The Power of Ten Book Four: Dynamo

My guts basically lit up with wandering voltage to accentuate the acid in my stomach, and my intestines were acting like softly popping arc furnaces, ripping apart everything with little dances of voltage and repel/stick to such... and neither hide nor hair of E. Coli seemed to be present inside there. The heat this generated didn’t mean anything to me, so effectively I soon had a boiling soup of digestion going on in my guts, breaking stuff down and whisking it away to all parts of me.

I could feel the progress, too. Like infinitesimal little bits were starting to accrue, more and more internal systems lighting up as they suddenly had something to work with, and with tons of energy to use, got right to it.

It was a damn good thing the Icefire Rituals were working, because my body temperature was rising to the ‘human dies by overheating’ level and past it quickly, taking full advantage of the fact it didn’t have to slow down at temperature to get things done.

It was a really weird feeling. Ael had been Sustained practically from the first moment he Powered up, and only ate for pleasure and to enjoy someone’s cooking and company. He’d definitely never had to stuff his face full of food like a starving pig and see what might happen when you were immune to temperature differentials.

I wasn’t Sustained, but I did have a totally superhuman energy supply available to me. Combine that with the fact that I couldn’t overheat and fatigue poisons broke down almost the instant they were generated, and, well, it wasn’t the same, but it was close.

I couldn’t recall anyone ever pushing the limits of what it meant to be Sustained like that, as it was always the fatigue poisons or overheating which got to most people. They always had the energy, but we’d never seen if there were actual physical limits to what people could handle of unending caloric supplies.

Well, that was enough for me. Now, it was a question of what I was going to do next.

My first priority was to keep stuffing my face. I had a deep, deep craving for food right now, as if my entire body wanted to get to where it should be after being stuck in coldsleep, and was just waiting to be fed.

That would mean either consistent theft of various locations, or getting my hands on some money so that I could buy food. I didn’t like being a thief, and I had actually left a note on what I’d removed so they could make inventory adjustments in the store, but right now I had nothing.

Really, I had nothing. No friends, no family, no connections. I mean, yay, freedom from obligations. But I wasn’t really a selfish person, and I had nothing to really fight for here.

Especially if this was a super-person world. Plenty of people around who could do the fighting.

Except, I had this Warlock Pact on me. You don’t get those things imposed on you unless the other party wants something done. How hard and violently you work on said task can vary widely and greatly, but doing nothing was very, very rarely an option.

So... what was the mission?

That looming multi-limbed shadow in the darkness and the webs hove up in my memory, but it wasn’t saying anything, it was just there. If it wanted to give me a mission, all it had to do was impose the directive on me with something as simple as a Geas. I wouldn’t have been able to resist... or if it was Pact-tied, remove it.

Instead, I felt a great big yawning emptiness in front of me. It was totally surreal having nothing to do.

I had no obligations, no ties, no mission, except for patiently stuffing my face with meat, cheese, and milk. I had a huge Pact hanging on me, but nowhere to go with it.

Having no real direction to proceed in was a strange feeling. Aelryinth always had things to do, and the list just grew constantly. When you are capable of doing lots of things, there’s always lots of stuff to be done. If you are crazy smart, you make more stuff up yourself!

I had a whole lot of not much I could do right now, and I didn’t know how to proceed, my need for food warring with my need to take a level, longer-term approach to this problem.

Oh, and having super-powered people looking for me probably didn’t help matters. Or killing some telepath trying to liquify my brain. A modern and peaceful society tended to look down on those who could kill easily, and super-powered people who did so probably got a lot more of such attention.

That said, turning myself into the government did not seem like a good idea. I’d been planted with a tracker and a nanite back-up system, and the only feasible way that would have happened is while I was being ‘cared for’, ergo by the health system.

I could think of a dozen reasons why they would do that, but I went remembering for any sign of either before that wave of fear had hit me and sent me running in terror, and I couldn’t recall similar sensations, even in the chaotic mess of the moment.

A government which double-tagged its Powered like lost pets was probably not something I wanted to be invested in.

That left me alone, and undertaking either a vigilante or criminal role in this society. Both had their attractive points, and law-breaking didn’t bother me. Breaking laws that were extensions of Tyranny was just part of the job description of Good people, regardless of what Lawful types thought. Outright theft was totally excusable in the greater scheme of things, just something that should be avoided casually.

Still, everything required money in one form or another. So, I was going to need some form of income.

If they have psions, I also need protection from divinatory psi-powers tracking me down, I sighed.

Okay, I needed a Ring, that was obvious... and then I would need some gold to Burn and power it up in various ways.

What did I have left to use up?

4 Feats by Training them. 5 Mastery Tiers. Swap out Scribe Scroll in Wizard for something. Twelve more Skill Points to dispense. Should be five more bonus languages...

And I could still take a Level today, before the sun rose at Renewal.

No, maybe as many Levels as I wanted to. But I didn’t know if I wanted to.

Superhero universes were generally built on archetypes and tropes. It was very difficult for a superhero to deviate from his trope once they set out on it, at least without completely ditching their old persona to one extent or another, often by adopting another identity.

Superman had the potential to be a great detective or a super scientist, but never went down either route. Hawkeye didn’t break out of his reliance on a bow until he gave it up and went with his Ronin identity for a time, developing his fighting skills. Green Arrow had to rebrand himself from a master archer, through a hunter, to a master martial artist and not-assassin to expand his skills.

Where then, did that leave me? If this was a world that only allowed a mono-path, taking multiple Classes was going to leave me all over the place, good at nothing for my Level...

Gah. Possibility paralysis! And I couldn’t judge what to do because I had no access to Assay...

Suck!

I’d have to change my approach.

Okay, whatever default superpowers this Warlock Pact gave me centered on massive physical buffs. Well, massive by my standards. I didn’t know my limits, and I was an underfed teenage human female who’d been in cryogenic sleep or something. What Warlock abilities the Pact allowed me on top of that... likely wouldn’t compare to actually being a real spellcaster, but would cater to either Melee or Archer Classes.

But what it gave me was a Warlock Blast that manifested as bio-electricity...

Huh...

Ignore the strength and speed and energy level stuff. I could generate a whole lot of power. Really, an unseemly amount, and vary the amperage and voltage as I desired.

I was basically a walking, talking dynamo. A power source I could hang all sorts of stuff on in a science world.

Huh. A power armor wearer, without the need to have a generator or batteries? Already strength and reflex-enhanced?

How much better is armor when the meat inside isn’t fragile, either?

Of course, making a suit of power armor was going to require monstrous amounts of money, of which I had absolutely none.

Sigh. So depressing...

Well, I could at least take care of a couple things.

I didn’t want to be Timesighted, so Beyond Law and Chaos would be perfect-

Gkk!

My whole body and soul convulsed as the right to do that was absolutely rejected. The strands woven into my soul and extended elsewhere drilled into me and warned in a kind of spirit-ripping way that I was not to attempt such a thing again, you idiot, you.

I was hard-wired into Fate and/or Luck! Oh, Merry Christmas to me...

I swallowed the stuff back down that was threatening to come back up in acute nausea, the whole world spinning around me, and that underlying webwork making shadowy movements below it all until I could banish it from my sight, getting rid of the sensation that we were all just paintings on the real canvas...

Fear!

The eight eyes flared up in my backbrain, and flooded forth a nigh-crippling wave of terror and despair coming from that direction now, now, now!

I looked that way sharply, and saw a man coming down the walkway in the park I was in. He was also looking at me now, and had subtly just changed his course. He was in a polo shirt, smartly cut shorts, and running shoes, had a fab haircut and toned body, and was definitely handsome as he strolled along on this cool late night.

I looked at his feet as he left the light of a streetlamp, and noticed he did not have a shadow.

The nausea was ignored as I rose to my feet.

Least Invocation Mastery/2, Devilsight!

Profound Strike Mastery/1, Sacred Strike!

Training Feat: Extra Traits: Undead Killer and Favored by Fate!

Training Feat: Crystallized Reduction!

Training Feat: Strong Soul!

Wizard! (I was not taking a chance on insta-retraining). Swap Scribe Scroll for Face of the Mage!

Cantrips assign as Assay, Visual File, Prestidigitation, Detect 0!

Arcane Bond: Witchbonded Ring! Gimme that damn Ring Domain!

Mastery/1, Concentration/1, Rapid Refocus!

Mastery/1, Warlock Blast/1, Melee Blast!

Mastery/2, Warlock Blast/2, Ranged Blast!

Training Feat: Power Feat, Roll With It/1!

Skill Points to Acrobatics, 3; Sleight of Hand, 3; Whitesmithing, 3; Jeweler, 3, and 1 each Arcane and Divine Lore!

New Class, Arcane Fist, Enlightened! Already have IUS, take Wolverine/1, Versatile Unarmed Strike!

Swap Stunning Fist to Sun Dragon/1!

Mastery/2, Wolverine/2, Weapon Focus/Unarmed Strike!

Mastery/2, Profound Strike/2, Silver Strike!

Training Feat, Ki Pool!

Mastery/2, Improved Pool!

Skill Points: Martial Lore, 3; Intimidation, 1!