Chapter 143: Instant Irony

Learner’s Notes: End of day 15.

Irony is the word I was looking for. Curse irony.

After being on my own for a few minutes I realized that I’ve never actually seen a hooter in public without the strange cloth they wear to supplement their weak skin. I realized this after quite a bit of staring while we carried the insensate Kala back to the palace. Responses were…varied.

I was also gently informed that ‘bitch’ was also a derogatory word. I had simply heard Ryan say it so often that It’d gotten routine. Still so many things I don’t know! Each one of them a dangerous trap I could fall into. Call the wrong person a bitch and they’ll begin actively working against you.

Strange that single words can turn people subtly against you, ultimately hampering your effectiveness. ‘society’ is strange. They seem to serve no other purpose than catharsis, which Ryan apparently needed a lot of. I will avoid them wherever possible.

That begs the question: Are there words that can lead people to work in your favor? And if so, what are they? Finding the social levers of these hooters is tantamount to survival.

Requires more study.

***Calvin***

The palace has sent word that they’ve dealt with the assassin, Kurawe’s mental voice echoed in the back of Calvin’s mind. I’ll receive a more specific report once I return.

“Do you need a replacement?” Calvin asked aloud. Calvin was still stuck in Mujenan, lending his powers to reconstructing the city.

It’s even better than it was before, if I say so myself. Calvin thought, arms akimbo as he studied the city slowly taking shape below him.

“You don’t know a thing about construction, so don’t pretend your summoned Knick knacks get their talent from you.” Andra said.

Can this woman read my mind? Calvin thought glancing over at the general.

More like your face.

I’ll definitely need a replacement soon. It’s been six days already, and I need to be around when the army comes back with tales of monsters.

Calvin glanced up at the wedge shaped mass of monsters spreading out toward the east. They were so thick they dyed the fields outside the city a dull red, the same color as their armor.

All of Calvin’s Nadias in Uleis were gone, and only Kurawe remained, and he was going to poof in a matter of hours. Once that happened, Calvin wouldn’t have any knowledge of what was happening there, and no way to restore Bent.

Other than naturally, I suppose. Damn. Technically Calvin’s natural regeneration rate of one Bent every two hours was phenomenal, but it didn’t defy what was considered possible.

There simply weren’t enough people here to use them as Bent batteries. Most of them were soldiers, and those soldiers hoarded their Bent jealously, as it was often the only lifeline they had in the middle of battle.

Calvin had a brief thought of Andra gutting him for trying to leech off her.

Guess I gotta pay a visit to Uleis. Windburn is gonna suck.

Calvin could make it there and back in something like sixteen hours on a giant wasp with Atom Ant, but the sheer speed was going to cause a lot of discomfort. And sixteen hours wasn’t including breaks to take a dump, stretch his legs, or sleep. It was likely gonna be longer.

Should be able to spot the Uleisan army on the way past.

Well, no time like the present. Calvin began stretching in advance. He was probably gonna cramp up over the next day. Might as well overnight in Uleis and break up the time spend holding onto a hairy wasp.

“I gotta make a business trip to Uleis,” Calvin said without preamble.

“Oh?” Andra asked.

“Think you can hold on for a day. I should be back tomorrow at about this time.”

“Uleis and back in a day?” She asked, raising a brow.

Calvin thought about it a moment. He might have to do stuff when he got there.

“Make it two days.”

“As long as you’re back here before the Uleisan army arrives.” She said. “I want all hands available when something goes wrong.”

“You mean if something goes wrong.”

“When.” Andra reiterated.

Calvin spent the remainder of the afternoon packing snacks and getting ready to leave. Soon enough, he had launched out above the city, chasing the setting sun.

Calvin had pictured himself screaming through the air on his wasp, face stoic against the biting wind, but the truth of it was that he spent most of his time with his face pressed down into the blanket underneath him.

How much Warp do I have? Calvin asked, bored out of his mind as the wind howled past.

12/34 Warp Remaining

The city of Mujenan was still lousy with Warp, as vicious monster were still being spawned in the middle of the city, and still attacked anything else on sight, but at least they were under control, being pushed out into the wilderness through brute force and a lot of barricades.

The question was, what to spend it on? If he raised Chained Spirit to level twenty-five, he would only have to re-summon every ten days, and he could potentially get a handy upgrade for the Skill.

But…Calvin still wanted to experiment with Trait Doctoring, but he didn’t have the Warp to…

Oh, right. Shadowboxing. I lose it for a week and I forget it’s there.

Calvin tied his hands around the wasp and buried his head in the blanket, as far away from the wind and sand as he could get, then closed his eyes.

Shadowboxing.

Calvin opened his eyes, standing in the center of Deinos village again. It seemed like even in his imagination it was windy, as the trees thrashed back and forth from the invisible battering.

“Let’s see. I was interested in the Trait Doctoring spell.”

Calvin grabbed a jug of water and some clay and began experimenting.

The first thing he noticed: Trait doctoring had 100% efficiency as well as a sliding scale. If he wished he could accurately copy the exact same viscosity from one substance to the next, or switch to a sliding scale, making the object a hybrid of the two.

All this without having to get this skill up to level twenty.

Strength covered all the bases, tensile strength, compression strength and load strength, shifting over all the properties at once. If he wanted to, he could even separate the individual forms of strength and create something that could carry hundreds of pounds of weight, and yet crumble when pressed the opposite direction.

Identity was a much stranger thing all together.

Calvin didn’t really have much of an idea how it worked, but when he targeted a beetle and then himself, he spent the next sixteen minutes trying to crawl under the gap between his floorboards and the cold earth.

All while Karen laughed uproariously and gathered her friends.

When he targeted the beetle with his own identity, the beetle had written him a note in sand that read:

Identity seems to impart mental faculty as well.

P.S. I crave oats. Give me some oats.

- Beetle Calvin

Interesting, Calvin thought as he fed the imaginary him-beetle some oats from the grains in his kitchen.

Identity was a very nebulous concept but it seemed like any odd inconsistancies were taken care of by the System itself. His beetle identity obviously responded to the desires of a beetle body, yet had a mind that couldn’t possibly be supported by one. Did the spell perhaps create a virtual brain that followed the body along wherever it went?

Like a possessing ghost?

And if the body affected the desires of the mind, would he be attracted to men in a woman’s body? Signs pointed to maybe.

If Calvin put his identity into a rock, would the rock be Calvin, able to think, but completely unable to see or feel? How would Calvin even test to see if that were the case?

Calvin put his identity in a rock, and sure enough, there was no outward sign that his mind inhabited the lump of silicate.

Perhaps if I gave the rock Bent, rock-me could make some kind of sign.

Can I only shift over parts of someone’s identity? Just like the Strength part of the ability?

No better time to figure that out.

“Everybody!” Calvin shouted, gathering all the mental projections of the village. “I need some volunteers!”

There was some mild grumbling as they gathered close, curious, but with a healthy sense of cautiousness. Calvin was known for getting people into trouble.

“I’ll pay you with bacon.” Calvin said, holding some up.

“ooh, meat-candy!” Baroke said, stepping forward, along with a few other young men from the village.

“Alright, this shouldn’t hurt,” Calvin said, facing all of them. “Let me know if you feel anything weird.”

Let’s see, proof of concept. I need a big demonstration that this works, so lets try for a tangible result.

Trait Doctoring

Trait Doctoring

Trait Doctoring

Trait Doctoring

Trait Doctoring

Trait Doctoring

Calvin concentrated hard on the trait doctoring spell only transferring over irritability, temper, and triggers, from each of the six volunteers, to Baroke.

…nothing happened.

The expected explosion of anger and disconcertion was nowhere to be seen. All in all, Baroke was apparently unaffected by multiple traits spliced into him simultaneously.

Then Calvin backed up and tried splicing multipl identities into Baroke, and realized what the problem was: He could only shift one identity over to another person at a time. as soon as he targeted Baroke with a new identity, the previous one was erased.

That makes sense. The reason he didn’t get angry and bash someone else is that any one of them isn’t particularly angry or irritable.

As an experiment, Calvin tried to use trait doctoring to shift the Strength of multiple objects into a single one, and ran into the same problem. He couldn’t create an object that was stronger than the base materials he had to work with by layering effects.

Yeah, the System probably doesn’t want you to blow up the planet by making something go nuclear on accident.

Still, let’s try something specific.

Kort had a huge mother complex.

Trait Doctoring

Calvin moved it over to Baroke.

“Hey Baroke.”

“Yeah?”

“I talked to your mom the other day.”

Baroke stepped closer, brows furrowed.

“About what?” he asked, looming over Calvin. Yet his gaze and his body language were defensive. “Because you better not have done anything with her.”

Eureka! Tangible evidence we can move individual identity traits.

“Baroke, your mom’s dead.” Kort said, raising a brow.

“No, she’s…” Baroke frowned, pointing at Kort. “Your mom.”

“What about my mom?” Kort asked, crossing his arms in the exact same way Baroke had a moment ago.

“That’s pretty fucked up, Calvin.” Baroke said, glancing back at him.

“So you remember Kort’s mom as your own?” Calvin asked.

“No, she’s my mom, she’s just…Kort’s mom too? Which would make Kort my brother, but he’s not, and we don’t live together…”

Baroke frowned, the veins on the side of his head pulsing as he worked through the effect of the spell.

Memories are being surgically altered to fit the criteria and make that part of his identity match Kort’s. Very interesting.

Calvin dismissed the spell.

“How do you feel about Kort’s mom about now?”

“Hotdog down a hallway! Up top!” Baroke shouted, going for a high five before Kort interrupted him with a punch to the groin.

The two young men, one dead, one living, both a manifestation of Calvin’s Ability, began wrestling in the dirt and shouting obscenities at each other while Calvin thought about the implications.

I wonder if I can take separate traits that don’t overlap and mix them.

As it turned out, Calvin could not. He couldn’t add different kinds of strength from two different sources, nor could he modify multiple aspects of people’s personality by drawing from multiple subjects.

One per customer. That was the rule.

Possible uses for Identity shifting:

1. Stealing memories

2. Creating temporary moles/instant allies.

3. Introducing predictable personality flaws.

4. Going to a party where everyone is as cool as me.

Well, maybe not that last one.

Trait Doctoring has reached level 2!

Trait Doctoring has reached level 3!

Trait Doctoring has reached level 4!

Trait Doctoring has reached level 5!

+1 Intuition

Please Choose an Ability or Mutation.

Energetic traits: User may choose an energetic trait to add to Trait Doctoring. Energetic traits include, temperature, combustability, explosiveness, acidity, radioactivity. Selectable multiple times.

Expanded Physical traits: User may choose a trait to add to Trait Doctoring. Further alter the physical traits of the target object. Expanded traits include conductivity, friction, pressure, Frequency, phase shift temperature, opacity, reflectivity. Selectable multiple times.

Subtle Identity Doctoring: User can more effectively incorporate skills and memories from the donor into the target’s identity without causing mental disconnect, increasing accuracy and decreasing possible side-effects and noticability.

Extra sources: User may add traits from 1 extra source. Selectable multiple times.

Extra Duration: Duration of Trait Doctoring improved by (Int)%

Mutations:

It’s opposite day!: User may at will, decrease the trait in question proportionate to the difference between the target and the trait donor.

I.E. User may use a mirror to make another surface pitch black, or use a red hot poker to freeze a lake.

Trait Condensation: 2 Bent: Rather than move a trait, user may condense it into a liquid contained in a self-generated glass. Liquid gives the trait to the first object it touches. 1 drop per hundred pounds. Liquid stores 1 hour per level of Trait Doctoring, effect follows Trait Doctoring’s duration.

Whoah. Calvin blinked as he looked over the abilities. That’s some hard choices right there.

He might have to sit down with a paper and pencil to figure out exactly what he wanted to take and when. It was a bummer that he could only add a single trait every five levels, but he could easily get another three before it started slowing down drastically.

Opposite day is pretty appealing, Calvin thought, rubbing his chin. It basically doubled the versatility of the spell…but… the spell could only do a handful of physical traits, so it wasn’t super useful just yet. extra sources allowed more versatility in the source material, and of course all the physical and energetic traits looked like they could be incredibly useful in specific situations…

Except for explosiveness.

If Calvin wanted a thousand pounds of boom, he could just summon it with Dupdomancy…except Trait doctoring had a cubic mass limit that would outstrip dupdomancy easily, all he would have to do is make a huge brick wall match the explosiveness of a tiny bit of boom juice, then throw a rock at it or something.

From a long, long way away.

Okay, so the explosiveness one has uses too. but I’m probably never going to need to blow up something that big.

Never say never.

Calvin shook his head.

I’ll deal with this later.

Calvin mentally told the wasp to come to a halt and unburied his head.

Beneath him, the desert stretched out in every direction, the Gadvera – uleisan road long since left behind in favor of sand dunes.

Far in the distance, he could make out the shimmering light of Uleis against the soft purple of twilight.

The rest of the trip was uneventful, and Calvin landed in the palace, immediately summoning Nadia and Kurawe upon landing.

Chained Spirit

Chained Spirit

Chained Spirit

Chained Spirit

Chained Spirit

Chained Spirit

12/35 Bent remaining

Calvin sent them out on their respective tasks, and immediately headed for the council room. The guards that studded the palace doorways didn’t bother trying to stop him or ask him where he was going.

The huge glass doors swung silently out of the way as he entered the room.

Seated at the table was Kala, Grant, Farren, Ussein, the Cobalt representative, Kala, and a handful of minor Uleisan nobility that had stepped up into administrative roles over the last week.

Calvin blinked.

Wait.

He started at the left.

Kala, Grant, Farren, Ussein, the Cobalt, and Kala.

There were actually two Kala’s at the table, and they were both looking at him.

One watched him with adoration and an undercurrent of lust bordering on obsession, while the other watched him with hunger and an undercurrent of curiousity bordering on obsession.

Well, at least I can tell them apart. The real Kala looked like she’d gone a couple rounds in the arena. She had bruises on her face and bags under her eyes, a split lip and haunted eyes.

“What did I miss?” Calvin asked, rubbing his hands together. “Whose ass do I need to kick for attacking Nadia?”

“We managed to fight it to a standstill and drop it down into the pit,” Grant said. “Kala wasn’t in shape to keep fighting, so we came back here. She’s pretty lucid now, though.”

“What was it?” Calvin asked.

“Some kind of monster,” Kala said. “It had a mind, but it was controlled by a powerful will. It was hunting Nadia for some reason. It would be too unlikely to assume it didn’t have anything to do with you.” She said, eyeing Calvin.

“Hey, plenty people want to kill Nadia just for the sake of it.” Calvin said with a shrug.

“True, but she’s not so well known in Uleis.”

“So is the creature going to be a problem?” Calvin asked.

“I have a team watching the exit,” Kurawe said, taking his seat among the councilors. “But I doubt anything will be able to escape. The book of prophecy says that only one with a Harbinger soul can operate the door to the filter. It’s as good as gone.”

The palace shuddered, then the floor began bucking, forcing everyone to hold onto the massive table as a cloud of dust spewed upward halfway across the city. Sand and rock was propelled skyward, raining down on screaming citizens.

“What about breaking the door?” Calvin asked. “You need a Harbinger soul for that?”

“Sure, go ahead and make me look like an idiot.” Kurawe said with a sigh, resting his flabby chin on his huge palm, his ire directed at the monster rampaging through the streets. The creature’s spiny back was occasionally visible above the shortest buildings as it made its way toward the palace.