A Napoleon.
C Queen, control and ambition sounds good.
B Let's observe the Inferno for now.
You don't bother with a new set of serums now. You've already got one in mind, and a target for it as well. Your drones have collected enough data about the history of this world for you to identify some particularly
interesting individuals. One such individual brought the continent of Europe to its knees once already, taking a revolutionary realm and transforming it into a conquering empire... for a little while, anyway. After his defeat, he was shipped to a lonely island... only to escape, return to his rightful place on the throne of his empire, and
try the whole thing over again. Sadly, this was not to be; now, he withers away on an even more isolated and dismal little island far from his allies and supporters.
You find him a promising subject. His brilliant mind and tireless nature led him to countless victories, though he's past his prime now, slowly dying in unhappy confinement. Your first move is to repair his stomach and other health issues while he lives - he's no good to you if he dies from natural causes before you can see your serum take root. It gives you a wicked kind of pleasure to imagine him rampaging across these lands of Europe a
third time. That there's much less support for him now than there was doesn't bother you. When he's armed with your serums, he'll be able to wow these savages into blind servitude once more. It's a pity you can't guarantee a powerful result, but you'll just have to trust in fickle Fortune. Napoleon doesn't need much to be prodded into a third try, from the looks of his mind. He's a marvel - not that you particularly
like him, since efficient tyrants like him are death for enterprises such as yours, but he'll make a wonderful plaything.
[MANIFESTATION: 7, AVERAGE, STRONG ABILITY WITH SIGNIFICANT DRAWBACK]Your drones drift into his rooms with a vial of
Queen prepared. You believe this particular serum was distilled from a rare crystalline species capable of wreaking all kinds of havoc on spatial dimensions, which they did with glee until their desire for galactic domination brought them into conflict with much greater powers, and they were swiftly crushed. Your supplier was fortunately there to squish some of the dumb rocks into useable serums before their untimely demise could be complete. Napoleon Bonaparte knows nothing of this, though. You wonder what shape his new powers will take.
Napoleon dreams. What begin as old dreams of glory and victory take on an even more grandiose scale, until the deposed Emperor finds himself astride the entire world, millions-strong armies marching to his tune. The glories of France and the carefully cultivated advances of the Revolution are spread to every corner of the globe. Enlightenment awaits the peoples of the Earth at the point of a rifle. A new Code Napoleon will become law for all, just, righteous and modern, never to be altered again. All will recognize his greatness and weep for their insolence. And once Earth is his? What strange thoughts come, of worlds in the stars, awaiting His arrival? Of the Milky Way safe and secure in his control, unified, strong, all
His?
He awakens with an overwhelming sense of destiny. The man smiles,
knowing what is meant for him. His stomach pains are gone and his poor humor dissolved, like blood washed away in the rain at Waterloo. The memory is heavy with regret, of things he'd have wished to have done differently. If only he'd had the power to
shift the very terrain itself, to bridge great distances together, to twist and bend the fabric of reality with a flick of his wrist.
These are odd thoughts. Napoleon frowns. Could he not have such powers? Why else would they spring unbidden into his mind? He must have had them all along within himself, more proof of his triumphant destiny. Napoleon steps outside his prison and surveys the terrain. St. Helena is a desolate speck of earth in the middle of the Atlantic. The company is poor, the lodgings miserable, and the reality of his imprisonment ever in his mind. Africa is so far away, his France even further. Yet if he could compress that distance, to close the gap, to build a bridge through reality...
Napoleon reaches forward and
pinches. Reality is crushed between his fingertips. The distance between St Helena and the horizon pulls together into a path that he could cross with a single step...
But it would not carry him far enough. Some miles, no more, by his reckoning. No use to him, unless he desired to swim all the way to more familiar shores. Yet... if he could just get a letter out to some of the true faithful. He only needed a ship some distance away - not too close, where the British would intercept, but close enough for him to use this newfound power to distort space and leap aboard even from the rocky shore of his island? Yes. There was potential, there. The true worth of this blessing would be seen in battle. The sheer variety of its potential made him giddy. If he could shorten, he could also lengthen. If he could open up ways to escape, he could create cages and walls to contain. Enemy columns could be kept in the distance indefinitely, friendly forces conveyed in a few steps right into the rear of his opponents. Cannons could fire with pinpoint accuracy at targets suddenly only metres away. Even if his power was... limited, in the size and distance it could affect, he could find the ways to make the most use of it. He could improve it, perfect it. He could win the wars.
Of course, he had to escape first. With a smile on his lips for the first time in years, Napoleon Bonaparte returned inside and began to pen a letter that would bring about his freedom...
***
This one will go far, no doubt about it. You leave him to wait for rescue and experiment with his powers. Of course, it won't be long until the adverse effects of his powers become clear. The serum's exacted an unfortunate price for him. Every use of his control over space will transform the world around him, piece by piece. He radiates the power now; no place he stays in will be the same ever again. He breaks the world by his passing, if at such a glacial pace it'll take them years to catch on. Of course, being quite mad with ambition, you don't expect him to be all that bothered. The people around him might not be as pleased, of course, especially if the effect gets to work on their bodies - and on Napoleon himself. How long until he's no longer recognizable as anything human, in mind or body? You really can't wait.
***
You observe the Living Inferno over a month of local time. It's... not particularly interesting, unfortunately. The wildfires it spawns cause widespread devastation in the region, but are eventually brought under control. The humans prove ingenious by constructing a water-filled ditch to serve as a firebreak around it. The Inferno continues raging, seemingly blithely unaware of what's going on around it. The Greeks and their Turkish overlords bring in people to prod and study it, in whatever way they can. Foreign observers and scientists arrive just as well, some seeking to uncover what happened to the archaeologists sent here. Eventually, they determine the Inferno to be an unique kind of gas pocket that'll burn out in due time. It becomes a curiosity and an attraction for travellers, but interest gradually fades.
Your drones pick up only a little more than the humans. You send special fireproof units inside the Inferno, where they take a good look around before perishing in the immense heat. They do uncover something. There are definitely shapes in the flames - very human shapes. They appear only briefly before merging into the flames again, but they're there. Could they be the remnants of the men who perished inside the Inferno? There's really no way to find out. Your attempts to draw some reaction out of it are in vain. It simply doesn't respond to you like it did to the man of fire. You can only wait and hope it does something more interesting in the future.
***
Napoleon prepares his escape; Naiche's legend grows as he hounds white settlers intruding on Apache lands; the Nightmare skirts the edges of native villages, growing terror; a cat arrives in Constantinople, finding company with an ambitious Ottoman mechanist; Christos plots revolution in underground brotherhoods, discovering the secret places of his homeland in his dreams; the Man of Fire roams the skies of the world, either exploring or searching for something. Sightings of him appear in newspapers around the world, but are uniformly decided to be hoaxes. The world is not yet awakened to the existence of the supermundane. They will be soon.
You move on. The work never stops, and you're having way too much fun to slow down, even as the year nears its midpoint.
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, Napoleon Bonaparte.
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.
Napoleon Bonaparte: Subject 4. Strong with Drawback. A middle-aged male of the French people, an infamous and brilliant conqueror. Injected with Queen. Manifested ability to manipulate space by shortening and lengthening distances between two points, creating cages of inescapable space and other tricks over small areas. Active on St Helena.
Author
Topic: Caveman's Arsenal [SG] (1820, Injection #5: The Tree of Desires) (Read 13944 times)