This post has the following content warnings:
Musoka gets yoinked into the Survivorverse
+ Show First Post
Total: 925
Posts Per Page:
Permalink

<Neat. And sure!>

She's flying some kind of ridiculous magitech gunship (obviously customized; there's 4 shades visible, and they're all 3 of Musoka's top 3 blues plus a metallic black trim). The UI is... busy, to put it mildly.

Permalink

<You should experiment more with tri-elemental synth-chakra allocations. The ratios you want are Pythagorean triples.>

Permalink

Several menus open in rapid succession, and after a few seconds of rapidly selecting options, she squeaks.

<Holy shiiiiiit. Thanks!>

Permalink

Meanwhile, Minerva has sent yes and an only slightly redacted version of the files! And yes, though there is one other candidate I am considering. There are very few power-granters who can customize their abilities to the level where they can directly interact with force-fields, and Magister is one of the two known.

And she'll send the confidential files!

Various useful information:

The slowing wasn't conventional, but everything else we've seen he's already known to use; his conjured hellfire is known to consume good feelings near it, he can instantly rot people near him with a curse, he gives his minions enhanced strength and toughness sometimes. He will absolutely sell immortality to rich people or high government officials in exchange for tremendous amounts of money or his preferred political policies; they are aware of a number of people in various governments (though their exact identities are one of the few things redacted) who have made deals with Magister, and so it's plausible he placed the bounty.

As far as they can tell, he 'builds up' power by causing people who would not be damned to become so, then spends it on his various spells; his precise reserves are unknown but almost certainly enormous given his paranoid nature. Exactly what "damnation" consists of is highly ambiguous (for those people who aren't Catholics), but they think it's based on being a state of where they have done very bad things that they know were wrong and they're glad they did them and don't wish they didn't. Complete list (based off of 12th-century Catholic teaching) here, with confidence levels. They think that his various contracts-for-your-soul are just trickery; the objective is psychological, to convince people that they're doomed whatever they do, but they're really not confident since he puts a lot of energy into signing them.

His known weaknesses are saints' relics and consecrated ground, but he just handles these by avoiding them, which he is really, really good at doing. People have been able to evade him by moving to consecrated ground, and his granted powers have sometimes had the limitation that they don't work on consecrated ground. He's known to be weaker on holy days; his weakest day is All Saints' Day and he then builds up more power throughout the year, with his fullest strength on Halloween.

He is known to have tried to end industrial civilization at least twice by triggering global thermonuclear war; both times the Atlantic Six stopped him. This isn't really classified but, uh, the extent to which some of the people he was manipulating into it got away with no punishment whatsoever is. He can summon very powerful demons, as well as giving granted powers; however, his demons have all his weaknesses but much, much more, and are very difficult to control, so he does it very rarely.

He can teleport in response to attacks that travel at lightspeed (specifically, Minerva's orbital geoengineering laser); it's theorized he has some kind of true precognition power. On which topic, one Halloween he gave someone time loop powers for an evening, so it's possible he can do that to defend himself, though they doubt he can do it on any other day.

His invulnerability does not seem to be that extreme; most of his powers seem to be B-ranked, the problem, as far as they can tell, is that he has a lot of different defensive powers, including extreme fast healing, toughness, illusions, projectiles coincidentally missing him, shields of hellfire that consume attackers, et cetera, et cetera, but this still means that he's essentially impossible to harm. He does not have construct immunity* in any form, so the leading proposed plausible means of killing him is targeting him with a power that "kills humans" or "disintegrates matter" and doesn't care anything more than that. The problem is the possible-precognitive teleportation, which would probably work on that.

They also think there are a lot of restrictions on his spells in general; his contracts often have specific obscure weaknesses or limitations in them, and they might be tools of manipulation, but they also might be genuine limits. Probably, his invulnerability is a large collection of individual spells with individual limits, all of which he maintains out of his spellcasting budget - most likely he needs to keep his soul-trading business going just to maintain himself alive. (Certainly his anti-aging is some form of magic.) "Run him out of power" would be a better idea if he hadn't probably been stably accumulating for about eight hundred years.

He's stupendously arrogant, but he's also very, very good at talking to people; it is probably not worth communicating with him.

There's a "relations with known immortals" section; he is on distant, wary terms with most immortals, they think; Prudence Cartwright has identified herself as unwilling to make an enemy of him, and the Society of Alchemists are known to dislike him but have not declared any open conflict. (A section that has been redacted discusses his relations with another immortal; it's absent, but there's some clues that it was there.)

(*: That's the way that a lot of powers that "work on humans" don't work on robots, summons, or very clever dogs. Type I construct immunity is "not human", Type II is "not organic," and Type III is "plausibly not made of matter.")

Permalink

...yikes. She spends a while rereading that and internalizing it, and then spends a little longer wishing she hadn't, or that this stupid universe didn't have immortal assholes, or that she hadn't let Musoka publicly de-age people.

...Do you think it might it be worth moving Musoka to some consecrated ground? Assuming there's some available, I mean.

Hmmm, what else should she be doing right now...

Permalink

I have considered it, and can have the grounds of this house formally put through a consecration ritual, but I am highly skeptical that that loophole would, in fact, protect it if it was at no point intended to be the site of an active church, and I am very worried about any inhabitants of an active church based at Musoka's location. I have holy water standing by as a weapon, but expect it to be ineffective against the powers he grants, though it may be more useful against demons.

Permalink

...yeah in retrospect she probably should have expected Minerva to know what she was doing.

She waits until her wielder is on a loading screen, and then... <Musoka?>

Permalink

Loading screens, unfortunately, are not distracting.

<...Yeah?>

Permalink

<I've been thinking more about the message from the Titanium Tyrant, and I'm interested in hearing more perspectives besides just Minerva's. I was thinking of talking to The Smith to get his opinion, if that's okay with you? I'll cc you the thread so you can keep tabs on it.>

Permalink

...Right, the Titanium Tyrant. Who wants her to heal his dying wife. (It feels like it's been ages since she got that email earlier today.)

<Seems fine with me? More perspectives would be useful, even though I do trust Minerva.>

Permalink

(Woah, this zone is huge! No wonder it took so long to load...)

Permalink

(d'awww)

She'll ask Minerva for The Smith's contact info (without mentioning why).

Permalink

And Minerva will guess that it's so Ceru can get a non-Minerva read on some important situation, briefly check with the Smith that he doesn't mind, and then immediately hand it over, with mixed sadness (it will probably lower the average quality of Musoka's advice), satisfaction (now she isn't the sole failure point in the connection), and relief (she hasn't gone so far into evil for the greater good that she's willing to try to betray Musoka and Ceru by controlling their information-flow.)

Permalink

As she starts to compose a message to the Second Smith, Ceru realizes that she's having emotions.

...

Well. She's learned, recently, that this sometimes correlates with making sub-optimal decisions for her and her wielder. Maybe it would be good to take stock of what she's feeling, and why, before she makes more sub-optimal decisions.

Permalink

Ceru is scared. In part because Musoka was incredibly distraught after the fight, in a way that could potentially weaken her ability to wield Ceru going forward... but mostly because the info in Magister's file is objectively rather scary. This is not an opponent that she and her wielder can defeat, and it's someone who clearly has a substantial interest in killing Musoka. And their allies can't deal with him either - the most they've been able to do is whittle away at his resources. And Magister isn't even their only enemy; the world they've found themselves in is dangerous, and Ceru feels like they're constantly scrambling and barely getting by. 

She endorses being at least a bit scared about this. It's a scary situation. Panicking about it won't help, though, and neither will taking rash action. Musoka needs her to act correctly, not quickly

She sits with her fear. Lets herself feel it, without letting it overwhelm her.

... 

Okay. What else?

Permalink

She's also extremely angry at Magister. All Musoka wants to do is help people, but apparently, the existence of a healer that can de-age people is a threat to his stupid fucking -

 - hm. She's furious, and... almost certainly unproductively so. Magister is a threat, and a menace to this world, but anger is... really not an adaptive thing for her to be feeling about this. She's read a lot about emotions in the last 24 hours. People often make rash decisions when they're angry that they do not end up endorsing later. Ceru would very much prefer not to do that!

The course of action Ceru was about to take was... to go behind Minerva's back, and instead follow the advice of a different supernaturally persuasive supervillain on who best to get advice from regarding his request, because... she was hoping the Titanium Tyrant could help against Magister. On reflection, that seems... maybe kinda rash! She'll hold off on that, for now, and let the anger leak out of her. 

Alright. Any other feelings in here? 

Permalink

Hmmm. She needs to work through her guilt about the fact that Musoka's ability to de-age people was made public as quickly as it was. It's not productive. ...She'll do that while Musoka sleeps.

She's incredibly proud of Musoka, for getting through that fight without killing anyone. Minerva was right. Musoka... didn't seem to internalize that. Ceru doesn't want to push her on that, not right now.

What can she do for Musoka?

Permalink

She ruminates on this.

...unfortunately, most of Musoka's identifiable needs are either things she already has (powerful allies, material goods, a therapist, a power ring (everyone needs a power ring - Power rings are awesome), etc etc), or things Ceru has no idea how to get her (a way home, perceived safety, actual safety...). 

One need that doesn't really fall into either category is friends. And luckily, Musoka has a history of making digital friends pretty easily...

Permalink

(It is at this point that a private plane lands at a small field just outside Chicago, the curtains drawn on the windows. Outside it seems unremarkable enough; one of Cessna's more popular models, hardly to be differentiated from any others of its category.

Inside there are eight seats, a throne, a water feature, a stage fit for a half-dozen musicians, a video screen large enough to take up most of a wall, and a literally superhumanly good soundproofing system. She may grace it with Her presence, after all.

Not that She has, Herself - though some would say that there is little difference, when one considers just how long the Boy has stayed at Her court.

Some believe that, over time, dogs grow to resemble their owners? Just so.)

Permalink

The Titanium Tyrant is unhappy. This is not tremendously surprising, since he's been unhappy since four of his counts rebelled, one of them one of his most qualified apprentices - he raised her in his own home - and his plans to heal his wife disappeared in a storm of war.

(He has considered that Ilderia's entire plan may have been launched for just that reason, and when he considers this he wishes he could have killed Ilderia twice.)

Right now, he's unhappy because he has a new chance to fix this and she isn't willing to help him. The Titanium Tyrant has months to try to fix this, but he does not have years, not any more.

(The obvious solution is a kidnapping attempt, because being married to the Gorgon Queen solves a great many problems, but if he fails he will definitely lose the ability to talk her into changing her mind. He needs to know who she is. He needs more information.

Well, when you're the Titanium Tyrant, there's way to get it.)

It is, perhaps, time for him to talk to his children, and see what they can contribute to this problem. The younger children, at least. Not Elizabeth.

Permalink

And now emergency services and police investigators are showing up to cart the unconscious villains off, get an after-action report, and see how injured everyone is! (Minerva really wishes there was a way to remove powers, but suspects that under the circumstances Magister-or-the-other-person would have only given them temporary ones; still, the unnaturally realistic masks aren't coming off.) Minerva will do her best to keep them off Musoka and Ceru, since Musoka needs her downtime and Minerva has a lot of bodies and a complete video feed of the battle from multiple angles and does not think interrogating her new healer about the details of a fight is a great idea.

Permalink

Thanks for handling that - Musoka really needs to decompress, and she's pretty engrossed in the game. it's nice to see her uncomplicatedly enjoying something so much.

Will she need to make legal statements about what happened, at some point?

Permalink

The police request it. She is not legally required to cooperate, and I suspect the informational value is less than the cost of the stress to her, but this could easily be a miscalculation, especially if she has sensory powers I am unaware of.

Permalink

I have a pretty comprehensive sensor suite, but... I don't think we could share my logs with the police without revealing more information about how exactly her powers work than we intend to. I could share it with you and you could see if there's anything useful there? If it'd be genuinely valuable to the police, I think Musoka would want to share it, but I agree that it'd be stressful, especially now, and I can augment her recall such that there's no need to worry about time distorting her memories if they ask later. 

We could share the video captured by the power armor's cameras uncomplicatedly, if you haven't already done so.

Permalink

I agree that it is unwise to share too much information where our enemies may be able to learn it. If you and Musoka have no objection to sharing the power armor's camera views, I have only sent my own.

If she has augmented memories, then the delay is much less of an issue, and I believe we can rest as long as she needs.

Not literally not an issue, but - in an actual, practical case, if Magister recruited this hit squad in Chicago, he has already left Illinois and plausibly already left the continent of North America. Minerva's looking, but the Six are very, very unlikely to be able to track him down before he gets away, even just to force him into teleporting out.

Total: 925
Posts Per Page: