Ashbringer

Cassie still looked carefully at NullBlade, but whatever seemed to have captured his worry had been replaced by the concern over whatever was making noise. Which was a fair worry. "That sound looked awfully like a small explosion, either someone decided to throw bombs near the hospital or this means there is a chemical leakage somewhere. In both cases we shouldn't stay here," he said, pausing momentarily before moving over to a small copper pipe and moving toward the door. "You're welcome to follow me if you want." Well, that was hardly a question, was it? Cassie turned to the still-somewhat-shaken nurse. "I'm sorry if I... overreacted a bit. Needles don't usually make me that nervous, but I... had a run in with some people with spikes in them lately. A distasteful art. Anyway, if you find anything..." she said, searching in her purse a bit. "Here's one of my business cards. You can contact me there if you need a followup. It's also a nice place to buy metal... if I can keep up the business." She frowned. "I hope I can. Thank you." Then she turned and walked to follow NullBlade. She didn't exactly feel like running, but he seemed to be delaying himself anyway. "You know, if you'd like a weapon that isn't made of copper, that's sort of my specialty," she said. @mathiau Hold it together, Byron. Okay. Reshilore and Vivica seemed to be occupying each other, drawing pictures of the... world spike? Byron barely knew what that was, although if Reshilore's nodding to the patient's depiction was anything to go by it was holding this world together. And Vivica had drawn a picture of... something with eight lines. The sun? Or... blast, they'd mentioned something earlier what was it. Something... out of... something. Didn't seem safe to guess. Victoria seemed to be nice. Placating Sanax while trying to reassure him. That was nice, although he could still feel Sanax slowly breaking something. Was he burning more cadmium than before? Was he imagining the sheets rustling a bit faster than they should when he disturbed them? It was like... not even like bendalloy. Not even a Steelrunner, really. It was... blast. "Ben, if you would like me to soothe your emotions, please let me know for how long and which feelings specifically. Your mind is a private thing, and I would not wish to trespass on any areas you want left alone. I'm here to help." Victoria'd noticed his... well, there were a dozen things she could have noticed. He wasn't any good at hiding what he felt. Fifty years in Kholinar didn't teach him, he wasn't going to learn now. "If you're not Soothing me already... I'm... well you can see." You need to say it, Byron. "I'm a bit too nervous. Having that go away would be nice. At least most of it," he finished. It didn't seem like a great idea to admit that the time-defying entity standing in front of him scared him half to death, and whoever they were probably deserved the fear. Then there was Vivica, who seemed just as terrifying with none of the aspects to pin it on, it was just her. Her and her disconnected optimism. "And... it's Byron. Technically. I don't know how much the difference matters anymore," Byron added. "I doubt whoever does records has either name. When I got here I was frozen. Stuck in time. But... that... Sanax... he's walking around like nothing's happening." What had happened? Something'd attacked him, and either rewired his cadmium to overdrive or had freaked him out enough to literally scare him stiff. And it reminded him of the darker snakes he'd seen, which nobody seemed very concerned about... except... "Do you know if someone from the Scholar's Guild was here today? For some somewhat urgent reason?" @Fatebreaker @ZincAboutIt @18th Shard

Ash decided to be fair and c o n s u m e d an asteroid.

Ash wasn't hungry.

Well, Ash had no idea what a Quarkbeast was, so there.

I’m also wondering if they’d be in charge of concealing / directing view of the DA civil war itself if it becomes more apparent. But I also don’t want to step on HR’s toes, because… well, it’s HR.

So... does anyone know what a Department of PR for the Dark Alley would even do? Is it much more different than any PR department for any slightly shady company?

So TL;DR, The 17th Shard is full of more than just a vaguely bloodthirsty baking association, and should thus not come across as such to newcomers? Looks at very Sanderson Elimination focused Sig

Breaths are mostly just useful in large quantities (at least for Characters), so I'd imagine it's still easier to get them from Nalthis than the Alleyverse. But I like the idea of a Nalthian descendent being born with a Breath. ... oh dear. Yes and no. I only joined Era 5, so I'm not sure, but here's what I know so far. The Alleyverse was created by Hemalurgically Spiking a universe with various Investitures, using the Worldspike - I think Voidus (player and character) was responsible for that. The Alleyverse is constantly somewhat unstable, with the Worldspike strongly protected from pretty much everything. At the end of Era 4, another strong being known as the Stranger created a new Worldspike using the art of Forgery, which rewrote certain aspects of the Alleyverse, notably diminishing the public knowledge of the Dark Alley to mere rumor to take the strain of the Alleyverse off of them. That Forgery is coming undone right now in Era 5, with the shadow creatures doing their best to erase returning memories of the Old Alleyverse. We're trying to figure out how the Forgery will be undone completely and what the consequences will be for Era 6. Right now we have Damaged Worldspike Investiture Limit + DA suddenly returning = DA civil-cold-war. Or something.

Ash was everywhere. Ash was nowhere. He'd never known Narration like this before. But it turned out, being Busy had its advantages. It gave him a new perspective. The Ash that was everywhere and nowhere began to smile. And something, somewhere, began to burn.

I like the lobby, unless we end up running into / saving Aln and Folorian. But the lobby's probably on the way anyway.

Oh! Fun. Question: do you want the explosion NullBlade + Cassie are hearing to be the lobby collapsing, or do you have something else in mind?

It's somewhat complicated What's "hanging" right now? Reshilore/Victoria/Vivicia/Sanax/Byron need to figure out if/how they're splitting up or doing something, NullBlade/Cassie are likely going to investigate an explosion (the collapse of the lobby?) and talk, Aln and Folorian are likely going to meet somewhere if Aln doesn't get attacked... I think Lita/Laureli/Ronald are sufficiently time-disjointed in the alleys but I'm not sure. The group of 5's probably the only one that can't sufficiently start a new day unless everyone goes back to where they were + Byron either leaves or stays checked in the hospital.

Great, now I have "OP Character" ringing in my head and want to give them an altered nex-im / Pursuer spike...

"I think so, I don't think the Alleycity has any kind of antiseismic norm so for all we know a bearing wall under us could have been damaged, or it could have knocked a than of dangerous chemical." Storms, NullBlade did look worried. Cassie had a little experience with earthquakes, but everyone had always called them harmless or just a remnant of the old land. Nothing like the Catecendre, for those who'd lived through it. So she wasn't entirely sure what an earthquake could do to a building, but NullBlade knew more about this place then she did. Something boomed in the distance. It didn't sound like a collapse... it sounded like an explosion, but muffled. Odd. "And we should definitely see what that was about," NullBlade added. Cassie gave a slight smirk. Just like old times, wasn't it. The nurse piped up. "I can't say I'd recommend rescheduling, but if you're worried then I'd be happy to relocate at least to see if there's significant damage. I'm... not sure what that sound was." He still looked shaken, but was a good nurse and hiding it fairly well. "Maybe just use the needle and see what you can find, and I can come back in an hour or so?" Cassie asked. "I'd hate to leave here without trying anything." The nurse nodded, looking at the needle in his hands. Almost... no, that wasn't it. He moved over to Cassie's side, and she chanced a burn of iron. The needle didn't show up. Aluminum. That was... good, she thought. Unlikely to be a... rusts, why was she worrying about a spike? Could they even be that tiny? "Hold still," the nurse said, and slowly pushed the needle forward, then drew it back out. Cassie still winced. There was hardly any blood... well, that wasn't too unusual. Although the metal was somewhat larger than a syringe. "Alright... I'll see if we can do anything with that measurement. Should give a sense of how deep the transmutation is, but it's certainly there somewhere. I didn't hit bone." Cassie nodded. She wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it hadn't been a miracle. "Alright," she said, putting on a smile. "NullBlade, did you want a chance to talk, or are you more worried about that sound?" @mathiau

Question: how would you allocate points for a character who would reasonably have NPC bodyguards? Because I do actually want to make a DA Department Head of PR, and I'd like them to have less powers on their own (right now I'm leaning towards Smoker + Stormlight-healing Spike) but a good score for skills + access to NPC bodyguards (probably just a randomly generated spiked Misting or Surge-user as an aide, with someone more powerful like a Dahkor or more thouroughly Spiked individual within earshot, but I'm not really attached to anything). I suppose even a newly-appointed Department of PR Head could reasonably go through the OP character route, but I've been looking for a more skill-based character anyway.

Ash had no idea what a Quarkbeast was. It sounded better than a withergiest though.

I don't know how to make tea properly... last time was interesting. On the plus side, I learned that thermoses really are good at keeping things at a high temperature for hours.

I would love to make a character who's Head of Public Relations who got that position by the rest of PR looking at each other and going "Okay, they probably won't kill that one".

Yeah, Voidus is up to Voidus To elaborate - if the DA decides to cut the Department of R&D, for some reason, then R&D likely has enough resources to break the limit of Investiture and take everyone else down and end the universe. I don't know how accurate that case would be for a Department actually in danger of being completely cut is (or if being cut means violent experimentation or just a reassignment to another department (or a reassignment to another department via HR )). But I could see some departments refusing to cut down and ordering smaller ones to, and then smaller ones forming together to create a large enough coalition. ... maybe that's just the plot right there. Normal people could come from the DA attempting to cause mass genocide in order to stop all the Alleyverse citizens from blowing off excess Investiture with their newfound Alley Talents, but there's probably a better way... ie DA Departments recruiting external forces to act in their interest so they're not directly opposing each other.

I'm not entirely sure what Voidus' reaction to being released from the Forgery(?) will be, but I think there's a good enough argument there that cooperation could be tenuous at best. I like this idea, but it does come with the large problem of Cold Wars, in that most departments have a WMD in the form of giant Investiture sinks. That might be less of an issue if the Department Heads have gone deep enough into research to fear their own annihilation more than subservience, but idk if that's true of enough of them. Could be a good catalyst for initial tensions, but depends on a lot of the DA changing over, which could be hard

Maybe something in the Alleys - the Worldspike or not - is the source of the new powers, and the different departments want to control it? Like some ReForged being that acts like the Stormfather accepting oaths or contracts or something?

Brainstorms are always fun

I like this idea. I also like there being more than just two "sides", at least to start - it'll probably end up with two alliances because that's how things tend to go, but starting out with more sounds good. Sales, R&D, Acquisitions, and Alleymatics would be the main three I can think of that would be interested, plus Aylitha, but it might be nice to involve more factions that just Voidus vs Stranger. Or maybe Department of Alleymatics would end up dissolved early on as the "initializer" to a full-blown cold war. Non-DA guilds would probably have a stake in learning about / controlling the new abilities too (especially Scholars Guild and Ghostbloods, to separate extremes).

... maybe a lot of Investiture Suppressors But fair point. I don't really know enough about the DA (yet).

Maybe a proxy war? At least to start. If the heads are battling for superiority, I doubt they'd start to personally risk themselves for a while. Plus if the Alleyverse is suddenly full of Investiture suppressors, then overcoming ultimate power is a bit less daunting, and the heads might want to ensure those suppressors are firmly under their control. As for other guilds... a fractured DA could probably make alliances (whether through alliances or cookies). How'd the 7 Day War end up as the initial lines? From what I remember the guilds had a set war that sort of dissolved once the DA panicked and unleashed whatever they had.