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Mutants & Masterminds: The Unlikely Prophets - Issue #4: "My Own Private Kryptonite"


Charlotte

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"It appears to be a book about making fantasy reality," Gloom said, summing up the book in a single underwhelming sentence. She wasn't that good at summation, and it showed when she passed the book to Hex. The author of the book was someone called Alvin Schwartz, and a quick reading of the back cover tells an interesting tale: that he wrote superhero comic books, specifically "Superman" and "Batman" for seventeen years, and began a spiritual journey when he was contacted by a Buddhist monk. The monk made an unusual claim: that the monk had been thought into being by a Tibetian mystic, and was a 'tulpa.' What's more, Schwartz claims that via some means called the Path Without Form, he discovered that this "Superman" character was also a tulpa and could be made real.

"I'd need to read it more closely to be sure what it all means," she added before quirking a smile. "Though I'm sure Hex should read it first. Bein' our book-person 'n all."

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Glitch looked perplexed, then he seemed to have a realization. Though he was still finding it odd, being a man of science, though he tried to understand Hex's magic as well. "Actually, I read something about tulpas in a Buddhist history book. A tulpa is well, a concept basically analogous to a thoughtform as they call it in Western works. An object or being brought into being from mental imagination. Meaning... that Superman could be brought into true existence by sufficient force of will..."

His words trailed off to give the point strength. "Open the door wider-might this be related to how WE got our powers, and how the heroes and villains got started pre-Order?"

OOC
Untrained Knowledge: Theology and Philosophy thanks to Eidetic Memory

Jeremy *rolls* 1d20: 12+6: 18

If that is not enough, let me know and I'll edit.

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"No worries." Cyco said, waving it all off. "I'm tired and filthy. As to the book, I don't know anymore than any of you now. I just know I was sent to get it. Now if I could so kindly be pointed in the direction of the nearest source of water...I'd rather not have to run to the ocean. It feels like even my wings are gritty, and they aren't even out."

To make it all the more obvious, she lifted her goggles, revealing the stark contrast of clean skin versus her exposed skin as a pair of pale orbs surrounding her eyes.

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"Talking to ghosts is very easy. Listening to what they have to say can be difficult, though. Even if you can hear it." The Necronaut tapped his chin as he regarded Francis. "But that's actually a very good question. The ghosts are there... Maybe it's just a question of practice."

"Mr. Eiko, do you have a couple issues of 'Deadman' open for circulation? I think that would be a good place to start." That Francis's request might be hypothetical never even crossed his mind. The Necronaut had understudies.

"Um." He expression went blank for a moment, as he glanced between the two newcomers. "I need to go to Chicago now."

He turned to Sharatur. "If the Order is keeping tabs on our friends and colleagues, and they notice that yours vanished into thin air... anyone else they're keeping an eye on may be vanished in the opposite direction."

He grimaced and looked back over his shoulder. "And I still want to know what Cyco's been up to..."

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"Huh. Lori didn't mention a word of this when she was writing, or in the note she left. I wonder... hmmm. Maybe she figured it out independently." Jack scratched his chin.

"Ah, right - Cyco, the town's close to fully operational and we have running hot water. Pick whatever place you want to hang your hat and odds are it has hot water, and if it doesn't ask Glitch or Gloom or Matthew - he's a civilian who helps run the place - and they'll get it set up. We'll fill you in on what's happened since you left whenever you're ready."

* * *

"Deadman! Deadman Deadman Deadman." Eiko ran off to the room where he stored his 'scrolls.'

"I'd just about forgotten these." Francis paged through the comic carefully, worried that it would fall apart in his hands. "They published them before the Gap when I was a young man. Now they don't publish them at all - well, they do, but it's all got the Order in it now." Francis stopped on a page where brightly colored people shouted a lot in the midst of a fight to control a "Cosmic Key" that would unlock the Ever-Wall.

"You know, I know that these can't be real. That they're all made up. But I swear, I look at the way the world is now, run by monsters and madmen and where nothing ever, ever changes and that world feels less real than the one I'm holding in my hands. And that's a sad state of affairs. Why did it take me so long to wake up to it?" He turned to Sharatur. "Why did it take them attacking you with clubs and guns to make me wake up?"

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Sharatur spread her hands helplessly for Francis. "I'm still not entirely sure I'm not dreaming all this. Just a few days ago, I would have called it a nightmare. I've got a better question for you: why me? Do you remember all those arguments we used to have? Francis, I believed every damned lie the Order fed us! For a little while after I...left, I think I went a little insane. --But it hasn't been all bad. This teleportation and walking-on-air stuff is actually pretty cool. And Francis...I saw my father! There's life after death. There's life after death." She shakes her head slowly. "That one still blows my mind. Anyways, bottom line: if you're looking for answers, I'm just about the worst one to ask. I'm basically nothing but a huge bucket of questions right now. Sorry."

Then she turned to Necronaut. "But one thing I seem to be able to do well is kick Order ass. Let's go check on your friends, Norman, make sure they're okay. But we should go incognito; your, uh--real identity?--is probably a lot safer than mine. If we don't have to uproot your friends, we probably shouldn't. We should probably ask Glitch and Hex to come with as well. We may need their help with, uh, extraction again. And did you notice that everyone's been running around the place, talking about figuring stuff out? At some point I've got to get brought up to date too."

Her tone softened as she added "Francis, Terry...I'm glad you're safe. We'll catch up later, I promise."

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"Stay safe, Sharatur. We'll be fine." He looked to Terry, who was busily talking Eiko's ear off about what it was like being a minotaur, whilst Eiko happily - and loudly - explained what it was all about, as he waved a comic with 'Deadman' printed on the cover around.

"So to speak," he added. "I think Terry just found his new best friend."

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The Necronaut nodded at Sharatur. "Actually, I was thinking I might go solo on this one. If Hex can open a door for me I can stay in nether-world and look around without anyone noticing. I can call for reinforcements if anything looks out of place."

He added suddenly, "But if you want to come, that's fine. It's just... the funeral home is no grand canyon. The only thing worth seeing in Chicago any more is the pizza."

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"Force of will, hmm? Sounds a bit like magic. The records in the Vault showed that their magician was looking into how powers worked. And Lori started all this by tampering with the Mathe-magician." Hex paced away a few steps and stood still, thinking. "It's all related somehow...it has to be. Jack, I need to read that book. I want to compare it to some of the magical lore in the Book of Keys. See if maybe there are underlying connections. Learning more about our powers might give us clues about how to fight the Order...or at least tell us how they changed everything."

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Sharatur smiles at Necronaut. "Oh, I know that. I'm not expecting a vacation or anything, but I think it would be a good idea to come--if only to watch your back, just in case the Order did set something up there. We've been lucky so far, I'd like to keep it that way. But I'll leave it up to you: you want to go alone, that's fine too, no worries."

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"Right then! Let's do it." He masked his relief with enthusiasm. He had no doubt that The Order could cause trouble him in the netherworld if they put their minds to it. "With any luck we can be back before nightfall..."

He began rifling through his pocket for a picture of an out of the way door back in his dying home city and headed after Hex, intent on entreating her for rapid transit.

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A few days later, and the headquarters was more or less complete.

There were unpainted panels, and some houses where the electricity didn't work quite right, and sometimes the spiritual totems that Hex and Necronaut collaborated on whispered random strings of numbers, but overall, it was complete, and everyone living in the town seemed happy.

Necronaut and Jade concluded their trip to Chicago, and returned - and not long after that, the word went out. Every member of the team needed to meet with Blackjack, Jasmine Gold, Matthew Cale and Eiko within the hour.

They'd built a nice, big conference table complete with a coffee machine - one of Glitch's inventions, that even crumbled bits of chocolate in if you ordered a mocha. Everyone said hello, made small talk, then took their seats, and that's when they noticed the logo on the table.

All eyes went to Eiko. He grinned. "A logo was required!"

Blackjack sighed. "He read about it in a comic book - "

"A sacred scroll!"

" - a sacred scroll, bunch of people in bright outfits sitting around a table with their logo on it. I hope it looks good. Anyways, thank you all for coming. Jasmine Gold has an announcement."

Jasmine nodded, and spoke in her usual uncertain tones, though with her new implants, she was getting better. "I found it in the Vault.

"I found the - what did Eiko call it? I found AEGIS-1's Kryptonite.

"I found a way to get through AEGIS-1."

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"Well, that's the down side. We'd require something we don't really have. Dad - " Jasmine paused for a moment, her expression unreadable, then continued on. "Dad's last inventions were EMERALD-6 and RUBY-9, which were renamed the Mathemagician and AEGIS-1 respectively. He made them using what he called psychoactive crystal - "

"Four syllables," commented Matt.

"Thought... sensitive... crystal, I guess, is the dumbed-down version. Crystals formed out of geoplogical that reacted to thought. Recording knowledge, and imparting it. He had notes that said that the possibilities for the technology were endless. Most of the technology he'd created wasn't really usable by normal people, and the reason why was that it'd take years and years just to teach a normal person how to operate any of it. But AEGIS-1 and the Mathemagician are made with these crystals that could store information and impart it, intuitively, into the human mind. They teach you how to use them as you're using them.

"He wrote out contingencies in case they got out of hand - Dad was like that ever since that time with the Empire of Sin, long story there - but the problem is we'd need a non-encoded crystal to put it all in, and the crystals are incredibly rare. The Order must have worried that Dad had some in there that could be used against them, but - all there is, is the 'abort' code. Nothing to put it into."

Blackjack frowned. "So we have to find a psychoactive whatever-it-is, then."

"Like I said. Incredibly rare." Jasmine sighed. "So I guess I hyped it up a little too much..."

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Sharatur was struck with a sudden thought, muttering "It can't be that easy. Can it...?" She flickered away for a moment, reappearing with a rather large stone held in both hands. She carefully placed it on the table in front of her, saying "I don't know about 'psychoactive', but quartz belongs to the trigonal crystal system. And this thing really knocked me for a loop a while back..."

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At the sight of the crystalline formation, Jasmine did a double-take, then she bolted from the room without a word.

A few minutes passed. Matthew coughed. "I'm sure she'll be right back."

A few minutes after that, Jasmine returned with a circuit board and a pair of leads coming off of it. She attached the leads to the crystal and stared at the numbers on a small LCD display.

Then... she shook her head.

"It's one of the crystals, all right. It is quartz, but it's also more than quartz, at the same time... mineral-plus, if you will. It's been used, but it's not empty. It won't work for anyone else, but all that stuff is still in there. It won't work for our purposes." She looked thoughtful. "But Dad's notes said that there was sympathetic resonance - "

"Seven syllables there," injected Matthew.

"... a 'link.' People who've used them might be able to sense where they are. The crystals themselves might be usable to point the way..."

"In Defenders #182, Doctor Strange used a sympathy spell to lead the Defenders towards their goal using a piece of what they sought!" Eiko looked to Hex, beaming. "He used the Eye of Agamatto! I don't know if you have that."

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"Uh...not that one specifically," she hedged, "...that I've seen. But I'm pretty familiar with sympathetic..." she stopped abruptly, executing a perfect '10' facefault. "Wait! Everyone...just...hang on a second..."

She yanked the Book of Keys out of the leather slipcase she'd gotten for it, the one that was tethered to her belt. With quick, practiced motions she flicked pages, mouth moving slightly as she muttered things like, 'movements, celestial...seasonal variations...transphysical... ah!" There Hex laid the book down and smoothed it back.

"There IS a spell that can use a sympathetic connection to get a visual image of something. Sympathies normally exist between people and objects, so I'd always thought of it as a way to spy on someone. But if two objects had a sympathy...like if they were once part of some larger whole...or were otherwise linked somehow...there's no reason it wouldn't work on those objects as well as people!"

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"So you're saying," Cyco chimed in finally, her eyes darting about as she tried to follow the conversation, "Is that you can track the big rock that we need to find... that...somehow...will bring down the Order?"

Can't we just blow them up? Why is it always searching? I am obviously way too dumb to be at this table...or way too smart.

Cyco suddenly giggled to herself

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"I think this spell, used on this rock, will lead us to other rocks like it," Hex agreed carefully. "And from what Jasmine says, finding a 'blank' piece will give us a storage medium that we can then imbue with the knowledge of how to defeat the AEGIS...which is absolutely necessary to do before we go against the Order properly. Right now, if we went against them and they used the AEGIS, we'd be completely powerless to hurt them. This can change that."

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Sorry for putting words in your mouth, Hex, but it's in the interests of expediency.

Hex nodded, and took the chunk of rock in hand. She opened the book wide, incanted - and hit a wall.

No one present knew why she'd stopped, but clearly it wasn't going to be as simple as casting a spell...

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Sharatur reached out for the quartz, taking it from Hex. "Don't know how you can stand it, really. "Magic" where you're figuring out the rules as you go along. It would drive me nuts! Here, try the spell on me, I got used by this one. Maybe the simple resonance will work on me." She paused. "It's not going to turn me into a frog if something goes wrong, will it?" she deadpanned.

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Norman leaned forward, squinting, as Sharatur touched the crystal. "You know, whatever that thing is, it touches the other side. I can feel it when you interact with it." He nodded at Sharatur. "Old memories, coming and going." He blinked. "As long as we're trying things, I'll see if I can scare up some word from the netherworld. Objects like this might get noticed over there more easily than over here."

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"Wait," Hex said, looking at Norman. "I think I see what's going on. The memories in the stone are messing up the stone's sympathy to the other stones. They're trying to connect it to things the memories are connected to. So I think what we have to do is either erase the memories somehow...or find a way to instruct the spell what things to ignore. And I had no idea how to do that...but I think what you just said gives me an idea."

"If you can take us 'into' the astral space, or the netherworld that is specifically associated with the stone, then I can mark a kind of 'path' for the spell to take to bypass the memories. The trick is that the memories will probably have some kind of reflection or representation within that space...so they may try to stop us."

She gave Sharatur a tired smile. "No need to do frog-turning that way, see? And you're not really right about magic...it's not making the rules up as you go along. It's just...learning a new set of rules."

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Gloom followed the conversation, her head snapping back and forth between the two talkers like a sports fan watching a tennis tournament. Her expression said she was utterly lost as she desperately tried to follow the discussion around the table. The only thing she really understood was that they weren't going to go kick any ass. Perhaps this disappointment was why all she said was, "Uh... what?"

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"I don't know if we want to mess with what's already in this crystal. It's still connected with Sharatur somehow so disrupting its contents might be a bad thing for her. And if she's any indication the memories in there are going to be tough metaphysical cookies. I could try to open the gate for everyone but it's dangerous. I've never gone very deep myself..."

"Deep..." His eyes snapped open wide. "Uluru! The Order snatched an entire column of stone from Ayer's rock. It was connected to these crystals. There was enough of the memory-stone left for me to see that. Maybe you you could attune to the crystals left in Ayer's rock and use that to track what the Order took?"

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"We could try! Let's go."

After a moment, Jasmine rolled her eyes. "Yes, right now."

* * *

The group, along with Jasmine, Eiko and Blackjack, had moved to Ayers Rock - Matt had elected to stay behind and concentrate on administration. Jasmine had been carefully lowered into the shaft to take the readings, along with Glitch who helped operate the technical side of things.

When Glitch lifted her back up to rejoin their efforts, she shared her assessment.

"There's - how to say this - there's very, very little left. It's more like the MEMORY of the minerals is left behind. I think that's what Necronaut and Jade were reacting to. But it might be usable. It might make the trace more accurate, but the problem is... it might also be co-opted by the remenants inside of Jade's crystal, causing them to react in unpredictable ways. But if you use it in the spell..."

Hex was behind Jasmine in the technical department but ahead of her on the mystical. Using the trace impressions left behind in this shaft would result in a trace that could be to within meters, instead of within miles. A higher risk, but potentially, a higher reward.

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"I can't say for sure, but yes...the 'memory' of the crystal will be in conflict with the sympathetic effect. Think of it like this...the sympathetic effect is 'trying' in metaphysical terms to make all the pieces of rock back into one rock, like they were before. The memories the rock pieces absorb are 'trying' metaphysically to individuate the rocks...make them each unique and unbound to anything else. Once we're in the astral space associated with a rock piece, that conflict will be played out in a sort of metaphoric way, with us representing the spell, and the rock's memories represented by...well, some kind of icon or figure I guess. Maybe people the rock remembers. Regardless, the core of it all is still that conflict, and so that's what we'll all have to act out. If we win, the spell will succeed in connecting the stones sympathetically. If we don't...it won't."

"I don't think we'll be in any -real- danger though," she quickly adds. "An astral plane isn't really real, by our standards. It's a symbolic projection, like a dream. Sort of."

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The Necronaut was following Hex's explanation with interest but seemed to stumble slightly at her final reassurance. He met her eyes with obvious concern, but he didn't give voice to it. Instead he murmured, "Regardless of the risks, we have to give this a try. If we can break through, we have a real shot at them."

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Hex frowned. "Maaaybe?" she hazarded. "I mean...none of us will be using our eyes to see once we're there, so in theory there's no reason you couldn't see. I guess it depends on your mind. You were born able to see, so your mind might still be able to recreate that sensation. Take the information coming at it, and assemble it into something like vision again. I think if you'd been blind all your life, it wouldn't be that way. That's just a guess though. I've never tried doing anything remotely like this before, so I'm not really sure how all that stuff...interacts, you know?"

She nodded. "Anyway, I'll get the modifications ready. Shouldn't take long. Necro, I'll need to work with you too."

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"I know you've been trying, but I've been slightly lost since I thought to bring in my quartz. From what I understand, you'll use your magic book, but the spell won't work on its own; we'll have to go somewhere and help it by fighting...whatever comes our way. Got that bit." She shrugged. "Can't be any worse than giant killer robots" she added wryly--and then grinned fiercely. "And believe me, if what we end up fighting is some sort of...part of these damned rocks, I am so ready to put them down. So enough talking. Let's get this done."

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Hex and Necronaut took to their tasks with zeal. Norman raided his box of keepsakes, things belonging to the dearly departed that still had a touch of the afterworld in them. Hex, for her part, gathered the proper ingredients - flowers and earths associated with the ground and the rocks, and also with memories.

Everyone gathered around the hole, and Hex painted her mystical circle on the ground while the others helped set up the strings and tethers that tied the circle to the remnants of the crystal's impressions that were stored in the hole. At the center of the circle was Jade's rock. Around it was a simple enough circle, with a carefully chosen blank spot. A chalk mark would link the crystal to the impressions in the cave, giving a potentially more accurate 'trace' - and also a potentially more volatile environment, should they tap into the leftover energies from the shaft sunk in Ayers Rock.

The choice - and the consequences - were up to the group.

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