Brockton rumble

Gil hemmed and hawed for a full day after coming up with his idea before he actually went through with it. Dropping 5 credits on a binding that he intended to use on an already captured animal just didn’t sit right with him, but he also didn’t want to throw away a legitimately useful asset because of a minor logistical snag.

Buying the Beastmaster Sphere did give him another hour and another credit at the Bazaar, since every ten credits spent would feed into his Platinum Card’s rewards program, so he couldn’t complain too much. Well, he couldn’t as long as this plan actually worked.

He didn’t see any point in making a big production of things, so the moment that he bought the small red and white sphere he immediately whipped it at Boco. Thankfully, it took. The giant, fluffy yellow bird immediately vanished in a flash of red light, startling Snow. She’d been scratching his neck, which he was a big fan of.

“Fuck yeah!” Gil shouted, “Why didn’t I try that sooner!”

All previous concerns swept under the rug, Gil was quite happy to see that Boco’s status shifted. His binding was now listed as Beastmaster Sphere: Skyblock. That last word made Gil squint, however. He double checked, and the Skyblock itself had been listed in his almanac, updated to show that he’d used his one “charge” for the Beastmaster Sphere binding on Boco. He wouldn’t be able to repeat that. On the other hand, the fact that the Skyblock had its own charges opened up a different angle; there were, after all, ways to get an uncaptured individual onto the skyblock.

He tabled that question for now, as Boco had just become vastly more valuable. If he intended to use the massive bird as a summonable form of quick transit, a role that Vanessa had insisted he would excel in, Gil felt like he had every reason to invest more heavily into the big dumb bird.

He pulled out the Zubat card. He’d been tempted to take its power upon himself, gaining the ability to fly if nothing else, but he paradoxically didn’t want to invest too much into himself.

He was strong enough to contribute, but didn’t actually like being the strongest piece on his chessboard. He made it a point to externalize much of his power so that he wasn’t obliged to risk his own neck on every little thing. Every asset he brought to a fight was derived from fairly baseline levels of physical and mystical training, or from his magical gear.

In other words, his current skillset was extremely replaceable. If he found himself with a T5 character card or got himself killed, he would be able to discard his current body (though preferably not his current face) without much trouble. In contrast, it would be a devastating financial blow to lose Rose, even if he immediately resurrected her. She was currently a succubus sniper superhero tier 6 and the only other person in Gil’s retinue who was even remotely in the same league was Ireena, another superheroine.

Boco, on the other hand, was a safe investment. He was a big, meaty creature with a thick coat of feathers and a surprisingly dense frame. He probably couldn’t take a rocket to the face, but most normal, sane threats would leave him long enough to be shoved back in the ball until he could be healed. To that end, Gil took out the Zubat card, selected the “flying” tag from its list of traits, and applied that to Boco.

When he brought out his newly promoted trusty steed, Gil was surprised to find his plumage had shifted from canary yellow to a shiny black color. He had no idea why; maybe black chocobos were a breed capable of flight naturally? Regardless, the big bird let out an affronted “Kweh” and needed a few minutes of tender care from Snow before he allowed anyone to mount him.

They spent the rest of the day slowly riding the chocobo bareback around the skyblock. Candress was, by far, the best rider. Apparently blood elves had similar flightless birds called Hawkstriders, so the original Candress had quite a bit of experience with them. She was the only one confident enough to ride Boco when he went soaring through the skies around Gil’s little flying island. He could maintain altitude for hours while moving pretty quickly. Alas, her aim with her shotgun was shit while in mid flight.

••••••••••

Gil checked his gear again. He’d packed for his trip to Brockton, but he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d be doing there or when. He had a broad strokes plan, but if his new mission was too valuable to pass up, who knew what the next 24 hours would look like?

Keilnei and Candress stood by, both disguised as humans with varying levels of effectiveness. Keilnei had the advantage of a magic disguise, turning her into a tall but plausible woman with blue eyes and dark hair. Candress could mostly pass for a human except for her glowing green eyes, which were only somewhat concealed with dark sunglasses. Both were kitted out with multiple Shinra firearms, ready for anything.

His “soldiers” clashed horribly with Snow, who was just excited at the prospect of meeting new potential friends. If she got to spend any time at all in Brockton, it would be as a volunteer relief worker in a strange outfit. That didn’t stop her from bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. Boco swayed behind her, only just barely understanding that they would be going to a new place soon. He seemed excited; shame he wasn’t likely to find any good grub.

“Alright everyone. This is a return trip, so first step will be making contact with Rose and scouting out any new locations.” Gil said, “In that order, ideally. She knows approximately when we are supposed to arrive, so ideally she will be in place when we do.”

He ran down a list of things they knew about Brockton, framed mostly from the perspective of a fantasy setting for the sake of the Azeroth girls. That technically included Silky as well, but as a moth injected with a queen’s education and training he didn’t really know how much she’d pick up on.

They were going to a world in which firearms and technology were fairly common, but relatively restricted within the area of operation. This specific city was recently devastated by a giant monster and supplies were scarce. A large number of individuals with very powerful but very specific magical abilities were currently at war with one another over the territory. Etc. It was mostly just a recap to kill time while the clock ran down.

At long last, the timer hit zero. Gil, naturally, hit the open portal button and then immediately swapped pages to the free gacha pull. A small wooden wand appeared in his hands at the exact moment the item’s description appeared.

(7. Minor Consumable) Cultural Shift- Alters a target to make them adapted to life in one of the cultures in your almanac, as defined by the cultures of your existing companions. Their cultural expectations, the nature of their abilities, their appearance, their memories, and possibly even their species will be altered to fit their new homeland, with all traits becoming the rough equivalent. Their personality and powers will not change, only the context they are couched in. For example, a punk rebel who rages against the modern government is likely to oppose the crown or the nobility with just as much fervor, and a deeply religious individual will adopt the closest equivalent faith.

“Huh. Not bad.” He said, scratching his chin. “Not exactly the strongest thing, but it should be fine. I can think about this more later. Wait, that doesn’t require the target be in the retinue. That could be fun.”

He went over his missions as well, and just like in the Lands Shrouded in Mist he had new ones. Two existing missions, one new mission, and one “Arc” mission.

•

Fuck a cape in public, while ensuring that at least one unaffiliated person sees and can identify them by their masked persona.

Reward: 1 credit, Erotic Retcon: Brockton

Acquire a vial of “superpowers in a can.”

Reward: 5 credits, Lesser Normalization Scroll

•

The missions he’d already known about both seemed reasonably doable, and proportionately profitable. Both new missions, on the other hand, looked like they’d be problems. Profitable problems, but still massive hassles. Of course, Gil had been coasting and foraging so far. Perhaps it would be best to go hunting.

•

You will be hunted from dusk to dawn. Survive through the night, and do not return to the Skyblock until dawn. The enemy has limited stamina and other responsibilities, so they will stop actively hunting upon the completion of this mission. Penalty if you deliberately fail this mission by returning to the skyblock, but doing so may throw them off your scent for the remainder of this trip.

Reward: 10 Credits, Card: Azula, unlock Body Swapping Apparatus expansion

Body Swapping Apparatus- Allows you to trade the identities of your companions amongst one another, even remotely. If one living companion, which may be you, is strapped into a BSA you may have them trade souls with any other living companion in your retinue. This will transfer memories and personalities, but all skills, powers, and other capabilities will remain tied to the physical body. Both bodies will be allowed a full range of motion after the switch, but the apparatus will be rendered unusable until the swap is reverted or one of the two individuals dies.

Warning: If the primary tester swaps bodies with someone outside of the Skyblock pocket dimension without an active portal connecting to that world, his new body will be ejected back to the Skyblock and incur a penalty mission for deliberate non-compliance.

•

Being hunted was almost always bad, and in a superhero setting it wasn’t easy to know what kind of resources the enemy might have. It wasn’t as if Gil had Trace Defense; if his enemies were precognitive, he wouldn’t be able to just evade them by keeping his head down. He was pretty sure the Chocobo would either be a millstone around his neck or the key to his strategy if he brought him along, given how fast and overt it was.

In any event, he supposedly had several hours before the hunt was on. He’d need to figure out a plan for counterplay; he really didn’t want to lose the potential rewards, but given how big of a reward was being dangled in front of him he was pretty sure he was in serious danger. He ran his eyes over the next mission, which was a doozy.

•

Arc Mission:

Elevate one Super faction to be the effective rulers of Brockton Bay that would not otherwise be likely to achieve that goal. Acceptable factions include the Pure, Fenrir’s Chosen, Archer’s Bridge Merchants, The Azn Bad Boys, New Wave, Faultline’s Crew, the legitimate authorities, and Dolltown. Bonus if you elevate a severe underdog (Merchants, ABB, New Wave, Dolltown)

Reward: 15 credits, unlock Stress Defense and Body Tune Up for purchase, VIP Service, refresh all bindings for this setting.

Bonus: Lock Portal (Brockton Bay), all capture charges used on members of the chosen faction in good standing are refunded. Additional bonus for Dolltown and ABB.

•

Gang warfare. No, super gang warfare. It was certainly the kind of thing that Gil expected from a test, but the fact that he’d only be around for one day in seven at the absolute maximum really made the logistics a nightmare.

He currently had Rose embedded in the Wards, which he assumed to be included in the “legitimate authority” faction, but something made him doubt that this would all blow over and the baddies would fall in due time. Rose had told him about several rather substantial supervillain factions fighting for control, and supposedly the government was seriously considering condemning the whole city.

Of course, he’d been given a white list and a few factions were conspicuous by their absence: the Travelers, the Undersiders, and a mercenary group run by a man named Coil. Gil didn’t know much about them, but given the way these missions tended to work he assumed that one of those three groups would probably take over if he sat on his ass to watch. They weren’t considered major power players by the Wards, but everyone loved an underdog.

If he intended to take this mission seriously, those three might be the key. After all, if he took out the only candidates in the area that weren’t on his whitelist, then he would eventually win by default. He’d also had a brief run in with at least one of them, that girl who had thrown a giant swarm of bugs at him.

As for who to team up with? He needed a lot more information before he chose that. Of course, he didn’t have long to consider his options anyway, as Rose stepped through the blue portal to investigate. She was quite the sight for sore eyes, and everyone present except Gil did a double take at some unexpected feelings.

“I see you’ve added a few new things.” She said, glancing around. “Care to explain the bird? No, don’t. I only have a short time before I’ll be missed.”

••••••••••

So, what’s on the docket?

https://strawpoll.com/YVyPvzXPkgN

And that’s it for a while. Hopefully not another 6 months, but life happens and this story is, alas, my 6th or 7th priority.