Blade (UBW!Taylor Worm Quest)

Another weekday, another study session at the library. Yesterday wasn't too bad, what with the interesting lens you hadn't considered, and today ends up being the same. The study guide covers United States citizenship and democracy, but it talks about democracy in the historical context of how it arose in contrast to earlier governments. On the surface, that's reasonably straightforward: ties to the league of the Iroquois and ancient Athenian democracy as reinterpreted through the lens of the Enlightenment, you know the story. That would have been the end of things had you not gotten curious about why the word 'monarchy' is so similar to the word 'democracy', and from there you ended up spending most of your morning looking up comparative governments both linguistically and in practice online. The lens of legitimacy you discovered yesterday ends up being useful again. It seems that in practice, people are more willing to listen to governments if they can participate in them in some form, even if it's just by voting for a representative candidate who ultimately loses an election. Most remaining autocracies, like those in Africa run by cape warlords, retain their power despite excluding the populace from contributing in government. And with said populace increasingly developing powers they can use to fight back, the entire continent is increasingly tumultuous. Interestingly, it seems like powers are occurring at a higher rate in Africa, even after adjusting for population, mapping better to crime rate or the rate at which governments are overturned. (GED status: 9/30 study points!)

You barely manage to finish your practice problems before lunchtime, at which point you promptly ditch the library for the fun part of your day. You wolf down a sandwich en route to Uber and Leet's place. It's Uber and Leet's place right now, not Daniel and Ted's, because you're going there for power-related purposes. You're going to start experimenting like you probably should have already.


A groggy, semi-caffeinated Uber lets you in, not that you strictly need to be let in. You could just make a key to let yourself. But that would be rude, and potentially very awkward when they woke up if they didn't know you were going to be there. Point is, he's awake, for certain values of awake. You fill him in on what you're going to do as you close the door behind you.

"So there's some other things I can do besides make things. I haven't gotten around to figuring out how they all work yet, so I was gonna mess around with some of that stuff to see what I can do," You ramble.

"'Kay," Uber grunts, motioning you over to the still mostly-cleared zone from yesterday's spar.

"Oh, and I should warn you. The only other time I ever tried using this, I ended up making a metal knife explode. So you should probably stay back or wear some armor or something."

He leaves the room, giving you a chance to get started. You pull a knife out of thin air and start messing with it. The first and only time you tried Reinforcement, the knife you used it on started out by getting sharper. That's an actual, physical change. Which means you might be able to make other changes. You try making the blade longer.

And it works.

You now have a long knife. Well, a knife that's longer than it used to be. Not really a proper long knife.

So you turn it into one.

And you know what? While you're at it, this steel is incredibly poor quality. So many impurities. Why not just remove them? You push with your power, and everything but the carbon and iron just melts away. The remaining two elements align themselves into perfectly crystalline carbon steel. Then you remember that rust exists and put the chromium back in, aligning it like the carbon.

You finally snap out of your fugue and take a good look at what you've made. Both in material and shape, you're left with something that barely resembles what you started with: what was a cheap chef's knife a scant few minutes ago is now a ruggedly-built shortsword, of solidly middle-grade steel.

Then you remember that you have literal Nazis in town, and some kind of event early in Hitler's reign when he consolidated power called the Night of the Long Knives. You're not sure exactly what it consisted of, but given that it involved Hitler, it couldn't have been good. Blushing, you morph the sword into a Napoleonic-era infantry saber.

You have discovered Alteration, the magical art of… altering objects. The bigger the change, both physically and conceptually, the more expensive it is.

Using your altered knife as a template, you create a fresh saber, identical to the one you just developed. Uber returns, armored up, to find you staring intently at the two swords.

"Is this like watching paint dry?" He interrupts.

"Um, so." You try to figure out where to start. "I can mess around with the properties of items. So I made a knife and turned it into one of those swords. And then I copied that sword to make another one. And now I'm seeing which one disappears first."

"Gear you create disappears?"

"Yeah. Faster for the bigger, more expensive stuff, too."

"More expensive?" He parrots.

"There's this… energy," You struggle to describe Prana. "I spend it to make stuff or change them. Not for analyzing stuff, though. Or if I do, it's so cheap I've never noticed a drain."

"And bigger, more complex stuff is more expensive?"

"Especially tinkertech," You confirm.

"Sounds like mana on a wizard," Uber analogizes.

"Kind of?" You shrug.

"Can you, like, throw fireballs, then?"

You think for a minute. Maybe if you transmuted the air into a pyrophoric substance, you could remotely detonate things. But you operate at touch range, so you'd need to make a long item, with the explosive at the far end. Maybe project some detcord? It's only through a lucky stroke of (un)common sense that you opt not to make an attempt in the apartment.

"Probably, but I don't know how through just spending Prana. If I prepped, I could make a bomb on a rope for basically the same effect," You suggest, proceeding to explain your thought process.

"But you can create something from nothing, at least temporarily, and turn something into something else. So between those, you ought to be able to do basically anything, assuming it isn't too expensive."

You nod along. "I guess. But the Prana cost really is an issue." You continue into a revelation: "My power doesn't seem to like working with things that aren't weapons and armor. And it seems to favor edged weaponry more."

Uber indicates your swords. "Can you make one of those flaming? Not coated in something that will burst into flame, or constantly make flame around. Make it into a flaming sword. Like something from a high fantasy story."


It takes all the Prana you have left, but you manage to pull it off, somehow. You watch, half-dazed, as Uber picks up the sword and swings it experimentally. Once, twice, and then it's gone.

He nods in understanding. "Didn't last long, and you look pretty wiped. I see what you mean."


You don't even realize you'd passed out until you wake up again, now on the couch with a pillow under your head.

"Shit, what time is it?" You panic, sending your new phone flying as you try to pick it up.

Uber barely looks as he catches it, gently tossing it back onto your torso. "You were out for two hours." He pauses the game and moves his chair to face you. Leet grumbles as he follows suit. "Probably best not to do that again."

"Yeah, I figured," You gripe. 'Don't make yourself pass out in the field' seems pretty obvious to you.

And then you jolt upright as you remember the next thing you wanted to try today. "I wanted to help with your gear!" You all but shout. "I can physically analyze anything, and I can make anything I can analyze, and I get the memory of use, so I was thinking I could copy Leet's tools and use it to make more copies of things Leet's made before."

"Do you get perfect muscle memory of everything something's done?" Leet asks, curious.

"More like the kinds of things it's done?" You questioningly respond. "Maybe some sequences of movements?"

"Like a sword-swing or a wavedash," Uber concludes. "But it was still based on your sense of timing and your choices, except when you were really getting in the flow."

"And Tinkering is about more than flow," Leet grumbles. "There's the ideas, and the impossibilities, and so much more."

"Reverse-engineering something to make more of it might be a better starting point," Uber concludes. "And it's probably better for you to just rest for today."

"But I want to patrol later," You insist, but Uber isn't hearing any of it.


In the end, your insistence wins out, but only after agreeing to use the original copy of the Power Suit tonight. Which is fine by you, even if it means you'll need to stop back at Uber and Leet's place to return it. Except not having Speed Booster for transportation in the middle of the night means you can't really sneak home from across town, which means you'll have to call dad and ask for permission for a sleepover. Unsurprisingly, he's okay with it.

You spend the evening sneaking around the abandoned trainyard with the X-Ray Scope on, but can't find any clues to where Squealer's lab is. You don't even spot any other capes or mundane crime! Really, the whole evening seems to have been a wash. Maybe you'll have better luck next time. Both for supplies and for copying whatever she has lying around, this seems like a worthwhile endeavor.

Today was Thursday, March 31, 2011

Next Day's Day Plan (Two votes, up to two more if you cannibalize morning study or evening patrol):
[ ] Study extra for the GED
[ ] Plan your next caper with Uber and Leet
[ ] Work on your power
-[ ] Get more gear? (Write-in)
-[ ] Experiment? (Write-in)
[ ] Other (Write-in)