and a half. On an unrelated note, the rewrite has begun.
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ ... si.272571/ CD: You're not missing my sarcasm. You're showing me parts where I need to add more sarcasm. On The Matter Of Unseeing: Doesn't work the way BA suggests. The bit of my mind that stores the memory data is a computer. The bit that recalls it is mostly meat. About all I can do with memfiles is choose to forget them, choose to remember less of them (think reencoding a video to a lower resolution), or try not to forget them (means they get reduced in quality after other files, if I run low on room). On Eldritch Horrors And Strange Angles: That's actually not an issue here. Basically, Al-Hazard is so advanced that Clarke's Third Law applies here- part of that involves higher-dimensional creations, on both the physical and mathematical levels. They still drive people mad, but nobody's ever documented any nameless (or worse, named) horrors tied to it. It's just that modern humanity isn't built to comprehend the concepts High Magitech is built on. That particular cutout is Uno's doing, based on TSAB lost logia study precautions (partially authored by Scaglietti's black research operation, back when he was there). I'm just busy going hearnoevilseenoevillosenoSAN, so I'm not going to investigate. Investigators get driven mad and/or eaten, you know. ********** Okay, so it messed with his short-term memory, it seems. I should be careful not to remind him of the thing. "I've been here for a while, Doctor. You were explaining what my IS is." He blinked, apparently confused, so I decided to give him a bit more information. "You'd found some sort of gravity engine in a lost logia..." I could see the realization in his eyes. "Ah, yes, the latus!" He looked faintly disgusted. "It was almost a complete waste of my time. My team and I had already seen most of its technology elsewhere- why, we even understood how to make some of it ourselves! Utterly mundane... except for the engine, the most efficient gravity manipulation mechanism known to current civilization. Ever since I saw it, I've worked feverishly, trying to unlock its secrets... and you, my friend, are living proof of my success!" "...so my IS is an experimental anti-gravity engine, but it's only ever made things fall down. What, did you install it upside-down, or something?" Scaglietti laughed. "Oh, no, dear Imma! The device was perfectly functional... or did you forget this incident?" He brought up an image of Tre being yanked to the ground, the sigil of an active IS on the ground below her. While I winced at the memory, the doctor rezzed up another window, this one containing... something. I was fairly sure it was some sort of scan data, but the contents of the window were so ridiculously technical that I couldn't make heads or tails of them. "See this, here?", he said, pointing at a bright line on the diagram. I nodded. "This is the connection between your body's mana system and the gravitic manipulator." He moved his finger up a bit to another bright line, this one connecting a dark blue ball to the midpoint of a twisty... thing, the top half of it totally dark. "This connection, on the other hand, links the manipulator's primary power system straight into your linker core." "The combination of the two", he said, causing everything else in the image to fade out, "allows your body to feed mana into the manipulator, where it becomes attuned with the gravity effect, and then returns to your linker core. It's essentially an artificial mana conversion affinity... one your body seems to have created on its own." I thought about this for a while. "Wait. You said it was functional? Not is?" Jail nodded, eyes glowing with scientific glee. "Your little adaptation killed off the actual gravitic manipulator. I could transplant another one into your body, but it, too, would starve." He spread his arms wide, dramatically throwing his head back. "Isn't it wonderful? So much to learn! So many mysteries to solve!" He laughed; in his voice, I could hear both honest mirth and harsh madness. While the doctor was busy being insanely happy, I looked back at the scan he'd brought up. Interesting. The mana converter is about the same size as the grav engine; I wonder... "Doctor? What were you planning to do about the dead manipulator?" "Do?" He actually looked surprised. "Why would I do anything about it? It's not hurting anything where it is." Really? REALLY?! "It's not doing me any good, either, and it's taking up useful space. If this is correct," I said, pointing at the image, "we could fit a second power system into that space, and have space left over. You could hook them up to some sort of power regulator- something to let me choose when I use grav-element mana- and fix my reliability issue at the same time." Scaglietti looked at the image for a while, flicking various parts of the full scan in and out of visibility. "Hmm. It might be possible to fix your little problem... but I wouldn't be able to fit another converter into the remaining space." He took the scan, zoomed it in on the grav system, and flicked the 'dead' part of it out of the image, rotating it to and fro to get a perspective. "...now that I look at it, I could probably encourage the current one to grow into the extra space. I'll have to run some simulations, but it should be possible." He looked up at me. "This will take some time. I'll summon you when I'm ready to begin." Not being an idiot, I knew a brush-off when I heard it. "Of course, Doctor. Thank you." I then went back to my room, rezzed up a console, and began furiously crunching numbers. A gravity affinity, huh? I can think of a few fun things to do with that. My Unitarian Jihad Name is: Brother Atom Bomb of Courteous Debate. Get yours. I've been writing a bit.
You can simulate a Marilyin Monroe sidewalk vent anywhere at all for starters... though it's doubtful your sisters would appreciate that, and depending on the effect of biology vs. mind you might not have all that much interest yourself again for a few years.
At least you made the doctor happy, though - there's something NEW to discover, to learn, to invent! Yes, the time he's invested in you is paying dividends already! How very fascinating, hahahaha! Now that you know about the gravity affinity, though, you absolutely must build some spells to take advantage of it - Compact Missile (like normal Magic Missiles, only they implode instead of exploding) and Wrecker Beam, a tractor/pressor that grabs the target and lets you swing them around to smash into things like a wrecking ball, with the option of whether or not the grabbed target takes increased or reduced damage for starters. A detection spell that works by picking up the tiny spatial distortion of matter nearby would be damn hard to spoof, and the reverse could work in concert with I.S. Silver Curtain to make the illusions even more realistic. And, when you need a big badda boom, something that grabs a largish volume of air (or a small piece of the target) and crushes it until it induces fusion and then releases would be hard to beat. For utility effects, you could probably turn any sufficiently-airtight and reinforced vehicle into a cheapo single-stage-to-orbit shuttle, and I'd strongly consider the old "rip up a chunk of the ground and ride it" trick rather than a plain flight spell, for the timeless badassery of it. Or, you know, have premade blocks of stone, and a few jokes ready to go about following an ancient tradition, with traces found in many places where practitioners left their monoliths where they parked on hilltops after getting a little too merry at the revel and needing to ride home with a friend. -- "Anko, what you do in your free time is your own choice. Use it wisely. And if you do not use it wisely, make sure you thoroughly enjoy whatever unwise thing you are doing." - HymnOfRagnorok as Orochimaru at SpaceBattles woot Med. Eng., verb, 1st & 3rd pers. prsnt. sg. know, knows |
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