Grrl Power #562 – Hoisted by being the vanguard
I get the impression from Cooter’s reaction that he may not have been fully informed about the plan. It’s almost like he’s been lied to about the group’s objectives from the start. Shame on you Sciona. It’s like you’re a bad guy or something.
Building a vault to keep out all manner of supernatural creatures would be a serious pain in the ass. Security though obscurity would be the single biggest measure you could take. In order, not letting people know you have a vault is the best thing you could do, after that, not letting anyone know where it’s located would be ideal. After that the best you can do is make them think anyone who enters it will be horribly killed or at least grievously injured. That and put a really thick door on the thing, but when you have to deal with beings that can walk through rock or shadow or control insects or see through squirrels’ eyes or what have you, and taking into account the power levels of some of the being that might be trying to crack the vault, the internal defenses would be a real challenge to design.
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I knew the redneck would be screwed sooner or later.
Crap! I lost my opportunity to say first.
It’s not a race. Saying “first” only makes you look like a kid.
Looking like a kid is a third of the secret to eternal youth.
The first one is not dying.
the final third of eternal life is keeping your fashion sense updated. Who’d be scared of a vampire in a polyester leisure suit?
I would opt for an upgraded memory. What is the point in living a million years, if you cannot remember things? And our brains are only optimised for approximately a normal life-span, so would not have the capacity to remember detail from a vast lifespan.
Of course the upgrade would include allowing bad stuff to fade, with time. A perfect memory could verge on a curse otherwise.
There is a fourth mind. Eternity alone is not a nice prospect. Make sure you have a way to grant these to your nearest and dearest too.
Perhaps not. After all, the vault is intended to keep out magical and supernatural gribblies. Coot, being a mundane, might NOT cause the internal defenses to switch into ‘active deterrent’ mode.
That would be a massive design oversight. Some humans would love to get their hands on those weapons, too, and apparently no spell has been used to hide the vault… At least, not nearly as effectively as with The Veil.
Using magic to hide anything has the direct negative effect of anyone looking for magic finds it instantly.
yes, you find the location being hidden, and the 100 other locations that just hold traps that are ALSO hidden the same way.
The best way to hide a needle is to build a haystack.
Or you could use the ‘pile of needles’ trick. It makes it a lot harder to find the specific one needed, even with the aid of a metal detector, sieve or cunning sorting machine.
Evil Overlord List #5: The artifact which is the source of my power will not be kept on the Mountain of Despair beyond the River of Fire guarded by the Dragons of Eternity. It will be in my safe-deposit box. The same applies to the object which is my one weakness.
Worked so well for Kira.
There’s a Harry Potter fanfic where a smart Voldemort arranges for one of his horcruxes to be aboard each of the Voyager probes, and another is at the bottom of the Marianas Trench. THAT guy is going to be hard to kill!
I disagree.
The best way to hide a needle is to put it in your sewing kit.
Someone I knew was a thief. They were never caught with their spoils, because they put them… in the living room, on the coffee table, and left it there as decor.
Their parents never asked questions about new items handled in such a way.
That works up until a guest says “Look at that, I had one just like it stolen last week.”
“I think this one is new” (Turns it over to look for price)
“Oh, dear, it seems to have your name written on the bottom!”
I wonder..
The veil is a worldwide “you don’t see me”. We’ve not seen any indication that it’s particularly complex as such things go (nor, mind, that it isn’t – we haven’t been given any real baseline as to what is typical of mages). What makes the Veil special is that it has global reach, that it affects everyone.As we’ve seen, that reach makes it convenient to use for other spells.
We know that the alarm system relied on the Veil. Might there have been another spell piggybacking on the Veil which also served to conceal the location of the vault? Seems to me that the Veil would already be constructed to hide not only the supernatural people but also evidence of their existence anyway… so maybe there’s a paren “out of place” with respect to exceptions, such that the location of certain things are concealed from everyone who is not a senior council member? Maybe Sciona needed to hurt the Veil not only to effectively disable the alarms, but also to FIND the vault?
Not a bad line of reasoning.
On the other hand, that could be sort of like trying to hide something by putting it on the internet, since the Veil is globally accessible to members of the Council factions.
Hyu-mon mages (like Gault) are still hyu-mon
A hyu-mon mage that uses supernatural spell abilities, is still supernatural abilities.
a mundane that magic transports there is a mundane.
Not… quite, unless using magic changes them into a supernatural entity, in which case they are no longer hyu-mon; Ingie is an example of not being hyu-mon after being changed
I knew it, and was hoping for it. Let’s face it – the guy is unlikable.
Yeah, it would be safe to call him a redneck at this point. It’s just that his neck isn’t the only part of him that’s red.
*snort*
So, he’s a commie now? o_O
Or a Republican.
Communism is a left-wing, not right wing, political party. History has proven that much.
It is interesting that you cannot fly unless you have a wing on both sides…
Unless you use a balloon.
*uses a helium tanker to inflate self to 200 times normal volume & lowers a gondola*
Come join me, to rule the world! [squeaky voice]
one of my favorite staues of angels depicts them as each having one wing, so to fly, they must travel in pairs
The republican party associates itself with the color red… so ‘a communist or a republican’ is a fair statement, because while one could be red for either reason, the odds of being BOTH are pretty nil.
Are those tombs on the vault’s floor, like in Underworld?
Or Castle Heterodyne.
Well fortunately, the vault doesn’t seem to have a sense of humor
Give it time. Deez clenk security vots-its alvays end op sentient eventualy.
Yikes. We’ve already got Jagermonsters in our midst!
I’ve always suspected Dabbler was a Spark.
Dabbler is the rarest of things- the female-Jäger that’s also a Spark!
Hurm… Can Jägers be Sparks? Or rather, can Sparks drink of the Jägerdraught?
Yah, but dey tend to go boom
Agatha didn’t. but then she had 2 guys and a whole bunch of wires and tubes and things, she could spread around the power before going boom.
Agatha drank water right from the spring – the spring is suposed to be much stronger than the jägerdraught (said by the castle). Her ancestor the first Hetrodyne drank also direct from the spring – he should have been dead but he survived and liked it therefore building his base/castle at the spring.
I think those are actually the sentry turrets.
Their job is to EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!
They look small enough to be mini-sentries. The engineers who built them must have some hefty building buffs.
“Wax on, wax off.”
Wax him!
Magic crystal turrets.
At least one should have ‘disintegrate’ and one should have ‘blight’.
“Need a sentry here!”
No, not the turrets, wrong shape for the turrets (and they don’t line up with the coffins)
See? This is why you read the comment first, was just about to make a comment about the coffin-shapes on the floor
If they are, they are the “let’s make it really obvious that these are coffins by giving them a shape which hasn’t been used in centuries.
Rectangular boxes are how people get buried. They are easy to make and get the job done. Six sided coffins are impractical, but do manage to convey that ‘it’s a coffin’ meaning for some reason.
Perhaps because they’re too impractical to be used for anything else?
How are fancy curved lids (in one or two pieces) any easier to make than the hexagonal boxes with the singe flat lid? o_O
Not sure where you are getting the ‘fancy curved lids’ from, to be honest? Whilst I do appreciate that you are describing a type of coffin, Oberon specified ‘rectangular box’. Living in a poor country that is literally what you expect to see people being buried in. As simple a box as it is possible to fit someone in.
Not that I have seen that many, but they have been pretty utilitarian ones that would not look out of place in a warehouse, rather than a funeral home.
That’s a casket.
Shouldn’t the bottom two pannels be switched? I suppose it should mean he reformed from the blood, only to be turned into blood puddle soon after (and serve as an anchor or focus for further witchcraft), but the implosion looks more like he was exploded by one of the weapons.
in the last panel, you see everything is already covered in gore.
i think the second to last panel is him arriving there in a burst of blood.
Bloodport. It’s like telefragging without actually killing anyone.
Other than all the people the blood was collected from.
Much more efficient to keep them alive. Less bodies, less evidence. But does need a supply of beverages and cookies to keep them topped up. Maybe a bit of protein too.
Don’t forget ginger and dark chocolate, some of the best ways to replenish lost iron.
You had better steer clear of vampires then!
I have the same problem understanding the comic. I think he was pushed through crack in blood form with high pressure and has reformed from the blood geyser?
Close. The blood is merely the doorway. Consider it like a stargate only with blood as the medium of travel. He steps into blood and out of blood at the destination. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t told of this…
fairly certain, not 100%, since Dave didn’t actually say anything, but i think cooter was reduced to a sentient puddle of blood and gore, then forced up the cracks. what happens from there, shall be seen.
How’d he get under the cracks in order to get pushed up through one? And why are the cracks not water/blood proof? A porous vault is flawed in a number of ways before even considering the fact that he got in at all.
I think it is a means of forcing a teleport through a very tiny portal. A human-sized window would be stopped, but a tiny pinprick with a lot of power could punch through. Then reduce the subject to goo and squeeze them through your 1mm aperture. Unpleasant, but effective.
If blood was only the doorway, then wouldn’t the magic defenses of the vault guard against “portal magic” as well as it would other magical means of entry? Transporting a Mundane would not alter the fact that the portal itself is magical. If there’s Continual Light there to prevent shadow-steppers, why wouldn’t the Mages on the Council also make sure that defense against other types of teleporting powers/magics would also be incorporated in the Vault defenses?
Also, being located under so much water, you’d think that the material engineering alone would have been water-proofed, which would also include blood. This may be a plot-breaker here!
Exterior is water tight or this would all be an underwater scene, probably 2-4 water proof layers, while here inside where some artifacts may need air circulation and there may be occasional maintenance small cracks.
I am similarly confused by the last two panels :(
In the first panel we have the text “If you are wondering why the lights are on (Continual Light spell) its so that no one can Shadow Step into the vault.” Both of those are from Dungeons and Dragons. The light one should be self-explanatory. Whilst the Shadow Step is a means to teleport from one shadow to another. Preventing shadows would block the power.
This gives us a clue that other means of teleporting may be tried. Then, in panel 3, we see blood seeping up. This is giving us a possible medium by which an alternative form of teleport might be used, with suspicion falling on the blood mage Sciona.
Hence the second-to-last panel is showing Cooter arriving in a shower of blood. With the final one being the consequences of that, when in a vault full of motion detectors and automated defenses.
This is confirmed by the author’s comment below.
Yes. When building a vault to hold all kinds of fancy magical geegaws, I too would make sure it’s protected against someone who can control insects…
It seems someone here hasn’t read worm :P
So wait… was he blood ported or did they manage to ooze him up through the floor? I’m also assuming he’s going to be dead by the end of the next page too. Better question here is how they managed to get under the vault in that respect . The amount of time required to pull that off and engineering with out busting the entire thing should have been rather noticeable.
I don’t think that’s the floor. The perspective might be an issue, but based on the tiling it is most likely the ceiling.
I actually think it is the floor. The blood is shown bubbling upward, the blood-splosion is upwards, and Coot is shown standing right away and not falling down or dangling awkwardly.
Also perspective-wise (is that a word?) the vertical lines would be drawn to be wider apart at the top of the panel and more narrow at the bottom if it was the ceiling.
Except, top panel shows perfectly smooth floor and walls
Top panel is also zoomed out while the second and third panel are zoomed in, showing more details that would not be visible when zoomed out (or would just be needless clutter in the top panel and draw attention away from the turret tops).
Yea it is necessary to keep the initial panel simple, to take in the key features, Dave’s comment below would support the conclusions too. The “BLOORSH” is coming up from the floor in the second to last panel, so the source must have been from there.
Plus we can see zip lines from the pop-up turrets coming out of the floor.
The blood was teleported in via a micro portal, then used as portal for larger objects.
All a blood elemental would need is a single microbe hole in the floor to exist. I’m sure one exists that is running from the vampires.
I have seen in other series Blood Golems, Blood Born *Undead made of mostly congealed blood*, and Blood based Slime monsters *like a vampire slimegirl whose body is actually made of the blood she drinks and converts all other fluids into blood…in retrospect I have seen some messed up stuff* LoL
Totally going to steal that slime.
Remind me to skip any sauces or drinks, if we have a curry together.
Personally, I’d reccomend skipping the curry. You did ask for pepper spray.
No no, ‘a spray of pepper’, as in ‘a light-dusting of black pepper. It enhances most pizzas.
Also brings out the best in a japanese or chip shop style curry sauce.
Oh!… Should have scrolled down, just got done saying that.
So yeah – very small pinprick portal that is designed to pierce anti-portal defenses, then allow bigger stuff to be sent through.
You have probably thought of all possible variations on Sydney’s powers, but here is one inspired by your micro portal technique. Sydney’s light bee appears to bee solid and can not (as we have seen so far) pass through walls. Sydney can just summon the bee and let Harem grab it and port to the desired destination. Once there, she radios back that she has arrived and Sydney can join her by using the translocation power of the bee.
This means we now have two people (Varia and Halo) who can break the ‘no passengers’ rule for Harem. They should sit down sometime and work out a strategy that can work with this.
Clever clever clever!
*awards a special star*
Except, if tubey is anything to go by, the bee may well have infinite mass when manhandled.
That’s alright Sydney will only be womanhandling it.
Isn’t “shadow step” stepping out of a random shadow? So wouldn’t keeping total darkness have the same effect? (And be less work to draw too. Just explain less to creatures who have evolved to see light.)
Also, if shadow step does exist, how about light step?
Completely black panels… Yes, that probably would be less work to draw.
@yuffiek i had nothing against black panels with only some sound effects like Blub, Chunk, blorsh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, what the fuck.
it would perfectly explain everything for the reader
Full darkness could be considered shadows of the walls/ceiling.
But there’s no shadow to step out of. Since there is no edge.
shadow step is simply moving from one area of darkness/shadow to another. Not from one edge of darkness to another. As most areas that are dark are shadows, shadow step also sounds better than dark step and can bring up such confusion in those who have little idea about magic.
Playing devil’s advocate here, since I agree shadow step usually means moving from one area of darkness to another, but I suspect RobK means that without an edge it is not called a shadow.
Consider this. If you have a hollow opaque box with no openings, so no light can get inside, is the inside a shadow or simply darkness?
Depends. Does it merely contain its darkness, or does it understand its darkness? And if the latter, is it the same type that lurks in the hearts of men?
Good question. Who knows?
The Shadow knows
“The weed of Crime bears bitter fruit. Crime does notpay! The Shadow Knows!”
He he he.
*awards a special star*
It is a shadow by the way, as light would have fallen there if it were not for the box obscuring it. For gaming purposes, as a DM I would make the distinction between somewhere that no light has ever fallen (a dark cave) and somewhere that light sometimes falls (a building’s shadow).
Likewise an unknown monster, always carrying an umbrella, would be concealed in shadows, not darkness.
Therefore unless the box was made somewhere in perpetual darkness and had never been opened in light, then it would create a shadow. But you could alternatively have a box of primordial darkness from before there was light, using my for-magical-purposes definition.
ShadowStep just allows you to step into/ out of any wall or floor that is in darkness (within range), the edge IS the wall or floor, not the edge of the darkness.
I was thinking the exact same thing. Actually keeping the lights off would prevent a “shadow step” much better as the absence of light would preclude the creation of any shadows, use no power, and prevent a “light step” as well. Now, if it had been to prevent a “dark step” (whatever that is) it would have been the reverse… but the prevention and the target ability do not align in this case.
Depends how literal you define the ability. If it only allows you to travel from one ‘area of darkness created by something blocking a source of light’ then you might keep people out (though technically the darkness within the vault comes from the light outside the walls being blocked).
If shadow-stepping lets you move from one area with an absence of light to another area with an absence of light then turning off all lights within the vault does nothing.
And it is even possible both abilities exist but are called the same.
The main reason to simply keep the lights on would be to eliminate the possibility of someone getting a small source of light into the vault and creating the conditions to be able to shadow step.
“Shadow Step” is mostly a PR thing to make the spell’s name catchy. The actual function is to allow one to travel from one place to another by stepping through areas of darkness. So no, keeping the lights off would not prevent a “shadow step”.
Can remember an old Conan story where he defeated a shadow creature, not by extinguishing the fire but by making the fire bigger
This brings up a serious question. Max and the others arrived, opened the vault, and found splattered remains everywhere. Here, Coot is being reformed from blood goo. Does this mean he’ll be reformed again? Or was that just a one-time deal to get him inside and sabotage the interior defenses?
Sabotage or test? The evidence being Coot being spread on the walls like butter on toast.
Scion: That did not seem to work, but we did learn some helpful information.
(Somebody else): Well that’s Coot all over.
Scion: Are you volunteering to try next?
I’m trying not to laugh while reading this at work…
or misdirect. Trip the defenses, then come back when the council comes to check on what happened and deactivates most of the security
Don’t tell me that the security only detects the super-natural and ignores anything non-magical. That would be a serious oversight and there is very little reason to exclude regular humans.
Except:
A) Regular humans by and large don’t know about the supernatural (Don’t know the vault exists).
B) Regular humans wouldn’t be able to get to the vault (Deep underwater, cloaked entrance).
C) Regular humans can’t get into the vault (Magical biometric locks)
D) Regular humans get chunky salsa’d by the guardian.
True, I had considered most of that myself. That still doesn’t excuse them for ignoring the ‘what if someone chucks a human into the vault’ scenario while building as many safeguards as possible. It is not like humans need special measures to be taken care of.
What kills a supernatural being, usually also kills a natural being.
A silver bullet takes advantage of were-creature’s weakness, but it’s also still a bullet.
A high energy UV laser would destroy a vampire, but it’s also just a high energy laser that kills regular organic matter.
Etc.
Wait… so the people that I stabbed with wooden stakes were not vampires? But they died! Proof!
If you dont mind I need to start thinking up some alibis now.
The werewolves I shot in the heart with a silver bullet have me in similar need of an alibi.
Alright penguins, it is time. March forth and burn all the mittens in the world!
Crimson said she underestimated humans after being a vampire for 40 minutes, and still does so after almost 40 years. Maybe the rest of the council is similar even after centuries?
All it’d take is an “If you can’t tell what supernatural being it is, kill it with fire” failsafe or somesuch.
Unless they make an *explicit* exception for mundanes (which would seem outright stupid, since it would acknowledge that mundanes could get in there, but then doesn’t try to kill them), the fact that there are apparently all kinds of unique magical beings means the vault needs some kind of “I don’t know what it is, I just try general overkill” protocol for beings it doesn’t recognize – all of which should take care of humans, too.
Eh, I could totally see a military or national geographic submarine stumbling across it. And if the former, that’d be minutes before a block of marines could get into that vault (from the looks of it, that weakness aura wouldn’t negatively affect c4 in anyway). In the case of national geographic, it’d be the archeological find of the century.
And the veil protects supernaturals, we haven’t seen anything about it protecting their possessions. And even if it did, it disguises things. They’d probably see it as a mostly-abandoned underwater Nazi research lab with the guardian looking like a modified Abrahm’s tank expelling some kind of paralysis gas.
What I forgot to take into account was ‘kiss’ (keep it simple silly). Disguising the entrance as being a plain rock face would be a lot less newsworthy than an underwater Nazi research lab guarded by an American Abraham’s tank modified with an unheard of gas weapon.
They could have learnt this trick from watching original Batman episodes.
Fair enough.
That said, if the sub drops a beacon onto a rock, and it passed through said rock, that’d be a lot more weirder than the hidden Nazi base since explaining “magic” away would be harder for the Veil…
Probably best route would be actually have rocks positioned in such a way to where it’s easy to overlook, have the initial part look like a cave, and then when it’s obvious it’s not a cave anymore, have it look like an abandoned Nazi base to explain the weird stuff that’s going to happen to them. Then again, that’s still assuming the Veil would protect supernaturals’ stuff, and not just themselves.
Basically, at some point, its’ going to have a hard time explaining the guardian with the big slashy sword and veakness aura by just “it’s a rock”, and the Veil, as I understand its purpose, would prioritize “Hey, it’s not supernatural” over “Hey, it’s not here.”
I wonder if the veil has Matroskya disguises?
You’re trying too hard. The Veil explains away the entrance as showing it as normal bottom muck. Anything dropped in it is *expected* to sink into that stuff. (Note: bottom muck isn’t a technical term. I’m just aware there’s a lot of the ocean floor that’s more muddy than rock, and it’s frequently very deep mud.)
Pretty similar to silt, I’d think. That you can find close to shore. It feels really gross when you step in it, almost like slime.
That is a lot less complex.
What makes you think anybody got chunky salsaed? So far all we know is there was blood splatter everywhere, and here’s Cooter, arriving in a splatter of blood. Until we see otherwise, that’s all we really need to explain anything.
yuffiek is not saying anyone was chunky salsa’d in this page, it was a possible outcome of what would hypothetically happen if a regular human fought the guardian after getting into the vault.
My guess is coot got vamped, Sciona’s a high level vamp (high enough to ensure his sires can go into blood form), and coot has been in an endless cycle of splatter+reform with the vault defenses ever since.
Sci-fright is a her, and she’s not a damn vamp, she’s a blood-mage
Did not know either. Thanks for correcting me.
Vampirism seems to be very like a form of blood magic. At least the effects could easily be handwaved to make them similar or identical in any given setting.
No, vampirism is simply a different form of gaining sustenance: a vampire can not manipulate or control blood
The regular varieties can’t. But do not forget that vampires in Grrl Power have a host of different types of abilities. So far we have only seen powers from one type of vampire. The others might just have subtle differences. Or they may be vastly, almost unrecognizable different.
I don’t say this just to point out alternatives or to be picky, but because quite a lot of literature and games do have vampire powers dependent on blood (for some lineages anyhow).
Much of magic deals with symbolism and associating one thing with another (for instance a voodoo doll with the person it represents), and the more closely linked or meaningful something is, to that which it represents, the greater the power.
In this case the example would be placing a bit of hair from the subject in said doll. Similarly though, in other traditions, names have power. So if you can name the subject you can gain power over it. Even more so if you find out their true name, in which case you gain absolute power over them.
For living beings blood can be symbolic of life (and other things such as injury). For vampires it is even greater than it is for others. So I would be surprised if there was not at least one clan of vampires who did not practice blood magic or have blood powers of some sort.
And it may even explain why Sciona has a senior vampire as a minion. Perhaps he is seeking to learn her magics? Or perhaps Sciona has power over vampires, due to their dependence on blood? He could have drank some blood that she had infused with controlling magics, for example.
Perhaps that’s how vampirism works in whatever works you favor, but that’s not how vampirism works in all works, and it isn’t how it works in this work. Since vampirism is both fictional and vague, many different writers have assigned a very broad variety of different origins and abilities.
Even your statement is fairly oblivious of the facts we have been made aware of in this work. A ‘simple’ different type of sustenance doesn’t make you immortal, or burn up in sunlight, or able to turn into a cloud of bats, after all.
My point is that in Grrl power different types of vampires have different abilities. My source on this being the author. So your assertion that ‘this is not how it works in this work’ is false. Go back and check the comic, plus Dave’s blog and comments, if you doubt me.
You seem to be under the misapprehension that I have stated the cause for all vampirism. That is not actually true. I have only emphasised the symbolic importance of blood to them (along with its essential need as sustenance). Plus I have speculated that some types of vampires are likely to make use of blood magics (or blood powers).
Whilst we do not know the cause for vampires, we do know what it for werewolves. It is a virus that has a magical component to it. Which is what allows lycanthropy to be much more varied than mundane genetics allows. It seems likely that vampires will have something similar, to account for their great variety too.
Note the words ‘something’ and ‘similar’. It will not be identical due to the whole ‘being dead’ gig that undead have. Whilst it may be a virus it could just be something analogous to that (as a computer virus is to a biological one).
That other comment from Oberon was directed at me, not you puppy
Doh!
I’ve said this before to someone but being a vampire and a blood-mage are not exclusive. One is a species, the other an ability / magical skill-set.
I”m still with you that Sciona doesn’t appear to be a vampire though.
sire means parent (creator), not child. the word you’re looking for is scion which means offspring.
Childer.
Although he might be saying sires as in “those whom I have sired”
That is what I meant, and I failed to come up with a better word for it. Apologies. (Is there a better word for what a sire sires other than the sires of the sire?)
“Childer” is the most commonly used one. Or it can simply be phrased as “I sired her” or “she was sired by him”. Dave did use a specific term, in the comic, but it was non-standard and does not spring to mind. Especially as it was not self-evident (or at least was a bit awkward), so it is not something I tried to commit to memory.
Some traditions have created vampires as being totally under the control of the master vampire. In which case the terms are likely to be dismissive: “slave”, “servant”, “minion”, “puppet” or the like.
Thrall
Ahh, just the kind of thing I was grasping for, inadequately.
Thought it was ‘sireling’
Only in universe, if past comments are to be believed.
Thought we were talking about in-universe
We were. I was implying confirmation whilst openly cautioning against broader use.
Entities arriving in the vault without using the normal door are unlikely to arrive by ordinary means (if it were possible with ordinary means, locked room murders would be more common). Some people with superpowers, against which you wish to guard, may appear just like ordinary humans, except they can do things that are not ordinary. If one did something not so ordinary and wound up in the vault, it would be quit silly if security system remained quiet while they used a cordless drill to make their way into what amounted to a locked box on the wall.
If I wish to keep burglars out of my home by way of a dozen smoke grenades, a blaring siren a klaxon, and a “Guess who’s on Candid Camera” recorded voice, I’d expect the same setup to also deter deer. I may not be specifically aiming for deer, but deer will probably find the loud noises and smoke to be more than a little bothersome.
And I’m sure John Q Public will likewise find wall mounted lasers and stun beams to be more than a little bothersome.
“…control insects…”
Did…..did you just imply the existence of a Skitter analog in this setting? They are all screwed.
pre worm me “controlling insects is a harmless power”
post chapter 1ish worm me “oh dear god no it isnt”
I was near end of reading that series.
Haven’t gone to it in over a year.
It is one helluva time sink.
Yes, but well worth it.
I also enjoyed his next work: “Pact”.
I found both stayed engaging, from start-to-finish.
Why yes, I have endless bouts of interminal boredom to soak up. What series are you talking about?
This.
Did some one say, worm grrlpower crossover?????
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/wormverse-ideas-recs-and-fic-discussion-thread-32.302541/page-52#post-14557543
Taylor with Sydney’s powers. Okay. No to me the real test would be Arc watching Skitter work. . . .
You know, ARC would have been a good fit for Taylor. More pragmatic, and as we’ve seen, Max in a situation with a potential new Super reacts a lot more inclusively than Armsmaster did.
Then again, with ARCHON, it would be a lot less likely that the world devolves into the nigh-apocalypse scenario we’ve got here. Maybe it helps that THIS golden-skinned unstoppable super started out human.
…Urgh. Endbringers in Grrlpower.
Hehe, but poor, poor Jack Slash when confronted with Sydney.
Skitter’s power would be good, but probably not as effective as it is in her world.
Because most Supers in Grrlpower who have even slight durability are at least bullet proof.
i see your point, and i raise you alexandria.
Alexandria,
Dragon, Armsman, Echidna, Mannequin, …
…Scion
You’re ommitting a lot of context there.
We both know standard bug controlling Taylor would get one-shot by Scion.
do they still need to breath is the point the above posters are making
Certainly. And it’ll make for a good surprise attack.
But at the same time: It will spread quick that she uses that method on big and strong guys. And it’s not hard to cover your mouth while breathing.
Now ACHILLES would be perfectly fine. Though he might end up getting cocoon’d like Mannequin did.
Have you ever managed to not move when a fly buzzes next to your ear? same principle 4
100 million bugs driven by human intelligence crawling all over your body, in your ears, under your eyelids, in your nose, biting, stinging and squirming all over you , potentially rotting off your junk, and if your a woman congrats that’s one more orifice to fill with creepy crawlies.
now tell me honestly that you would be able to stay calm in that situation.
Like I said it’ll make for a good surprise attack on most.
But against people with high durability and/or a durable air-tight suit: It’ll be noticeably less effective in terms of damage.
Especially if they know in advance that’s her go to move.
Yeah, an attack which can be countered by the standard surgical mask that I see a lot of Asians walking around wearing on a daily basis isn’t so great except as a surprise measure. In a world with television and Internet this will become known fast and after that any wanna-be villain would include nose and mouth coverage in their costume.
And I raise you: Don’t be an idiot and proceed to keep your mouth open and stand still while bugs try to choke you.
It really doesn’t make any sense why Alexandria didn’t immediately fly away as soon as the bugs tried swarming her; her reaction time is above human levels and she has experience with people trying to choke her out.
Maybe this Alexandria has a bug-phobia (or had by the sounds of things)
Nah, just really arrogant.
she did try, but if you recall, her range had almost double bacuse of the situation she was in.
Alexandria, underestimated her range and by the time she realized it she already had spiders in her lungs.
Yes but what if it could control vance?
Not unless its power extended to cover arachnids as well as insects.
It does, but it still wouldn’t work, she can control anything with a simple mind, ergo giant sentient bugman is a no go.
And she didn’t close her mouth when the bugs started crawling toward her face because?
Bugs can be quite and fast: But they are very hard to miss if in a huge swarm
she didn’t close her mouth because first thing id do as a bug controller would be to block the nasal cavity (or send bugs down it dont know how big it is)
Close mouth and then fly away. The bugs can’t even really hurt her; she just needs to hold her breath and keep them from blocking every airway.
Ah but not controlling the hive mind doesn’t necessarily prevent you from controlling the lesser entities that comprise it. Probably a quite significant battle of wills, though.
And what if every spider is smart?
Then the world is already doomed.
*considers how to make a vault to keep out supernatural creatures*
I’d use the Pandora’s box (technically jar) principle, have various mechanisms sensitive to pressure, heat, sound, light and even magic set up with some nuclear fuel rods and control rods, anyone who opens/enters the vault improperly will cause a meltdown, even an construct will think twice about approaching glowing hot radioactive material, the undead will probably burn or turn to dust.
Then again if the artifacts are buried in something like the elephant’s foot at Chernobyl nobody’s getting near them for at least a few thousand years which would be inconvenient if you needed them to prevent a doomsday scenario in the present.
The problem with securely locking something away, is that in most cases, you still want to be able to access it yourself.
What about a expy of Captain Atom.
How do those measures relate to Pandora’s box? From what I recall a Pandora’s box is usually used to refer to something that contains something, or somethings, that will cause wide scale problems if opened.
In that regard, the vault already seems to be a Pandora’s box with artifacts too dangerous to be unleashed on the world.
Sounds to me like you’re describing a self destruct mechanism of some sorts.
You forget Pandoras box also contained Hope
I agree that Pandora’s Box is not an accurate name for the mechanism you describe. What it sounds like is an anti-fail-safe. If it fails, it goes boom. The Pandora concept was to keep things away from access by anyone as their release would be the overall fail. You do NOT want what is inside.
Also, the reason it still contains Hope is because Pandora closed the box and that is what was still trapped. Which, in itself, is just ripe with meaning. Technically, Pandora’s box, according to the story, is still functioning, having trapped Hope… and that is why mankind still “has it”.
You can see that even the Pandora story does not exactly have its mechanism figured out either.
Which raises the question, why was Hope trapped inside a box filled with al the evils of the world in the first place?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HopeSpot
Looking for a cat, hoping that it would be still alive? Obviously it got in there because of Curiosity.
Curiosity is the name of Schrodinger’s laboratory assistant.
Because hope can keep you looking after they’re dead, suffering more than you intended.
Because hope can keep you worrying when it’s too late to worry.
Because hope can help you think there is a path to escape when you should have been fighting it.
Because hope can distract you just long enough so your true best bet at victory is lost. Often, hope can be a curse in disguise.
Hope can also keep you looking for them when they are still alive but should be dead.
Hope can keep you looking for a solution when it seems to be too late.
Hope can keep you looking for a path to escape when all paths seem closed off.
Hope can keep you fighting when logic says you have already lost.
Hope is not passively waiting for things to get better, it is the idea that what seems bad may yet be good. That idea can cause passive waiting, but it can also cause the most wonderful of actions.
Also, Pandora didn’t trap hope in her box, she trapped foreshadowing, the knowledge of everything to come. If that had joined the other evils that did escape, hope would have been lost as there would be nothing to hope for.
Very nicely put.
*special star award*
I didn’t forget, I just didn’t mention it. Some of the vault’s artifacts also have more positive main or secondary effects.
Interestingly, after doing a quick search and according to some sources, it seems the Greek Gods considered (false) hope just as bad as all the other things that were in the box/jar.
Hope is false, because it’s what you cling to when everything else has failed: you hope things will get better when you should logically and rationally know it won’t
But those who give up hope can fail to grasp an opportunity where those who have not given into despair will be looking out for any chance and seizing it if it occurs.
And if it does not they are not in any worse a state than their pessimistic counterparts.
The only trick is to ensure that you carry on doing the pessimistic things until an opportunity arises. Whereas people who rely on an outside chance occurring are likely to have problems.
‘Hope’ typically is relying on outside chance(s), hope is passive not active
Not necessarily. If you send out 20 job applications you are hoping that one of them will be accepted. Whilst you are relying on an outside agency, for your hope to come true, you can significantly increase the odds of that by doing a good job for your application and showing off any existing skills to their best.
Whereas a person who has lost all hope will just come up with excuses for not sending out the applications in the first place. Or may give up after the first 20. But the person with hope keeps on sending them out. And if it goes on too long, they look for some way to better their chances, rather than wallowing in their hardships.
Importantly the person with hope is less likely to become depressed or suicidal. Hope helps to maintain mental and emotional health.
The contends of Pandora’s box can’t be used though. Open it, and unleash irreversible doom unto the world.
While the contends of this vault can be used to cause selective doom.
Except pandora’s box has supposedly already been opened. The box itself is probably pretty neat, being able to contain concepts and ideas as physical objects. I can think of a few I’d like to put into it.
Poor Cooter,he didn’t see that one coming…!
Is he more shocked at being a being of blood and having no skin or is he surprised about the teleportation… Or what had to be done to him to blood-port him?
“This might feel a bit funny!” /Sciona to Cooter That might be an understatement of the millennial level.
He has skin (you need skin to grow a beard), he’s just covered in blood
Not if your beard is also made of blood.
His clothes and his gun are also just made of blood? o_O
I suspect he is destined for somewhere made out of blood.
Bloody Hell!
“Ahh, Shadow Step has been countered, but they forgot about Blood Gate.
Cooter, would you mind just stepping into this pentagram, so we can … um … start a team huddle and… uh … barn-dance?”
So is Cooter just made off blood right now, or covered in it?
Cause he still has white teeth and eyes.
Sure there’s going to be nothing left of him but bloody smears in a few moments, but for now, it seems he is more than a simple blood golem.
just covered in blood I think, also he isn’t covered in blood just below his eyes in what looks like tear marking so I also assume that he is crying.
…Who’s in charge of keeping the machines up and running? Because that question may be relevant to whether or not Cooter survives the next five seconds.
I assume an AI, because it it was controlled by a person,he’d alert someone about it
Magic
M(A)g(I)c
FTFY
see, you just disguise the vault as a planet, and litter the surface with very hostile monkeys. solved.
Yes, but then the passcode would be 42.
That is also how you hide the computer that determines the Question, unless it gets expropriated for a traffic by-pass.
Actually in Marvel the Earth IS a vault for the cosmic egg, I believe. Which is why it has such inordinate importance across the multiverse.
Mmm…. Cosmic Omelette!
*looks up recipe book*
First turn up star to red dwarf…
So, the question is… is Cooter simply being used as a Disposable Minion, is he being chucked in there to create fresh blood/viscera which the Blood Mage can then manipulate within the vault, or are the automated defenses not set up to auto-attack mundane humans?
I suppose we’ll find out Monday!
My money’s on the blood bag.
Maybe Sciona has a blood sample from one of the residents of said vault?
So locate the rest of the recipient then use that source to allow someone to be “delivered” to said vault the defences causes said delivery to detonate covering the vault in their bits making it impossible for the vault to detect any other intruders.
That sound about right to you?
until I read the comments, this page made very little sense. It assume the reader will recognize the activities that are part of bloodporting, which is a totally new thing to me. without the comments, it looks like the-already-present-somehow Cooter is being dis-invisibled by a geyser of blood and is shocked to discover himself getting hosed down with gore. the laser goodies would not seem to require it, but it provides a horrific distraction while they activate and lock on. After reading the comments, I understand the geyser was cooter arriving, his shock deriving from the loss of his bloodporting virginity.
I expect the mess encountered by the investigators is the bloodport “trail” topped with generous serving of Cooter Flambé as prepared by the automated defenses. Did I get it right?
I think it is to most people. But we did have the clue of Sciona’s history as a blood mage, and having seen them preparing a magical pentagram for some diabolical act. Plus giving very strong hints of using Cooter as a pawn.
The very fact that initially nothing is there (to the extent of it being ‘boringly’ unremarkable) strongly implies that some kind of teleportation has been involved in transporting him there. The blood providing the clue.
The one other piece to the puzzle is that the “lights are on to prevent shadow step”* Which implies that some other medium may be used to bypass that defense.
It seems likely, barring a cunning plot twist.
* A means of teleporting from shadow to shadow (so anyone with AD&D 2nd edition, or onwards, knowledge has an edge on this clue).
“Over 30 years”? What happened sometime around 1987?
That was the last time they accessed the vault. Presumably to put some pop star’s musical instrument in there. Side effect of making a deal with the devil, to progress your career, is that you may end up with a demonically possessed fiddle, guitar or noseflute.
or ultimately, you may become what is possessing said instrument.
It’s where they put Michael Jacksons original face.
Nice worm reference. Currently reading it for the first time highly enjoyable.
See, see! I told you! The evil squirrel overlord‘s furry paws are behind this too!
Good luck chasing that squirrel. You’ll need it.
The secret is to have some big, imposing vault thing with all sorts of security measures. Then have the actual valuable items just sitting in a janitor’s closet down the hall. Unless dealing with a very tidy thief the items will be perfectly safe.
Or you can just hide them under the sink in a truckstop restroom.
And risk catching some flaming acid itchy festering Andromeda strain when I need (and finally remember where I’d stored) my doomsday device?
No, I’ll just build a box ringed by a multitude of laser all pointing inward. btw, did anyone on the design team think to check which armageddon mcguffins are going to be hit when those lasers miss their target in the center of the vault?
The wall tiles look to be made of pop-up-weapon resistant stuff.* It is certainly what I would tear up, to use as a shield, if I found myself “BLOORSHED” into there.
* The lasers look to just be ‘rangefinder/ scare the intruder’ type devices, rather than ‘cook the intruder’ weapons. I think the actual weapons are splatty giblet spreading types.
more targeting/ target designate lasers than range finder (invisible pulsed) and may have high power cooking setting for use if needed (m2a3 can cut down trees with optional targeting laser used to guide smart munitions)
Cooter was the rock they threw in to trip the booby traps.
Okay, who had that square in the betting pool of Likely Redneck Deaths?
Just to be picky about it, since the pop-up defense lazers (yes, they spell it that way) are all pointed towards the center, can’t aim behind themselves, and are spaced away from the wall, couldn’t someone simply walk around the edge of the room behind them all?
The ones on the wall opposite you can still shoot you.
The ones next to them can shoot behind them. Plus if they have no target, but are obscuring one, a sensible program would have them un-popup, so the rest of the room gets a clear shot too.
That’s what the wall turrets are for, the one between the top two doors, with the slidey-openings
Light Amplification by Ztimulated Emission of R.
Seems legit that someone at some point would forget it’s an acronym and try to brand their own tweaks to it.
Lazer is a phonetic spelling. I blame the acronym makers for their poor pronunciation and lack of cheap frills.
Rrr Rrr
*stimulates Rrr*
RRRRR! RRRRRR!
*Ztimulates
Bah, I will have nothing of these zombiesms. You get one minor apocalypse and it is ‘z’ this ‘z’ that and ‘BRAINS!’
Brainz…?
I have this really really weird feeling that every single thing that is about to be fired at our lovable blood covered redneck will be completely and utterly useless as they only fire at their designated weakness which… “ordinary human” is not one of them.
As explained further up the page: anything that can eradicate a supernatural can also eradicate a ‘normal’ because there is nothing special about them
Exactly, but as I said I think every single weapon is tooled to take out a specific threat. They fire only upon detecting that threat and nothing else. Thus when he appears and the vault scans him it detects “ordinary human” and thus nothing fires…
A silver bullet is still a bullet.
Target is not lycan. Silver bullets not fired.
so the standard bullets loaded for neutralizing mortal mages that his entrance into the vault tricks the system into thinking he is, still dead and faster than a spell shielded mage would be.
Target is not magically infused. Spell slayer ammo not used. Please continue.
Target gained entry through non-official means, target can not be correctly identified as a supernatural, FIRE EVERYTHING!!
Alright, how many of these things did they prepare to fire at the same time? How many of these will destroy the object directly next to it since they were not planned to fire at the same time? What happens if they just remove cooter the second everything fires?
Like said: if they can’t successfully identify the type of intruder, rather than doing nothing it does everything
They can’t simply remove Coot the second everything fires, as he is physically there, and to remove him that way would involve repeating the process, and cereally doubt it is quick nor easy
For some reason i thought the vault would be bigger.
It is, but only on the outside.
This is just the antechamber: note the doors leading to the bad stuff
If he was a Australian, he could have said “Bloody Hell!”
Works for most English-speaking countries.
A bit more common than “Bloody death by pop-up-gun turrets with laser range-finders”.
Only thing I could think of that would -moderately- increase security beyond this is some kind of key that just gets you in the front door at all, the front door being some kind of dimensional pocket thing so that even finding the physical location is a pita. But as mentioned some of the artifacts serve actual good purposes, and their side effects are what make them dangerous, for some of those you gotta keep them on this plane of existence I’m sure. Others you probably can’t stick into a portal or pocket dimension for the same reason putting a portable hole in a bag of holding is a bad idea…
After all of those though, there’s only one reason to not do that, and that’s to get easy access to them for one reason or another, and that seemed like, distinctly, not the purpose of this. I can’t imagine this is their only containment site, nor can I imagine there are that many artifacts that would screw around with dimensional hickery doo, have primary effects they need on this plane of existence, or they need access too (of course I could be grossly overestimating how rare such artifacts on earth are in general).
Ehn, what I’m getting at is it feels like you could make something in this fairly easily ‘it is simply straight impossible without causing far too much collatoral damage and possibly ruining the artifact you want to steal to open this lock in less than X amount of time.’
Putting stuff in a dimensional pocket seems like a good idea, until you find a being that can *see* in 10 dimensions, or whatever, and can find what you’ve hidden. Dimensional pockets are generally security through extreme obscurity.
*special star award*
best way to secure something is to make key easy to find but hide the door with the location of chamber somewhere other than where door is hidden (teleport to chamber by door) and not let any know where chamber is.
They did that with Ghengis Khan’s tomb. All the workers who built it were executed and buried in it. Then the guards who killed them were executed too, along with everyone else who knew the location of the tomb.
The only way of finding it was with a camel who’s calf had been killed and placed in the tomb. Up until it died. At which point the location was lost.
Bit of a problem if there is anything inside the vault you actually need.
Mind you Ghengis’s tomb will be one heck of an archaeological find if it is ever discovered. Loot from all across Asia and Europe. Every life extension and immortality alchemical preparation of the era (check the warranty on it first). All the finest technological advances of the era. Lots of poems about camels. Maybe some gold and other glittery stuff.
Man, almost makes me want to get into archeology just to find it, but you’d have to figure out where he stuck it. His homeland? one of the truly massive areas he put it in? The himilayas? China proper? His empire was so decentralized that trying to guess where it got put, or which of his sons had the responsibility of getting it all built, is stupidly huge.
There is one advantage, the fact that he was buried near to where he died. So it is not the breadth of the empire that need be searched. Although the area in question is still pretty big as ‘near’ is a relative term for horse nomads.
Blood magic, use him to draw fire the magic causes a feedback loop disrupting the defences inside the vault allowing Scions to make her withdrawal?
She might loose her deposit though.
I would make it so the whole area cannot be teleported into and is inhospitable to most known forms of life, for exsample have all the items in precisly form fitting sarcofegi and have the entirety of the vault filled with molten lead when not in use. There would be other things of course like rooms with collapsing ceilings with more weight behind them than the room itself… Honestly dwarf fortress will give lots of suggestions like one system for industrial demon killing where the demons path leads them through a twisty maze, when they have gone far enough it’s flooded with molten rock, since this won’t kill many of them next water if poured through the vents flash freezing the rock into obsidian and leaving the deamons in fourm fitting prisons miles from anything but rock. On that note if you make the access tunnel much thinner it’ll be much easier to defend.
I think a good way of keeping people out of the vault is making a decoy vault. It would be well hidden, but easier to find then the real one. It would also be full of death traps, and the dummy artifacts would also be traps.
Good idea, but would actually put a few real, but low-level, artefacts in the Decoy
I knew a DM that would put hidden compartments in things like chests and cupboards with a few trinkets in them. They were of course hiding other secret compartments behind them that held the really good stuff.
Yup, if you don’t find anything in secret vault, you are going to keep looking, but if you find a few items you will take what you can carry and leave
I wonder when the big metal teddy bears will be deployed?
If you go out in the woods today
You’re sure of a big surprise.
If you go out in the woods today
You’d better go in disguise.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic.
Picnic time for teddy bears,
The little teddy bears are having a lovely time today.
Watch them, catch them unawares,
And see them picnic on their holiday.
See them gaily dance about.
They love to play and shout.
And never have any cares.
At six o’clock their mommies and daddies
Will take them home to bed
Because they’re tired little teddy bears.
If you go out in the woods today,
You’d better not go alone.
It’s lovely out in the woods today,
But safer to stay at home.
For every bear that ever there was
Will gather there for certain, because
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic
CHORUS
Every teddy bear, that’s been good
Is sure of a treat today
There’s lots of wonderful things to eat
And wonderful games to play
Beneath the trees, where nobody sees
They’ll hide and seek as long as they please
Today’s the day the teddy bears have their picnic
CHORUS
*special star award*
If the Council was really smart, they wouldn’t even hide anything important in this vault. They’d just set this one up as a trap for people looking for their stuff, and hide the important stuff somewhere else.
This, incidentally, is why I don’t think there are or ever will be any alien spacecraft in Area 51.
Area 51 is shipping and receiving. Area 52 is for study and disassembly. Area 53(the nondescript storage building behind Joe’s Diner in Albuquerque) is for long term storage of the stuff deemed ‘way too dangerous’ at Area 52.
A two-for-one reference nice.
Three.
if you want an inpregnable vault,, only one way to go in my opinion,, temporal stasis the whole thing so that anything that enter it get frozen in time
Until you find someone with a temporal immunity. And/or control.
Yea no single-layer defense is ever going to stop all the supernatural and supers. As Sydney demonstrated with Lee-Press-On-Nails, most ‘invulnerable’ things have something that can overcome them. Whilst our Achilles does not appear to have such, his namesake did, in the form of his heel.
You need to have multiple types of defenses in order to find their paper to your rock.
And, even then, there is a limit to the security of any vault. Most rely on alerting suitable authorities and delaying the perpetrators as long as is possible.
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:05:56 GMT] Incursion detected.
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:06:01 GMT] counter-measures deployed
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:36:09 GMT] counter-measures failed, intruders not destroyed after 30 seconds
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:36:12 GMT] self-destruct activated
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:37:04 GMT] activate vault teleportation, destination: Sagittarius A*
[14-AUG-2017 01:13:38:02 GMT] teleportation complete – vault, contents, and intruders destroyed, or at least some other universe’s problem
(Sagittarius A* is the massive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy)
well at least you didnt go for Quantum unraveling.
He he.
Minor quibble, the date should be 2011, to remain consistent with the story. But that does seem better than allowing a vault full of apocalypse stuff to fall into the wrong hands (assuming appropriate precautions taken to ensure that feature will not trigger any of the appocoli)..
Let us hope that Sciona did not find a way of by passing that feature, whilst leaving it active for any first responders to trigger!
sooo… someone detected the giant metal vault that would be visible to pretty much any geo-magnetic survey, or ocean mapping sonar in the last 30 years.
Nope. The Veil conceals everything supernatural by replacing it with innocuous things. This vault most definitely is supernatural in nature (the magics protecting them from the pressure making it qualify on its own). The Veil does not just work on sentient minds but also alters sensors’ data.
DaveB indicated that Sydney’s camera does not contain any photos of a werewolf for instance. Most likely it just has Mr Fluffy in his human guise, pulling Blue Steel poses.
Likewise every survey that has passed this way will come up with a result of ‘these are not the anomalies you are looking for, in fact there are no anomalies, this is really boring, go look elsewhere’.
I have always wondered if a glamored Dabbler walking along a beach would leave footprints or hoof prints.
Hoof prints glamoured to appear foot prints for far longer than they should last with others walking on the beach
New title: The Reddest Neck.
Huh, blood portals. Wonder who they used as a source?
Deep Throat?
Building a vault to keep out all manner of supernatural creatures would be a serious pain in the ass.
I agree, but i disagree on the best way to achieve true security. Obsurity, secrecy and overkill are… usefull, but suffer from issue if/when you actually want to access it. The best option, in my opinion is actually the opposite. If there are people from all groups watching it in permanence then noone can access it without everyone knowing.
So basically, Gentleman Johnny Marcone’s vault from Dresden files.
Until you get someone like Krona who can re-write reality, with no other Council faction having any effective means of countering her.
No matter what you do, someone that can REWRITE REALITY with fuck up any and all of your plans anyway.
Heh. That is a generally good point. But this is where secrecy comes into play. If the reality bender is unaware o the hidden toys existence then they will not want to play with them.
I’d like this more if Cooter had some human characteristics.
“Oh, something bad happened to the ridiculous straw-redneck. OK. Glad we spent time establishing his wafer-thin character. Next scene.”
Actually, it would be pretty cool if he survived this. Perhaps if what we’re seeing were some kind of blood-golem projection of him, inhabited by his consciousness. What kind of person would he be after living through this kind o experience?
a very fun and interesting one, also lunch.
Not everyone is going to be well-established character with a fully fleshed out backstory that explains how they were just a poor flawed individual who only needed a hug, sometimes an arsehole character is just an arsehole character and a disposable character is just that (why bother building a backstory if they aren’t going to last long?)