E) 'Icarus'. Experimental. Traces of flight, fire, joy, discovery, pride.
The injection is swift. Serum
'Icarus' seeps into the soil and the water, infusing its properties into whatever it touches. Most will not activate and those that do will be reduced in their power, but you're looking for quantity rather than quality. This might go one of many ways. The humans could end up believing that the site itself holds power, or that the objects within do, or then simply that the group itself has been chosen. Each subject generally finds their own explanation, which is then shaped further by the group's consensus. They're unlikely to end up with anything even remotely close to the truth.
[NUMBER OF MANIFESTATIONS: 5]
[MANIFESTATION: 5-4=1, PUNY, MINIMAL ABILITY]
[MANIFESTATION: 10+1-4=7, AVERAGE, MEDIOCRE ABILITY]
[MANIFESTATION: 10+4-4=10, MIGHTY, LEGENDARY ABILITY WITH SIGNIFICANT DRAWBACK]
[MANIFESTATION: 3-4=-1, CRIPPLED]
[MANIFESTATION: 1-9-4=-10, TRANSFORMED]It goes
spectacularly. Activation 1:The first to activate is actually a village cat that happens to enter the area. Whatever drops of the serum it drinks from the water fail to manifest in any noticeable manner, yet a routine probe tell you that
something's changed. Further surveillance will be needed to determine the exact changes, though you can't see how they could possibly be very exciting.
Activation 2:The second to activate is a local guide by the name of Christos. He's not a physically exceptional specimen, with a limp, bloated belly and a wine-burdened liver. The inside is rather more interesting. Christos is something of a nascent freedom fighter, intrigued by the ruins and legacy of his forebears that his employers are busy ransacking and dreaming of the glories of the past. He sees the ruins around him and wonders if the Greeks could be as proud and strong once again.
A day after your injection, he wakes sweat-drenched and feverish in the night. You can't say what delusions his fever-addled brain tells him, but he goes outside to stare at the ruins for a very long time. When the fever breaks, he's a man transformed. The changes are not apparent on the outside, but the neural probes reveal a man fiercely burning with the fires of liberty which before were only a hint of spark. It will not be long until he joins the revolutionaries calling for Greek independence from the Turks - indeed, he leaves the camp and his employment almost at once to seek them. You at first think these to be the extent of his gifts. In his sleep, however, he manifests a wholly different kind of power. His spirit leaves his body on wings of radiant flame, and this unbound entity soars the world free from the physical limitations of its host. Christos flies above a world which does not see him, exploring and surveying his homelands at his leisure. He flies, and he laughs, and the world is his to see.
You wonder if he's able to interact with the physical world in this incorporeal form, too. This is interesting enough, but that could be quite potent if he's got the wits to use it.
Activations 3, 4 & 5:The third activation is where it gets
really interesting. In fact, it perhaps gets a little
too interesting. The serums are volatile, uncertain things, as likely to result in horrible and wondrous outcomes, and this time the subject wins big-time. A would-be archaeologist by the name of Eugen von Heeringen erupts with the power of suns and is annihilated in a miniature explosion of heat and light that wakes up the entire camp and leaves a circle of ashes where his tent was. In his place is a born a figure of living flame that takes its shape from an uncovered statue nearby - a nude human male that ripples with muscles and beauty. The body shifts as the flames move in a never-ending dance, as if shook by unseen winds. Inhuman, manic laughter echoes across the dig site as the subject takes flight. The drones that attempt to get in close and launch their probes are burned clear off the sky, leaving you with little idea of what's going on inside this thing's head. The temperatures they record before expiring are lethal to most forms of life, though only localized a tiny distance from the subject's body.
The subject ascends high into the sky, then beyond. He does not stop even in the upper atmosphere. At this point you begin to worry; he's on a course that would take him uncomfortably close to your ship. The cold vacuum of space does nothing to him - but there he stops, looks back down at the Earth, and appears to fall deep in thought. It's only hours later that he takes action again and descends. You have a whole swarm of drones recording his first actions back on terrestrial soil - though he actually elects to hover slightly above ground rather than touch the earth. It's not the hellish firestorm of destruction a part of you hopes for, but it is something to behold. The man of fire addresses his awed colleagues, and the very sound of his voice sees them weeping openly and erupting in incoherent cheers. It's no language that you recognize, merely the vocalized power of a raging fire. Your drones tell you that the parts of the listeners' brains involved with happiness and pleasure are being overloaded by the man's speaking. The superman is as surprised as you at the effect, and soon shuts up in apparent embarrassment. Some kind of permanent changes appear to take place in the victims' brains; a general upswing in contentment, as well as curiosity and openness to new ideas, as far as you can tell. This quickly becomes wholly irrelevant.
The festivities are interrupted by two final activations in quick succession. You wonder if the superman's presence somehow calls them out and catalyzes them into activating; regardless, this time the effects are rather less pleasant for everyone involved. One of the other archaeologists suddenly catches fire and begins screaming, his happiness quickly left behind. It doesn't take a genius to see that this activation's gone badly wrong. The flames consume his flesh in a heartbeat and leave him a charred husk - still alive, but you don't expect he'll stay that way for long. Before anyone can even really register it, another of the men activates.
It proves... unusual. A surge of reality-shattering power erupts as the serum reaches its highest and most volatile potential. The drones transmit a variety of nonsensical data before their feeds cut out. By the time you get new ones on scene, the whole area is just
gone. The dig site, the surrounding hills and half of the nearby village have been swept away in a flood of fire and heat. The flames rage in every direction, promising massive wildfires for the region to come. Dozens of archaeologists and locals appear to have perished in the flames, to say nothing of the countless small animals, bacteria and plant life that's burned away. It's a scene of total and unnatural destruction, a raging inferno that shows no signs of stopping. You're thoroughly disappointed at not having the chance to record the event in progress. This isn't the kind of thing you want to miss.
And within, impossibly, there is movement. The man of fire lives, apparently wholly unharmed by the experience. As you watch, he floats to the epicenter of the inferno and speaks once more. He appears to ask a question of the fire itself. The flames around him respond, somehow, growing wilder and higher. He nods and lifts off again. Is the inferno
alive? Could the subject have survived in some form? How delightfully
bizarre.You take stock of the situation. The cat wandered off long before the explosion and appears to have abandoned the village it once called home. It walks the countryside and stubbornly refuses to show what abilities it gained. Christos is long gone as well, seeking his fellow freedom fighters. That leaves only the man of fire, who withdraws back to the skies. It occurs to you he cannot safely walk on living earth. He seems to lack the power to shut down the flames that now make up his form. He's a walking fire hazard with a voice that leaves people senseless. An amusing price to pay for what seems to be invincibility to the elements and harm, though you're yet to see him tested by any real attack. The firestorm - the Living Inferno, you take to calling it - continues unabated even as locals gather on its borders to gawk. They'll find their own explanations and stories of what happened here in good time. You're not sure, but you think that the drones catch sight of
movement within the flames - though nothing should be alive in there any more.
***
Subject 2: The Horned NightmareBack in America, the Horned Nightmare hones its skills. It has grasped an impressive gradual kind of terrorization that feeds it for a long time. Instead of attacking and killing, it chooses a singular target to stalk.
The first such victim, a lonely frontiersman crossing the plains, is confronted by the enormous blood-soaked bison in a campaign of relentless and unexpected horror. The Nightmare appears at a distance, then up close, sometimes waiting for the perfect moment so it can be right there when the man turns around. It attacks without killing, destroys the man's shelters and property, feigns charges and bellows in the night to keep the poor fool awake. When the settler tries to get help, the bison slaughters those he approaches. At one point, it drags the bodies of a family the frontiersman cared for dozens of miles simply so it can prop them up outside the frontiersman's cabin where he'll see them first thing in the morning.
It's evidently enjoying itself, and these methods pay off. This constant terror holds the frontiersman in its grip even when the bison is nowhere nearby. This keeps up for weeks. Eventually, he gives into despair and waits for death - a rather more paltry meal than the relentless fear, which leads to the bison finally abandoning the game. Curiously, it does not kill the man. You wonder why it would leave him alive. Perhaps to later return and begin the process anew? It's a kind of animal husbandry, you suppose, just harvesting fear rather than meat and hide.
Legends of the Nightmare spread. Hunting parties go out and return shamed or not at all. Countless of ordinary bison are killed, mistaken for the empowered beast, but any encounter with the real thing turns out badly for the hunters. The Nightmare needs only a little fear to shrug off even the biggest guns, and it knows to avoid those few who have no fear at all. Both natives and settlers struggle to come up with an explanation for the monster's existence. Vain offerings to spirits and gods are made by both in hope of banishing or appeasing it. You know, though they do not, that it cares nothing for such things. It only wants their fear.
There is one time that the Nightmare suffers a setback. It stumbles onto a trap in a lonely stretch of plain where there are no fearful beings to support it. In this isolation, it is vulnerable once more. The trap bites deep into its leg and leaves it bleeding heavily. It does its best to stem the bleeding, but without help it's limited in what it can do. The creature grows weak and desperate before it reaches enough frightened creatures to stabilize and live through the injury. After that, the bison is particularly vicious and furious against trappers.
The stories - and the fears - spread. Though those further away take them for tall tales and frontier superstition, the locals know better. Expansion across the plains will slow down, you expect, as the legend grows. Not bad for a simple grazing beast.
***
There are more and more pieces moving. Sooner or later, there'll be interesting trouble. For now, though, you can prepare your next injection and surveillance target at your leisure.
Who or where do you wish to inject?A) Search for an individual fitting particular criteria. Specify the criteria - ie, 'a slave laborer', 'a scientist in Britain', 'a moral person exhibiting qualities of humility, courage and self-sacrifice', 'an amoral person of limited empathy', 'a young lion in Africa', etc.B) Inject the water supply in a small settlement or area. The effect will be spread among many in diluted form. You may specify a particular place or type of area, ie, 'in New York', 'a forest', 'an isolated village', etc..C) Pick a human at random. Should be entertaining!D) Pick an animal at random. Should be entertaining!What you want to see next are...A) Safe Serums. These Serums are tested and mass-produced, with well-known effects and power levels, though the exact details of how they manifest varies. You'll have Machine bring you a batch of them to choose from.B) Experimental Serums. These Serums are experimental and untested, with only the faintest hints of how they might manifest known. They tend to have a much wider range of possible power, and there is a danger of creating something that could be a problem to even you or something that might cause undue damage to the planet as a whole. You'll have Machine bring you a batch of them to choose from.C) Choose a known Serum. Machine has provided you with quite a few Serums already. You could use one of them before requesting new ones. Please choose from the list below.(Optional) There are further options you could consider...A) Request specific batch of serums. You could have Machine focus on particular kinds of serums - for example, serums which tend to grant growth or offensive powers, or which manifest in a specific way such as gravity or disease, or other similar criteria. Please specify one term to search for.B) Monitor an active individual more closely. Focus your monitoring on one subject you've injected. This yields more in-depth and detailed records and narratives of just what they get up to. Options: Naiche, the Horned Nightmare, the wandering cat, Christos, Eugen von Heeringen.
Safe
'Dowager Blue'. Safe. Effects: Grants a passive defensive power, a close-range offensive power, a sensory power, resistance powers, and severely enhances size. Manifestations: water, ice, mist. Power Level: Average-Strong.
'Patron Blue'. Safe. Effects: Grants a defensive power useable on others, a long-range offensive power, flight or speed, minor altered appearance. Manifestations: lightning, energy. Power Level: Middling-Average.
'Ghoul Red'. Safe. Effects: Grants a draining power, a mobility power and a resistance power. Powers are affected by user's emotions. Manifestations: physical. Power Level: Middling-Average.
'Beggar Black'. Safe. Effects: Grants a concealment power, an illusion power, and a sensory power. Powers harm the user, usually mentally. Manifestations: mental. Power Level: Middling-Average.
'Ranger Green'. Safe. Effects: Grants sensory powers, a concealment power and a mobility power. Powers are affected by user's surroundings. Manifestations: physical, earth, plant life. Power Level: Middling-Average.
Experimental
’Maestro’. Experimental. Traces of planning, intellect, music, sound, communication, ego.
'Bruin'. Experimental. Traces of transformation, resistance, size, aggression, fear.
'Nova'. Experimental. Traces of light, aggression, zeal, domination, vision.
'Revelation'. Experimental. Traces of time, service, consumption, possession, intellect.
'Umbra.' Experimental. Traces of grief, darkness, transformation, intellect, change.
’Swift’. Experimental. Traces of metal, flight, transformation, insight, anxiety.
'Queen.' Experimental. Traces of space, transformation, containment, control, ambition.
'Crucible'. Experimental. Traces of creation, pain, death, disgust, subversion.
'Fiend'. Experimental. Traces of affliction, weakening, information, reaction, fear.
'Icarus'. Experimental. Traces of flight, fire, joy, discovery, pride.
Naiche: Subject 1. Mediocre. A young male of the Apache people. Injected with Patron Blue. Manifested ability to shoot lightning from eyes, create protective 'lightning cages' around an individual, and slightly superhuman speed. Active in the American Southwest.
The Horned Nightmare: Subject 2. Mighty with Drawback. A male American bison. Injected with Bruin. Transformed into partially non-physical entity fed and powered by the fear of others. Practically invincible in the presence of fear; however, also needs to consume fear to survive. Active in the American Midwest.
The Greek Four: Subjects injected with diluted Icarus at a digsite in Greece.
-Cat #1: Subject 3a. Minimal. A female stray cat. Injected with diluted Icarus. Manifested unknown abilities. Active in Southern Europe.
-Christos: Subject 3b. Mediocre. A middle-aged male of the Greek people. Injected with diluted Icarus. Manifested ability to project his winged spirit from his body and explore the world unseen. Active in Greece.
-Eugen von Heeringen: Subject 3c. Legendary with Drawback. A middle-aged male of the German people. Injected with diluted Icarus. Transformed into a entity seemingly composed of extremely hot flames, with the abilities of flight, immunity to the elements and vacuum, and potentially more. Active globally.
-The Living Inferno: Subject 3e. Transformed. An apparently living, unending firestorm localized near a village in Greece.
Author
Topic: Caveman's Arsenal [SG] (1820, Injection #5: The Tree of Desires) (Read 13953 times)