The MagCave, Restored

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Magtok
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The MagCave, Restored

Post by Magtok »

Every evil genius needs a place of relaxation and quiet, a place to hoard his stolen loot, a place to scheme and plot. For Magtok, this has always been the MagCave. Carved into the side of Mt. Enn, it served as his base of operations, living quarters, garage, and workplace. It has held damned damsels in distress, placed protagonists in perilous predicaments, and was once the fanciest-looking fortress in all of the Nexus.

For the longest time however, it had been abandoned. Magtok and all of his clones left the Nexus and their beloved lair behind. They built a space fleet and vanished into the stars, wandering across the cosmos for some nebulous, secretive purpose known only to them and their closest allies. A lot changed in their absence as they turned out the lights and left the cave to collect dust. Weeds and vines quickly swallowed up the foyer, deadly Mesozoic experiments ran wild through the halls, forgotten lab projects had no recourse but to eat one another to survive. Chaos, entropy and terror ruled the day in the crumbling, haunted fortress.

Years later, a brief civil war between clones within the star fleet left the Magtoks without functioning cloning vats or the infrastructure to build new ones. Their secret mission halted by this unexpected, self-inflicted brush with mortality, the MagFleet immediately hurried back home, sending down a scout to investigate the state of the Nexus and revitalize the original machinery that maintained their technical immortality. When that clone vanished under mysterious circumstances, they sent another. This clone has been considerably more successful, though not as much as the Space Hegemony would like. The beds are warm, the mutated wilderness and loose experiments may have been pushed back to the darkest corners of the lowest floors of the MagCave, and power has been rerouted to all of the basic essentials and creature comforts of our evil overlord, but the cloning vats are still non-functional even after all this time. Almost like that sneaky scoundrel of a scout set things up like this on purpose, like he's happy and thriving as the one and only real Magtok in the Nexus. Besides, the Nexus doesn't really need more than one Magtok, right? One is perfectly sufficient.

---

Deal with a Demon
Katherine smiles and turns back to Magtok. "Besides, even apart from that, you're our first pick as a potential investor. I won't pretend to know why; the people who make those decisions are a little further up the chain of command than I am. But hey, top of the list."
"I have a handful of guesses, but they're neither here nor there. All that I ask is that when Vigil is eventually forced to cooperate with you, if you somehow happen to be their liaison and Ilpholin isn't in the room, mention me, and rub their stupid noses in it a little. Not enough to get them to do something petty and violent, just to make them scowl and recognize how ineffectual and impotent they really are," Magtok smirks, reaching into his sleeve to pull out a checkbook and start writing some zeroes. We've been at this long enough, haven't we? He could sit here and ask her questions all day, but she's only going to tell him what he wants to hear. To get the real scoop, he'll have to do some digging on his own time, but while that's going on, innocent (hah) demons will be suffering and Vigil will be going un-mocked. If we had a functioning intelligence network apparatus, that would be one thing, but we don't, so who even knows how long it'd solve this mystery, to see which demons are at the heart of this and how diabolical their agenda truly is? No, better to just go with the flow and let this play out on its own. We can always make more money later, but this opportunity won't be here forever.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Ironsmith »

[Deal with a Demon]

"...I, uh... will do." Katherine smiles, though it falters slightly when she sees Magtok's hand continue to move down the balance line. Her eyes widen even more the longer this goes on, and by the time he's done, she's fiddling nervously with her collar, visibly intimidated again. That is a lot of money to have to worry about paying back. "Very... ah, generous of you, Lord Magtok, sir." She fumbles, still smiling shakily.

...Is she supposed to take the check from him? Or does he hand it off to her? Crap. If she does this wrong it'll send all the wrong signals. Maybe she should just turn around and leave now... she hasn't actually accepted the money yet, and until she does, she doesn't owe him anything.

...Screw it. Life's too short to turn down that kind of money.

The succubus smiles and pulls Magtok into a hug, tail wagging behind her like that of an excited puppy. "Thank you so much." She whispers.

At this point, Magtok might notice that he can't feel the blazer, or any other fabric on her. The resulting sensation is likely more than a little awkward.
Who're you? ...Don't matter.

Want some rye? Course ya do!

Here's to us!
Who's like us?
Damn few,
And they're aaaaall dead.
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Magtok
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Magtok »

Deal with a Demon

"Ms. Amici," Magtok manages to mutter, trying to politely but firmly discourage her from persisting with this, hoping she'll realize the state she's in and awkwardly withdraw on her own, without any need for scolding and scorn from the cyborg. He holds both his arms in the air, keeping them aloft so there's not even the faintest possibility of them accidentally touching her. Jeez, that's an emotional display. Was her organization that hopelessly broke until just now? Is he this detached from a normal person's perspective on money? Did he become that one Arrested Development meme and not even notice? Who knows, maybe succubi just can't help themselves, maybe it's different cultural norms, maybe she's literally the sin of greed poured into a vaguely humanoid form and just seeing that check is like ambrosia for her, but either way, Magtok has no intention of rolling the dice here. We're not getting caught in a compromising video or photo again. We are not getting drained, seduced, or robbed of our soul, either. You'd have to be a special kind of stupid to play with any demon, devil, or vampire before you know what rules they're governed by, and that's not even getting into the fact that we have a wife now, who definitely hasn't agreed to anything like this.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Ironsmith »

[Deal with a Demon]

"...Sorry." Katherine withdraws from the hug and nervously fiddles with her hair. "It's just... this means a lot, you know? I'm sure a simple 'thank you' isn't enough to, ah, express my gratitude." She smiles. "For that matter, neither is a hug. But that's all I've got offhand." She clears her throat and holds out her hand for the check. "But that's... outside the realm of business. We can talk more about that later. For now, I have a charity to get back to. They're going to want to hear the news as soon as possible."

If Magtok gives her the check, she'll give one last smile and leave the way she came.
► SHOW SPOILER
Who're you? ...Don't matter.

Want some rye? Course ya do!

Here's to us!
Who's like us?
Damn few,
And they're aaaaall dead.
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Reinholdt
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Reinholdt »

[?????]

The courier looks at the address again. Mt. Enn, really? No wonder there were so many places around like Inside. Could they all be blamed on this one landmark's pun? Probably not. Especially not such a famous landmark. Or dangerous.

Fortunately, it's not like he has to stick around. The instructions were very clear. Put the package down on the front steps, ring the doorbell and run. Or walk away. Or whatever, delivery complete. Will he ever get another chance to meet THE Magtok though?

... Eh. He's got other mysterious no return address deliveries to complete. This package wasn't even that exciting. He sets it down, pounds the bell a few times and walks away.

Said package now waiting is no more than a simple bouquet of flowers. A dozen Black-Eyed Susans carefully arranged with a little folded card.
To Magtok on the front.

Bloodsong's Oasis
8:30
Dress nice.


Those words waited on the inside, part of the message overlaid with the faded lipstick of a kiss. The person who sent these sure is making a lot of assumptions! Like Magtok gets the message, is free at 8:30, or that he even has anything nice to wear.
► SHOW SPOILER
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Magtok
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Magtok »

[?????]

The door shifts a few minutes later, and a solitary mechanical claw extends out from the darkness of the cave, extending five, maybe six feet in length before its palm locates the bouquet and letter, and drags them both into the shadowy depths from whence the skeletal appendage originated, scraping along the ground before it vanishes away from sight.
--

What the hell is this?

Bloodsong's Oasis?

A lipstick kiss on the note?

A kind of flower that is specifically noted to be toxic to cats in its online encyclopedia entry?

Was that supposed to mean something, or were they simply the flowers that happened to be in season at the time?

Eh. Either way, they're all going into a furnace along with the card, so it doesn't really matter who or what can't eat them. Well, okay, scratch that, most of them are getting dumped into the furnace. Two of them are being repurposed and placed in a glass vase to decorate the kitchen. It would be a waste to throw it all away, but two should be safe enough. And hey, while we're playing it safe...
--


"Hello?"

"Hi, this is the scout. I have a date."

"Congratulations." the voice on the other end of the line drips with insincerity, and the scout can't help but smile in spite of himself, choosing to beam with smug, silent pride for a few seconds, rather than immediately correct the chiding voice in his ear.

"Look, you know this is a secure line for emergencies only, right? You can't just call to brag about your wife."

"The lipstick on the invitation isn't Caelynn's."

"Okay, so? I don't care who you're cheating on your wife with, that's still not an emergency. You have to actually have something for us, you can't just-"

"The invitation just said 8:30, Bloodsong's Oasis, dress nice," the scout explains, his tone shifting to better communicate the gravity of the situation he's found himself in. "I'm going to call her clinic to make sure she's not being held hostage, and one of you guys are going to wine and dine our mystery date and figure out what they're up to. If it's just some random admirer without any leverage, none of our kids locked up or any figurative knives held to our collective throat, you're free to get up and go. I just want to be sure there's nothing at stake."

"Nothing except the lives of one of your clone brothers, you mean."

"Oh please, don't give me that.You can handle yourself in a fight just fine, and I know you're sick of those stale space rations. Just put on the stupid suit, let me know our family's safe, and then you're free to do whatever the hell you want, okay? Kill the date, seduce her, set them on fire, I don't care, just have fun, okay? And I'll have your cloning vats reactivated by December if you straighten this out for me, I promise."

"...fine. I'm haunting the shit out of you if I die because of this stupid date, though."

"Love you too, bye."
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Thursday Violist »

Harley Zorzo arrives at Mt. Enn, looking for the secret entrance to the MagCave. It's been long enough that she doesn't remember exactly where it is, but she's sure that as soon as she sees the landmarks nearby it, she'll remember and recognize it.

She would've called ahead, except...she broke her phone some time ago and never got Magtok's phone number again.
...
...
Actually, now that she's here, she realizes that she should've just gone through official HALO communication methods to get in contact with him. At the very least, she's pretty sure Rein would've had a way to contact him.
. . .
Oh well.
Rein's already watching Manja, and she's already all the way here. Might as well go through with it, and see if he has heard anything in his shadow network about who was behind the attempted kidnapping. Or, at the very least, if he has any machines here that can determine where the would-be-kidnapper's robots came from.

Presumably, after tripping one or two 'intruder approaching' alerts, Harley Zorzo does manage to find the secret entrance and knocks on it. And rings the doorbell.
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Magtok
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Magtok »

The 'secret entrance' used to be switched out every few weeks when this place was whole and fully staffed, with the entire foyer rearranged and rebuilt whenever it suited the cyborg's whim. It was very likely that Harley's attempt to find the door could've tripped a trap or freed some kind of terrible monster from its cage back in the day, and that this kind of probing about would've put her in terrible peril, or at least seriously inconvenienced her.

These days, it just means Magtok has a few extra minutes to make sure he looks halfway presentable and doesn't have anything incriminating or scandalous lying around on the floor. He's not really sure why she didn't just knock on the front door on the other side of the lair. Showing off that she still knows a secret or two? Ignorance of the main path? Someone pulling a prank on her? Is it possible that we only ever told her of this side entrance, and that her strange choice is entirely our fault? Hrm.

"Ms. Zorzo. Or is it Mrs. Terenti now, maybe? Is the cat still using that last name? I'm sure he probably has a few others," Magtok remarks from the other side of the door, speaking through some sort of intercom system. He immediately shakes his head, dismissing the irrelevant little quibble. It doesn't really matter what surname she uses in this day and age. She's still Harley, and even if she's one of the cat's lovers and mother of his child, our mutual history with the Association dictates at least a sort of congeniality and civility. She's still a friend, or at least an acquaintance, and if she came all the way out here, there has to be a good reason for it.

"Never mind, not my concern. What brings you all the way out here?" our isolated evil genius asks, the door slowly unsealing itself, rumbling along like a massive stone barring the way to an ancient tomb, trundling on its worn track back into either side of the wall. Magtok wasn't expecting visitors, so there wasn't really any time to tidy things up, to organize an elaborate spectacle or make the lair presentable and exciting again. On the other side of the door is just a bare, empty MagCave foyer with an open telewarp gate at its center. Within that gate, one can see an almost aggressively mundane living space within, with wood paneling on the walls, a shag carpet, a few family photos, trophies, and knickknacks on the shelves, and finally our cyborg on the far left of the room, one arm held to his mouth to enable him to speak through his intercom, the other elbow-deep in the exposed ribcage of...an astronaut? Why is there a dying astronaut in their chunky Apollo spacesuit lying on the floor in his living room, with a big bloody hole in their chest? What was he even doing before she got here?

...You know what? It's probably best not to ask.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Thursday Violist »

Just like Harley has forgotten about where, exactly, this secret entrance is, she also forgot that a front door actually exists. So, Magtok doesn't have to worry: it's not his fault she's going to this side entrance.

Mrs. Terenti.
If Magtok can see her face through the door, it's pretty apparent that particular pair of words had never actually crossed her mind before with respect to herself. "Zorzo. I...I will talk with him about that," Harley says. Honestly, though, she should probably stop going by 'Zorzo' anyway since it's kind-of silly to still be using a particular last name halfway out of spite.

She looks in the opening door. And sees the astronaut. "Sorry: I would've called ahead but I lost my phone and didn't want to distract Rein from HALO business..."

Harley steps through the now-open door.
She considers asking if he needs help with the astronaut, but then figures he probably has it handled. If he didn't have it handled, he would've called someone else over to help.
So, instead, she gets to the reason why she came here: "Well...my daughter was almost kidnapped," she says.

Harley starts pacing, trying to decide where to start. Rein and Kitty and Obriane? No, Harley already forgave him and, besides, Magtok doesn't need Harley's insecurities all vented and dumped on him and it wouldn't feel right to bring that up to anyone who's not involved, especially after it's been hopefully resolved.
Okay, she decides, she's going to just start off at the facts. "Um, so. It definitely wasn't a crime-of-opportunity and was very much targeted considering the kidnapper knew where Rein and I would be and was specifically prepared to target a specific shapeshifting weakness both my daughter and I share, and came prepared with several robots that I've managed to capture a couple, -" She starts rambling, but stops pacing. "- and you're probably the smartest guy I know, and you know both a lot about kidnapping and about robots, too..." and she has no idea who the kidnapper was, why they were targeted, or how they knew so much about her and/or her daughter.

"And, well, I -"
She looks at the astronaut-person again.
"Well, when you're less busy, I was wondering if you had heard any talk about it through your connections, or if you think you could find out anything by examining the robots."
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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"Busy? Oh no, I'm fine. This guy's already dead; it's not like he's got an important appointment or meeting he needs to-" Magtok is rudely interrupted by the astronaut's chest rising and falling, a shaky breath contradicting the cyborg's every word on the subject. With a frown, he scowls back at the spaceman's chest cavity, quietly making a small incision to prevent the jerk from interrupting him like that again.

"As I was saying, the grotesque alien parasite is dead, so let's get back to talking about you," Mag insists, standing back up and wiping his bloody hands with a damp towel, which hopefully won't be used for anything else ever again. Jeez, what kind of space parasite keeps a body breathing in a state like that, anyway? And why wasn't Magtok wearing gloves for this procedure; is he trying to get infected or something?


"Now, to summarize, you have the attack robot remains, you know this was someone who either studied up on your specific shapeshifter species, or someone for whom it's common knowledge, someone who knows your people well or is a shapeshifter themselves. You know they had intel on where and when you could be found, where your daughter could be found. You know their priority wasn't killing you or your child, but to kidnap the baby. That suggests they either wanted to blackmail you for some grand and terrible scheme, or they needed a shapeshifter baby specifically for some foul purpose. Maybe training her to be their assassin, maybe sacrificing at some dark god's altar, but probably not because people like that usually don't use robots to do their crimes," the tin man muses, leaving a slightly bloody print on his chin as he considers the nature of the crime.

"You can show me the robots if you want, but all the signs are pointing to this being a family matter, or if not that personal, something in that general ballpark. Do you have a vengeful twin sister, a bitter stepmother, maybe a fiancé you left at the altar? A clan of shapeshifters you betrayed years ago? Did you agitate a rich guy with a specific vendetta against shapeshifters?" Mag asks, throwing a few random and wild guesses out there. This shapeshifter weakness can't be that well-known. I mean, if Magtok doesn't know what it is, it must be a secret, right? It's not because he's ignorant and paid way less attention to Harley's existence than he thought, it's obviously because shapeshifters guard this critical information closely, and successfully keep it hidden away from all but the most obsessive of outsiders.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Thursday Violist »

The reason why he doesn't need gloves is clearly because....some reason.
There's been times Harley was wishing she were wearing gloves when she did things. For example, not getting infected by three separate mutagens at the same time would've helped make her pregnancy easier.
Unless Magtok wants to have to simultaneously deal with alien parasite infections and pregnancy, he probably should wear gloves.

Harley nods, and grabs things from her purse. Two little robots. Shiny chrome, one is a robotic cockroach and the other is a robot gecko. Very futuristic, from their design, and one is broken from being stepped on, and the other is crushed and pierced from her hand. Clearly powered down, but also designed to run on some kind of energy that's not quite electricity. The lizard one has broken sensors of every type, and the cockroach has a broken hologram projector.

Wow, he was able to get that much out of just those few sentences? "Everything you're saying makes sense, so it's likely true."
She looks down, wishing she would've been able to deduce all that herself.

"I've got a younger sister and a bitter mother," Harley says. She puts in some deductions of her own, however: "But, honestly, the most technologically-advanced thing in the world I come from is a space heater, never even seen them use a light bulb. Unless they're working very closely with someone in the Nexus, I doubt they even know what a robot is, let alone the ability to make hologram-illusions or force fields or anything like that."
She thinks a bit more about another possible group. "The assassins that have occasionally come after me since AMEN constantly fail to comprehend what my powers are, anyway, so it's probably not them."

Harley gets back into pacing around, as she tries to think through any other groups of shapeshifters it could be. "Well, technically the knowledge of the weakness could be almost anyone from my home world because of the intense anti-shapeshifter prejudice, but...then that runs into the robot question. And here in the Nexus, I've actually been pretty careful about keeping my distance from other shapeshifters."

"Who else would have known? I...I think there was one person who might've figured it out. Back when AMEN wanted to confront ex-members, they sent another shapeshifter after me who then got weirdly obsessed with me and who thought it would be funny to trick people into think he was my nephew...but that was several years ago and I'm pretty sure they've been stuck in dead time since. And..."
She stops, and looks at Magtok.
"Oh, and I did tell Rein, because of how easily he could accidentally reveal it. And, obviously, my daughter knows and takes advantage of it whenever she has a temper tantrum but I've been making sure to wear gloves whenever I leave my room with her so hopefully nobody at GLoG or HALO has found out... Speaking of gloves, like Magtok, Harley isn't wearing any right now either.
Harley sighs.
"So I guess that does open up who could have done it to either my family, or potentially someone really close to one of his clones. Am I missing anyone?"
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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"My gut says it's probably family. I don't think Reinholdt really has any serious enemies left alive who aren't me," Magtok remarks, before frowning uncertainly, wondering if he shouldn't have said that. Was Harley under the impression that Mag wouldn't vaporize her lover and all of her lover's clones at the push of a button if it was an option? That it was all water under the bridge and he isn't still quietly harboring hopes that he might live to see all that the cat has torn away and ripped to shreds by calamity and misfortune. Well I suppose that particular cat is out of the bag now, if it wasn't already. He turns the robo-roach around in his hands, smearing blood on the broken machine as he squints closely at its hologram emitter. If he fixed this thing back up, is it possible there might be some sort of message or record left behind? Instructions for whoever sent these robots, or maybe a GPS equivalent that can be used to trace its last known location before the HALO attack? Hmm...

"It wasn't me, if that needs to be said. Nor was I contacted by anyone out to get either of you, which is honestly a little disappointing. Would've been an interesting scenario, caught between my contempt for your child's father on one side, and common decency and nostalgia for AMEN on the other, forced to choose whether to keep a secret to hurt Reinholdt or spill the beans to protect a child." A fun little thought experiment, wherein Magtok gets to either embrace his reputation as a sneaky, double-crossing traitorous bastard, or play the nefarious smiling crook who knows more than he's letting on and was never really on your side at all. Win-win for us, and a huge pain in the neck for everyone else involved. Yes, too bad Harley's enemy didn't seek him out; he could use a bit of silly drama like that every now and then.

"Also, my bots run on electricity, not...whatever these were operating on. Some sort of magical alternative? An exotic sci-fi juice? Hrm. If there's any sort of memory files in these things, I should still be able to rip it out, plug it into a computer, and get some answers, but these robots are weird, and I can't guarantee anything until I've popped them open and examined them in full," he shakes his head, already at work trying to unscrew and open up as much of the roach as he can, to separate and identify as much of its contents as one can manage without knowing what world any of this stuff is from.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Thursday Violist »

It's pretty fortunate that Magtok doesn't have such a button, actually.

Harley sighs as Magtok examines the broken robots. "I would've preferred it if you were involved. Actually, part of me was hoping you were behind it, because at least then, I would know what to expect. As it is, I don't know the how, I don't know the why, I don't know the who, I don't know what they wanted...only thing I know is a what Rein could see from the kidnapper, and that they failed but got away." So for all she knows, it'll happen again.
...
She thinks a little.
"If we can figure out what their goals are and where they hang out, it should be easy enough to spread some rumors that direct them to you for whatever kind of revenge they're looking for." Harley gives a wry smile. "If that happens, then you could also add 'torn between wanting to reveal yourself as a double agent or as a triple agent or that you were just playing both sides the whole time' to your scenario."

Harley looks at the broken gecko robot. "To be honest, I know basically nothing about robots. Biology's more of my thing, really."

As Magtok takes apart the roach and starts sorting it, it becomes pretty clear that the parts are all an eclectic and assorted group of parts, all from different origins. Many of them even ought to run on electricity, such as the AM radio receiver that's mostly undamaged but also isn't connected to any other parts, but they've been jerry-rigged to all fit together. They weren't intended to work together. And, of note, there's more parts inside the roach robot than there is space for all those parts, suggesting some kind of spatial compression or something along those lines.

Most importantly, there's even something Magtok in particular would be the expert on: a small number of the parts are even derived from Mag-tech, with tells and design features that reveal that fact. Almost certainly nothing he's ever seen before, considering they come from the future, but a few of the parts do seem to follow his design philosophy.

And, yes, there's memory on the device. Of course, it would require ripping it out and putting it into a computer to find out about it, but it's clearly there. Most of the memory is comprised of a black box of an AI designed to perform simple tasks and follow orders, and the rest of it is a mix of holographic recordings of random things (and of Harley's daughter sitting in a chair), an encrypted list of signals to respond to, broken code for combat data on a much-larger robot, lots of contradictory and partially-nonsensical metadata, and hard-coded instructions on how to determine if someone is a shapeshifter or not. On the whole, it seems like a mix of work done by someone who knows really well what they're doing, and all patched together by someone who has no idea what they're doing.

"I do wonder what kind of person would design their robots to look and act like small animals, but then also make them a shiny silver and a glowing pink so they can't hide at all," Harley comments.
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

Post by Magtok »

Magtok shakes his head. These machines are so much stranger on the inside than the outside, so much that doesn't make any sense when he plugs the machine's memory into a port on his left arm. Why is it like this? Who would deliberately choose to build their drones like this? It couldn't be Raven, right? She wouldn't pick a fight with her own...half-sister? Cousin? Half-cousin? The cat's clones makes everything so weird and nonsensical. Probably not Raven, though. She would've stuck to her gimmick and made zombie robots before choosing to build anything like this, surely. Plus, why would she know anything about how shapeshifters work?

"I don't believe this was made by someone who actually knows how their own technology actually works. One of those...what are they called? Tinkerers? Artificers, I think? The people who use magic to make their technology, but without a fundamental understanding of their tools and components. They used some sort of nonsense to make this robot bigger on the inside than should be physically possible, which you wouldn't have to do if you just made some of these parts within smaller, or just made the robot itself a little bit bigger. They did a decent enough job programming it to go after your child, but there's something weirdly schizophrenic about its construction, like they just dug through a scrapyard and looted anything that looked mildly relevant, and then stole..."

Magtok squints at the machine's eye. This is precisely the sort of artificial eye he would've built, except with a few years of minor improvements and hardware upgrades he hasn't gotten around to designing yet. Where the hell did they get this? Did that one rogue MagClone faction start selling machinery to get by? Did someone lead a Magbot down a dark alleyway and then spend the last five to six years studying and trying to improve upon its design?

"I don't want to say that these robots are from the future and that someone stole from Future-Me's scraps to build this, because that sounds absolutely ridiculous and overly dramatic, but it seems just a little more plausible than I'm comfortable with. Is your daughter planning on becoming an evil overlord or blowing up the Nexus when she grows up? Doe she have some sort of agenda that might inspire time travelers to try to stop her before she-no, she's a child, what the hell am I asking that for," Magtok sighs, rolling his eye at his own stupid question. If there were obvious signs that Harley's kid was plotting the downfall of man, surely she would be a good mother and put her daughter in time-out or something.

"It's stupi-wait. Glowing pink, you said? Like Reinholdt's eyes when he's doing that weird fae magic thing? You think there's a connection there?" Mag asks, another dozen or so ridiculous theories dancing around in his head now just because of that one color. Could it be another ReinClone? Do they not all get along with one another? Does Rein have other kids who might be trying to preemptively thin out the herd to claim a greater inheritance when the stupid cat is finally gone? Maybe alternate realities are involved? Is that weird fox guy or his kids a part of this? Bleh, nothing is ever simple with that dumb cat, is it?
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Thursday Violist
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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Harley turns the other robot over in her hands, trying to see how the "smaller on the outside" deal works with it, and she tries to move a piece out of the way. "To me, the biggest difference between technology and magic is that I don't really get tech but also think it's really interesting, and I understand magic better but think it's awful and gross. I don't think I could tell the difference if someone used magic to make tech or just made it normally."
She accidentally breaks off the robot's leg.
Oops.
She . . . tries to put it back.

"If they did steal future-you's scraps, then that might explain why they didn't want to go to you for help, maybe, because then you'd notice, but you're right that would be really overly dramatic," Harley says. She walks closer to the dead parasite astronaut to get a better look at it. "Or maybe I'm just reading too far into it."

She thinks over what Magtok supposed. "No, she probably won't become an evil overlord. If she were, why would they be trying to kidnap her instead of harming her? Rein mentioned they even put some kind of force-field around her."

She bites her lip, and keeps on thinking. "I mean, there's other pink things besides Rein." She turns to face the cyborg supergenius. "Isn't there a goddess of pink or something in the Nexus?" But this is just her not wanting to entertain that connection, which she fails at doing: "...okay, yes, it was a similar shade of pink between the robot and him when he's flying. Probably not a connection, but I'll bring it up with him to see what he thinks. The only ones who saw the kidnapper up close were him and maybe Ki-" She stumbles over her words for a moment and freezes up, because she thinks if she mentions Kitsuki's name, Magtok would be able to figure out where they were - at the Bellamy household - and maybe even why they were there, which she would rather people not know about.
"Well, he was the only one who really got to see the kidnapper up close."
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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Magtok raise an eyebrow. Harley is withholding information. She (understandably) doesn't trust us with the full picture, and is just feeding us the parts of the story immediately relevant to our specialty as the neighborhood robotics guy. Whatever she's hiding, it's probably nothing substantial, nothing he could glean any meaningful insights or theories from, but if she for even a moment thought he wouldn't notice that-

What the heck is a Kitsuki?

Doesn't matter either way, though. He doesn't particularly care enough to do more than give Harley a small frown and make it clear that he knows that she's keeping secrets. If she has private business that she doesn't think is relevant to the attempted kidnapping, or whose secrecy is too important to risk even in the face of would-be child abductors, that's her problem, not ours. Much as we'd like to be nosy and unpack this further, we have to keep in mind that if we don't keep all of this nonsense at an arm's length, if we latch onto the mystery and dedicate our time and resources towards solving it, eventually we're going to be forced to go visit HALO and have a discussion about it with the cat. It'd just be a matter of time, and it'd be the most irritating and useless conversation in his life, the first half of which would be wasted going over all the reasons why the abduction attempt couldn't possibly have originated from the cyborg. Not worth the trouble and aggravation, no matter how fascinating and exciting this story might be.

As for the spaceman, there's no immediately obvious signs that this cosmonaut once housed an alien parasite. Nothing aside from the massive gaping hole in his chest, but that could've been Magtok's own surgical work. How would you tell if he was cut open from the outside or the inside first? It just looks like an ordinary ribcage, and the face is obscured by a fogged-up helmet that...wait no, if you look really close into the transparent helm, you can sorta see something vaguely human inside. A pair of yellow eyes wink back at Harley.

"Well your husband's been on a lot of adventures, raided a lot of weird tombs and whatnot. I think you ought to ask him about how many enemies he's got that aren't dead yet, and once you've put together a list, you can start going door to door and figure this thing out from there. It's either that or wait until the mystery assailant strikes again, I guess. Oh, but if the next attack involves machines fused to zombies, or any sort of cyborg undead at all, tell Raven her dad says hi and to stop taking shortcuts in her robotics designs. It might get the job done, but it instills bad habits that will compromise her machines' efficacy later on. If you can spare a moment while fighting for your life and the safety of your own child to talk to her, I mean. I don't think it's her, but she's going through this rebellious phase where she thinks she can conquer the world all by herself, so I can't say for sure this isn't part of some diabolical scheme to bend HALO to her will," Mag admits, with just a tinge more pride in his voice than is appropriate for one talking about how their daughter is a deranged psychopath bent on taking over the world with zombie bots.
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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The frown doesn't phase Harley. She knows he knows she's keeping part of the story a secret, and she's sure that he knows that....
Well, she's going to stop that train of thought there so it doesn't get lost in circles. When it comes down to it, though, she's pretty sure that she's not interested in talking about relationship issues and at the same time if Magtok found out what it was, he would also be uninterested in it beyond just throwing an obligatory jab or something along those lines.

She looks at the spaceman a bit more.
She starts suspecting it's not actually a parasite infecting a spaceman, so much as a life form that pretends to be a spaceman. And, just in case, Harley takes a several steps away from it, without taking an eye off of it.
Well, either that, or it's some kind of parasite that can control dead bodies, which sounds like the perfect setup for a horror story.

"Huh. Yeah, putting together a list of who it could be and narrowing it down one-by-one is a remarkably useful strategy," Harley says, mentally berating herself for not thinking of that either. "If robot zombies come next, I'll make sure to pass along that message," she promises.

She sighs, and then puts her hand on her head.
"You need to stop being so good at making things seem obvious in retrospect. It makes me almost not want to tell you that your parasite astronaut is still alive because you probably already know that." Harley says it like she didn't just tell him right then, and starts already thinking about this list of who to investigate and ask if they were involved in the kidnapping.

"...well, I'll leave the little robots with you, just in case you manage to find out anything else. Knowing it's possibly someone from the future, using some kind of maybe-magic robots is already a lot of help."
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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For all that Harley might be berating herself for not thinking of this or that, and thanking Magtok for sharing his perspective on the issue, the cyborg himself only sees failure. Insofar as he can tell, he's offered no solid leads for her to chase, no major threads of the sinister plot untangled. He shakes his head, dismissing her praise before lifting up his heel and stomping down on the space monster's neck with it. Stupid thing just doesn't know when it's lost the battle, does it? It twitches and writhes under the cyborg's boot, clawing uselessly with its bulky padded fingers, but the villain refuses to let up.

"Ugh, stupid alien. I'll drop by HALO or call if I hear anything or the robots reveal some major secret I haven't uncovered already, but don't count on it. As much as I'd like to have more to offer you than vague conjecture and weak guesstimates, I've been staying indoors a lot more lately, and I don't think I'm likely to have any other unexpected visitors this month, so you'll probably have this matter all sorted out before you hear anything back from me. This cave isn't quite as bustling and frequently invaded as it used to be. In fact, I've had to start inventing exciting and dangerous problems of my own instead of waiting for others to create troubles for me," Magtok remarks, sounding oddly...proud? Not lonely and forgotten in this dank cave, but glad that the world has chosen to leave him alone, that he can do his weird science in peace without dumb cats or apocalypses or international politics or mercenary organizations making demands for his time and energy. The process of achieving this kind of tranquility was surprisingly simple, too. All it took was not leaping into every fire headfirst, arrogantly stumbling into every major event that would accommodate him, standing up on the world's stage with his name writ in giant flaming iron letters behind him.

"For example, this guy here was actually supposed to be a new kind of shapeshifter I was working on," Magtok explains, gesturing towards the astronaut, whose ribs seem to be slowly sharpening themselves and slowly creeping closer to the foot pressed against its neck. Maybe Mag finally found the monster's secret weak spot, though, because as much as it strains and tries to curl inward to pierce the cyborg's leg with those ribcage-teeth, it can't seem to close the distance.

"A new breed of augmented MagClone that could effortlessly infiltrate anywhere I felt like infiltrating. Sadly, it wasn't keen on being a part of anything more sophisticated than hiding in dark rooms waiting for people to walk in and get eaten. Escaped containment and ran amok for a day and a half before we identified the imposter lurking among us. Not exactly the success story I was hoping for, but also not the kind of adventure that would've happened if I'd been busy chasing cats around or feuding with Dipsnig or Wenomir or whatever. Anyway, take care and keep your kid safe. A drone will lead you to the front door if you don't remember the way back."
"You probably found 'How to Survive a Robot Uprising' in the humor section. Let's just hope that is where it belongs."
-Daniel H. Wilson
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Re: The MagCave, Restored

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"At least you did give me a starting place," Harley says as a consolation prize. It is more than she had before coming here, plus he managed to get her mind to calm down enough to think through it all, which is definitely a benefit.

She bites her lip.

She's actually happy for Magtok, that he's managed to be proud of only having his own self-made problems instead of others'. "Actually, since I've been spending most of my time between HALO and GLoG with a kid, I've had fewer assassins and vengeful spirits and weird elves after me. Even AMEN's stopped sending solicitors to me, though I suspect that's because they stopped being...well, a thing, rather than anything I've done." But, honestly, she still really wants to have another big duel. She's sure she could maybe find a way to have another fight with Wenomir, but a pointless duel isn't really her thing. "I'm sure I'll get bored of it all in a year or so, but hopefully by then I'll find some way to get an adrenaline fix."

She looks down at the now-probably-finally-dead MagClone shapeshifter.

She's suddenly glad she didn't offer to handle it. After all, other shapeshifters are technically her biggest weakness. "Sounds like a pretty fun experience."

Harley looks back at the way she came. She can't remember the way back? This is just an underground labyrinth, not a lair! is what she first thinks, before thinking through what he had said. Of course she remembers the way she came in, so..."Sorry, I thought I had came in through the front door," she says. "Thanks," she says, before she looks around for the drone, and follows it out.
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