Chapter 20

A Wizard In Alexandria's Court

Chapter Twenty

by Skysaber

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Author's Forward:

Chapter One has had several additions made to better introduce the SI character, and describe his motivations.

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Story Day Twelve, April 17th 2011, Sunday - Early Morning

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"A 'small' monument, you say?" Victor turned to Rick, a question in his eyes. Both men were covered by the shadow of the just-completed Panacea Arch, the nearest part of which was over four hundred feet away from them. "I shudder to think what you'd consider big."

'Rick' just smiled, gazing on the monument.

On his instruction, Kaiser had put together a massive wrought iron structure. The base was similar to the legs and arches up to the second platform of the Eiffel Tower, although over that framework Jared's golems and homunculi had contributed by bringing in enough stone, and using their inbuilt Stone Shape spell-like abilities sufficient times that the decorating style was more Arc de Triomphe, with a shade of influence from Nelson's Column, celebrating New Wave with statues and murals of their people and deeds.

The only cape of New Wave's not depicted on the base was Panacea, and that was because a statue of her made up the entire top half of the monument, depicting her more as an angel in a white dress than her usual cape costume; head bare, hair nicely styled, a brilliant smile on her face and arms raised in benevolence as her image looked down in loving-kindness on all who passed beneath her arch.

And many would pass beneath her.

A four lane highway ran between the legs of the base of the statue of Panacea, with train tracks, commuter and cargo, running alongside. A monorail constructed by Kaiser ran through the base and back again to a local shopping center, and Jared had plans for more. The whole section of land this sat on had been purchased by a new charity organization, the Panacea Memorial Foundation, and papers had already been sent inviting Lady Photon to sit on its managing board as a voting member.

This site was specifically chosen as deliberately standing astride the newly reconnected main traffic arteries coming in and going out of Brockton Bay from the more prosperous south. They owned enough of the land here to build a theme park on, and Jared had already arranged for the Dockworker's Union to get a chance to bid on the jobs that would be created when it came time to run the bulldozers and other earthmoving machinery that would be needed to develop this place.

Seeing as how most of the design and finishing work had been done by Jared's homunculi, who used his skills, which had been boosted to Uber's levels by Cranial's technology, the quality of the monument was superb, and the artwork simply breathtaking. Magically strengthened, it was tougher than any anti-Endbringer shelter yet built, and could probably tank a fair sized nuke.

It was also taller than the Statue of Liberty.

The real Panacea would probably have a... complex reaction when she saw it; a mix of outrage, feelings of inadequacy, imposter syndrome, and a tiny bit flattered hidden under the rest of it.

But what did he know?

The image *was* the way people wanted to remember her, though.

He'd find out what the actual Panacea's reaction was once he restored her. However, that would not be yet. That girl had been on the verge of breaking down - HAD broken down completely in the original source material. If he restored her now, she'd simply step directly back into that same role that would resume slowly grinding her down to that same, inevitable, collapse.

So he would wait a bit, while arranging for a thing or two so he could give her a fresh start.

The boy turned back to face Victor, replying to his comment, "You know? I do consider this small, contrasted to the scale of that girl's accomplishments."

Victor gave that thought a moment of honest appraisal, and found he had to agree.

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"We should look into souvenir sales at once," Kaiser declared, looking at blown-up photographs of the completed Panacea Arch projected on the walls of his office.

None of the Empire's capes but Victor had been willing to meet with the boy, once he was known to have Master abilities, as perhaps the kid had been lying when he'd told them he only had influence over female victims?

Time would tell, but none of the Empire capes would be eager to meet him for a while, at least. That left Victor as the only point of contact, as the skill thief held justifiable pride in the scope and comprehensiveness of his anti-Master skills.

So they had convened this small meeting at the Medhall building to discuss the new development, and all of its possible complications, rather than at the foot of the monument itself, which might have been more natural. They'd substituted photographs taken by Victor and projected on the walls of Max' Medhall office for looking directly on the real thing.

Kaiser felt excited. Small scale models of that statue would sell like crazy. He knew it. Kaiser was already tempted himself, thinking where he would place a one or two-foot high version in his office. Perhaps as the centerpiece to his wet bar? Yes, that would do nicely.

Show public spirit, and all that. His guests would be impressed.

Yes, it would have to be a two-foot version, or perhaps a three? Yes, three.

Victor slowly shook his head. "Hillbillies had already locked down all of the intellectual property rights before that thing was even built - they were the ones to give *us* the plans for how to build it, after all. And I can already tell you they would consider it a major breech if we violated those with off-brand knock-offs."

Krieg looked away from the projected photos for a moment to ask, "Why do you call them hillbillies?"

A small smirk graced Victor's lips, as more than one of those capes at this small emergency meeting of the Empire's leadership, consisting of Kaiser and his closest lieutenants, turned to him with that same question in their eyes. "Oh, let's see here, let me think. We've got a whole bunch of people up in our foothills who are clannish and don't like outsiders. They've got dogs, they've got guns, the men all have beards, they make moonshine and likely shoot at any government official who enters their territory... they're hillbillies."

None of those present could deny that assessment, so they just silently accepted it, going back to their appraisal of those photos.

"Offer them a contract," Kaiser ordered. "Okay, we don't want their people shooting at ours. We are rather vulnerable at the moment, as putting down the ABB has proven more difficult than we'd originally supposed. So we won't attempt to trample over their property rights, or at least not just yet. So bid for the legitimate rights to produce souvenir versions of this. It doesn't even have to be exclusive. We all know this is going to become the iconic image of Brockton Bay. We'll want in on the ground floor of producing the merchandise reflecting it. Get all of the usual; coffee mugs, drink containers, T-shirt designs, scale models, hats, the works, into production. I want them in stores tomorrow. Next Halloween, I want one girl in ten Trick-or-Treating wearing copies of that dress as her costume - and not just in Brockton Bay."

"We're already heavily invested in other areas," Victor cautioned wisely. "Are you sure about this?"

Kaiser nodded. "I am certain of it. Use one of our legitimate companies, expanded as appropriate. Tell this Rick fellow that I would consider it a personal favor if he would allow us a share of that pie, just as we've offered him a share of our betting on Lung. He wants a truce that will last between us? Shared investments are one way of doing that. And this is going to be big, I can sense it. We'll want to jump on this with both feet, before the field gets clogged with competitors."

Victor nodded. While he did not often display it, too often distracted by having two jobs to do either of them to his best ability, Max did have a good head for business. Son of the previous owner or not, Kaiser's dad would not have put his son in charge if he'd been incompetent. Just like Max wasn't putting his underachieving son, Theo, in charge of anything.

"Well, okay then."

And the meeting dismissed.

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Jared had teleported home from his viewing of the newly completed Panacea Arch, into the dubious privacy of his room at the Belmont estate. But he was struggling.

Last night's confrontation had really taken a lot of the wind out of his sails.

Thanks to that, he was no longer enjoying his current situation.

Though the girls HAD backed down, in large part thanks to Alec he was certain, none of them had apologized for having accused him in the first place. They'd just all gone their separate ways. And feeling awkward over having been wrong about their accusation, most of the girls had been avoiding him ever since, so they did not have to face the primary reminder of their having blown up over nothing.

So things had failed to get better.

Though he had been mild and nonconfrontational at the time, as the best way to settle flared tempers among his team, being accused like that by those girls had hurt him - a lot.

The wizard felt that he'd earnestly put more than enough work into those budding relationships to earn a little trust. So to have them fly off the handle over the tiniest upset when he'd been busily protecting them from forced recruitment into a Nazi chain gang...

Well, he was actually a bit tired of feeling like the babysitter of a kindergarten, to be honest. Though the Heart's Ease had cured everyone's emotional damage, it did not fill in the holes in people's experiences where they had never really learned how to get along with another human being all that well in the first place.

It was a lot of work, looking after this group, and the total failure of them last night to offer him any kind of appreciation; a kind word, a soft glance, a smile even, had really stung.

No one liked being unappreciated.

Frankly, his current group of youngsters reminded him of that old quote, "We are all so much together, but we are all dying of loneliness."

It was a pity he had not had Uber record interpersonal relationship skills. That would have fixed so many things.

Too late now, the guy wasn't accepting new orders. Nor had either Uber or Leet explained why, just dropping out of contact. Frankly, he had been expecting them both at that race, and the fact they'd both been no-shows had been quite the surprise. So they might even have been killed, or kidnapped and recruited into the Protectorate, which was almost worse. Killed he could fix. Brainwashed and locked into contracts was considerably more of a problem.

"There are none more truly enslaved than they who falsely believe they are free," was close enough to the Johann Wolfgang von Goeth quote.

The elf had been trying to build an adventuring party around himself, a group to trust with his back when life got troubled. But the constant immaturity of his current companions was beginning to seriously wear at him.

Frankly, he needed a break.

Perhaps it was time to try that old proverb, "If you love something, let it go. If it comes back, it was meant to be; if it doesn't, it was never yours to begin with." Of course, the same guy said, "There are two means of refuge from the misery of life - music and cats."

Hmm, that gave him an idea.

There had been errands he'd been meaning to run outside of town. After all, there were people outside of Brockton Bay he knew of that needed to be saved - most of them were time sensitive, too. And time for dealing with them was running out.

The boy sighed, resolving within himself that, if he were going to do this, it would serve double-duty. Because it was clear at this point that the random extradimensional bastard was focused on him, not those girls. So if he could get his break while drawing the attentions of that bastard away from them, that was one thing, and was good. But better if he should leave behind the means for his girls to train up some combat capacity so they'd be less at risk when he returned.

He got up and accessed a secret space, opening a hole in the air.

"What are you going to do now?" a friendly voice asked.

Distracted, the youth hardly paid any attention to it, save to let a background function check to see if he trusted this person enough, and on finding that he did, answered her directly, "Getting outfitted," he said, drawing out a shirt of platinum white from the space behind the portal hanging in the air, throwing off his current light jacket, and sliding that slightly glowing white shirt on over his normal clothes, then shrugging and twisting a bit in order to get it settled properly, as getting a proper fit was important. The glow had faded by the time he was done. Then he was doing the same with the matching white kilt. "The attack during the race caught me off guard, and more importantly, unarmored! I've got very decent armor, but don't wear it all of the time because of how one of my rings interacts with it. Not all magical effects are complimentary, and until I had the issue with the ring fixed, I could not stay armored as often as I'd like."

"THAT'S armor?" the statement was made with some disbelief.

Trusting this person, the boy replied with a mild smirk. "Only about a third as good as an interstellar battleship's main armor belt. It'll stop most things, but nothing is perfect." It was silly how, when you are low level, with almost no bonuses, it seems like the greatest thing in the world to you that D&D rules insisted that rolling a natural 20 with an attack on a twenty-sided die always hit, no matter how difficult the target; then, when you are older, higher level, and munchkined to insanity, such that there is no other chance for most things to hit you and you find yourself on the receiving end of that rule more often than not, it loses its shine.

Otherwise, with armor this good, he could stand before a full firing squad, every man present carrying live ammo with a couple of extra clips to spare, and simply let them shoot at him until they'd all run out of bullets - and be in no danger doing so!

Yeah, some rules exploits work better than others, and armor optimization tricks could get just, plain, Nuts!

The woman blinked. "Can I have some?"

"Always in my plans," the boy replied casually. "It's fairly risky, and could just end the world doing so, but I can make some extra sets of this for you gals. Was always planning to, anyhow."

There came a pause.

"You're not joking?" she asked.

"About the end of the world thing? Nah! Absolutely not. It really is that dangerous - or has that potential, anyway. So far I've been lucky. Worst case, we can always flee to another world. Frankly, this one isn't all that good a planet to live on in the first place."

The woman paused for a moment, absently stroking her long, black hair as she considered how she felt about that. "Alright," she concluded. "That's probably for the best. You're right, anyway. This world is *not* that good a place to live."

Jared had taken out a couple of swords and laid them on the bed. Lifting one, he took a magic wand and slid that into a chamber built to receive one in the sword's hilt. Closing that and sealing the panel shut behind it, he flipped the sword over to open another panel on the guard, extending from it a hollow needle. Withdrawing a glowing purple potion vial from his pocket, he aligned it right then pressed down, driving that needle through the cork of the bottle, whereupon every glowing drop of liquid vanished inside the hilt faster than the most greedy infant could suck it through a straw. He then folded that needle back inside and closed the panel.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Loading the wand chamber and oil container," he replied, pulling a trio of small, brightly colored marbles from his pockets, he proceeded to press those into spots in the guard, where they inserted just like he was loading bullets into a clip. "These are Alchemical Capsules. Each of my weapons has a three-slot Capsule Retainer. It's important to load those up before entering battle - and after that attack during the race we are officially on notice that we should anticipate combat at any time. So it's best to be prepared. Here."

He tossed her a thin, rubbery strap fitted with a small, smooth metal ring.

She picked it up, idly curious. "What's this?"

"Capsule Retainer," he answered. "That one goes inside of your mouth. Some users find that holding the ring inside the gum and keeping the capsule under the tongue is the most comfortable way to wear it, while others find that holding the ring on the outside of the upper gum allows them to tuck the capsule in their cheek comfortably. It's all personal preference."

She watched him expertly slide one into his own mouth. Apparently, he preferred the tongue side.

"What does it do?" she asked.

The boy snorted. "Anything you want to? The concept is based on that old idea spies had of carrying a dose of lethal poison inside of one of their teeth. Only these can carry just about anything, including poison if so inclined. But most adventurers carry doses of stuff more likely to save their lives; antitoxin, immune boosters, performance enhancing drugs, painkillers so near-deadly wounds don't slow you down while trying to escape from whatever caused them. No, all that's basic, normal stuff anyone can load. I've got mine enchanted so they carry whole potions. Here," he tossed her a small bead, picking one of the same color to load into his own mouth. "That's got a dose of Cure Serious Wounds, for when sucking chest wounds need to go just away. It'll repair any damage you've got short of actual death or lost limbs or the like. So provided you don't lose any parts, swallow that and you'll be fine. Doesn't fix mental problems, obviously. But I've got a different set that will, and others that fix disease, or poisons. But injuries are far more commonly occurring in our lifestyle."

"Oh." The woman blinked several times, before following his example and indelicately opening her mouth wide to load the capsule.

It took her several tries, but in the end she got it, along with something of the knack for it.

He had just finished, using that time to load the other sword's various containers and compartments in a similar way, before placing both down on the bed again and selecting a pair of marble-sized crystals from one of his pockets, then clicking those into receivers built into the pommels of both weapons.

He tossed her a sheathed dagger, along with assorted bits and bobs, like another potion vial, a crystal, and several of those alchemical marbles. "Here. Load that one up for yourself. It's always good to carry a backup weapon, even if you never intend to use it. The daggers I have all use sheathes designed by the Archmage Raistlin, from Krynn. You carry them on your forearm, and the sheath drops the dagger into your hand with a certain, special flick of the wrist, like this." He demonstrated, then replaced his own weapon up the sleeve on his own arm. "The sheathes are enchanted so no one but the person wearing them can ever find them, until you draw the weapon."

They worked together quietly for a time, him showing her how to load the weapon by example as he loaded up other sets into different swords, daggers, and other weapons.

"Here," he showed her a thumb catch on the hilt of the dagger she was still loading. "You hold the dagger like this." He demonstrated, then adjusted her grip when she tried and imperfectly followed his example. "You feel that?" he asked, then adjusted her thumb. "That puts your thumb just right so you can switch it here, then press that in. You then twist, like this."

She did, and there came a 'Pop!' from inside of the dagger.

He smiled. "That's right. You've got it. Now practice that a few times. You ought to be able to do that in an instant, on no notice, when you are distracted and in the midst of getting beat up in a losing fight. In other words, you've got to practice until you've got it completely instinctual."

"But why?" she asked.

"Because my weapons all have another hollow compartment inside that I haven't showed you how to open yet, that when you push that spot and twist just right, as you've done, breaks the smokestick I've placed inside, filling the area around you with smoke nearly impenetrable to all vision for a few seconds - you know, like the old 'Ninja Vanish' trick? All you've got to do is break line of sight for a few seconds, and it's a lot easier to escape. One of the best ways to get out of a losing fight, in fact. You can practice that now, because I had not loaded a smokestick into that dagger yet. In another minute or so, I'll show you how."

"You sure have a lot of tricks," she commented idly, trying the move to hold and twist her dagger the correct way again, getting it not quite right until she had adjusted her grip so it felt she'd gotten it again.

She twisted and was answered by another 'Pop!' issuing from inside her dagger.

"My whole fighting style revolves around outsmarting my opponents. In fact, where I'm from, people like me are often compared to Batman, that legendary comic hero who always seemed to have the perfect answer to any situation. You can believe me when I say, that is a heavy expectation to carry," he commented mildly. "The dumb brutes always look your way when something comes up they can't just smash their way through - and they do not take kindly to being disappointed."

He wasn't joking. It was literally the case, that one of the better introductory guides online for playing a 3.5 wizard, was entitled, "Being Batman."

After practicing for a time, he had completed loading out his other weapons up to the same point he'd shown her with the dagger, at which point he deemed her as having had enough practice for now, and gave her smokestick, showing her how to load it. Then followed that with a brass ring, showing her how to place it by sliding it over the base of the hilt, then shoving it right up against the guard, whereupon it shrank and settled firmly into place, almost unnoticeable.

He then lifted his staff and cast Greater Magic Weapon, and the whole collection of weapons all began glowing as bright as light bulbs, before tapering off and going normal again.

"I see you're quite focused on melee combat," the woman observed.

The boy laughed. "No, actually that's something I avoid whenever possible. It's my option for if all else fails. But, that said, just because you hope and pray never to use them, you'd better make sure that the lifeboats on your ship are sound and fully prepared to function anyway, just in case you ever need them. Because when things are falling apart around you and that ship is going down, it is too late to fix any leaks in a lifeboat. Same thing applies here. I work very hard to avoid physical combat, but other creatures notice that, which means they work very hard trying to get their claws into me, thinking that melee must be my weakness. So I have to be prepared for in case they succeed."

She watched in surprise as he took out and tested various boot blades, elbow blades, knee blades, and sleeve blades, popping each of the spring loaded weapons out in turn and putting them through their paces, checking they had all of the same capsules, oils and wands loaded, before retracting them back into their hidden places again.

Once those were put away, he looked quite normal.

"You know, if you had not shown me, I would never have suspected; but you are as well armed as a porcupine, aren't you?" she observed.

He smiled. "That's the whole point. Looking normal, then doing like a porcupine and making sure than anything that grabs you is sorry."

He thought about withholding the information, but realized that he trusted this person enough, so he shared, "If I am pressed hard enough to fall back on one of my hidden pop-out blades, things have generally gone very badly for me. So I've taken the precaution and dosed them all with a particularly deadly poison - Black Lotus Extract, that can kill even a very strong target very quickly. An average man will die almost instantly, and all but a supernaturally durable one in about a minute."

Both of her eyebrows raised. "You wear that getup when you're hugging your girlfriends?"

"No, not actually. That was very relaxing, not having to be constantly on guard for most of two weeks." He sadly shook his head. "But now I've got to gear up for war again. So any hugging will have to wait for a while."

He did not mention, mostly because he felt it would not interest her, that all of these hold-out weapons had the Spell Storing special quality, into which he'd loaded Sethris' Potency, all but guaranteeing that whatever he hit with them would fail to resist the poison.

He'd loaded Shivering Touch into others of his weapons, a spell infamous for being able to one-shot dragons, because some things were immune to poison.

Assembling this arsenal had cost him a fortune, but that's why he'd been so eager for so long to earn money. Because, after all, being an adventurer only cost a lot of money if you intended to *survive*.

It was a very cheap way to live if you did not want to last long.

Most wizards he was aware of did not even bother carrying a dagger, unless it was for eating, viewing them as useless and pointless.

He'd lost count of how many funerals he'd attended for those sorts of classmates. Some had even been considered among the greatest minds of their generation, too.

Of course, he'd attended even more funerals for fighters who'd refused the very concept of carrying a ranged weapon as a backup, relying solely upon the merits of some melee weapon into which they'd sunk every last bit of money they'd owned - melee weapons that made fine trophies in the collections of those monsters that had sniped those fighters to death from range.

Sometimes the dragon you are confronting doesn't bother to land. In fact, the smart ones realized that only an idiot lets an adventuring group surround it and stick their swords in it. Despite the protection of their scales, dragons died all of the time. So sooner or later the ones that survived eventually figured out that letting those barbarians with mighty thews in close to chop their scaly guts out was a bad idea, and changed tactics to just flying overhead doing strafing runs with their breath weapons until those barbarians were all crispy critters.

Jared had fought one particularly clever blue dragon that never did land, and did all of his attacking invisibly, and at high speeds. They'd never caught that one out in the open, and been forced to go into its lair.

Never go fight a dragon in its lair if you can avoid it. Most of them were even smarter than wizards, and knew they had a vested interest in preparing every dirty trick in the book to ensure that adventuring parties did not survive the attempt.

Game rules and lazy DMs in a tabletop setting were one thing. There monsters were often nothing more than pop-up targets. But once that environment became his actual life, Jared had found that those had created a false impression. Because when the monsters were real, then just like the opposing team in football, they were trying to win too. Almost no creatures were stupid enough to just stand there and let you beat on them until they died. No, they were fighting to survive. So in the first place no living monster would ever choose a fight they did not believe they were going to win.

Everything out there fought as hard as they could, and used every crazy trick they could think of to do so, as it was literal life or death.

He was just trying to stay ahead.

The boy picked up and donned his jacket again before he reached over and picked up the first of six thin tubes, taking and sliding that into a prepared pocket in one of the jacket sleeves that she would not have noticed had she not seen him load it in front of her.

"What was that?" she asked.

"My jacket has a feature borrowed from Scrollsheath Robes, allowing two scroll cases to be stored in each sleeve, for easy access," he told her, before picking up and waggling the second thin tube. "These are Infinite Scrollcases. The name is something of an exaggeration. They only hold fifty scrolls apiece. But that's still quite a lot of firepower to have available."

He slid that second into its place in the same sleeve, then went on to pick up the third.

The woman was confused. "I'm sorry," she said. "But aren't scrolls just bits of paper? How is that firepower?"

The boy gave that a moment of thought. "Imagine for a moment if you could gather together a single use of your power, and distill that into the liquid in a bottle, so that anyone who popped the cork and drank it could use your power once. That is a potion. Now if, instead, you could write all sorts of mathematical formula, with equations describing exactly what to do, and actually instilled your power into that, so that it took intelligence and training to release, but properly understood, a reader could harness the energy you'd stored in that writing and get a use of your power. That would be a scroll. Anyone can use a potion, but only those trained could use a scroll. Both store power."

She shrugged, saying, "I've played video games." Then she did a rapid double-take. "Wait! Are you saying your *power* works like that? That you are basically a video game character?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, basically. It's tabletop, not video game rules. But most people don't even know there is a difference. So yeah."

She stood for a while regarding him in both concern and wonder.

He finished loading his sleeves. "If it helps, think of me more like a Tinker with an energy-based specialty. I first develop a pattern calculated to have the effect that I want. This takes time and research to discover how to do, so I tend to save patterns. These I arbitrarily call 'Spells'. Once the pattern gets developed, I can then assemble an energy matrix to actually perform the effect. But it all works out so that you could not tell the difference between what I do and what a fantasy wizard does. But if you insist on a sciency-type explanation, there it is."

She got an odd look on her face, contemplating that.

When he noticed, he frowned slightly. Casting something, he became alarmed and quickly hit her with a Sleep spell, thankful as she collapsed into his arms that almost no one he'd met so far on this Earth had advanced enough in level to resist that otherwise unusable spell.

Laying her down gently, after all, he did like and trust her, and felt they were friends, the boy chided himself for having missed one as he went through the process of creating another Lantern Archon to go get a pig, which he used as those were the domestic equivalent of a wild boar, which had three hit dice and so met the minimum requirements to let him cast Ability Rip to transfer her power into temporarily.

Since the spell came through his favorite staff, he could cast it very quickly. In fact, due to a feat he had, it took less than a second.

Nearly killed the pig doing it, but that was okay as they'd always planned to finish killing it, to eat it later on.

In moments, her shard was dead, exploded off on an alternate Earth somewhere, her power returned, and he was helping the newly wakened woman to her feet, all the while apologizing, "I'm so terribly sorry. I can't imagine how I'd missed one. I was so certain that I'd gotten all of you the first time this had become a problem."

"One what?" she asked, holding her head, a little dizzy.

He forgave her being a little forgetful in her state. "Don't you remember? I told you all before. Parahuman powers are parasitical organisms, links to a network of alien biocomputers that have vast power, but are too stupid and uncreative to actually figure out all of the uses for those powers themselves. So they parasite on more creative races, loaning their powers to them while recording everything they do with them in order to discover new uses. When the cycle ends, they kill everyone and move on. It's all very well documented, just not on this branch of reality. I did not think you'd want to have one of those things in your head, spying on your every thought, any longer than necessary. They tend to influence people for the worse, driving them to conflict, in order to create crises, hoping to spur more creativity."

Really, Alec had become a lot more personable since he'd removed his.

She stared at him in shock. "But... I've still got my power!"

"Yeah," he nodded. "Welcome to my life. Where science-based alien meets fantasy wizard; magic breaks the rules, and wizard wins. I took an extra few steps in killing that shard in order to rip your power free from it and install it in you directly, without the alien bio-computer attached. You're welcome."

She just continued to stare at him in shocked amazement, and who knows what all else. It was quite a mix of emotions.

Deciding she'd want a moment to think things through, Jared felt that he had a moment, and so recently reminded of uncreative shards and their frequently uncreative users - one user in particular, he decided that it would be best to use this moment in order to take care of something. So he pulled out his laptop and began to type.

"The Amazing Doctor Whodunit's Thread of Extreme Awesomeness, Plot #6. The reprehensible Poo-Get's extended organization continues their underhanded dealings. So I have decided to unleash the dreaded power of my awesome Interlocutionary Inverter! Wha-Ha-Ha-Ha-Ha! Unfortunately, it's got a fairly narrow focus. I've still got to work on that. So I've had to choose a target that would garner sufficient attention to give it the respect it deserves! A suitable target has come up as I was randomly flipping channels on the TV! There is a high profile abuse of the alleged Justice System happening right now - and THEY will be the example to the rest of you!"

Looking over his shoulder, the dark-haired woman gasped. "YOU are Doctor Whodunit?"

Jared scoffed. "Me? No, I'm not Doctor Whodunit. He's a fictional character, no more real than the Easter Bunny. But like the Easter Bunny, people can take on the role for a while. I'm an actor. He's just one of the roles I play. I made him to be as absurd and ridiculous as possible, so when I force the PRT to take him seriously, they look ridiculous themselves by doing so."

He started a new thread.

"The Amazing Doctor Whodunit's Thread of Extreme Awesomeness, Plot #7. The evil organization that I shall refer to as 'Bedpan', just has not got enough cheesy-puffs in their secret headquarters on an alternate Earth. I like cheesy puffs. They don't like cheesy puffs. Or at least, while I was stalking through their headquarters I could not find any. Perhaps that vaporous Custodian lady ate them all? Or Doormaker. I bet it was him. He and Clairvoyant must take all of the cheesy-puffs for themselves, it's obvious now. Because if they didn't like cheesy-puffs, they would be lame. Anyway, since their primary Thinker, Contessa, apparently never saw her way clear to running any Paths To Cheesy-Puffs, I shall employ my Plasmic Essence Reversifier to see to it that no other Path shall ever be clear for her again! MWA-Ha-Ha!"

"What are you talking about?" The dark haired woman was still reading over his shoulder.

"Interdimensional secret conspiracy that sells superpowers and manipulates everything behind the scenes," Jared told her, taking her in his arms and suddenly they were in a different location, out in the bay from what her power told her their location was in relation to all of the minds she could still sense out in the city, in a room where a bizarre machine sat, one made up of most of the unlucky things she'd ever heard of. "It was only a matter of time before they narrowed down who I was and came gunning for me, so I am taking the opportunity now, before they do that, to mock them on the most laughable pretext I can arrange as cover, while trolling them with the names of some of their members, and setting up to nut-shot the cape most vital to their entire organization."

He said this as he was preparing the machine, using telekinesis to place a small dummy woven of hair, representing a lady in a suit wearing a fedora onto a chair in the center upholstered in black cat fur, taking care never to go near that chair himself.

In moments, there was a flash of light, and... everything looked normal.

A trio more flashes of light, then he was using TK to withdraw that... voodoo doll, she guessed. Then he vanished, only to reappear again seconds later carrying a soggy backpack, all torn and dilapidated, out of which he removed a list and loads of hair samples. In moments he was placing another voodoo doll on the chair telekinetically - still careful to go nowhere near it himself.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"There are various ways of doing it," Jared replied absently. "But as I did not have a Yuki-Onna handy, I just used a Compass Curse on a very dangerous woman. Basically, the subject becomes so confused and disoriented about directions that she is unable to find her way anywhere without assistance. They will misread maps, mistake landmarks, be unable to follow even the simplest directions, and otherwise err in attempting any journey undertaken. I know of a person, Ryoga Hibiki, who had this curse running in his family, and it was frequently - and accurately - said of the man that he could get lost in an empty room with one door."

Jared raised a very grim smile to face his companion. "The woman I cursed had a power called Path to Victory, and following its directions she could accomplish nearly anything. Now, unless someone takes her by the hand and drags her around, she'll get lost on her way to and from the bathroom in her own house. No matter how much her power whispers in her ear, she'll misinterpret and misunderstand everything it says to her. I just rendered the most powerful human Thinker powerless. She is worse off than someone with no power at all."

He chuckled. "As if that was not devastating enough, I then followed that up with curses for her to freeze in the face of violence, for our group to be a blindspot for her, and to be unable to lie in a very devastating way - you see, she will tell you the unvarnished truth whenever she wants to lie, but think, while she is doing so, that she is successfully telling the lie she wanted to.

"That last curse I am now going to cast over everyone responsible for that farce of a show trial they are ramming Canary through."

He lifted up the wet paper, and began to read off names, replacing the hair dummy between each flash of light, as he recited the list of judges, prosecutors, and witnesses in the Canary Trial. As well as everyone in authority above them who had responsibility for stopping that and should have had the integrity to cancel that farce.

In other words, everyone who had responsibility for making that a fair trial, yet did not.

It was quite the long list.

The woman just stared, until he'd finished, having just read off the names of the last of the Supreme Court Justices.

~This is really going to shake up the legal system in the country, isn't it?~ She reflected, wondering if that was a bad or a good thing.

OoOoO

Back at Fairhaven, Lisa leaped out of her chair, raising her hands in triumph, as she exulted, "YES! I *knew* cheesy-puff stock was going to go way up! I knew it! I don't know why it did yet, but I'll find out. This is going to make me a fortune!"

After celebrating, she decided to take a break from her day-trading to check email, and found the notice for two new posts by the Amazing Doctor Whodunit.

Her face paled as she read the second one, and she threw a pillow. "He could have *told* me! I would have doubled my investment!" She sat down quick, to buy more stock before the notice went out that the cheesy-puff company was going to be building a new factory, as her power told her would be happening later that day.

The company itself did not know they were going to be doing that yet, but her power did, as it turned out there was going to be a lot of demand, coming out of nowhere, of people in positions of power suddenly wanting to be eating cheesy-puffs, with everyone else nervously following their example.

And she knew why.

OoOoO

Jared and his female friend teleported back to Fairhaven, arriving inside of the living room of the Belmont Estate with boxes of books, one labeled for each of the girls.

The Empire had pulled all of their capes out of Fairhaven. No surprise. So his golems had relocated the few non-cape Empire refugees left in the Belmont Estate out and into other buildings. So that place was private and reserved for them once again.

No one in the Empire had argued over their need for privacy, after their confrontation the previous night.

As they arrived, Jared was apologizing, "I don't know what came over me, forgetting you like that. I was so sure I'd assembled a care package of books for each of you..."

"Don't worry about it," the girl told him, setting down her own box with her name on it. "You were able to assemble another so quickly I almost did not notice."

"Yeah," the boy started rubbing the back of his head, mumbling under his breath, "Thank Heaven for the habit of keeping backups and spares."

Lisa walked in on them a while later, finding the two standing around a round topped kitchen garbage can projecting an image that looked remarkably like a Star Wars hologram, giving a faint blue, flickering image of Jared dressed in Jedi robes.

The round topped garbage can had been painted so it resembled R2D2.

"So, you done pouting?" Lisa chirped upon seeing him.

Jared calmly responded, giving her a bit of the cold shoulder while he rapidly finished up what he'd been doing with the garbage can, as even in his current lousy mood he did not want to leave it unfinished and spoil a good joke. "No. I need a while to process things. I need a break. I've left you some books to help you to defend yourselves, and a recording to help explain it. Not sure how long I'll be gone. Until my errands are done, I guess. I've got other people to save."

~Cold. He's not supposed to be cold.~ Lisa thought in a growing panic. She'd felt that minor altercation last night to be minor at best, a blip, an understandable reaction on their part to one of the major terrors of their world, and therefore something that ought to be forgiven and forgotten the moment it was past.

Apparently, he had not felt the same, and had taken it far more seriously than she'd felt possible.

This was Not Good!

That boy was the source of all of their safety, prosperity and most of their power. If they lost his affections, if they no longer enjoyed his goodwill, they could all be back out on the streets of a cold, hard world that cared nothing for any one of them.

Lisa had been there, out on those streets, alone. It was not a nice place. She'd fallen prey to the dangers once, been caught, been enslaved, been nearly killed following the orders of an uncaring boss who'd pushed her into a situation where she'd almost died - and would have, she was convinced, if not for Jared's intervention. Facing off against Lung, the undefeated local powerhouse (until Jared had arrived, then started to make a mockery of), was not the business of a lowly Thinker like her, whose power had almost no combat applications!

As she'd learned since, that was not the worst fate that could have befallen her. She could have been picked up by Lung's brothels, where she'd have been debased and degraded for months, probably dying before her first year was out - as most did.

No, she did not want to go back to that uncaring world where it mattered to no one whether she lived or died.

But sadly, that was the norm out there.

Here at Fairhaven, under this man, they had it so good she literally could not describe the difference. It was not just the wealth, although the prosperity was nice, it was the safety - they'd faced off against one of the Bay's major gangs last night and it was the major gang that had backed down, not wanting a fight!

That had been a thrill like no other the blonde girl had experienced in her short life!

Lisa, no more or less than most girls, prized safety. It was a treasure like few others, and so rare on their world as to be doubly precious. They now represented one of the major powers of their area, and she did not kid herself, that wasn't due to any of the girls on their team. It was all due to *him!*

His goodwill literally provided everything that was enjoyable about their new state of affairs, and apparently they had damaged that goodwill, to the point that their entire situation was now in jeopardy!

Lisa nearly peed herself in panic.

If she felt it would have done any good, she would have stripped down then and there and invited him to do all sorts of outrageous sex acts upon her body - unprotected and without lube, even! Despite how her power overloading her with details about everything you don't want to know during those acts wouldn't let her enjoy it! But he'd already proven when she'd bet her body that he would not indulge with anyone he did not trust, and it was that trust that they'd somehow damaged.

They were in trouble. Somehow they'd lost their hold on him, and without those relationships, everything else they prized about their situation could easily be lost!

The delight in his eyes was gone. Always before when dealing with them he'd had light in his eyes; joy, friendliness and good humor. Now that was dimmed, not gone entirely, perhaps not yet. But it was buried. Now the feeling she saw in his eyes when he looked at them was resigned, burdened.

They'd lost him, or nearly so.

Lisa had felt so certain of that relationship, how rock-solid it had seemed, that she had, admittedly, started taking it a bit for granted - they ALL had! Each of the girls in the Sirens had basked in the warmth and security it had offered, certain of its protections.

~Only now he is cold, when until now he was literally the warmest person I've ever known. Everyone else I've ever met just has that touch of hopelessness, a tinge of despair, in all they are doing. He's the only one I've known that didn't. It was as if the awareness of Endbringers or the knowledge their world was slowly sliding into ruin did not bother him at all.~

He was the only one she'd ever known who'd felt untouched by the despair that permeated everyone and everything else.

The only one to push it back, even a little. In fact, it had seemed he could do anything, solve any problem!

Only somehow they'd alienated him.

Lisa could practically smell the fetid air back in the homeless shelter now, and cold terror gripped her heart.

Oh, they had money. They could make money, thanks to the things he'd taught them. But wealth only mattered as long as they had safety. Nobody kept wealth if they could not protect it, and without him and his hillbillies to defend them, all of the girls were back to being that undefended gold mine they'd been concerned about - only free so long as no one knew they existed, then doomed to be grabbed up by any one of a number of power blocks that would want to enslave them.

In her moment of introspection due to being frozen in shock, the other Sirens had all arrived.

"Why are you leaving? Couldn't you stay?" Dinah innocently asked, not aware of any problem as yet.

He delivered her a flat look in return. "I am tired of being yelled at. I need a break. So I am taking one."

All of the confidence drained out of that little girl as alarm bells rang within in ALL of the Sirens, as they started down the same paths of realizations Lisa had just tread.

Trying to run damage control, Lisa switched immediately from 'snark' to 'cute'. She batted her eyes at him. "What do you mean? Aren't you going to stick around to train us?"

"No. I need to get my feelings put back in order. I can't do that around the people that are going to hurt them." His tone was flat, defensive, and explaining as if to a little child.

Lisa's face blanked. That was almost *hostile!* This was worse than she'd thought! "What?! We would never!"

He turned and gave her a flat look. "Would you stick around a place where you got accused of something you didn't do, and *none* of your friends stood by you or defended you? No, instead I got threats of death via hornet. You draw down on me, don't expect me to take it so kindly next time. I'll check back in a month or so. Study, or not, I don't care anymore. You're all free to go and do as you please. Goodbye."

The boy winked out in one of those teleports of his, taking the odd girl with him.

At that, Lisa's Thinker senses flared even higher, warning her of a relationship disaster like no tomorrow. This was NOT how they wanted Lover-Boy to view them! But he was already gone.

Taylor's face was pale and her hair was standing on end.

Dinah looked at the empty spot he'd once stood, and declared in a soft voice, "This is not good."

OoOoO

Story Day Twelve, April 17th 2011, Sunday - Roughly Noon

OoOoO

Cherish was feeling mildly pleased in a vague sort of way.

For her this was a major accomplishment, as it would have been for any of Heartbreaker's children, whose emotions had been so blasted during their upbringing, that any feeling at all was a major event.

Still, the achievement more than warranted this response, as she had found him! The one man behind all of those meat-robots that were such a perfect defense against the members of her family.

And her dear brother, Jean-Paul, whose emotions she could normally recognize from an entire city away, but had recently undergone such enormous changes that at first she had not known it was him, had inadvertently led her directly to her target when she had recognized the music of Jean-Paul's power in use on some gang toughs, then come along to investigate and possibly link up with the successful escapee for mutual benefit - with the dominant partner in that relationship to be determined later, of course, after the real threat was gone.

But she'd known her brother would have found the source of those marvelous meat-shields, and so had followed him directly to the man.

Better still, she'd found her target alone, and already wrestling in the midst of emotional turmoil.

She had been close enough to witness the altercation that had happened last night between he and his friends, and observing that while it was happening had revealed a gold mine of information about how his mind worked, and tricks and details she could use to manipulate it.

Really, she could not have asked for a better opening. He had been so distracted he had not noticed at all when she'd prompted him to feel acceptance towards her, and thus signal to his meat-robot guards to allow her into his house, and let her stay the night; and she had used all that night, going without sleep, playing with his mind, his emotions, as he'd dreamed, learning how to control him.

It had been needed.

Cherish had been surprised how strong the mental defenses of the boy were. To her astonishment, he did not feel fear at all, not even a little bit. That was inhuman, and had to be a part of the boy's power. However, that meant one of the major levers of control over most minds, human or animal, was simply missing. Lacking that tool forced her to change many of her standard strategies, having to adapt them on the fly as she'd never felt a mind like his before.

Almost worse than the lack of fear, however, was how he simply shrugged off all forms of domination or direct control. Oh, Cherish did not have many of those, not like her father Heartbreaker. But whenever she tried to build one it simply fell apart before achieving anything. She had never run into anything like it, and once again had to put that down to some sort of influence of his power.

It was odd how this boy was immune, or very nearly so, to some of her best efforts, forcing her to rely on second rate emotional tools to manipulate his actions. Beyond even those two blocked avenues of approach, the boy's mind was both keen and overall quite strong. Outside of her family, Cherish was quite sure she'd never felt a stronger one.

Of course, thanks to Heartbreaker playing his many children off against each other, Cherish had quite a lot of experience dealing with both strong and resilient minds before - however this poor fellow's emotional turmoil had let her practically walk in the opened front gate.

She'd gotten lucky. But luck was part of survival too, and she would take any advantage it would give her.

Since then, she had been manipulating things to her benefit.

She needed him alone to perfect her control over him, so she had arranged it, and it had worked! Not only had she succeeded in getting her target's girlfriends to avoid him all night, she had successfully led him to the idea that he needed to be away from them for a while, then prevented any possible reconciliation when they ran into him again this morning!

At this rate, she'd have all of the time she needed to work on him. Soon, he would be willing to do anything for her!

Of course, she did not want to dispose of his harem entirely. He'd need them in order to help protect her. But they could be worked on more later, once she had achieved further mastery over the boy who mattered. So she had guided them to their own paths that she would lead them down as soon as possible. After all, the stronger the group, the more they could protect her once she was fully in charge!

It was, perhaps, a little heavy on Thinkers and Masters, both of whom presented all sorts of extra challenges in conditioning to obey her orders, but other than that, it was everything Cherish had wanted in a strong group of capes ready and able to protect her!

The small army of heavily armed meat-robots they already had guarding them were perfect, of course. She only had to work on her control over the boy ordering them about and they were effectively hers already!

It had all been so easy.

Cherish did not read. She was not a reading person, except for people, of course. Reading their emotions was fine. But once, when she was smaller, she could not recall exactly when, but it had to be more than a year or so ago, she had overheard some geeks talking about books they'd liked, and one of them had mentioned an idea they'd gotten from some travel directory, or hitchhiker's guide or something, called a Somebody Else's Problem field - and that the author had argued the ability to be dismissed as Somebody Else's Problem was superior to invisibility, because if you walk down the street invisible people are going to run into you, or if you open doors or carry things they are going to see those doors move or things floating about. But if they dismiss you as Somebody Else's Problem then none of those things are any concern. They already know you are there, they just don't care about you enough to register any details.

You aren't their problem. You are Somebody Else's Problem.

Cherish had been struck by that idea like lightning, and it had stuck with her ever since, because It. Would. Work!

And she could do it, too.

Feeling dismissive? That was an emotion. She could induce that. Feeling bored, or friendship, or other things like that were useful to induce in her targets, but none of them were practically invisibility. Having people dismiss you from their thoughts as not worthy of their attention? That was.

Cherish had become good at it. That was how she'd escaped from Heartbreaker in the first place.

Of course, it did not help her much against the half-brothers who were hunting her. All of Heartbreaker's children were so used to mastering each other that every one of them could fight through the effects to one degree or another. For instance when she and Jean-Paul had been fighting, she could play merry havoc with his emotions, driving him to near catatonia, while he would still use her muscles to punch her in the face, or do whatever he liked, and so the struggle was one of endurance more than anything.

Against Guillaume, the emotions of the people whose eyes he saw through did not matter to him in the slightest. So though they might be dismissive of Cherie and not pay her any attention, he would still take notice, just as he always had.

For Nicholas, he was just as resistant against her powers as the rest of their siblings. So like the rest, their powers would work but not stop the other from using theirs, which in this case led to her defeat, as his power functioned much faster than hers, and by paralyzing her body with fear such that she forgot how to breathe, would knock her out in minutes, where she required more time to do the same thing.

However, trust was an emotion, as was friendship, as were respect, loyalty and acceptance. Cherie was already using all of these on her latest target, and his group. Building them all and weaving them together, she would eventually forge this cape group into the perfect shield so she never would need fear her father or other siblings again!

So Cherish did not mind sitting in a church for six hours while this guy prayed over a dead body he'd dug out of the ground. Really, since they were dressed in costumes as Morticia and Gomez Addams (with the addition of little, black opera masks as he'd insisted they did not want to be recognized doing it), made it almost like a game.

The fact that he'd called up a bunch of ghosts, what did he call them? 'Ceremonial Servants'? only made it more interesting.

Cherish had been quite content spending those hours analyzing and learning the ins and outs of her future minion when, at the end of his little ritual...

... the former dead body sat up.

Cherish went so pale she did not need any longer for makeup to whiten her face to pass for Morticia Addams.

There was no mistaking it. Her power did not let her deceive herself about what had gone on. One moment, one person in the building with her, plus a bunch of meaningless projections that had no emotions, and so did not count. The next, two people, in addition to her. There was no teleport, she'd been watching the body, and it always took him six seconds to teleport back, anyway.

No, one second, just her and him. Next, the body got up and Cherish could feel the former dead woman's emotions - which were intense, about what you'd expect from somebody who'd legitimately come back from the dead.

Cherish blue-screened.

She did not have the emotional capacity to deal with this. Heartbreaker had experimented with many things, trying to test his children, but he had never done this.

Her brain shut down and got stuck trying to get rebooted.

Jared, of course, was expecting this. He swept in with classic Gomez mannerisms, took Annette Hebert by her hand, and assisted the lady to her feet from where she had been lying on the bier.

"Careful, my dear. You've just been raised from the dead. You wouldn't want to stumble and return too quickly, would you?"

That earned a small, nervous laugh from Annette.

Then, looking her in the eyes 'Gomez' declared, "Madam, you are welcome to do whatever you like, of course. But need I remind you, thanks to that little club you belonged to in college you're already aware of the nature of government; and so you must realize that once it becomes known that you have been brought back from the dead, you doom yourself to being their experimental subject until the end of time. Not even dying again would release you from their clutches, as they'd still desire to run more tests on your remains, and perhaps wait to see if you sat up again. So I suggest you may want to come up with some story for where you've been, other than having been dead. I hear that running away and staying with distant relatives after an argument with your husband is popular, so might well be believed as a cover story."

Bending over her hand to kiss the air above her knuckles, as was appropriate, 'Gomez' released Annette before asking her, "Well! Which would you like to see first, your husband, or your daughter?"

Annette smiled, thinking she could see her daughter after school. No need to interrupt her lessons. "Take me to my husband, please."

"Of course," 'Gomez', smoothly replied. Snapping the fingers of his off hand, instructing his phone (currently disguised as Thing) to send his group a quick message, he called for his car, and added, "Lurch! Bring Morticia, I fear this holy atmosphere has caused her to feel faint."

Offering his arm to Annette, 'Gomez' smiled, "My dear, let us get you to your husband with all speed."

"Thank you," Annette nodded, taking his arm and exiting the church, the towering golem Lurch carrying Morticia in its arms behind.

Sooner than she could think, they were dropping Annette off at her own house.

Moments later, the pair of Jared and Cherish were being driven out of Brockton Bay through the Panacea Arch, his car disguised as a copy of the Addams Family hearse with Lurch driving, and Jared lounging in the back as Gomez, while Cherish/Morticia slept off her faint.

Behind him, though he did not know it, followed the other intelligent automobile effigies he had created, all of them empty of living things, but determined to look out for and protect their creator.

The local branch of the PRT noted on their cameras the Mystery Machine and other noted racers leaving the city.

OoOoO

A random PRT technician, tasked with making sense out of intelligence on The Amazing Doctor Whodunit, stared at the latest post and scrunched his nose up.

"'Vaporous'?"

A more senior tech nearby, currently munching on chips, with his feet up on the console, replied, "Must mean 'vacuous', an expression indicating a lack of thought or intelligence. Mindless, in other words - a frequent insult. I find that much more likely than this woman actually being formed of vapor. Though the slang form of being near mindless would be of a match with the first insult."

OoOoO

"He's a madman," Legend declared soberly, and with a touch of fear, as he reached for a cheesy-puff out of the bag sitting open before him on the table in Cauldron headquarters.

The others seated around that table all reached into their own bags for cheesy-puffs at the same time, the motion almost synchronized as they took their cues from the others, so as not to forget to eat any.

None of those gathered wanted to be 'lame', however Doctor Whodunit chose to interpret that particular expression.

What he'd already done to Contessa was bad enough.

A bag floated by, followed by munching sounds as the Custodian, who did indeed spend most of her time diffused as a thin vapor throughout their headquarters, and so 'vaporous' was a perfectly accurate description for her, made sure not to earn whatever he'd done to Contessa.

Numberman reached for another cheesy-puff, everyone else duplicating the motion. He had already calculated exactly how many cheesy-puffs were left in each of their individual bags, and concluded they'd need to consume a second bag each to be qualified as 'liking' them.

Other bags of cheesy-puffs, newly-delivered by Doormaker after being located by Clairvoyant, were stacked in boxes and arrayed on easy-to-access shelves, dotting all areas of the headquarters; as they did not want to risk what could happen should that Doctor Whodunit visit again and feel the munchies.

They hadn't noticed him the first time, so it was entirely probable they would not on any subsequent visits.

They could not seem to stop him, so they would try to appease him - at least in the short-term. Do what they could to limit the damage while looking for better options.

And if anyone thought that Doormaker and Clairvoyant were awfully quick about finding and collecting cheesy-puffs, as if they'd done it before, no one felt able to say anything. Perhaps it was merely the same justifiable panic affecting the rest of them that spurred those efforts on, perhaps it was experience. But who could say for sure?

But at least the cheesy-puffs were nice and fresh, not anything that had been sitting in a warehouse for years.

From down the corridor in Cauldron headquarters, they all heard a plaintive wail. "Can somebody help me? I'm lost again!"

Everyone around the table hid their wince as Doormaker made a portal right in front of her, leading right to her place at the table, only for Contessa to turn around wildly and dart another way.

That was the third time.

"Somebody's going to have to take her by the hand and bring her here," Numberman declared.

Alexandria got up, still in her pink costume as she'd been too busy to order replacements in another style. "I'll do it."

"It's not like it's hard to find. She's just trying to come back from the attached washroom, where she has been many times. In fact, to leave that room you must walk through this conference room! Only she didn't, or we would have seen her. She doesn't just get lost, this is supernatural levels of getting lost," Eidolon declared, in a foul temper, what everyone else had chosen not to say.

"Well, at least I am not ugly, like you are," Contessa declared tactlessly, as Alexandria dragged her into the room behind her.

Without prior planning, they all ate another cheesy-puff.

"Here, you *really* need this," Legend handed Contessa an unopened bag of cheesy-puffs, thinking she was right, his friend was ugly, but she never would have said something like that before.

Contessa stared at the bag of snacks without taking them. "That would mess up my diet," she declared firmly.

"Not nearly as much as *not* having it has messed you up," Eidolon groused.

OoOoO

Author's Note:

"None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free," is the actual Johann Wolfgang von Goeth quote.

D20 rules actually have very few animals officially statted out. Whenever you need to use one that isn't, the official rule is to use the closest approximation. My DM picked wild boars for pigs, which may be an under-estimation, as the domestic ones are often larger, and frequently just as fierce. They will eat the farmer if he gets careless. Without walled pens and other control measures, they'd knock him down, stomp him dead, and eat him first chance they got. It's a known danger to raising pigs.

So never feel guilty when you eat bacon, because given an opportunity, it would gladly eat you. So it's just self-defense to eat them first.

Compass Curse placed on Contessa is found, as described, in the Legends and Lairs D20 supplement, the Seafarer's Handbook. The other curses are either variations of Bestow curse, from the Player's Handbook, or found in the Oriental Adventures supplement Bloodspeakers.

As some of you may have noticed, Cherish actually stumbled backward into one of the secrets he is holding. Since partaking in those Secure Secret potions together, none of his group can reveal their powers to anyone who does not already know who is not part of their group, you remember? Well, as he was busy describing potions and scrolls, Cherish made the leap of intuition, and guessed close enough about his power that, under the trust she was able to influence into him, he was able to confirm that guess, then expound on it, all without noticing doing it. For him, he was just chatting together with some friendly face at a time he was feeling lonely.

But the situation is not an unfamiliar one to me, as I heard of a man who was once in the military and bound under secrecy acts told someone a few times, "Well, since you know that much I can confirm."

She likewise stumbled onto the secret of his underwater base, because as yet he has no idea what her power is, or that it would let her tell where she was in relation to the city. So he had no idea he was revealing that particular secret, as a blank room could be anywhere, and as far as he knew, that's all she saw.

Cherish froze up despite having crippled emotions because, even if you feel nothing at all, you can still get locked up over logic puzzles (as witnessed by your computer sometimes doing the same) and reanalyzing all you know, or thought you knew, about life and death is not a small issue.