Chapter 76
by 
Jerynboe
What's next?
End of Week 6 character/items recap
Retinue
Gil: our hero, folks. This isn’t his first rodeo, but he’s saving his paychecks for retirement so he hasn’t bought anything to make his life easier. Has a ton of life experience, but can’t access most of the skills.
Powers: Addiction Defense, Body Defense, Soul Talent, approximate knowledge of many things, Frostbolt, Fireball, basic cantrips
Sells for: 1 Gacha roll
Snow White: The original Disney Princess. She is kind and affectionate towards just about everyone, seeing the best in people. Prone to panic in response to danger, but is in good spirits again very quickly. Has recently discovered the joys of being a service sub and maid.
Powers: Creature Defense, Stress Defense, talking to animals, JRPG starting equipment set, magical healing tears
Sells For: 2 Credits, Creature Defense
Ireena Kolyana: Anything from a heroine to a living MacGuffin, Ireena Kolyana has attracted the eye of the iconic D&D vampire Strahd Von Zarovich. She is kind, but didn’t grow up in a place that rewards naive trust. She has a slightly black and white sense of morality, partly because she comes from a world where acts of overt evil can attract the attention of sadistic gods. She’s adopted, and her father always intended to just marry her off to some tolerably pleasant gentleman in the petty nobility. Has been granted the powers and skillset of the obscure MHA superheroine Cow Girl. Currently recovering from radiation sickness in the world of Azeroth and doing her best heroic knight errant thing.
Powers: Stress Defense, Cow Quirk, Advanced Martial Arts, Advanced First Aid, Anime Baseline Super Toughness, excellent physique
Sell Price: 2 credits, Glory of the White Knight
Rosevalda Durst: The daughter of a pair of noble cultists, Rose was sheltered from the darker aspects of her parents’ activities. She was raised as befits a girl of her station, training from a young age in management, swordplay, and arcane magic. She has been revealed to be a lesbian, and then proceeded to be fused with the equally lesbian superheroine Flechette from the webnovel Worm. Currently on dispatch, infiltrating the Wards.
Powers: Astral Projection, (Incorporeal, can pass through walls, mostly invisible, limited flight, can manipulate things that are “hers,” weak possession, can physically manifest with substantial effort.), martial arts training, first aid, able to infuse piercing weapons with energy that allows them to pass through nearly any known material, hyper spatial awareness, **** precision aim, bypass sexual preferences, make people horny with eye contact, shapeshifting limited to hot girls.
Possessions: Her Skeleton, spellbook, father’s sword, quill, ink, parchment, harp
Sell Price: 10 Credits, Red String of Fate (1 expedition), To the Victor Go the Spoils (binding)
New post-fusion art
Zena: A refugee of the sacking of Silvermoon, Zena joined the Sin’Dorei army as a scout and foot messenger. She’s ultimately a self serving mana addict, but she’s aware that Gil could kill her with a thought, or worse, and has determined that it would be best to go with the flow and follow his orders.
Powers: A low level WoW rogue, with decent melee combat abilities and stealth. Can create items from nothing using the Pick Pocket ability, if she has humanoid or humanoid-adjacent enemies to use it on. Also a Mistborn, allowing her to consume various metals for varying magical abilities. Currently Accessible Allomantic abilities:
Copper: strongly resist mental influence (self only) and block magical detection (large aoe)
Pewter: roughly 2x multiplier on all physical capabilities, 4x when flaring. Actual mechanics more complex, but we are going with this
Brass: Dampen selected emotions; she hasn’t experimented much
Iron: Pull metal items towards herself at high speed
Gold: Have visions of herself from parallel timelines. No one knows what this is useful for, even in the original books.
Sell Price: Gacha Roll
Candress: A low level mage formerly in service to the Sin’Dorei, AKA Blood Elves. She has been magically gaslit into believing she is a magically created **** in service to Gil. Professional and efficient. Now properly armed with multiple firearms and a full low level equipment set from the Lands Shrouded in Mists.
Powers: Basic arcane attack spells, cantrips, frost armor, conjuring unpalatable but nourishing food, and general training in firearms.
Sell Price: 4 credits, Mana Analysis perk
Keilnei: A kind and compassionate Draenei hunter from the world of Azeroth. She has a century of experience in bushcraft, survival, tracking, and marksmanship, but is still considered a relative novice by her own people. Not entirely sure what to think about the fact that she has been sleeping with Gil for two weeks without really thinking about it.
Powers: Wilderness Survival, navigation, archery, multiple archery related spells, magically enhanced tracking, a small reservoir of healing magic
Sell Price: 2 credits + Beastmaster Sphere.
Blackpaw: A completely normal wolf from the land of Barovia. Smarter than some wolves in the multiverse, but basically just a particularly vicious giant doggo.
Powers: Is a big scary wolf, with all the benefits intrinsic to that description.
Sell Price: 1 Gacha Roll
Silky: A moth who has been transformed physically into Berelain sur Paendrag Paeron, First of Mayene, a character from the Wheel of Time setting. This came with Berelain’s intellect and skillset. It did not come with a particularly sophisticated worldview, as Silky is still at heart a moth. She has very few desires beyond getting fucked by the most fit male available, eating delicious food, and occasionally staring at sources of light.
Powers: Political training, flirting, surprising levels of martial arts training
Sell Price: 1 Credit, Gacha Roll
Boco: A giant fucking bright yellow flightless bird large and strong enough to carry 2-3 people with minimal effort. Can kick hard enough to break bones easily and has huge, sharp claws. Completely herbivorous, fairly dumb, and honestly a bit of a coward.
Sell Price: 1 Gacha
Nessa Biermann: A blonde bombshell neo-nazi terrorist. Not quite captured yet because she needs to consummate her transformation with a retinue member before its official. She’s not exactly stupid, but she’s a follower and prone to conspiracy thinking to shore up her hateful worldview.
Powers: Well trained spear fighter, though not actually exceptional without the benefit of her powers. Can grow up to the size of a tall building, which reduces any **** or harm directed at her proportionately. Able to generate Seru armor, which takes the form of a form fitting stone carapace.
Sell Price: 10 credits, Martial Talent tag, 1 use Body Tune Up
Terra: a powerful symbiote known as a Ra-Seru, granting enhanced strength and speed along with moderate power over the element of wind.
Sell Price: 5 credits, Persona Angel Card, Unlock Stable for purchase
Noa: An extremely naive and sweet girl who can shatter stone with her bare hands. She has all the social graces one might expect from a person raised in a cave by a single mother that is also a wolf. Currently in the process of capture via Dungeon.
Powers: Comparatively minor ki cultivation, trained to be a living weapon since she could walk, perfectly optimized to bear the Ra-Seru Terra, modest foraging and survival skills
Minor names:
Mei: a token love interest and skilled tailor, but unsuited to combat even when provided with gear and a seru. She is, however, earnest in her desire to help the one she loves and would gladly lay down her life to protect someone (especially since she knows she’d just wake up in her own bed if she did)
Sell Price: Lesser Gacha
Magwin: civilian night elf from a fishing village. Willing to fight in a pinch, but they don’t have much training in such things. Considers herself to have a life debt to Ireena.
Sell Price: Lesser Gacha for each
Cowlen: Father of Magwin. Deeply depressed after the **** of his wife; likely to get himself killed helping Ireena since he doesn’t value his own life much.
Sell Price: Lesser Gacha
Character Cards: Can be used to remake someone in the image of the character (resurrecting them if necessary), grant a character one ability or trait of the character, or summon the character for 24 hours as a perfectly loyal minion.
Free standing tags
Stress Defense
T1:
Shiho Suzui: A pretty Japanese teenager. Highly athletic, good figure, talented at volleyball.
Red Piura: Low level random encounter fodder. Red mole creature capable of lifting its own weight, which is around 70 pounds, easily. Can burrow with its tough claws and is mostly only dangerous to unarmed civilians.
Items (in stock)
Seal of Joy: Floods a target’s mind with endorphins that make it entirely impossible for them to feel any emotion but overwhelming joy and enthusiasm for their current situation. This tends to make them extremely compliant for about an hour before slowly tapering off. There are some lingering effects, but far less than that of corruption fruit.
Reincarnation Ticket: Allows the tester to reincarnate one member of the retinue as a random character. They must spend credits equal to the purchase cost of the desired tier of character (1 for tier 1, 5 for tier 3, 25 for tier 5, etc) and will be assigned a random character of that tier. Complementary gender flip included if desired. This may be used on a retinue member that has already been sold, or triggered reflexively if killed while in storage.
7 Doors of Light: creates a short lived portal to safety, which lasts long enough for a very well coordinated group of five people to get through.
Bikini Armor: (Skintight Latex Bodysuit): this superhero style latex suit provides general protection comparable to gothic full plate layered over kevlar, but becomes less effective the more other clothing is worn at the same time (overtop it or under it).
Pure Amulet: Grants the Body Defense tag when worn
Absolute Gullibility spray: someone who inhales this gas will lose the ability to question things that they are told for about an hour. They don’t have to LIKE what they hear, but they will BELIEVE it. If it runs directly counter to something else they know to be true, this will probably cause dissonance.
Memento Vive: Allows for the resurrection of one character in the retinue, but spits them back out in their own world as they were when initially captured. Personality changes and memories are intact, but new powers are not.
I am a Dragon, you are now Asian: Allows a single target to join an organization that would never otherwise allow them in. Whether they are unqualified, the wrong species, or blatantly opposed to the organization’s goals, they will be accepted instantly and without question. The group must be one which allows new people to join, but the process will be expedited to an absurd degree with universal acceptance. This does not stop them from later being removed from the group, but only on grounds that would get a qualified individual removed as well, such as betrayal.
Relationship shift, lesser: frequently taking a form similar to a wand or laser pointer. Allows you to alter a relationship that one target has without altering its intensity or whether it is positive/neutral/negative in tone. Most typically this takes the form of altering the level of intimacy or familiarity. The shift will always happen, but the bigger the necessary changes the more likely it will get weird. Best friend to girlfriend will usually work without a hitch, but enemies to lovers will create a toxic relationship at best and an assassin in your bedroom at worst. The two people directly affected may be aware of the shift or not at your preference, but this has no direct perception filter on anyone else. One use.
72 Healing Leaves: Can rapidly stop bleeding and revitalize the body, or grant a temporary healing factor that can repair most injuries short of amputation over the course of 24 hours.
3 Healing Flowers: Substantially more potent than a healing leaf, able to quickly heal things like broken bones or slowly repair otherwise non-healing injuries like lost teeth.
4 Magic Leaves: restores the eater’s spiritual energy. For a non-magic user this replicates a good night’s sleep and a few hours of meditation. Moderately addictive. Slower but more effective (and easier to share) as a tea. Can allow magic use in low or no magic settings.
5 Antidotes: cures most known poisons instantly
Platinum Card: Green Eye. Allows you to detect all items and services a business offers, from off-menu items at a diner to the laundromat manager’s willingness to kill for money. In addition, this item grants you one credit for every 10 standard credits you spend on upgrades, which can only be spent at external marketplaces. Current value: 1 credit
Seal of Mercy: Can be used once to convince any individual or group to spare your life. They will decide that your **** or severe injury is an undesirable outcome at this time. They will not become friendly to you, barring unusual circumstances, but they will not seek to harm you unless further provoked. If they have a personal stake in your destruction, such as vengeance, they will decide to shift to nonlethal options for at least a few days.
Recast: you may use a character card to place someone into an existing role formerly held by a member of your retinue. The original will be forgotten, and all of their unwanted pre-capture relationships and responsibilities will be taken on by the character depicted on the card. The character on the card will have their personality and tier adjusted if necessary for the role. They will have immunity to lures and bindings, just as if they had been sold. This has no direct effect on the original, but they will no longer be recognized by anyone the user does not want them to maintain a relationship with.
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.
4 weeks worth of food: Mostly takes the form of smoked meats from game animals around Rim Elm, but also several cans of beans and vegetables from modern America and a few jars of pickled vegetables and dried fruit.
Short Swords, Elven Leather Armor, and Shortbows for everyone except Snow, shotgun, 1 SMG, 3 revolvers, and a bolt action rifle.
Materia: 2 Thunder, 2 restoration, 1 fire, 1 ice. When worn as jewelry, allows the user to cast simple but powerful combat spells based on their element.
1/2 kg of Cocaine
Whore’s necklace: this cursed necklace gives the wearer a split personality that has the mindset of a whore, fully willing to haggle their body and dignity in pursuit of their desires (petty or substantial). The split personality will only surface when haggling or carrying out a deal with you, and all lost time will be replaced with more palatable memories explaining their behavior (potentially including a more romantic sexual encounter if the base personality would be open to such a thing.)
Perks:
Evac: you may teleport back to the skyblock with 5 seconds of focus. Doing so reduces the timer by 1 hour.
Target Tracker: Adds a functionality to the navigation app, allowing you to point at quest objectives like a compass. Becomes more spotty for more esoteric quests or if targets are not on the same plane of existence.
Gacha (10): Gain one random prize each week, rolling 1d20
1: a random binding (greater or lesser)
2-3: A random Moderate Consumable
4-7: A random Minor Consumable
8: A random T1 or T2 Character Card
9-10: One Credit
11-13: a random defense tag or perk tag (such as martial talent or body tune up)
14-15: a shop unlock/discount
16-20: a mundane useful item appropriate to the associated world.
Skyblock:
Tree of Life: Grows one magical fruit per month, which instantly provides all dietary needs for a single person. This includes making up for any nutrient deficiencies, and instantly reverses the effects of malnutrition. Starts with one, maxes out at 10. Currently host to a reasonably well stocked campsite.
Money Changer: allows the free transformation of money from one currency to another. Dollars and silver coins can be transformed into credit sticks and bottle caps. Also allows the transformation of credits from one kind to another.
1 credit can become 3 credits for a given binding, 2 credits from 1 binding can turn into 1 credit for another, and 5 binding credits can be turned into one normal credit.
Armory: able to break down any weapon in order to create a blueprint, while also providing “marks” to repair or purchase known items. Current marks: 37
Items (known but not stocked)
Corruption Fruit- when someone consumes this fruit, in whole or in part, they will enter a special suggestible state for 1-5 hours depending on their poison resistance, magic resistance, or mental fortitude. When in this state, actions they would normally find disgusting, degrading, or amoral will instead be seen in a mildly positive light. If they are convinced to engage in that behavior, whether it is anal sex or ****, they will thoroughly enjoy it and be likely to enthusiastically engage in it in the future, especially in a similar context (similar target, same partner, etc).
Orbs of Berserking Mist: Releases a cloud that drives all non-sapient creatures into a berserk fury, causing them to indiscriminately attempt to kill anyone they see. Sapient creatures will instead become highly irritable and reckless, which will inflame existing tensions to the point of **** but will prioritize those they already have beef with.
Glory of the White Knight: Choose one target and tag them with this item, causing them to be exponentially more impressed than they otherwise would have been when you defend or save them in the future. The degree varies based on their personal preferences and perception of needing help, but negates any chance of her being annoyed or angered by your interference (unless you utterly flubbed it, such as killing all her companions unnecessarily). Stepping in to take a woman’s part in an argument will get only an affectionate eye roll if it was totally unnecessary, but if nobody has ever stood up for her they may develop a deep crush. Saving a woman who was certain that she was about to be **** to **** and then eaten will result in deep and abiding love.
Greater Waters of Lethe: causes someone to completely and permanently lose all episodic memories of their life and become very suggestible for around half an hour. During this hour they will uncritically accept anything the contractor tells them as absolute truth. Their personality, values, and even deep traits like sexual orientation can shift radically to accommodate these changes. In many cases, though not all, the drinker will proceed to fabricate a full set of memories built around what they were told, which they will “remember” over the course of 2-7 days. This new set of memories primarily exists to explain away any inconsistencies and reintroduce them to any skills or specialized knowledge they may have while reinforcing whatever they were told, and draws upon their preexisting knowledge to some degree. One use.
Flag of Truce: once, you may wave this flag to end all aggression in your immediate vicinity. All parties will abandon **** and negotiate for whatever it is they want, or otherwise pursue their goal nonviolently. There is no guarantee they will negotiate in good faith, but they will not even consider initiating **** for at least an hour.
Bead of Lerasium: a bead of condensed magic from the planet Scadrial. Can be absorbed to infuse someone’s soul with a form of magic known as Allomancy.
••••••••••
And that’s it until I’ve written to my next breakpoint. Likely to be a while. One more pair of polls for the road!
Some potential uses of some of Gil’s consumables https://strawpoll.com/wby5QWMr8yA
And what propaganda do we drive deep into Menja’s thick skull with Absolute Gullibility?
What's next?
- No further chapters
- Add a new chapter
