Desolate Oasis, Pt 7

Your eyes widen with anticipation the moment Babbage mentions the word. It lights up in your mind, promising incredible amounts of utility. New powers are always nice.

"Merge?" you gasp out. "You mean, like combining things together? Isn't that just Telekinesis?"

It is perhaps something similar to Telekinesis, Babbage replies. However instead of controlling a particular group of objects, it instead manipulates the foundational properties of said object.

"I… I don't get it."

We will demonstrate.

You sense Babbage's powerful Telekinetic energies reach out into the yard and grab one of the many scrap metal parts out there. He brings it over to the workbench, and allows it to hover in place above it. Afterwards, you sense him slowly weave his energies into a Merge, allowing you to study it in detail.

Then, he flips and reverses the energies around before diving into the scrap part itself. As his energies wash over the object, you watch as it comes apart in sand-like particles with absolute ease. The whole thing literally falls apart into pieces effortlessly section by section.

We are first utilizing the antithesis power to Merge, which is appropriately named Disintegration, begins Babbage. Doing so allows us to separate the numerous elements utilized in this structure and break them down into their fundamental elements. Iron and carbon and manganese and silicon… in addition to whatever other impurities may exist within the structure.

Babbage further reduces the scrap metal part down to various powdery substances of different colors and sizes, even going so far as to sort them into their individual piles as he goes. The largest of the piles appears to be a dull gray metal, while the second pile appears to be ink black. Oddly, the second pile is far smaller than the first.

There are smaller piles still, each one much smaller than the previous one. Some are so diminutive that you just barely spot their tiny grains on the workbench's surface. All piles are slightly different in color, mostly varying between white, silver, and gray. You can only presume these are all of the elements that make up the scrap part, but in powder form.

Now we will utilize Merge to manufacture a new object based on these separated fundamental elements, Babbage continues his lesson after giving you a moment to observe it thus far. 

He uses a light amount of Telekinesis to 'push' the piles of powder back together, then mixes them up and kneads them like some kind of metallic dough.

Then you sense the energies of Merge form again, as slowly as the first time - plenty enough to give you a great look at how it all comes together. But this time Babbage doesn't flip and invert it before he engulfs the piles with the weaving.

You watch with awe as he shapes and forms it with his Telekinesis, even as the powdery elements are mixed and fused together with Merge. The individual powdery grains join and solidify with each other moment after moment, slowly forming into a cohesive whole over time. It only takes roughly half a minute before Babbage is done, at which point he presents the newly-minted object before you - a solid steel ingot.

A part of you can't help but be utterly amazed at what you've seen. The rest of you shake off your amazement, allowing you to pick up the ingot. As you look at it, you can't help but imagine the things you could do with a power like that. You turn it over in your hands to inspect it, to weigh it, to study it as though you want to know more about steel. But in the end all you can think about are all of the possibilities you could accomplish with Merge.

So you immediately spin up a bit of your energy and weave it into Disintegration. And just like Babbage, you turn those energies towards the ingot with the intent of undoing it, and perhaps returning it to a powder-like state.

But you find that you can't, or rather it's difficult to fully comprehend. Like with air, you're contending with millions of little particles, each one devoid of psionic energy. You end up attempting to widen the gaps between them, but find that it's difficult at best.

Almost like you're attempting to push down a wall with just the strength of your arms - it simply isn't going to happen no matter how much you feel it budge. 

You strain yourself as you pour energies into the Disintegration, causing you to physically grit your teeth and tense your muscles. There's a loud CRAK as you snap the ingot into three solid parts, each one exactly the same size as each other, and with every break completely clean.

The moment it does, you lose your grip on your weaving, which causes it to dissipate into nothingness. Not that you're too worried about it - you find yourself somewhat spent and practically panting and heaving from the effort.

And all you've got to show for it is one massive failure.

You open your mouth to ask what happened, but as though anticipating your question, Babbage answers Telepathically, One cannot force a Disintegration or a Merge. It is unlike Telekinesis, which is a simpler, more brute method of object manipulation. Merge and Disintegration are both best applied with varying degrees of finesse and sophistication. Doing so will permit you greater control of these fundamental elements.

We recommend you make your next attempt a Merge - reattaching these three solid parts together will be much easier than if they were powder.

You nod in understanding as you prep your mind to try again. You do as Babbage has done, and use your Telekinesis to slide the three ingot pieces into their positions, then engulf them with a weaving of Merge energies.

This time you take heed of Babbage's instructions and do your best to simply allow your power to work. And you find that it is indeed far easier to control - the lightest touch of your energies allows the metal to bind back to its split portions with ease. You can feel its molecular structure quite literally shift and lock and fuse under your influence.

It only takes you a few seconds to fuse the ingot back together, to the point where it looks like one solid block once again. You pick it up and feel its surface with your fingers - you can't even tell where it had split prior. It's smooth as hell. 

Well done. We recommend you attempt one more merge, simply to ensure you have learned the technique.

You nod, but instead of attempting to do anything with the ingot or any other scrap in the yard, you turn your Merge to the air. With your Scan and your Telekinesis, you do your best to find and cluster together hundreds of hydrogen and oxygen atoms. You place them in a small atmospheric bubble, keeping them separate from every other particle as best you can.

Then, you weave your energies into a Merge once again and wash over the two clusters you've got a hold of. Doing so allows them to form into tiny droplets of water, though you find it takes you a great deal of energy to do.

The minute Scan by itself is perhaps the most energy-intense power you're utilizing right now, followed by your Telekinesis, then your Merge. Simply, it takes you a great deal of effort just to isolate what you can. More than that, the pain in your head intensifies significantly as you fine-tune your energies and weavings.

Thankfully the Merge itself is relatively easy - isolating and condensing them allows them to form into mist by themselves. Which means any energy you send into it speeds up the process a great deal.

When you're done, you end up with a literal droplet of water. When you let go of it, it falls down and hits the steel ingot below.

Most impressive, Babbage says after a moment.

"Ah I just made a drop of water," you say somewhat out of breath. "But maybe with a bit of practice I can get a whole bottle's worth at some point."

What is impressive isn't that you utilized Merge effectively. It is that you have learned it quickly. It took us 295 days of constant practice for us to be able to consistently weave Disintegration and Merge. Nearly 13 of those days were spent pooling together enough molecules to form dihydrogen monoxide, as you have.

To have such a command over the Disciplines in such a short amount of time is quite the feat… perhaps we must ruminate on this.

"I dunno. It's just kinda what I need to do. I gotta figure things out and learn as much as I can because it's the only way I can survive out there. I mean, I'd be dead so many times over if I didn't have my powers."

So it is your travels that inspire this sense of urgency. Now we understand. This is perhaps a lesson we should learn as well.

"Well hey, consider this one a freebie."

You sense Babbage grin in amusement psionically.

Since this is your nature, and you are incredibly potent, perhaps there is something you can help us with, he says.

"What is it? Need help around the yard?"

You glance around at the various piles around you, though you don't see much that you could do here in the first place. Any manual labor you do is going to be far outclassed by Babbage's Telekinesis.

What we would require of you is much more delicate work… and dangerous. You see, we are in need of certain parts and require some help gathering them. If you were to assist us, we can promise to provide you with an infinite amount of wisdom. As much as you would want.

Your mouth gapes at Babbage's declaration. He's offering to teach you practically for free, possibly forever - if you pick up some stuff for him. You consider this a literal goldmine, one that you can't really pass up.

"That's a serious reward," you reply after a moment. "What you want must mean the world to you."

More than you realize. You see, we too wish to travel as you do, to observe and study the world, and perhaps meet other psions like ourselves. However we are completely and utterly immobile and incapable of locomotion. 

"So you basically want me to find you a set of legs somewhere."

That is a crude approximation, but yes. We need legs. We have knowledge of a hidden military base in this area. One that has been constructed inside of this area, among the plateau formations. We have reason to believe that this base is also a research facility developing a combat exoskeleton along with its custom power supply. We could potentially consolidate those two systems with our own in order to achieve full mobility.

"Wait, how do you even know about this?"

Take a look around you. This yard has been gathered from the parts of a military convoy whose travels ended very close to this spot, though said convey has long since been dismantled and reformed. Some of the vehicles in the convoy collided with the cliffside where I now rest. 

You see, they were either headed to or coming from said base at the moment the apocalypse happened. From my readings through Astral Memory, most died instantaneously. Anyone who lived, fled. They left their equipment here to rot in the sun. 

And also be read and disseminated. By us.

"Alright, well sounds easy enough. Since it's around here, it shouldn't take too long to find what you need. Where is this place anyway?"

Unfortunately, we do not know exactly where the base is located. None of the information I could gather contains such details. All we can tell you is that we can sense a great amount of psionic energy coming from a certain part of the entire plateau formation - and it could possibly be where the base is. But we cannot be certain.

"I get why you say it's dangerous then. If I go, I might die to some crazy psionic thing. And I might not even find what it is you're looking for. Can you at least tell me what I'm up against? At least that way I can prep myself a bit before I go."

We wish we could impart that wisdom on you, however we are limited. All we sense from the entities are psionic noise - akin to static. It is unknowable the danger they possess. However we sense that someone like you has great potential to overcome them.

"Great... Well, no sense in delaying things I guess. Show me the way."

~~~

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