Celestial Saga

[Oblation]

Rude.

…

I was all involved in the search for the ABB capes, then we finally find them, and I get sent over to HQ to stand guard all day!

The worst part is, they were right!
The Chosen (Hookwolf's E88) attacked, and it was only all of us under 18 Wards being in the same place that sent him and his minions off.

It's annoying, and I can't even complain because they were right to have kept a reserve.

Even though Lung and Nuwa got away (along with a huge chunk of the gang's non-powered), their still out of the city, and Oni-Lee's dead, which was the whole point.

The whole day went good.
Not perfect, but there are a bunch of ways it could have gone bad and didn't.
And I'm upset about it!

It would've been easier being upset if something had gone bad, but instead the only hitch was that a ramped-up Lung can stalemate the Protectorate for offense, even with my armor's protection.

But even there, it wasn't an issue because they kited him out of town before he got too big, and for once, I guess he grew for speed, not fire, because he got away.

Velocity chased him for a bit, but got called back once it would've taken the rest more than 30 minutes to catch up with him.

Nuwa got away with a bunch of the gang's remaining members, but most of Firewatch + Carlos, Dean, and Vicky (the 18+ wards) still got like 30 of them and one of the most violent lieutenants.
"Madugo" was the leader of the Southeast Asian parts of the ABB, and for a guy whose name literally means "Gory" in his native Filipino, I think it's clear where he got his reputation.

So, today was a success, and my whole part in it was taking pot-shots at Hookwolf and teleporting teammates out of danger with Fox.

Though it would have been nice if Missy would've been able to finish her Solar lens to melt Hookwolf.
But it was too cloudy, and he was too quick to retreat once the minion's clothes started to catch on fire, so it didn't happen, unfortunately.

---

Oh, and no injuries, thanks to Addison.

I also found out why he STILL doesn't have a costume.
Apparently, he's afraid of PR, and so long as he keeps refusing Hero names and costumes, he doesn't have to do any of it.

Missy and Chris think he's a genius for this, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna bite him when he runs out of time and gets slapped with "Boo Boo Buddy" or something stupid like that.

…

Also I rolled but it's just another PR Perk, so I called it a night on rolls.

Gold - Red Rising
Base Cost: -50cp
Lore & Details:
Humanity sprawls across the solar system in a strict color caste, engineered so each person reads as role, rank, and polished purpose.
A lowborn Red is remade into a Gold to infiltrate the ruling caste and spark revolt from within, a one-life gamble to topple centuries of rule.
The series turns that gamble into total war, asking whether overthrowing a cruel order births freedom or just another crown, and what surviving the furnace of revolution leaves behind.
---
You appear gilded and blonde, hair like braided sun, skin warmed to coin, eyes opalescent and sharp, features honed to statuesque calm.
Blood, grime, or exhaustion only adds weathered grandeur.
Onlookers will remember your silhouette as luminous authority.
Addons:
N/A
Final Cost: -50cp
Bank: 875cp

I almost didn't take this one, but I figure Blonde is already close enough to Golden that people might not notice.
So obviously Emily did immediately, which is how I got found out for hiding rolls, but all that led to was a discussion about the money power, and what I was supposed to do with hundreds of thousands of Nickels and Dimes.

Answer?
Pretty obvious given who I'm talking to, but give it to the PRT and get Tinker Budget.

When I brought up the tinker budget only being to build stuff, which I can justify in the paperwork (aka for Ward's usage, not for things like supporting NOVA).
Emily offered to trade it but said I'd need to take a loss on behalf of the caffeine budget.
So we went back and forth for a while, then I gave her the coins and accepted one of those Visa cards, which they give informants and bounty hunters with 92.5% of what I gave her in cash… or well, in digital money, but close enough.

---

I asked how long she thought that 7.5% would last, and Emily said a week??

I thought she was joking, but no.
Apparently, the Caffeine budget for the New England PRT branches comes out to like 20k Per Week.

It really puts into perspective how expensive things are.
I really thought I was going places with this fund, but in reality, I've got less of a budget than Emily does for her departments to spend on Caffeine, for the next three months!

---

Oh, and the PR team's almost finished getting pictures with everyone using the Y-Gun, so I guess there's going to be a grand reopening thing tomorrow, where they want me and Emily to cut a ribbon, then she'll make some kind of "New City" speech now that the ABB got run out of town.

Not that big a Deal, but Taylor's really pumped about it, so I'm doing my best to match her energy.
Though it's hard to get really pumped about… having like 5 ships a day, show up and unload some stuff before leaving later.

Plus, they're already doing that, since the first thing they did with the Y-Gun was clear a path to the Dockworkers.

…

Seeing it in the mirror, I'm not sure how Emily noticed?
Like, my hair just looks like I'm standing in the sun, even when I'm not.
It's not much of a change, but I guess I forgot Emily's still the Kingslayer, since she clocked it instantly, in a way that took me 10 minutes of looking in a mirror to pin down.

 

[Oblation]

We did the PR thing.
There was even a pretty big ship in the background, so it worked out for the pictures.

Emily made a speech about the city entering an era of new hope and possibility, and we all politely forgot that this city is still full of Nazi's and thanks to the new gangs, the number of villains actually went up, if anything.
Then she cut the ribbon and 'opened the bay to new possibilities!'… or something cheesy like that.

Still, Lung and Oni-Lee were a particularly scary combo before they got a tinker, so the situation certainly feels better, if nothing else.

Plus, fireworks are always nice.
Albus even taught me a firework spell, just for that PR event.

…

In other news, I found out that Albus and Tenkō no Tomo found out about the building where my new Lab is at St. Andrews and decided to move in there.
I guess Dragon owns the building and doesn't care about it beyond that her Mech's are left alone, so it works out.

Asuka says she wants the clan to have a territory of its own… but like a heroic one, I guess.

Not protection or anything, but Albus's shack was just a house, and the Building in an area already pretty well covered by the Guild.
But the lab at St. Andrews is a whole base, and in an area with minor importance to a whole region, but no real defenders aside from a mostly theoretical effort on Dragon's part.

So, I authorized them to use any of the cash they'd gotten, plus 100k, which is most of what I've gotten from the money gathering perk, to fortify the Passamaquoddy Bay on my behalf.
It all seemed kinda larp-ish, but I guess Tenkō no Tomo is theoretically a Feudal Clan in service to a Feudal-Lord… aka me.

So, I'm giving them resources in order to protect an area that will be de facto mine in Cape terms.
What with NOVA-HQ 30 minutes away, and my vassal's HQ there, and it being my lab and the storage house of one of my allies.

The whole thing feels kind of strange, but within a few days, I've gone from having never heard of Saint-Andrews, New Brunswick, Canada, to being its Lady-Protector.

Still, everyone agrees that it was basically a sitting duck, being kind of important, but undefended with NOVA-HQ nearby, but still far enough to let villains get away if needed.
Plus, almost everyone agrees that something needed to be there, so it might as well be my personal base, to be looked after by the clan when I'm not around.

…

The St. Andrews thing might have been just in time, too, because a NOVA squad got pictures of Lung fighting a local gang already… in Saint John, New Brunswick.

He barely moved!
Just left the bay for a slightly smaller city nearby.
Hell, it probably would've been St Stephen where the new NOVA-HQ is if that town were a bit bigger!
He literally just found the first port city out of Emily's jurisdiction with more than 50k people in it and set down!

Well, fine, if he does end up settling there (and we don't hear about him getting in a fight somewhere else soon), then I guess it becomes NOVA's job to keep him from really becoming it's King.
What with NOVA-HQ and My Lab only being about an hour away, making us the nearest parahuman support for that poor little Guild Department.

I mean, he was stalemating the BB-Protectorate for years, and E88 at its strongest!
There's no way the locals will be able to keep up…

Spoiler: New Brunswick Map

 

[Oblation]

Welp.

Lung is here to stay, and so am I.

---

We've started to build up NOVA in this area around Maine and New Brunswick.

The dream of all of New England and The Maritimes is still a thing, with a few teams still expanding in Vermont and Nova Scotia, but mostly we're a Maine/New-Brunswick organization for now.
As part of that, I tested a bunch of people and handed out the last few non-master Powers I could from Ars magica.

But the best of them was probably Team Leader Valerez, who got Creo-Animal, and Rachel, who got Muto-Animal.
Rachel is over the moon with healing and shapeshifting her dogs, and is willing to put up with the pseudo dog projections Valerez makes now.

---

Albus has been buying up little chunks of land to put outposts in, so we can hopefully make some kind of Rapid Response over to Saint John if needed.
Plus, some of the middle-aged members of The Clan have been seeking out positions in different towns in the area, so we start to integrate and keep an eye on New Brunswick fully rather than just the surface-level stuff they'd been doing.

So far, the main areas that were focused on, other than Saint Andrews itself are that unfortunately placed Nuclear Power Plant and Eastport, Maine.

Eastport is in a similar position as Saint Andrews, except for the part where someone blew up its docks a few decades ago as part of some final showdown between a hero and villain.

Still, its been long enough since then that its a somewhat important local port for the US side of the Border now.

---

On my end, I've mostly just been making a low-key version of my good boots for the clan and a more thematic one for NOVA employees. Plus a bit of armor when I've got the Mana to spare, now that the first iteration of the Wards-armor is mostly done.

Along with using the Money perk on different towns every day to get a feel for the area, and to collect more cash for operations.
Especially since it's been pointed out that Mr. Graham's not a cape.
So there's nothing illegal about him investing in stable stocks to use the dividends like an operations fund for the stuff NOVA can get from the Perk-Generated funds each employee is paid from.

It's been really busy between the different creations, the way school has been ramping up in the hopes of getting me into Online High School this August, and the setup now that NOVA has an A-Class threat to keep an eye on.

…

The roll is great, though I really wish I'd rolled it before all the paperwork for managing NOVA we've all been doing.
Still, team leads and COs will be very nice and hopefully decrease the amount of crap that gets sent upstairs by the grunts.

Home Office - Library of Ruina
Base Cost: 500cp
Lore & Details:
The City is a sprawling corporate meat grinder where miracles, monsters, and body mods are just part of the urban budget.
You work as a Fixer, a licensed problem solver who takes contracts for anything that normal people or even syndicates are too scared, too fragile, or too politically exposed to touch.
Every Fixer belongs to an Office and lives and dies by its grade, starting as disposable grade nine fodder and clawing their way up toward the rare high-grade elites who can clash with Wings and urban legends.
Your life is paperwork, debt, and spectacular violence, and every job is a gamble where the payout might buy you better gear and status or just pay for someone else to mop what is left of you off the pavement.
---
You've come into possession of an Office, an entirely independent one. Currently, it's staffed by a modest company of extremely loyal Fixers who are equally adept at administrative work and the sanctioned violence expected of them.
You have 25 points.
A Grade 1 is 13 points
A Grade 2 is 11 points
A Grade 3 is 9 points
A Grade 4 is 7 points
A Grade 5 is 5 points
A Grade 6 is 4 points
A Grade 7 is 3 points
A Grade 8 is 2 points
And you have as many Grade 9s as you have points to spend.
Addons:
-50cp All new employees include confirmable backgrounds and a fund to pay them so long as they stay in your service.
-0cp More Staff 1: +25 points, but no Grades above 5.
-50cp More Staff 2 (Requires MS1): +25 Points, but no Grades above 6.
-100cp More Staff 3 (Requires MS1+2): +25 Points, but no Grades above 7.
-150cp More Staff 4 (Requires MS1-3): +25 Points, but no Grades above 8.
-200cp More Staff 5 (Requires MS1-4): +25 Points, but no Grades above 9.
-500cp +14 Points, no strings attached.
-500cp All Grade 1s are now Colors.
Final Cost: -850cp
Bank: 1200cp

I wish I knew what a Grade 1 meant, but the memories have got nothing here, and since that could be 13 new NOVA members, I just can't risk it…

Luckily, I've got the points for most of the "More Staff" options, so I'm sending 25 Raymond's way, since Firewatch has been taking on a bunch of roles, beyond just bodyguarding me.
I was tempted to make it 50, but I just can't help but remember how much 200 has gotten in the past, so I held back.

So, NOVA just got 100 members who can do admin and fighting!
We're really starting to feel like proper law enforcement at this point…

Spoiler: A/N

Unfortunately for Saga, this is one setting I had no knowledge of, since the smart play here was actually to double down on points and get the 3 grade 1's, then just tell them to go solo Lung and every other villain in the area.
Unfortunately, Saga has no way of knowing, but there is a silver lining, and it's that anything about Grades 1-8 involves body enhancements that would inevitably break down without being able to be repaired on Earth-Bet, save for some extremely expensive Tinker services.
So the silver lining is that by grabbing 125 Grade 9s, she still got 125 people with the base skills of a Fixer (aka paperwork and basic combat), but none of the impossible maintenance or massive egos of someone like a Color or Grade 1.
I imagine it as basically getting 125 people fresh out of something like Police Academy. (Or even something like Ranger School, if you want to be generous.)
TL;DR - Saga didn't pick the super soldiers but did get 125 of the PERFECT type of people for NOVA and Firewatch, and that's still great!

 

[Oblation]

One of the Ninjas who got a job as a manager at a canning factory has been making friends with a family who live right down the road from the Nuclear power plant.
I guess it's a big enough deal that it has its own history of villain attacks.
Which is lucky since apparently the ABB has already been sniffing around.
It's all the more reason to have people in the area, if only to keep Lung's people away.
---
For myself, I've been looking into the local area and the points of interest where NOVA will likely need to focus our defence.
So far, what I've found is:
1. Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station - The big target
2. Trivium Packaging Canada - less important, but isolated and would hurt the locals a lot to lose it.
3. Charlotte County Hospital - Near NOVA HQ
4. A.F. Theriault & Son's Fish Boat Factory - A large part of why St. Andrews is a regional port, and the others aren't.
5. The Ganong Chocolate Factory & Museum - Near NOVA HQ
6. St. Croix River's Hydroelectric Milltown Dam - Important but no known villains particularly close to it.
And a few that were going to need to hope the Guild can defend.
Because even if we went straight over, our response time would still be like an hour, unless it's small enough for me to deal with on my own.
1. Irving Oil - Multiple locations, all vulnerable to villain attacks.
2. Saint John & Saint Joseph Regional Hospital - Multiple locations, all vulnerable to villain attacks.
3. Port Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada - Largest Port in The Maritimes, and it's just as vulnerable as the one in BB, but would be MUCH more devastating if it were blocked off.
4. Saint John Airport - A bit further away, but still a concern.

---
The perk this time was pretty helpful, even if it's a bit low-key.
If nothing else, I can finally show people what it's like to roll, so long as I remember to keep them away from that damned powers list and its revealing of my secrets.
Celestial Grimoire - The Celestial System
Base Cost: -25cp
Lore & Details:
The Celestial Grimoire isn't written, it is grown.
A living book that grows new pages whenever it's chosen dares to ask the universe a question.
Every page is a bargain, inked in starlight on one side and in quiet personal cost on the other.
It whispers patterns, designs, spells, and devices that have never existed before, yet each revelation pulls its wielder a little further from the life they once knew.
Those who bear it do not just learn, they are rewritten until they match the Grimoire's Glory.
---
A self-updating list of all your accepted perks.
Includes a summary of the Perk, the date it was accepted, and the CP cost. Also allows you to refer back to the exact wording of any Perk and to have a physical object to interact with for rolling and considering new perks.
Addons:
-0cp Standard Stranger and Recall-Function for the Celestial Grimoire
Final Cost: -25cp
Bank: 525cp

 

[Oblation]

Chapter Text

So… something really weird is going on with the perks.
It's been in the back of my head that nobody's commented on how familiar some of the perks are. Like, taken directly from Aleph imports or sometimes directly from things that exist in media here on Bet, like Star Wars.
But nobody's brought it up and I just kinda moved on without thinking about it… until I actually showed them a roll, and watched in real time as Emily glaised over the source.
Emily is WAY too good at attention to detail to do that, much less on an important detail like this, but when the perk explains where it's from, she (and everyone else) just kinda… skim past it.
And I mean EVERYONE!
Even Angeles and Dragon couldn't figure out what I was trying to get them to see.
The only silver lining is that I guess when you look crazy enough, they don't put you in M/S, they just call it Powers BS and move on:
---
Oh, and I don't normally include the reject perks, but since it was relevant, what with having a bunch of people read it, I'll include this one:
What I see:
Visage of Terror - God of War
Base Cost: -50cp
Lore & Details:
In God of War, there is a man who once broke a pantheon and now tries to break his own rage. The woods know his name even when he will not speak it. Old gods stir. New gods whisper. The father walks. The son learns. The world breathes around them as if afraid to wake something deeper.
---
Your form hijacks the primitive fear centers in anyone who sees you so hard that dislike gets overwritten by raw panic and obedience.
Addons:
N/A
Final Cost: -50cp
Bank: 1100cp
What others see:
Visage of Terror
There is a man who once broke a pantheon and now tries to break his own rage. The woods know his name even when he will not speak it. Old gods stir. New gods whisper. The father walks. The son learns. The world breathes around them as if afraid to wake something deeper.
Your form hijacks the primitive fear centers in anyone who sees you so hard that dislike gets overwritten by raw panic and obedience.
-50cp
I also got a perk that I accepted, which inspired the rest of the day.
SCP 1425 - SCP Foundation
Base Cost: -150cp
Lore & Details:
The Foundation's basically a cosmic janitorial squad keeping the weird stuff from licking the planet. Most days, it's babysitting a smug toaster or bribing a duck that refuses to die. Sometimes the interns whisper. Sometimes the walls do. Nobody asks questions because questions bite. Everyone still clocks in since the alternative is letting the anomalies out of HR.
---
For 1 hour per day, you can create stories of impossibly fantastic quality, so long as they include some sort of subliminal message.
Addons:
-50cp 2 Hours per day.
-100cp 3 Hours per day.
-150cp 4 Hours per day.
-200cp 5 Hours per day.
-250cp 6 Hours per day.
Final Cost: -200cp
Bank: 1100cp
So… I might not have told them about the additions once I knew they couldn't see them.
At the time, this was mainly just because I didn't want to get assigned to make PR slogans super effective for 5 hours a day.
(Plus, I was right, immediately after this, they made me post something under the official accounts of a bunch of heroes with the subliminal message of "I'm trustworthy and likeable.")
But the sneaky idea that occurred to me was this power's potential for chaos.
My first idea was to reinforce that old "Assault and Battery are siblings" meme, but that's a bit mean for people who've been really decent lately.
But thinking of people whose opinion of me doesn't matter, I asked Vicky if she was dating Dean currently and after the rant was done I asked if she could give me a list of the times he had done that 4-D chess trick of his by having "Gallant," (aka someone wearing his armor) show up at a charity event run by his family.
(It's 4-D chess because it helps Dean, but also counts for Gallant's PR duties simultaneously somehow.)
So list in hand, I slammed together 5 chapters of an actually pretty tame Dean/Gallant smutfic, but made sure to line it up with the dates and times of the actual events and had it as a romance in the backstage moments at these events.
Now, I'm no stranger to Capefic, I don't think anyone who's entered an Earth-Bet middle school in the past decade is.
But usually writing even ok, stuff takes time, so slamming out 8k and 5 chapters in an hour and a half was a really wild experience for me.
Practically an out-of-body experience, what with how I just kept focusing on the subliminal message, yet the fic kept getting written at lightning speed.
That message:
"This really happened."
Good luck Dean… XD

Spoiler: Question for Readers

Any ideas for more pranks Saga can pull with her Infohazard fanfiction power?
Try to keep it more funny than mean, but I'm 100% down to set off some pranks and have them become plot points later as the Internet does its thing in the background.

The best one I've got so far is some kind of smear campaign fic against Uber and Leet that she puts a few minutes into daily, until she either tanks or skyrockets their views.
But that seems a bit too direct/obvious for the use of a power with this much potential for chaos.

 

[Oblation]

So Vicky found out about the new power and apparently made up with Dean in the meantime.

I took the fic down, but it seems I underestimated just how popular supernaturaly good fanfiction would be since it was back up in a bunch of copies within the hour.

Vicky seems to think I should be using the power for "good."
That was all fine up until she got to brainstorming, and we realised the difference in our definitions of "good".

My definition leans more towards what I would call Chaotic Good, whereas Vicky leans a bit more towards a Lawful Good.
Not Lawful as in US Law, but lawfully as in, she has a moral code and thinks those who break it, regardless of whether they have a different code, should be treated as evil.
Specifically, she wanted me to make a fic to convince people that Triumph's Cousin was a psycho and shouldn't be trusted.

This actually became a whole thing and was the first time I really used my "Queen" title on the IRC since I ended up muting everyone in the Wards Chat (including mods like Vicky) for an hour and just pinned a comment saying that, like it or not, I'm not going beyond pranks on comrades.
Even when said comrades are across the country, and maybe or maybe not got your Mom killed unnecessarily.

That said, Vicky (and Eric, who had joined in) are my friends, so I ended up putting 5 hours over the last 3 days to make a full "life of Brandish" biography Speaker For The Dead style with her "technically not a murder" at the end in plain sight with exactly zero obfuscation of who did it.
(Well, her cape name, I'm not gonna out her and go to jail, but I put her cape name in plain English, and mentioned her signing up and getting forced to her new city immediately afterward.)

I guess there's some kind of politics going on in the Protectorate and PRT about my eulogy, but all I've seen of it was a crying hug from Vicky and Emily telling me that, while disapproved of by national PR, it was an unfortunate necessity for team cohesion, so she'd made sure I wouldn't get any blowback.

---

Oh, and as a pallot clensor after all the drama and biographing I've been doing, I wrote up the first few chapters of my Archer's Bridge Merchants fanfic.

I honestly couldn't think of a way to make fun of them, so in the end I decided to do the opposite in the hopes it'll make the real thing seem even more sad.
Specifically, in this hypothetical world, the gang is actually a psy-op for a shadowy cabal/Illuminati-type group that I'll work out the details of later.

So, as a result of this, each member is actually some kind of hyper-competent black-ops agent type whose role as bottom of the bottom-of-the-barrel gangster is actually a super detailed act designed to slide them under the radar as they slowly expand the reach and strategic control of the Illuminati.

It's early days, but the idea is that the Illuminati doesn't actually want to rule the world directly.
They just want to puppet it, so they set up a series of groups that control some of every city so that they can exert wide-scale influence on entire regions at a time.

The only real question for now is if I decide to go hard or soft with it.
Going soft would be a fun SCP-style Illuminati that's just barely hanging on to its influence with the changing world of parahumans.
Going hard though…

Cauldron.
Like straight up, Dr. Mother, Contessa, and the rest, and I just mask off Culdron and see what happens.

I mean, it's REALLY risky, but if I'm trying to use this power against Evil, I can't really think of a bigger one than Culdron, save for something like Ziz.
But everyone knows she's evil, while Culdron is still basically just a meme, for all the damage they've done to people like Weld and my new teammate, Elisa.

I am REALLY tempted…

Spoiler: Question for Readers

What type of Illuminati do you think Saga should go for?
SCP or Cauldron?