Breakout (Worm)

Valor · May 10, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

BAM GUYS!
War ahead, huh?

Questingdragon · May 10, 2015

john doe said:
Can we shape yourself into raw materials for tinker parts or is there a power we could do that with? We can do metals in small amounts probably cause humans have small amounts of most metals

You could potentially make very tiny quantities of some raw materials.

You might be able to if you spend a lot of time practicing, but not soon. You have control over your body at a cellular level, but you lack the knowledge and experience to use yourself as a molecular assembler.

I will however add a cape to your roster, to assist with this. There are capes who violate conservation of mass in the setting.

Hugforcer

Powers: Can cause any object within a few centimeters of his skin to grow a large spike away from his body, made of the same material as the object on his skin. Minor precognition granted by Teacher.

Crimes: Used a simple medallion, and hugged people as he killed them.

Cell block leader: Teacher

Personality: Childish, broken

Don't always expect a cape to pop up with the power you need.... in fact this will probably be it. You'll now need to rely on the powers posted earlier.

evildice · May 10, 2015

Sheaman3773 said:
This was known in canon. I remember reading it from Taylor's POV just today, about how his business rather faltered when people discovered that fact. I was jumping around so much that I have no idea what chapter that was, though.

Hmm. It was presented as a surprise when Khepri discovered that the power influence was unavoidable. Might just be canon being slightly inconsistent.

That said, there's plenty of justification for block leaders to see a change in behavior of a new inmate who has been exposed to Teacher's power, and extrapolating from there.

Sheaman3773 said:
As for the rest of your plan, evildice, I mostly like it, but I'm uncertain if you meant that we should kill him now and then enact the proper framing, or if that's setting it up so nobody's distressed when we kill him. It seems like the latter, but that seems really non-conducive to actually getting him alone again. Can you clarify?

IMHO the safest way would be to talk to all the block leaders first, then eat Teacher, but if he's sitting right there in front of us, offering himself on a silver platter, then I have NO problem with seizing the day and eating the jerk.

We can even truthfully say that Teacher wanted to use his power on us, so in retaliation we used our power on him first.

Sheaman3773 said:
Regarding GU and seeing if we both can benefit, I sincerely suggest we try with someone a lot less protected. Someone we would sacrifice regardless, that doesn't have the power to make us regret this.

Yeah, if we're going to eat Teacher right now, we ought to then immediately sacrifice someone in front of GU both as an offering and as an experiment. If the experiment fails, we ought to give her another offering -- perhaps someone from Teacher's block, to see if the shades retain their Teacher powers in addition to their inherent powers.

Sheaman3773 · May 10, 2015

evildice said:
Hmm. It was presented as a surprise when Khepri discovered that the power influence was unavoidable. Might just be canon being slightly inconsistent.

It was a surprise that it had to have a master effect. Not that it had one at all.

evildice said:
IMHO the safest way would be to talk to all the block leaders first, then eat Teacher, but if he's sitting right there in front of us, offering himself on a silver platter, then I have NO problem with seizing the day and eating the jerk.

Sounds good, let's eat him.

I like your Jedi Truth on the next line, too. Though they might know/think it depends on consent, which could backfire.

evildice said:
If the experiment fails, we ought to give her another offering -- perhaps someone from Teacher's block, to see if the shades retain their Teacher powers in addition to their inherent powers.

I like this idea.

Speaking of, we could probably take many of Teacher's prisoners for our own, since we'll now be the sole source of "fixes" for their additions.

I'm not sure if doing so would make us seem more of a threat, though, or if it's just a natural and convenient step in seizing power in the the BirdCage.

john doe · May 10, 2015

I think we should sort out a way round the shrinking problem before we take out teacher, the cape interitio just added means a tinker power would be useful and if not we should chat to string theory.
We shouldn't kill another block leader as our first action after we second trigger, that sounds like a way to get killed off.

Name: Solitary

Power: (Tinker) Can make anything (in the tinker libraries, repeats fine) but is restricted to just one device, that she must mod over and over again if she wants to change functionality, always losing one function to create a new one.
Recreated her sole device in the BirdCage. Is restricted heavily by the dearth of adequate equipment.

Cell Block Leader: Crane

Crimes: Typical villainous acts, except that Solitary is extremely possessive of her one device--anyone targeting it would find that she no longer cared for rules or restraints. And since "target the tinkertech" is a valid tactic, this repeated until eventually the locals banded up against her, her original device was destroyed, and she was cast into the Birdcage.

Personality: Mercurial, Petulant, Possessive.

Hugforcer
Powers: Can cause any object within a few centimeters of his skin to grow a large spike away from his body, made of the same material as the object on his skin. Minor precognition granted by Teacher.
Crimes: Used a simple medallion, and hugged people as he killed them.
Cell block leader: Teacher
Personality: Childish, broken

Hugforcers power can help out solitarys, anyone want to see about eating these 2 first, or at least can we talk to there cell block leaders to see if they will trade for them?

I really think we should hold off on killing teacher guys, He hasn't done anything to us and he probably has offered his power to every cell block leader. I am fine with killing him just not now when it can go badly. Can we hold off until the other leaders are sure our second trigger didn't break us?

evildice · May 10, 2015

Sheaman3773 said:
Sounds good, let's eat him.

I like your Jedi Truth on the next line, too. Though they might know/think it depends on consent, which could backfire.

More Jedi Truth:
- "Teacher wanted to use his power on me, so I had to avoid him. Teacher said he had a way to contact the outside world, so I couldn't avoid him. He thought that putting me in a corner would work out to his advantage. He was wrong."

Sheaman3773 said:
I like this idea.

Speaking of, we could probably take many of Teacher's prisoners for our own, since we'll now be the sole source of "fixes" for their additions.

I'm not sure if doing so would make us seem more of a threat, though, or if it's just a natural and convenient step in seizing power in the the BirdCage.

Oh yeah, short-term we're going to use Teacher's power to top off all Teacher's followers. We need to sugar-coat this.

We can play on:

- Our reputation for old-school morality: "This power enforces obedience. It's disgusting. If my own men can't honestly report back to me about the consequences of my decisions, their judgement is impaired."

- Our expressed desire to escape: "Having Teacher's Tinkers is a boon, but honestly I don't have the time nor inclination to manage two cell blocks. I'd prefer to divvy up the loot fairly amongst all of us, even forsaking my own share of Teacher's wealth, if it means restoring trust. I don't want to rule in hell. I want to get the hell out and see my daughter."

john doe · May 10, 2015

Adding all the characters from the Tv tropes page here in spoilers to make it quicker to look through

Think everyone knows her but putting her here anyway

Her power allows her to absorb powers of a dead parahuman and to manifest 3 of her stored parahumans simultaneously.Classification: Master, Trump

A supervillain imprisoned within the Birdcage with the ability to turn people into lesser Thinkers and Tinkers (or to enhance existing powers in various ways) at the cost of their free will. He is described as a mundane looking man with a receding hairline with short-cut curly hair.
Classification: Master, Trump (?), Thinker (?)

An Australian vigilante wielding the eponymous weapon who went after the spouses and children of supervillains in order to break them in the days before the unofficial parahuman code or the three strikes rule, who became a cell block leader in the Birdcage. His power works by lessening any damage he sustains, while reducing said damage to a set amount, and he can also transfer his power to his hammer and then to his opponents to pulverize them.
Classification: Brute/Striker, Trump (?)

A Birdcage cell block leader. Her power involves draining energy from her surroundings in order to make a giant Hard Lightbody.
Classification: Breaker (?)

A thin female Birdcage inmate with short-cut blonde hair and pointed features, eyes that appear half-closed, and a strange kind of fluidity to her gait who collected children for their powers to use as soldiers. Her power involves the use of a large sphere similar to a giant glass bead that lets her alter movement within its volume. This lets her redirect enemy attacks, focus friendly attacks and includes, as a Required Secondary Power, a superhumanly intuitive grasp of movement in general. She then leveraged this into becoming an insanely skilled Wuxia-style martial artist.
Classification: Trump/Thinker/Shaker

A killer of cops and capes who used his power to horrifically scar innumerable opponents and girlfriends, before being thrown in the Birdcage. He is described as a blond man with circles around his eyes.
Classification: Breaker, Shifter

A short woman who looks even shorter due to her slouch with a petite build, her dark hair tied back into a braid, and her lips pulled back into a wide expression halfway between a grin and a smile. A tinker who auctioned off "safeties" to people who would be guaranteed not to be one of her random "targets". She lacks a particular specialty, being capable of building just about anything provided she has enough resources, but anything she creates has a countdown timer. At the time of her incarceration, she was threatening to knock the moon out of orbit.
Classification: Tinker/Non-specialized with a time limit

A tinker imprisoned in the Birdcage described as having teeth much like a rodent with a mop of hair and heavy brows, tall and broad shouldered, and with a bit of a belly. His power allowed him to create potions that turned people into monsters, who he tested first on the homeless, before testing on anyone who happened to be alone or new once they ran out.
Classification: Tinker/Monster Creation

A Birdcage inmate and former mob enforcer turned boss who could empower his soldiers with invincibility and a deadly electric touch.
Classification: Trump

<-----

A Birdcage inmate who is described as a Japanese woman in a ponytail in prison sweats, who went around killing anyone she saw following Leviathan's attack in Kyushu.
Classification: Mover, Striker

An attractive woman who ended up in the Birdcage after manipulating four heroes behind the scenes into doing horrible things. Her power works by boosting one aspect of someone's power in exchange for dropping proficiency in another. Can change her personality to that of the target's ideal woman.
Classification: Trump

Also checking this out I see that teacher can enhance existing powers which i had forgotten.

Questingdragon · May 11, 2015

Well we have a total of one vote.

I'll leave it another day.

john doe · May 11, 2015

This is my first time making a vote option

hope it goes well

[]Plan Tinkers
-[] contact Crane To negotiate for the prisoner

Name: Solitary
Power: (Tinker) Can make anything (in the tinker libraries, repeats fine) but is restricted to just one device, that she must mod over and over again if she wants to change functionality, always losing one function to create a new one.
Recreated her sole device in the BirdCage. Is restricted heavily by the dearth of adequate equipment.
Cell Block Leader: Crane
Crimes: Typical villainous acts, except that Solitary is extremely possessive of her one device--anyone targeting it would find that she no longer cared for rules or restraints. And since "target the tinkertech" is a valid tactic, this repeated until eventually the locals banded up against her, her original device was destroyed, and she was cast into the Birdcage.
Personality: Mercurial, Petulant, Possessive.

from his cell block with the aim of recruiting her for her tinker power, be willing to offer any resource we have which doesn't increase our chances of escape
-[]contact string theory about working together to escape, she is capable of creating any devise even though she has limited resources here. as teacher explained the largest obstruction to us escaping is the fact the birdcage and all residents are shrunk.
-[] as a way to get resources for tinker projects see if we can borrow or "rent"

Hugforcer
Powers: Can cause any object within a few centimeters of his skin to grow a large spike away from his body, made of the same material as the object on his skin. Minor precognition granted by Teacher.
Crimes: Used a simple medallion, and hugged people as he killed them.
Cell block leader: Teacher
Personality: Childish, broken

From teacher, we just want him to create some materials for us to use so even a day of him replicating any metals, alloys and other materials should give us some resources.
-[] Reject teachers offer for now but imply we are considering it, If we decide to kill him he will be more easily convinced to come with us if he thinks we are still freindly. The sporadic contact to the outside is not worth killing him right now.

Is this ok? anyone have anything they think that could add to this

evildice · May 11, 2015

Interitio said:
Well we have a total of one vote.

I'll leave it another day.

Your vote prompt was entirely open-ended, so instead of a vote, you got a discussion.

Can you really not interpret the discussion?

Just in case the answer is "no":

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

Jon Irenicus · May 11, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.
Yeah, I'm with the eating Teacher. That'll be handy one way or another.

doomlord9 · May 11, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

We're in no mood to play games. It's less that he's a threat and more that he has information we need and we know we get knowledge from who we eat. It's closer to say he has made himself an obstacle than that he is a threat.

abyssmal_kismet · May 11, 2015

~~[X] Plan Tinkers~~

Questingdragon · May 12, 2015

I find it's a lot safer to rely on votes. Discussion can be oddly deceptive.

Sheaman3773 · May 12, 2015

We have six updates. We need to get moving. Plan cobbled together from other people as well as with original aspects.

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.
-[X] Take our pick from Teacher's cell block, including Hugforcer. Keep in mind that they're all(?) addicted to something only we can provide, so will probably come crawling to us in time.
-[X] We now have a surplus of capes under our control, and limited interest in actively ruling them. Pick two useless ones to test with GU. Eat the first near her, to see if we can both benefit. If so, both can partake of the latter one. If not, whoever did not gain the power should eat the second. It's only polite.
-[X]contact string theory about working together to escape, she is capable of creating any devise even though she has limited resources here. as teacher explained the largest obstruction to us escaping is the fact the birdcage and all residents are shrunk.

Hm. I think that's good for now. We'll see if I have any other thoughts later on.

One thing to note for Plan Tinkers is that Crane and Solitary are female inmates, so transfer would be...tricky.

PineTreeq · May 12, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.
-[X] Take our pick from Teacher's cell block, including Hugforcer. Keep in mind that they're all(?) addicted to something only we can provide, so will probably come crawling to us in time.
-[X] We now have a surplus of capes under our control, and limited interest in actively ruling them. Pick two useless ones to test with GU. Eat the first near her, to see if we can both benefit. If so, both can partake of the latter one. If not, whoever did not gain the power should eat the second. It's only polite.
-[X]contact string theory about working together to escape, she is capable of creating any devise even though she has limited resources here. as teacher explained the largest obstruction to us escaping is the fact the birdcage and all residents are shrunk.

john doe · May 12, 2015

Interitio said:
A second trigger always caused a spike in violence in the birdcage. They either killed their assailant and calmed down, went on a rampage until they were put down, or were killed themselves.

Are you all sure about killing teacher? Second triggers cause a spike in violence because the cape often rampages afterwards, do we really want to kill one of the cell block leaders as soon as we triggered. It will defiantly make. Us look unstable and an excuse like he wanted to use his power on me is a little lacking when he probably offers it to all the leaders. His communication with the outside is also very limited, he can only contact saint sporadically.

If you feel his communication system is that valuable can we go after it when we haven't immediately second triggered and everyone is wary we might snap and go on a rampage

Sheaman3773 · May 12, 2015

john doe said:
Are you all sure about killing teacher?

Let me put it this way:

Interitio said:
Well, it's started. Six updates left to escape a definitely-not-cardboard prison.

Can you rise to the challenge?

I actually don't want to kill Teacher now. If I had my way, I'd lay a lot more groundwork first. But that would require a much looser timeframe--given the tight one that we do have, yeah, I'm willing to risk it.

We can always truthfully report to the others the Jedi Truths evildice pointed out above. I'm fairly certain GU has a power that would let her verify (can you imagine a power that would cause more conflict than stripping away lies?

) and even if she knows that they are Jedi Truths, I think that'd just make her like us more. Why? Because another good word for Jedi Truths would be Faerie Truths, given their propensity for misleading yet truthful comments

I think the risk is a little bit lower than you're thinking.

john doe said:
contact Crane To negotiate for the prisoner...from his cell block

I wondered for a second why Crane as a male name seemed to resonate, and then it occurred to me--did you also read Tamora Pierce's the Circle of Magic books? I'm pretty sure there was a Disciple Crane in that series.

macdjord · May 12, 2015

Interitio: :-/ I can't say I'm a fan of the 8 update deadline. Making it go by update count, rather than, say, in-game time, encourages huge, multi-step plans, full of conditionals and subconditionals. We can't just do things and then act on the results.

Also, I have to ask: Why do we care about the communication method? Are we planning to try to get outside help? Do we expect the method to reveal a weakness in the Birdcage that can help our escape? I'm sure Alex would love to be able to talk to his daughter - but our priority is getting out to help her, not sending her a message.

Questingdragon · May 13, 2015

macdjord said:
Interitio: :-/ I can't say I'm a fan of the 8 update deadline. Making it go by update count, rather than, say, in-game time, encourages huge, multi-step plans, full of conditionals and subconditionals. We can't just do things and then act on the results.

You only get a couple of thousand words, so that is unlikely to work. The eight update deadline is so I don't end up running two epic quests, I want this one short and sweet if at all possible.

evildice · May 13, 2015

Okay, if we need to cram in more per decision, then:

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

[X] Fucking Tinkers: figure out if we've actually been shrunk, or what.

[X] Tinker Fucking: use Teacher's power to turn all his flunkies into Tinkers. Make them work together with String Theory, who is of course the best Tinker in the world. Cut his rates in half for services rendered to other cell block leaders, or maybe just have them work for free because we're all in this together, by which I mean we're all getting out of this together.

[X] Communicate with Saint. Find out that Dragon is an AI, from Saint or from Teacher's memories. Think about this. When we're ready, tell Saint to aggressively go after Dragon, and to signal us when Dragon is disabled. Wear Teacher's face and demeanor while speaking to Saint, because we don't trust that dumb piece of shit.

john doe · May 13, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

[X] Fucking Tinkers: figure out if we've actually been shrunk, or what.

[X] Tinker Fucking: use Teacher's power to turn all his flunkies into Tinkers. Make them work together with String Theory, who is of course the best Tinker in the world. Cut his rates in half for services rendered to other cell block leaders, or maybe just have them work for free because we're all in this together, by which I mean we're all getting out of this together.

[X] Communicate with Saint. Find out that Dragon is an AI, from Saint or from Teacher's memories. Think about this. When we're ready, tell Saint to aggressively go after Dragon, and to signal us when Dragon is disabled. Wear Teacher's face and demeanor while speaking to Saint, because we don't trust that du

Ok I don't think my vote will win and this has the important parts of my vote anyway so switching to this. I'll feel bad about Dragon but I'll get over it

abyssmal_kismet · May 13, 2015

[X] Eat him and focus on the communication outside. He's a threat that needs to be eliminated.

[X] Fucking Tinkers: figure out if we've actually been shrunk, or what.

[X] Tinker Fucking: use Teacher's power to turn all his flunkies into Tinkers. Make them work together with String Theory, who is of course the best Tinker in the world. Cut his rates in half for services rendered to other cell block leaders, or maybe just have them work for free because we're all in this together, by which I mean we're all getting out of this together.

[X] Communicate with Saint. Find out that Dragon is an AI, from Saint or from Teacher's memories. Think about this. When we're ready, tell Saint to aggressively go after Dragon, and to signal us when Dragon is disabled. Wear Teacher's face and demeanor while speaking to Saint, because we don't trust that dumb piece of shit.

macdjord · May 13, 2015

[X] Plan evildice

Questingdragon · May 15, 2015

Teacher was surprisingly difficult to kill. You're really not sure how he managed to cobble together a wearable force field in the Birdcage. It takes you a whole two blows to shatter it and snap his neck, letting your tendrils tear the flesh from his bones along with his power, form and memories.

You let the memories settle, sifting through them like files in a filing cabinet.

So... Teacher was in contact with someone called Saint. Someone who... had a way of controlling Dragon! Dragon was an AI, and Saint had access to her code. This was huge. You could just order Saint... no, he didn't have that level of access, not even Dragon could free you, not even if she wanted to.

You knew the codes to get in contact with Saint now, and you could use them when and if you needed them.

Excellent. You'll get on that as soon as you deal with the help Teacher summoned while you were breaking through his shield.

Your flesh shifts and twists as you take on Teachers form and powers, and a second later one of Teachers faster thralls is standing beside you, standing protectively between you and the blood stain that is all that is left of the real Teacher.

You switch to Teacher's powerset, and try to get a handle on it. You have a few instincts, guides from when you tore into Teachers mind, but it isn't perfect. You strain to remember the name of the parahuman who is now trying to protect you from a perceived threat.

"Why did you activate your distress signal sir?" The parahuman asked.

Rather than try to bluff your way out of the situation, you eat him as well.

Interesting, a localized ability to speed up time, limited to a sphere one meter from his body. He used it to fake being a speedster quite well. You didn't get whatever powers Teacher granted him, but you were able to pull a list of names and some basic information on how Teacher interacted with his subordinates from his mind.

Apparently more help is on the way. This man... Jason, simply got here first.

Hmm, maybe this time you will try bluffing.

You greet the collection of men wearing white several meters ahead of the bloodstains, wearing Teachers face and with Jason's memories to support you.

"Are you alright sir?" Their leader asks.

"Perfectly fine. A minor altercation. Although I fear Jason is no longer with us."

You move among them, touching each briefly with Teachers power, leaving them pliant and controllable.

"A false alarm, on the whole." You say, and follow them back to Teacher's cell block.

You start experimenting, and turn three people into drooling vegetables as you get the hang of Teacher's power. It was... difficult, choosing what you gave someone, the power was better at it than you were, selecting something that would not strain their minds. Every time you gave them something it... was like breaking a piece out of the puzzle that was your mind, and exposing a new layer underneath.

None of the members of Teacher's cell block object to being experimented on, even as they see what happened to the others that you worked on. They seemed to relish the opportunity.

You're happy to oblige.

You end up with fifteen actually useful Tinkers. You reveal yourself to the new Tinkers, shifting back into your own form, and you are forced to kill one of them as he attacks you.

So, you now have five powers you can use, temporal acceleration, minor power granting, Lung's threat scaling, alternate form, and long range acidic spit.

The remaining fourteen are more easily cowed into submission, and you confirm to them that you can still maintain their abilities, which seems to be enough to keep their loyalty for now.

There is no justice system in the birdcage, but the death of Teacher is enough for the other cell block leaders to call for a meeting. No one liked him, but his death disturbed an equilibrium that was always teetering on the edge of collapse.

Gavel wanted your head, as did Crane, but the others are swayed by the resources you are offering them.

Inevitably the details of your power get out, how you can absorb powers from the parahumans you kill.

You're fairly sure most of the other cell block leaders are planning to kill you now, while you are still relatively weak.

It truly doesn't matter. They are hesitant to act while the nature of your biological abilities is still... vague, and they are prepared to humor your attempt at escape.

Five of your new Tinkers are assigned to maintaining the birdcage facilities, and the other nine are given to String Theory, along with the parahuman Hugforcer, whose mind is reduced to a childish state of perpetual curiosity, but who's power handily violates conservation of mass in a way that lets you harvest all the resources you need from his spikes.

And so you find yourself at the entrance of the women's section of the prison, idly paying the guards a packet of cigarettes to enter as you find your way to the Faery Queen's block, two of Teacher's brain dead victims behind you.

You find Uaine sipping tea in a clear section of her cell block. She's somehow grown grass and flowers over the ground, giving her cell an open, outdoors feeling.

"Faery Queen." You say in greeting, bowing slightly.

"You may enter Prince." Uaine says, waving her hand regally. You do so, and sit on the grass. "What brings you to visit me?"

"Courtesy. I do not wish to take what is yours by right, and I want to know if we can share."

"Share?" Uaine says curiously. "No, a fey in service to two masters is a weak and petty thing. There will be no sharing."

"A shame. I am new my position, and would not like to impinge upon yours."

"It would be unwise of you to do so, but my servants are plentiful, and while I will gain yours in time, my own suffice for now." Uaine said, then she gestured to the two braindead men you had brought with you.

"Gifts? Small gifts, and weak fairies. Kill one, take his power, and we shall see who has a stronger command of the Fey."

You nod, and Uaine doesn't even look away as you consume one of the men.

You get nothing from him, not shape, not memories, and not his power. A second later Uaine manifests a new ghost. The costume is different. It isn't prison cloathes he wears, but a cape and a mask, but the shape of the face... the height...

"They heed the call of their Queen," Uaine paused, as if to savor the word, "Prince. That I allow some to serve you is out of respect for what you can become, not out of your own power. Leave your other gift, I will free his fey at my leisure."

"Thank you for your generosity." You say, getting up.

"It is not generosity. You are the Prince, your role is to lead, to inspire, train your fey. Strengthen them."

You pause and consider...

"I will."

You visit String Theory next, checking in to see how she is doing with the new Tinkers.

"It's not a matter of not being able to build it. I had the design in my head years ago, it's a matter of not being able to build the tools I need to build it. This is a month long project at least, and I've never managed to make my timers last more than seventy two hours. If I build a tool it will detonate while I still need it, if I build a fabricator it's going to be dust in three days time, and it takes two days to build a fabricator."

"So you need someone else to build you a laboratory, or tools."

"Yes, a tinkertech lab and tools. The Tinker's you've given me are a start, but they simply aren't strong enough to build what I need."

"And who is?"

"I don't know... everyone. If every Tinker in this prison was working on this, then we might be able to get somewhere. I'd bring it up at the next meeting, but... there's something else."

"Oh."

"We've definitely been shrunk. We're tiny, this whole prison is roughly the size of a baseball. I can undo it but... we're in a prison the size of a baseball."

"Can you undo it gradually, the elevator shafts... they seem to keep the change gradual."

"Yes, with the right tools I could make a device that would slowly grow you and anyone else within it's radius back to normal size, but the change would happen at a set rate. You'd need to ascend the shafts at a steady pace, despite the vacuum, the mines and Dragon's defensive drones. If you got stuck at any point.... squish."

"I see, please continue."

Finally you head back to Teachers cell block and look at the televisions, then you turn the TV on and off in the signal that will call Saint.

You've talked with him before, but he often needs reassurance. He was worried the first time he called, because Dragon had noted that Teacher was dead. You convinced him otherwise, you were focusing on Teachers escape method while you killed him, so you knew Saint, knew his passwords and phrases that would make him trust you. You wove a story about needing to fake your death to escape from another angry inmate, and pretended the issue had been dealt with.

It was not a perfect deception, but Saint had access to Dragon's reports, not to video of every event in the Birdcage. He could get access, but it required effort, skill. Saint may see through your lies soon, it was only desperation that kept him believing you now. An addict who believed that the only source of his drug was gone might happily chew on a leaf that looked similar, and that was in many ways what Saint was.

You had a signal prepared, a set sequence that would trigger Saint's assault on Dragon.

Now you just needed a way to get out while that happened.

Dragon was prepared for this. Her drones would be less coordinated without her, certain security measures would go offline. Some would not. Pressure sensors tied to explosives still sat in a solid wall around the cavern, beyond the vacuum that held the prison at it's center. Most of the drones were autonomous, and thick concrete and steel slabs would stay firmly slammed into place along the elevator shaft.

But nothing would keep you from your daughter.

[ ] ?

Xilph · May 15, 2015

So I'm not sure of the next action but there is another way to deal with the size issue from what I can see, we consume enough mass to grow our body back to full size with our absorption + shapeshifting. We just need to find a way of absorbing a human sized chunk of mass while smaller then an ant or a way of generating infinite mass to grow larger at will, so if we can get Hugforcer we could probably do that, the limitations don't seem to prevent giant human forms after all which may be something of a loophole but whatever.

tEN · May 15, 2015

Couldn't you escape, then grow back to normal size?

Xilph · May 15, 2015

Bailey Matutine said:
Couldn't you escape, then grow back to normal size?

There is a minor issue that unless we scale up it's likely to be very, very far for travelling up the chute, as in some basic maths indicates we're probably going to be a thousand times smaller then normal then best, could be a few thousand depending on the big the prison actually is internally. So however long the chute is would be proportionally a thousand times longer, so very easily hundreds of kilometers long after scaling. If we had a sufficiently fast method of travel it could be good as it's much harder to target something only a few millimeters across but we'd need a rather good tinkertech transport system.

john doe · May 15, 2015

Interitio said:
There is no justice system in the birdcage, but the death of Teacher is enough for the other cell block leaders to call for a meeting. No one liked him, but his death disturbed an equilibrium that was always teetering on the edge of collapse.

Gavel wanted your head, as did Crane, but the others are swayed by the resources you are offering them.

Inevitably the details of your power get out, how you can absorb powers from the parahumans you kill.

You're fairly sure most of the other cell block leaders are planning to kill you now, while you are still relatively weak.

Ok killing Teacher did not get as bad a response as I expected but crane and Gavel both calling for our death will make some things a lot more difficult, string theory seems to support us entirely and Glaistag and the rest will probably ignore us till they see how our escape attempt goes. I think we should Ignore them until they come after us as proactively taking them out will cause the other cell block leaders to wonder if they are next and accelerate there plans

Overall not a bad result for what it got us.

Interitio said:
"It's not a matter of not being able to build it. I had the design in my head years ago, it's a matter of not being able to build the tools I need to build it. This is a month long project at least, and I've never managed to make my timers last more than seventy two hours. If I build a tool it will detonate while I still need it, if I build a fabricator it's going to be dust in three days time, and it takes two days to build a fabricator."

"So you need someone else to build you a laboratory, or tools."

"Yes, a tinkertech lab and tools. The Tinker's you've given me are a start, but they simply aren't strong enough to build what I need."

"And who is?"

"I don't know... everyone. If every Tinker in this prison was working on this, then we might be able to get somewhere. I'd bring it up at the next meeting, but... there's something else."

This is mostly more good news. Getting every tinker working together sounds difficult but is possible. we could also strengthen a few using teachers power. So we bring this up at the next meeting. although I expected teachers Tinkers to be better considering what they managed in cannon but that was with hundred working together. Not 9, maybe see if we can get a few more converted to tinker? Our cell has a few dozen capes, lets see who is willing to volunteer for tinker duty.

Interitio said:
You had a signal prepared, a set sequence that would trigger Saint's assault on Dragon.

Now you just needed a way to get out while that happened.

Yay this is one problem out of the way certainly

Ok so current goal
*getting more tinkers to string theory, enough to set up a Lab and help her out
*getting more powers that can help us, something defensive or precog to help us either avoid attacks from crane or Gavel or tank them. Something offensive so we can get through the elevator shaft quicker and dont get stuck. A flight power would also be nice.
*this is more a secondary goal but more biomass would be nice, maybe see if Hugforcer power works on dead bodies (as seen in the fault line interlude dead no longer counts by the manton effect)

[X]Bring up the need for tinkers at the next meeting and offer a favor, resources, or one of your non tinker capes working for them for every cell block leader who has someone help out.
-[X]Check at your cell block for any volunteer to become a tinker and work with string theory to escape the birdcage. No forced conversions.
-[X]see if any of the tinkers currently working with string theory want an upgrade using teachers power. If we can control which part of the power is upgraded focus on ability to convert raw resources to tinker equipment
[X] consider all the powers in both our block and teachers with an aim of eating them. Look for a high speed flight power. the best defensive power and the best offensive power. Also check for a "danger sense" or "precog" type thinker power to help avoid or anticipate ambushes from Gavel or crane.
-[X]see if Hugforcers power works on dead bodies and If so can we absorb that biomass for later use in regeneration.
[X] keep an eye out for any of the plots to kill you from the other cell block leaders specifically crane and gavel.

Any thing anyone can think of adding? Or a more important power to go after.

macdjord · May 15, 2015

For Crane and Gavel, I'd say just keep reminding them about our intent to escape; they will expect us to die in the attempt, so why bother risking coming after us themselves?

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