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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Fourteen)
- Thread starter Mr Zoat
- Start date
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- self insert young justice
Faed Away (part 4)
Mr Zoat
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4th May
19:37 GMT -5
"…say hold!"
The lines of green poison weave through the air and strike at Abednego's ward-signs even as Mr. Yao sings through the register-!
A stone cracks, shooting stone fragments across the room. The deadly tendrils fade a moment later.
Abednego lowers his arms and nods respectfully at Mr. Yao.
"Thank you, good sir. Melmoth was clearly both canny and vengeful."
Leonid winces slightly as he clenches and relaxes his right fist, the light of my purple ray playing over the area of his right arm where the strands touched.
"Yes, that feels better."
"Good show."
"But I do not understand how the spell got through your construct shield. It did not damage it."
"Construct shields only block tangible objects. It might look like a glowing strand of stuff, but as far as I can tell the light it gives off is a side effect of the passage of the arcane presence. I haven't… Yet worked out how to make my constructs drain magic by default." I shrug. "That's something I can work on while we're here."
Leonid nods, and touches his spell eater with his left hand.
"And this?"
"I never said that spell eaters are a perfect defence. Usually magic users try to power through the draining effect, but a sufficiently skilled one could probably find a way to bypass it. Any protection can be bypassed, though… I'd like Doctor Balewa to study the interaction."
Anarawd is standing back, not far enough to appear as if he's trying to escape but far enough that he feels justified in his hope that the defensive spells won't target him.
"You have Sheeda protective amulets? Did Sivana recover them for you?"
"No, I and an Atlantean magician called Sephtian developed them. Draining a spell tends to make it fall apart and prevents the more complex effects taking effect. And they eat through ongoing effects if the magician isn't continuing to supply them with power. We haven't ever really looked into sophisticated ways to bypass them, because… They're already cutting edge and they're not supposed to be relied upon."
"And you did not design them based on your study of the works of the Sheeda?"
"We developed them months before I had confirmation that the Sheeda even existed." I watch his face carefully. "Hey, is that temporal proof that we survive the Harrowing? The data had to-"
"No."
"-come from somewhere, and your people aren't particularly innovative."
"We may be less creative than the People of Spring, but we are perfectly familiar with spell-crafting. We could simply discover those same principles without your input."
"Did you?" Abednego and Mr. Yao begin cautiously surveying the room. Peter is giving Abednego the eye… Because the level of skill he just showed is above what he thought the average Columbian is capable of. That… Could be a problem, but we can probably explain it by the fact that he's a guide to the parts of the continent outside the boundaries of Columbia, and needed to study for his own defence. "Because that sounds like something that would cause the creator's name to be a rather big deal in your history."
"I have not studied our history in such detail."
"And I haven't studied avionics but I still know who the Wright brothers are. Still, it's nice to know that I'm such a big part of your culture; the last few time travellers I've met haven't even heard of me."
"No, that-." His eyes move away from us to stare at nothing. "No."
"And do you have records of how the Sheeda came to be? How you stopped being baseline humans and became this? Was it gradual or did you intentionally remodel yourselves?"
"That-." He actually backs up a step. "That does not matter. This is who we are."
I.. think I should give him a while to stew on that. I don't want to make him so afraid of what the truth could be that he does something foolish.
"It's interesting to see a time traveller so ignorant of history." I walk over to where Abednego is opening… Some sort of chrysalis? No, it's a living creature in its own right. "Found something interesting?"
"Mayhap."
It opens easily in response to a witch-sign, revealing a suit of armour like what the Sheeda wore, broken into parts. No, disassembled. This is an armour station.
Mr. Yao looks at Abednego.
"Mister Abednego? Is this significant?"
"We have not had a suit of their armour to study prior to now. Arrayed like this, 'twill be easier than with the damaged versions in town. Mister Anarawd, is this manner of device the normal way of arraying your armour when not in use?"
"Yes. When not in use. Simply taking it off in the field is…" He spreads his arms slightly. "Unwise."
His armour was pretty wrecked, and I'm not sure that we can learn much from it. But clearly it did its job, given that he's still alive.
Four more pods, four more suits of armour. Did Melmoth have accomplices, or did he just keep these spares for himself? For himself and any worthy descendants? Five suits of armour wouldn't be enough to conquer a planet, but perhaps it would be enough to carry out an assassination? Or reverse engineer to produce en masse? As a.. time traveller, I imagine that he was perfectly comfortable with long-term planning.
"How long would someone like Melmoth live?"
"Dark Melmoth often boasted that killing him was impossible. That a relic of one of the earliest Harrowings sustained him better than mortal blood."
"Is that true?"
"He… Survived a great many assassination attempts. Wounds that should have been mortal. Poisons known to be deadly. When a new attack occurred, he was said to make a great display of it. But… This is reputation alone. I was born under the rule of our glorious Queen. I have never seen him."
"And none of the assassins tried the whole 'fate worse than death' thing? Burying him in a solid block of concrete, that sort of thing?"
"The Queen has decreed something along those lines. I… Would imagine that it was because he was not entirely without supporters, who would see opportunities in defending him or liberating him. Or perhaps he stages the attacks himself, to better demonstrate his power. At this far removed, I could not say."
Abednego makes a slow circuit of the room, witch-signs faintly glowing as he checks for other traps. Leonid takes a closer look at the armour.
"Should we put it on?"
Abednego shakes his head. "I'd not recommend that, not unless your forebears were Sheeda."
"Or perhaps use it as a shield?"
"Without the correct invocations, t'would serve you not." His sigils dim. "The room is safe, as far as my magics can tell."
"Let's press on, then. I want to see if I can actually block the next attack."
19:37 GMT -5
"…say hold!"
The lines of green poison weave through the air and strike at Abednego's ward-signs even as Mr. Yao sings through the register-!
A stone cracks, shooting stone fragments across the room. The deadly tendrils fade a moment later.
Abednego lowers his arms and nods respectfully at Mr. Yao.
"Thank you, good sir. Melmoth was clearly both canny and vengeful."
Leonid winces slightly as he clenches and relaxes his right fist, the light of my purple ray playing over the area of his right arm where the strands touched.
"Yes, that feels better."
"Good show."
"But I do not understand how the spell got through your construct shield. It did not damage it."
"Construct shields only block tangible objects. It might look like a glowing strand of stuff, but as far as I can tell the light it gives off is a side effect of the passage of the arcane presence. I haven't… Yet worked out how to make my constructs drain magic by default." I shrug. "That's something I can work on while we're here."
Leonid nods, and touches his spell eater with his left hand.
"And this?"
"I never said that spell eaters are a perfect defence. Usually magic users try to power through the draining effect, but a sufficiently skilled one could probably find a way to bypass it. Any protection can be bypassed, though… I'd like Doctor Balewa to study the interaction."
Anarawd is standing back, not far enough to appear as if he's trying to escape but far enough that he feels justified in his hope that the defensive spells won't target him.
"You have Sheeda protective amulets? Did Sivana recover them for you?"
"No, I and an Atlantean magician called Sephtian developed them. Draining a spell tends to make it fall apart and prevents the more complex effects taking effect. And they eat through ongoing effects if the magician isn't continuing to supply them with power. We haven't ever really looked into sophisticated ways to bypass them, because… They're already cutting edge and they're not supposed to be relied upon."
"And you did not design them based on your study of the works of the Sheeda?"
"We developed them months before I had confirmation that the Sheeda even existed." I watch his face carefully. "Hey, is that temporal proof that we survive the Harrowing? The data had to-"
"No."
"-come from somewhere, and your people aren't particularly innovative."
"We may be less creative than the People of Spring, but we are perfectly familiar with spell-crafting. We could simply discover those same principles without your input."
"Did you?" Abednego and Mr. Yao begin cautiously surveying the room. Peter is giving Abednego the eye… Because the level of skill he just showed is above what he thought the average Columbian is capable of. That… Could be a problem, but we can probably explain it by the fact that he's a guide to the parts of the continent outside the boundaries of Columbia, and needed to study for his own defence. "Because that sounds like something that would cause the creator's name to be a rather big deal in your history."
"I have not studied our history in such detail."
"And I haven't studied avionics but I still know who the Wright brothers are. Still, it's nice to know that I'm such a big part of your culture; the last few time travellers I've met haven't even heard of me."
"No, that-." His eyes move away from us to stare at nothing. "No."
"And do you have records of how the Sheeda came to be? How you stopped being baseline humans and became this? Was it gradual or did you intentionally remodel yourselves?"
"That-." He actually backs up a step. "That does not matter. This is who we are."
I.. think I should give him a while to stew on that. I don't want to make him so afraid of what the truth could be that he does something foolish.
"It's interesting to see a time traveller so ignorant of history." I walk over to where Abednego is opening… Some sort of chrysalis? No, it's a living creature in its own right. "Found something interesting?"
"Mayhap."
It opens easily in response to a witch-sign, revealing a suit of armour like what the Sheeda wore, broken into parts. No, disassembled. This is an armour station.
Mr. Yao looks at Abednego.
"Mister Abednego? Is this significant?"
"We have not had a suit of their armour to study prior to now. Arrayed like this, 'twill be easier than with the damaged versions in town. Mister Anarawd, is this manner of device the normal way of arraying your armour when not in use?"
"Yes. When not in use. Simply taking it off in the field is…" He spreads his arms slightly. "Unwise."
His armour was pretty wrecked, and I'm not sure that we can learn much from it. But clearly it did its job, given that he's still alive.
Four more pods, four more suits of armour. Did Melmoth have accomplices, or did he just keep these spares for himself? For himself and any worthy descendants? Five suits of armour wouldn't be enough to conquer a planet, but perhaps it would be enough to carry out an assassination? Or reverse engineer to produce en masse? As a.. time traveller, I imagine that he was perfectly comfortable with long-term planning.
"How long would someone like Melmoth live?"
"Dark Melmoth often boasted that killing him was impossible. That a relic of one of the earliest Harrowings sustained him better than mortal blood."
"Is that true?"
"He… Survived a great many assassination attempts. Wounds that should have been mortal. Poisons known to be deadly. When a new attack occurred, he was said to make a great display of it. But… This is reputation alone. I was born under the rule of our glorious Queen. I have never seen him."
"And none of the assassins tried the whole 'fate worse than death' thing? Burying him in a solid block of concrete, that sort of thing?"
"The Queen has decreed something along those lines. I… Would imagine that it was because he was not entirely without supporters, who would see opportunities in defending him or liberating him. Or perhaps he stages the attacks himself, to better demonstrate his power. At this far removed, I could not say."
Abednego makes a slow circuit of the room, witch-signs faintly glowing as he checks for other traps. Leonid takes a closer look at the armour.
"Should we put it on?"
Abednego shakes his head. "I'd not recommend that, not unless your forebears were Sheeda."
"Or perhaps use it as a shield?"
"Without the correct invocations, t'would serve you not." His sigils dim. "The room is safe, as far as my magics can tell."
"Let's press on, then. I want to see if I can actually block the next attack."
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Vaermina
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It's very specifically a White Dwarf...
Darko
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Maybe 'tendrils'
'shields'
'the normal'
Darko
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Unless Paul's presence somehow changed some things.
Pinklestia
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And people wonders why it took stuff like Watchmen for people to take comic books seriously.
Vaermina
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Yes... It's a few billion years early... But I am not really sure what the big complaint is here given the sheer number of things that fucked with the sun over the centuries.
Mr Zoat
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Thank you, corrected.
Chojin Patriarch
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Ooh, nasty. Flesh-seeking poison gas that can avoid and even damage magical defences? Melmoth (or his dungeon designer) was an inventive fellow...
Mutual respect between vigilantes? Jolly Cooperation!
At least the damage it inflicted can be healed. I doubt anyone would be happy if it couldn't. I mean, OL could probably amputate and regrow the arm with enough desire to fix it, but that's a charge hog...
Magic and Lantern Constructs don't play nice with each other. Without special training, at least, and OL hasn't focused on that.
Very good idea, and you'll likely have lots of opportunities to try.
Who knows, maybe OL can provide the data for Sephtian or his teams to improve the next generation model.
...What. Wait, did he just say...
Bitch, please, your people are not the sum total focus of Human knowledge.
Heh, that creeping feeling of worry and doubt. Even in one word, you can feel it.
I'm sure your experts could. And you've made a large assumption about the similarity of Spell Eaters to your own counterparts. They could work very differently at the most basic levels...
Interesting by-play. Is Peter suspicious of Abednego's skill because he might be a secret warlock? Or is it just surprise at the talent displayed? Who's to say Abednego doesn't just have a natural knack for defensive witch-signs?
Heh. Presumably Sheeda schooling skimps on anything the person isn't required to know for their tasks.
A question some of us have asked. I doubt we'll ever learn the canon reason...
Ah, OL. You and your habit of breaking people with naught but words.
I assume he's taken the necessary precautions that there aren't hidden traps inside. The joy of a party with multiple Rogues, each specialising in different skill-sets.
An intact, unused suit of armour... That's going to be useful for determining weaknesses, a lot moreso than the damaged stuff they've collected so far.
Have to wonder how strongly the armour integrates into the wearer. Is it simply wrapped around, or does it burrow into them slightly? Does it connect to their nervous system to improve the agility and responsiveness, and how much feedback does the wearer experience? So many questions...
As long as he doesn't go in for retroactive problem solving via paradox. For instance, need something to get through a particularly tough door? Go back afterwards and place a cutting tool nearby for your past self to find! That sort of thing leads to all manner of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
Oh-ho? That's interesting...
Huh. Something akin to the Right Eye of Zoltec? It's not the first time we've seen something that could provide that benefit.
I wouldn't be surprised if some attacks were staged to build his reputation of invincibility. And with abilities like that, I suspect his opponents would be happiest if he were reduced to subatomic particles...
No. Definitely No. You don't stick any part of your body into an unknown like that, kid. Not unless you want to risk it getting bit off or something...
I suspect the pieces are too small to use as any reasonable defence, especially if the torso plating is articulated in any fashion. Unless OL were managing it with construct tendrils. And the armour is known to be remarkably construct-unfriendly.
Looking forwards to improving your skill, eh? No better way than active use.
Now that's an interesting fact or two about the Sheeda. They created their own spell eaters, or something similar? Melmoth had some manner of protective artefact? Both are things which make reasonable sense... Though I wonder how the Columbians supposedly slew him if he had such a thing... Perhaps their 'freedom' is some great experiment the old king is running...
Feels awkward. Perhaps 'far a remove' or similar?
Double Space.
'the' or 'their' depending on meaning, i think.
Handlewithcare
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Ah right. Paul is such a fundamental anomaly that even time has trouble.
Didn't the book of fate not contain his name or something?
Paul the living, literal Out Of Context Problem
Didn't the book of fate not contain his name or something?
Paul the living, literal Out Of Context Problem
Stsword
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No, V, the Columbia's sun is a white dwarf.
As I've already pointed out, with link-
Nervaqus987
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IIRC, the Sheeda got their time travel tech from a time traveling Neanderthal.
Could Melmoth have picked up the meteorite that made Savage immortal? Does that time line match up?
I mean, granted, time travel is involved so "time lines matching up" is kind of a broad subject.
moralrelativity
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This reads like it should have something at the end "as canny and vengeful as _____" if not, then the "as" should be removed. Or maybe this is just another part of their strange dialect.
that -> than
Mr Zoat
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On the contrary. The next Renegade episode is mostly devoted to him finding out.
Abednego's speech is supposed to be slightly awkward.
Thank you, corrected.
No, one of Columbia's suns is a white dwarf.
Thank you, corrected.
Darko
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I think there was some kind of techno magical cauldron involved.
Is the next episode going to be a renegade episode?
Sordid Snake
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Thats where my thoughts went as well.
But does the meteorite give out hard immortality willy-nilly, or was it a one time deal when Savage got it?
If it is the latter then Melmoth is the far future identity of Vandal Savage (And the thing that made the sun a vampire might well have been a side effect of whatever rescued Savage FROM the sun, assuming someone got tired enough of his bullshit to throw him into the sun.)
Stsword
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It wasn't one shot in the comics anyway.
Blood tribe members gained temporary immortality from the meteorite, so they make sure to get a booster exposure every now and again, they are the Insiders.
However while Zoat could have changed things, Melmoth gained immortality from one of the New Gods' gifts- the cauldron of rebirth and plenty.
A dip in it's waters resurrects the dead, so he replaced his blood with its waters for immortality.
Ngamer11
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If he is alive, Paul could theoretically kill him using FEED ME. If he does do that, I hope it is in the presence of the Columbians, the warlocks, and the Sheeda. That should get them to learn that Paul is polite, but not someone to mess with.
Darko
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He can also just assimilate him like renegade assimilated Savage.
Mr Zoat
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Either the next episode or the one after that.
infinityDivided
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Stsword
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His immortality in the comics didn't cover compete bodily destruction.
Frankenstein killed him by feeding him to the giant carnivorous insects one uses as riding beasts on Mars.
So similarly extreme methods- freezing solid and shattering into teeny tiny pieces, an acid bath, complete incineration, etc, would be sufficient.
No need for getting creative like "Turn him into a tree, so he can enjoy his immortality photosynthesizing" or anything.
Mr Zoat
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Thank you, corrected.
I don't think Frankenstein checked that he hadn't reassembled himself from their poo, but the immortality does come from the waters. Sucking his blood out would remove the immortality, though you'd need to give him actual blood afterwards if for some reason you wanted him to live.
Darko
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maybe 'in the comics'
Pinklestia
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Or hit him with a molecular separator. If his molecules are separated, he isn't coming back.
Mr Zoat
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Thank you, corrected.
Darko
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maybe 'earlier today'
Darko
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Mr Zoat
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Thank you, corrected.
DrThoth
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