Charm Learning Shard (Worm/Exalted) (COMPLETED)

Fenrir returns from his scouting mission, and gives you a nod. It's not a trap.

"Let's go," you say. You don't tell Ghost or Imp that's it's safe, because it's not like BITN has any Thinkers that could know that, and a certain wariness adds verisimilitude. Who wouldn't be wary, when an unidentified person contacts them on PHO and requests a meeting in the bad part of town?

Poltergeist can't be seen playing twenty questions with someone invisible, so details beyond trap/not trap are left for you to discover on your own. That too is verisimilitude, you suppose. Waiting for you at the agreed meeting spot is one parahuman, female, dressed like a sad clown. No, really. A clown costume all in black and white, clown makeup likewise, except for a bright red teardrop under one eye.

"Circus," you say, tipping your head in greeting. "What business have you with BITN?" This is where knowing the entire local cape population by heart comes in handy. Astonishingly, her power doesn't register as active to sorcerer's sight. If you had enhanced reflexes and balance (that didn't force you to drop into a highly conspicuous and recognizable martial arts form) you'd be keeping them running at all times.

"Was wondering if you were recruiting, by any chance." Ah, that's why she's unusually monochromatic today: She's trying to fit your theme.

"Solo career not working out?" you ask.

She shrugs. "I've been doing well enough, but it's always better if you have someone to watch your back. There just weren't any local teams I'd fit into."

"Until we came along, huh?" Imp says.

Circus flashes a smile at her. "A bunch of sassy girls, robbing a bank on their first outing, and getting away clean? That's my jam, alright."

"Hm," you hum. You pull out your BITN phone and select the only contact not already present. You hold out one hand to Circus to forestall further discussion as you wait for said contact to pick up. Meanwhile, soul price!

Circus wants that one last big score, enough to retire on.

"Tattletale! How's my favorite information broker?" You can't see her power working over the phone, but you trust her to figure out what it means that you used her cape name. Risk of non-friendly people overhearing.

"What do you want, Poltergeist?" Yep, she's figured everything out.

"Tell me about Circus."

"Anything in particular about her?"

"Is she any good, for starters? I seem to recall that you hired her for the Forsberg job, and that didn't work out so well." Aisha growls a bit at the reminder and adopts a less friendly stance towards Circus, pointlessly giving clues about her identity like the rank amateur she is. Circus does not noticeably react to it, nor to you questioning her abilities.

"Ah, you're looking for references." Lisa says. "Did she give you a CV? 'Circus is a highly skilled and dependable contractor. She loves pancakes and long walks on the beach?' Well, she is. The Forsberg thing wasn't really her fault."

"Thank you," you say, your mind racing. So, it was a trap after all. Okay, so what are your objectives in light of this information? One, steal her power. Two, keep her out of BITN without making Pancakes suspicious.

"Tattletale speaks well of you," you say. "You'd need a new name, though. A circus doesn't exactly go bump in the night."

"Killer Clown," Aisha suggests. "That way she can keep the costume."

"Very well," Circus says, and your eyebrows shoot up behind your mask. She is very loyal to her employer.

"I would not be adverse to letting you join-"

"Great! I-"

"-provided you pass the tests."

"Tests?"

"Of course. Can't let you join unless you pass a test devised by each member. Think of it like joining the Slaughterhouse 9, except with more fun and games, less death and mutilation. The Laughterhouse 9, if you will. ...hm, that works better in writing, doesn't it?"

Circus does indeed appear to be quite the professional, because she takes this too in stride. "Very well."

"For your first test... The floor is lava."

That finally manages to break her composure. "Seriously?"

"Oh my god, how can you just stand there!?" Imp cries, instantly getting into the correct spirit without any prompting from you. "Can't you feel your shoes melting? The floor is lava!"

Circus grudgingly jumps up to cling onto a nearby lamppost. "Now what?" she asks.

"I think we're out of milk," you say. "Let's go buy some milk."

---

Watching Circus procure milk is a treat for the eyes - and would be even without sorcerer's sight, you suspect. She puts her enhanced balance to good use as she leaps from shelf to shelf towards the dairy aisle. Landing right on the edge of the cold storage compartment, she snags one foot through the handle of a milk jug before performing a backflip back onto the shelves. The jug goes flying as a result, almost brushing against the ceiling before falling back into her waiting hands.

"The shelves are lava too," you remark, and she quickly leaps off to land in an innocent bystander's shopping cart, surfing it all the way to the checkout.

The clerk seems to have trouble processing what's going on as Circus crouches on the conveyor to pay for her purchase, and stutters a bit on the company-mandated "have a nice day". But who's really going to complain, when four masked villains show up to not rob your store?

Because you've planned ahead, you have a spare lair to lead her back to, amidst much acrobatics and hilarity. You're going through real estate at a ridiculous rate, but it's better than letting your real lair turn into an IHOP. And money not spent is money wasted.

"Oh dear," you say as you deposit the milk in the fridge, "it looks like we're out of bread too."

Circus - who just ran up four flights of stairs along the banisters - slumps in defeat as she realizes how the rest of her day is going to go.

---

Circus lies flat on your kitchen table, panting for breath. For the last flight of stairs you declared banisters lava as well, so she had to ascend by repeatedly kicking off the walls of the stairwell.

"Weren't kidding... about being... Laughterhouse 9," she manages between breaths. "We done?"

"It hasn't been nearly 24 hours," you say. That's roughly how long it'll take you to gain her power, you estimate.

"...Jesus."

"Lava cools pretty slowly, you know" Aisha adds helpfully.

You give Circus a couple of minutes to recover, because you're merciful like that. But mostly because you need to duck out and call Ops to take the evening off.

"Got some business out of town I need to take care of," you tell them, because why not hit two birds with one stone? Clearly, this must have been when Low Key went to Vegas.

---

"What's with the Laughterhouse thing?" Aisha asks quietly, 5 hours in. You guess that's how long it took for your prank to stop being funny. "Didn't do that to us."

"What does your brand new smarts tell you?"

"Well, you're... I mean, you're obviously stealing her acrobatics power, right? Right. Which... means you're not going to let her join? But- ah shit you're a loyalty Thinker."

"Yeah, she's a spy," you confirm. It's funny, she literally saw you call Tattletale and she's still attributing your knowledge to your Thinker powers. Full marks otherwise, though. "Can't let on that we know, so your job will be to make a trial she'll fail."

"You can count on me, boss!"

---

The other members of BITN eventually beg off - unlike you they still need to sleep occasionally - and you keep going alone. You have to hand it to Circus, she's in way better shape than you are. If you had to abide by the same rules, you'd have collapsed long ago, but Circus keeps going all night long. It's a goddamn shame she's already a pancake person, because you certainly wouldn't mind an employee this reliable.

By the time dawn breaks you're well outside the city, with you walking on the side of the road, and her atop the power lines. Your creativity ran dry a while ago, so you just settled for something that would take a long time.

"Let's head back," you say eventually. "The others will be waking up soon." Circus doesn't respond, and keeps walking along the power line. "Hey. Hey? Hey!" Still no response, she just keeps walking.

You sprint after her. "Ragequitting? You realize that you need to get back to town anyway, right?" I'd be a shame to lose out on her power, but getting her to quit on her own is a good consolation prize. But as you overtake her and look up at her face, you realize what's going on. Her head dangles forward, lolling from side to side with each step. Her eyes are closed, her mouth open. A small rivulet of drool is smudging her clown makeup. She's fast asleep.

But clearly her balance power doesn't shut down just because the rest of her does, because she's still upright, still walking along. The flesh may be weak, but the spirit is awfully willing.

"Circus!" Ah, no, you can't shout so good with Poltergeist's voice. You poke her with a mind-hand instead.

"Bwuh!?" She jumps in place, but doesn't fall down.

"I said, let's start heading back."

"Okay."

She falls asleep again in less than a minute, but walking in the correct direction this time. You don't complain. She doesn't need to be awake for you to study her power.

She turns out be a very grouchy morning person once you get back to the city and she wakes up properly. Or maybe that's because of the contortions you have her go through to buy a coffee.

---

"It's been 24 hours," Circus complains.

"Not according to my watch," you counter.

"You're not wearing a watch!"

"Watches are also lava."

---

Aaaand there it is. Supernatural balance get. You turn it on right away - it's not permanent, despite her stunt with the sleepwalking - but don't notice much of a difference. Well, you are sitting down, not much call for balance right now. You'll test out applications more extreme than 'don't fall off the couch' later, with fewer spies around.

"Okay, the floor isn't lava anymore," you say, and Circus - who had been keeping off the ground by wedging herself into the corner between two walls and the ceiling - drops to the floor with a sigh of relief. "Congratulations, you passed the first test. Imp, you're up next."

"Alright!" Aisha jumps to her feet and turns to face Circus. "The Bootleggers are playing tonight, you have to streak across the entire field without getting caught."

"What?" Circus' voice is perhaps a little bit high-pitched and strangled.

"Oh, you can keep your makeup on. Wear a mask, even. I'm not trying to out you or anything. But below the neck? Zilch. Show those bootleggers a real booty legging it across the pitch!"

"I'm not doing that!"

Aisha just shrugs and sits down again. "Okay. Bye."

"...what?"

"You failed my test."

Circus stands there for a few moments before turning towards you, as if to appeal the decision. You just give her a tiny condescending wave. "Bye."

"After all that..." Circus mutters to herself. Her fingers twitch, as if she's contemplating pulling weapons from her personal hammerspace, or possibly throwing fireballs around (she's the most eclectic grab-bag cape you've ever seen outside a mirror). Ghost leans forward from where she was sprawled on the couch, getting her feet under her, ready to spring into action. You manifest a mind-hand to grab a pen from the table - nothing threatening, just a reminder that no one here isn't a living weapon.

After a few tense seconds, Circus holds up her empty palms. "I'll go," she says.

"Good luck finding another team," you say.

She nods stiffly, and leaves.

There's a note in the palm of your hand. It reads 'stay'. There's two notes in your hand. The second one reads 'silence'. Okay. You don't think you had anywhere in particular you needed to go right now, anyway. You are curious about the notes, though. You know you can trust them, but you have no idea where they're from. And there's no way you wouldn't try to figure out a mystery like this - so the fact that you don't remember doing that is very telling. There must be one hell of a shenanigan taking place.

You remain in place, and silent, until Aisha shows up and things make sense again.

"She really left," Aisha says, "didn't try to circle around to spy on us or anything."

Ghost stands up and stretches. "Let's go back to the real lair then," she suggests. "This couch is nowhere near as comfy."

"Yeah, let's." Aisha nods in approval, then turns to look at you. "Super acrobatics powers?" she asks.

"Super balance powers," you correct her. "The jumping around was all muscle-powered."

"Show us?"

You shrug, and place the pen you were still absently holding in your mind-hand upright on the floor. Then you jump on top of it. In mid-air, you realize just how preposterous an action that is. No matter how good your balance, what should happen is that the pen breaks under your weight, or spears straight through your foot, or some combination of both. Instead, neither happens, and you end up balancing atop it with no discomfort whatsoever. Power instincts, huh.

"That makes no sense," Ghost says, having picked up on the same anomalous physics you just did. "Circus couldn't do that."

"You know my powers mutate a bit from the originals," you say with a shrug. Then Aisha tries to push you off your perch, and you somehow manage to bend around it without falling.

"This is so dumb," Aisha says as she tries pushing you again, with no more success than the first time. "I love it."

You don't know who looks dumber, you for balancing with one leg drawn up and twisting around your inexplicably static center of gravity, or Aisha for repeatedly failing to push you over - but you love it too. You'll call it 'graceful crane stance', you decide. But you feel instinctively that you haven't plumbed the true depths of the 'balancing on fragile things' bullshit you're now capable of. You use a mind-hand to pluck single hair from your head, and hold it out to Aisha. "Here, hold this up for me."

"No way!"

===

Spoiler: Mechanics corner

Exalted learning times are denoted in days, and assume 8 hours of training/studying per day. You can't go faster by working harder than that - your brain needs some free time too! Of course, that's assuming 8 hours wasted on sleep.

I don't think it specifies anywhere, but I take the underlying rule to be 'half your awake time can be spent training', so Taylor can now do 12 hours of training and 12 hours of relaxing - improving her power acquisition speed by 50%, given a captive audience.

In this case, the DM lets her stunt the two 12-hour training passes of two consecutive days as being back to back, for a 24 hour marathon.

Spoiler: Updated status

Charms:
Taylor: All-Encompassing Sorcerer’s Sight, Terrestrial Circle Sorcery
Tattletale: Know the Soul's Price
Bitch: Spirit-Tied Pet
Aegis: Ox-Body Technique
Browbeat: Shaping the Ideal Form
Dragon: Implicit Construction Methodology
Kid Win: Industry and Forge Wisdom
Lung: By Rage Recast
Vista: Mind-Hand Manipulation
Cricket: Mantis Form
Faultline: Charm of Lesser Unmaking
Labyrinth: Hell-Walker Technique
Othala: Verdant Emptiness Endowment
Rune: Sometimes Horses Fly Approach
Shadow Stalker: Bloodless Murk Evasion
Miss Militia: Nightmare Fugue Vigilance
Circus: Graceful Crane Stance