Chapter 59: Paradox’s first Loss

Pelochard’s Symbiotic Spirit (Master Difficulty)

Create an essence-free environment with Ostoth’s draining, disposing of the clay beads in a safe area. Bottle a creature’s soul using a Gorbosh’s Acidic Curse and Pecholard’s Soul Trap.

Make sure Pecholard’s Soul Trap is modified to reduce the amount of strength it pulls with by raising the ratio of reticulating Jelly to Death Sand, from 1:3 to 4:1, Jelly to sand.

This will cause the draw on the soul to become gentle enough to maintain the creature’s metaphysical properties as Gorbosh’s Acidic Curse gradually eats away at the creature’s physical form.

Other curses are ineffective, as they damage the soul, while Gorbash’s Acidic Curse is entirely physical and causes very little trauma to the soul.

When the creature’s physical body expires, The modified Soul Trap will bottle the pristine soul in the designated container.

This is the first step.

Next, the creature’s soul must be subjected to a variety of treatments to prepare it to become a symbiotic spirit.

The next step is to ‘activate’ the spirit through alchemical means. Normally a soul is inactive when outside a body, and therefore unable to interact, bond or produce Essences. This must be remedied.

Extract and refine vivant root essence, making sure to achieve a concentration no less than eighteen hundred kors per nacre. Once it has been mixed, lock it into a closed box lined with mother-of-Gabras, alongside the bottled soul. Phase the concentrated essence into the soul dimension with Pecholard’s Soul Shifting. Once the essence has been phase shifted, heat the entire box to slightly scalding and have your apprentices maintain the heat for no less than sixteen hours.

Perry sighed as he flipped through the spell, it was about fourteen pages long, and these ancient wizards seemed to have some kind of allergy to using precise measurements.

I also gotta figure out the heck a kol and a nacre are in units of measurement. Perry had had the same problem with the ‘jangle’ of areonite.

This ritual was the closest spell he’d seen to modern industrial chemistry, following a long series of detailed steps to create a very specific finished product.

I can kinda see why Gadrevan didn’t like the process. It wasn’t the complexity so much as the cruelty implied in the spell.

Perry wasn’t planning on doing the ritual, though. He already had plenty of stuff in his soul and according to his grandma, trying to add anything new would probably upset the delicate balance and cause him to explode or go insane.

He was mostly going through it and noting any references to techniques or materials that affected the soul, in order to look up those specific rituals and do some research about how they worked, what they did, and what they used.

Then Perry would have to figure out an ethical way to…dick around with living souls.

Hmm.

Perry set down mom’s spellbook, wrote down all the processes he wanted to look up, then he carefully pried open Gadrevan’s theses on soul-rituals.

Gadrevan’s Soul Storage

Gadrevan’s Soul Anchor

Gadrevans’ Soul Hook

Gadrevan’s Soul Phasing

Huh, Perry thought as he skimmed the hand-written notes. “One of these two guys is lying.” Perry could read manitian, but not as fluently as he’d like, and Gadrevan’s cursive was making that extremely difficult, but he could tell that a lot of the rituals were largely the same.

Gadrevan’s magnum opus was Gadrevan’s Soul Storage, which was basically…

Perry did a double take. Poking a hole in your soul and gradually expanding it, while lining the opening with infrastructure designed to allow you to both store and release essences.

So like…body modification…for the soul.

Interesting. Perry flipped through the thesis and began taking notes.

Extensive notes. Not just because the entire thing was new territory and he needed to drastically expand his knowledge before he could even understand what these guys were talking about…but also because there were a bunch of Manitian words he needed to get someone else to read for him.

Plus gramma would be pissed if I wrote in the margins like mom’s spellbook.

Once Perry’s head was swimming and he couldn’t stuff it with any new wizard-lingo, he switched gears and began working on his business.

1 mid-sized sedan is about 3300 lbs.

1 lb of parts at my current performance rating are about 800 dollars.

Perry had first gotten his aluminum parts appraised at about 2 dollars apiece, but that had been when he’d only had an Attunement multiplier of 1.62. His current Attunement multiplier was 3.07, meaning the value of his bits and bobs had gone up exponentially as they beat out high-tech, expensive alternatives.

3300X800 = 2.6 million

Perry’s brows rose.

The cost of buying a junker was negligible. Maybe five hundred dollars. The profit margin was insane.

Perry tempered his enthusiasm by checking the total traffic on the Tinker marketplace.

His limits weren’t set by his supply. They were set by demand. It would be incredibly easy for him to oversaturate the market.

Perry did some quick math and estimated if he were to corner the cheap goods market, he could sell about five junkers worth of parts per month on the Tinker Marketplace before demand began to dwindle.

Now hold your horses. Perry surely wouldn’t get a profit of thirteen million each month. Far from it.

-1 mil for monthly wages.

-40% for taxes.

-10% for Locust.

1/2mil for upkeep costs + buying scrap.

11and ½ mil @50% = 5.75 mil.

Perry tapped his fingers and cut the number down by another 30%

There was absotutely no guarantee he would be able to corner the entire market, and he would most likely earn far below his projected maximum.

Still three million a month. Damn.

It would only take a couple guys to disassemble five cars in a month.

So what are the rest of my hundred and fifty employees going to be doing?

Perry tapped his pencil a couple times before he began coming up with a plan to keep everyone busy.

He could offer higher than asking price for junk, drawing in scrap from across the city. He could offset the loss with his massive profits on the sale of Tinker-parts.

The influx of scrap could then be fed through his hundred and fifty employees, who would convert them back into useable materials.

Those useable materials would be sold back to the city as raw goods, while a large portion of them would be secretly delivered to Perry’s lair.

I could also manufacture some of my less proprietary parts here and ship ‘em to my lair. Motors, sheet metal, batteries, beakers, tanks, valves, etc.

Yeah, that would work.

Booom!

Perry toppled out of his chair as the entire building shook.

He bolted for his armor before skidding to a halt, glancing over his shoulder at the books on ritual magic.

They were arguably vastly more valuable than the entire building.

Perry sprinted back over and jammed them into the secret compartment under his desk.

BOOOM!

A rain of dust fell from above as the entire building shook again. Pery sprinted to his new armor and closed it down around himself.

I guess we’re gonna see what the Mk. 4 can do, Perry thought, the newest suit whining to life as he closed the chestplate down over himself.

BOOM!

Perry flew out the window and spotted Monolith’s shiny pecs reflecting the noonday sun as he launched boiling black energy at the side of Perry’s facility.

Perry dialed up the P.A. system using his suit’s communicator.

“Attention Employees. There’s a potentially dangerous situation in the front parking lot. Please exit the building via the west side fire exit, thank you.”

The stream of employees fleeing from the building redoubled, and Perry did a mental headcount until he was sure everyone was out.

Once he was sure no one was directly in danger, he sat down on the roof of a nearby building and watched Monolith work. He had short range blasts that emanated from his fists, battering against the side of Perry’s reinforced concrete building.

The super was making progress, but not a lot.

Monolith was flanked by a snake-man, a guy in a track-suit, a floating fish of some kind, and a guy with a fedora and two submachine guns on holsters.

Perry opened up the Capes Wiki on his phone, dangling his feet off the side of the next-door building.

The fish was an Earth-based sorcerer whose spirit animal was a fish. He controlled water and had minor somnophoric powers. He could only be perceived as a fish, but he actually did have a humanoid body. The fandom hypothesized the fish was swimming laps around where the man’s heart was.

BOOM!

The man in the fedora was Barrel of Monkeys. any bullet he shot became a monkey wielding a smaller version of the gun he’d used to shoot it. The man had a high bounty because he could hold a section of the wall with an oversized prawn gun.

The guy in the track suit was a newbie, there was no info on him.

The snake man had typical snake powers. Bullet resistant scales, acid spit, venom. The works.

Monolith had a durability that was a little less than Titan and Tung-Stan, but he had short-range energy blasts to compensate, making him very difficult to put down in a scrap.

BOOM!

Perry dialed up Locust.

“Sup, kid?” Locust asked.

“Yeah, where’s the protection I’m paying for?”

“Technically you haven’t paid yet, it hasn’t even been a month.”

“Semantics.”

Locust chuckled. “I’ll have Blink send Tung-Stan over. He’ll be pissed you interrupted his custody time with his daughter, though.”

“He has a daughter?” Perry asked, picturing a smaller pile of rocks with a little dress on it.

“From before he Triggered.” Locust said.

“Ah.” Perry selected a half-dozen spy drones from his fleet and directed them to record the proceedings.

Maybe Perry could make a video of her dad being heroic and that would score some brownie points with Tung-Stan.

No reason Perry can’t start buttering up his own Bruiser to steal from Locust.

Hmm…Perry thought as he waited. Barrel of monkeys causes the most collateral damage with his powers. Can’t let fully automatic bullets go flying absolutely everywhere. As fun as that power sounds, if I let him unleash with those uzis under his arms, SOMEBODY would get shot.

It wouldn’t be Perry either. Mk. 4 was bulletproof.

So, kick off the fight by melting Barrel of Monkeys, then whoever else I can,while Tung-Stan goes in and distracts Monolith with a right hook.

“This better be important, kid,” Tung-Stan said as he and Blink appeared beside Perry. The bruiser’s feet slightly sank into the concrete roof, creating a spiderweb of cracks around them.

A moment later Blink disappeared, leaving Perry with Tung-Stan.

Perry pointed at the assembled supers trying to tear down his building. Monolith’s henchmen were watching the two of them up on the roof while Monolith did the slow work of punching through the building’s drywall.

“What’s your game plan, kid?” Tung-Stan rumbled, peering down at the enemies.

Perry pursed his lips.

“Well…they are all looking at us,” he said, removing one of the floating dazzlers from his helmet.

***Breaker***

“Why is he just sitting there watching us?” Breaker asked, his hair standing on end. This was his first act of villainy for profit. He simply couldn’t turn down a cool 50k to watch Monolith’s back while he sent some upstart tinker kid a message by breaking his toys.

It wasn’t going quite how he imagined it, though. The building was shrugging off blasts he’d seen obliterate garbage trucks, and the tinker kid seemed totally unperturbed, sitting on a building overlooking them.

“He’s probably dialing up some assissstansss.” Snake hissed. “Makes it more of a problem for usss he didn’t russsh in and get wasssted.”

“Why do you do that, man?” BOM asked, “I know you can talk normal. Just talk normal.”

“Itsss my brand.” Snake said. “You’d be sssuprisssed how much it impactsss my hiring rate.”

“Well, I think it’s annoying as hell.” BOM said.

“Oh, crap, Tung-Stan’s here.” Breaker said, eyes widening as the Locus’s main enforcer appeared beside Paradox.

“Looks like Locust’s giving him pity-protection,” BOM said, lighting his cigar and taking a puff. “You’re gonna earn your keep today, kid.”

“I’ll wash him out to sea.” Fish said.

“Yeah, right, Fish.” BOM said. “You tried that last time, and walked through it and put you in intensive care.

“My name’s not Fish, it’s Spirit of the noble Silverfin,” Fish said, his voice turning whiny as the fish started swimming with more agitation.

“Nobody’sss going to call you that.” Snake said.

“They shortened my name to ‘BOM,” BOM said with a shrug. “What makes you think you’re any better?”

“Hey, is he waving?” Breaker asked, causing all four of them to glance up at Paradox.

“Don’t look-“

FLASH!

A brilliant light erupted from the top of the three-story building across the street.

Breaker’s guts rose uncomfortably, like he was on a turbulent plane…except they wouldn’t go back down.

He felt his toes leave the concrete, and in a fit of panic, grabbed a nearby parking pole.

“Alright, it’s on,” BOM said, whipping out his uzis from under his arms with the ease of long practice. The veteran super didn’t seem affected by the sudden loss of gravity that Breaker was experiencing.

The hard-bitten, confident, monkey-slinger melted, renderingdownintoa soup on the ground.

“Oh, god, he killed him!” Breaker shouted, eyes wide. I wanna go home!

“He’sss fine, it’sss nonlethal. Get your head in the game,” Snake said, slapping Breaker on the back of the head on the way past, also unaffected.

“You didn’t do your research on Paradox beforehand?” Fish asked as he walked past Breaker, shaking his head. “This is why I don’t like working with amateurs, Snake.”

“Everyone’sss an amateur at sssome point.”

“Not me,” Fish said.

“Ssspoken like an amateur.”

“I’mma smack you once this is over.” Fish said as Paradox and Tung-stan landed in front of them

Breaker watched in horror as his two team-mates rushed in to do battle, and proceeded to get the floor wiped with themselves.

Snake, whose acid spit was completely ineffective against both Tung-Stan and Paradox, got passed around like a bean-bag, while Fish stayed in the game longer using a wall of water to shield himself from the two monsters, playing keepaway until Paradox cut him off and kicked him out of his pillar of water.

Breaker’s skin went cold as he imagined Tung-Stan’s stony fist pulping his delicate bones.

“Hey.” Monolith’s deep voice cut through Breaker’s terror induced imagination.

“Uh, yeah, boss?” Breaker turned to Monolith, keeping himself grounded on the pillar of concrete.

Monolith looked displeased.

“I’m not paying you to float around doing nothing. I’m paying you to capture Locust’s pet project. If you don’t get to work soon, I’m gonna break your spine and make sure you never dance again.”

Well, that’s highly motivating.

Breaker turned toward the two approaching supers.

“Hey, um, you guys!”

“Eh?” Paradox grunted, looking at him.

“I challenge you both to a dance battle!” Breaker said, his voice breaking unintentionally.

Click. Breaker felt his power click into place, like popping a knuckle.

***Paradox***

I mean, we seem to be doing just fine at Regular Battle, so…

“No thank you?” Paradox said, but it was too late.

Seemingly out of nowhere, intense, bassy music began to pump through the parking lot.

The track suit super began to twirl in midair, taking advantage of his weightlessness to pull flips and shit that boggled the mind.

Tung-Stan staggered backwards, reeling away.

Perry felt an impact wash over him.

HP: 4

Oh, crap, it’s a Wildcard.

Wildcard powers were arbitrary and powerful effects, similar to catalysts, but often had a social dynamic to it, rather than physics-based.

Perry tried to leap forward and knock the guy out, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t force himself to move. He tried melting him, and the beam seemingly passed harmlessly around the dancing super.

That’s not good.

The dancer twirled in midair an inordinate amount of time before he spun to a halt, perched on top of a concrete pole meant to stop cars from jumping the sidewalk, perfectly balanced.

Perry had to admit it looked pretty smooth.

HP: 3

Perry heard the sound of strained concrete, and glanced over to see Tung-Stan flailing his arms and legs wildly, sending chips of asphalt everywhere.

“What are you doing?” Perry asked, brow raised.

“The only way to beat this guy is by dancing better than him, obviously! Cirque had something similar! I learned some swing in college but I don’t think it’ll be enough! Bust a move, kid!” Tung-Stan shouted.

“Umm..” Perry said.

“I can barely feel that,” Track-suit said, rolling onto his head and doing an upside-down pihouette.

HP: 2

HP: 1

“Gah!” Tung-Stan groaned as he seemed to accumulate damage.

Perry shrugged.

When in MegaRome, do as the MegaRomans do.

Hands.EXE (6)

Blades.EXE (13)

Perry gave himself six extra hands, to make himself look like Shiva, holding his palm out with a sassy pose in the universal ‘Halt’ symbol

The breakdancer’s wild spinning came to an abrupt stop as he winced, clutching his chest.

Perry began to give his best approximation of a pop-and-lock, spreading his thirteen blades out behind him in a shimmering peacock-like display as his summoned hands copied his rough, unpolished moves.

Track-suit leapt into a one-handed hand-stand, spreading his legs out wide before twisting them, flowing seamlessly into a shoulder-spin, which morphed into a head-stand, followed by the worm into a backflip.

HP: 0

Perry popped and locked HARDER, but it didn’t seem to phase Track-suit after the first demonstration.

Crap.

Having bypassed Perry’s HP, he felt an inexplicable force wash through his body, like he was at the bottom of the ocean and the pressure was crushing him.

Perry’s breathing turned ragged as he did the thingy where you pass your hands across each other while knocking your knees together.

It didn’t work.

A wave of damage rolled over Perry and the work went dark.

I gotta learn how to dance, Perry thought before he collapsed.