H.A. ~ Volume Two: Active Time Event (ATE) Thread

[AldrickZearse]

[ATE: An Alliance is Forged: 9]
[Day 10: Evening]
[Azrael: TWTNW: Where Nothing Gathers]

Azrael had handwaved with a nod at the 'clarification', but the next bit had him actually turn his head, staring directly at Adam. And then, with narrowed eyes, Azrael whispered.

"...I knew it."  

[phoenixianCrystallist]

{ATE: An Alliance is Forged .:. 10}
{Janex .:. TWTNW .:. Where Nothing Gathers}

Janex winked and blew a saucy kiss to Ezra when he used her for a handy example, before turning her attention back to the Broker—no, to Adam.

"I wouldn't say I suspected," she chuckled, leaning forward and resting her chin on her fisted knuckles. Her full lips stretched a little as she tried to hid her amusement, but after a second she gave up and let the grin out. "But I'm also not really surprised. Any other personas of yours we should know about?"  

[LevDa]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 11}
{Ashley :~: TWTNW :~: Where Nothing Gathers}

“So it was you that delivered my pizza,” Ashley laughed as she looked over at the robot. “I was going to ask what happened to that delivery guy and why they took so long.”

Ashley’s mind starting to spin with possibilities as she activated Scan as well as opened up her laptop again. Her fingers quickly moved across the keys before activating the laptop’s Scanner on the robot. Information began to flood into her secure channels that was quickly read before she once again looked between the robot and Adam.

“Well this is fascinating,” Ashley whistled before closing the laptop again. “That thing sure is a beaut.” Ashley’s fingers began to fiddle across the arm rest of her chair clearly excited at what was just revealed.  

[RhikoDemson]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 12 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Faust : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

[[Still Totally Cue: Glittering Star from SD]]

At the reveal, the only sound from Faust was from, once more, his cat. The shadowy creature giggled- this time with a voice befitting a small female child. Faust however, could be seen with a mild frown.  

[ArcanaFate]

[ ATE :: An Alliance is Forged :: 13]
[ Day 10 :: Evening ]
[ Ezra :: TWTNW The Garden :: Where Nothing Gathers ]

The Nobody gave a flat look to Janex, indigo eyes seeming dull and almost uninterested in her silliness. As Adam revealed that he was, in fact, the Broker, Ezra looked between the Broker Adam and Adam Daj, before letting out a small sigh.

"That is surprising. Although it makes a lot of sense. I guess it all works out in the end, though."  

[fractalJester]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 14 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Adam, et al. : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

The responses were far from hostile, so he took that as a good sign. Still, Janex pressed on with a question.

"Nnnnnnnnnn," he began, though his face began grimacing as if something were forcing him to do something uncomfortable, "nnnnnyes."

He brought his hand to his eyes as if to hide his shame before pulling reaching back and pulling his hood up once again. Then, after twisting his neck somewhat, he tossed the hood back--his face now gone, instead replaced with gold-scaled features and messy, middle-parted hair.

"Rrr~rumplestiltskin, at your service~!," he said, posing with his right arm raised and his left arm across his front, almost touching his right elbow.

"Oh. My. God," came the first response from Hati, who tilted her head back, rolling her eyes in (mock?) disgust. "Gross."

"Yes, yes, well--" He flipped the hood back up and down, returning to his proper face. "--desperate times, stupid measures." It was practically a defensive huff more than anything, but no genuine rebuttal.

"Moving on," he said, pointedly avoiding Azrael's gaze, "That's only point number one. If that made any of you uncomfortable enough with me to leave, feel free to do so."

He gave a moment for such departures before pressing on.

"Item number two--" He tossed two small accessories, one each to Janex and Ashley (assuming they remained). "Welcome to the fold. If you lack the memories, those are trinity charms: accessories that allow you to mentally communicate with anyone on the same charm network, as it were. Untraceable, with no distance restrictions, they will bind themselves to your dress spheres so that you might never lose them, though you can put them away if you wish to not be disturbed. The others all have their own already, so you're effectively the newest members to club whatever-this-is."

"Item number three," he said, beginning now to look around, a familiarly sly smile crossing his features. "Anyone interested in magitech super-suits?"  

[AldrickZearse]

[ATE: An Alliance is Forged: 15]
[Day 10: Evening]
[Azrael: The World That Never Was: Where Nothing Gathers]

Azrael's eyes squinted even further, somehow, when 'Rumplestiltskin' was revealed. He opened his mouth, then rightly closed it. Did he think something was fishy? Yes. Did he think it was actually Ajordam? God no. But it was slightly satisfying that Adam wouldn't look at him. And slightly aggrivating, but he took the satisfaction and ran with it.

The charm talk he ignored, he knew about those already. Item number three, though...that was something more...interesting.

"Consider me curious. Depends on what they do. So...what do they do? And what are the drawbacks?" Hopefully there were no drawbacks. But depending on what they did....

Azrael knew of magitek. From Terra's game. From Ivalice, he was pretty sure. So what was Adam leaning towards with these...'super-suits'?  

[phoenixianCrystallist]

{ATE: An Alliance is Forged .:. 16}
{Janex .:. TWTNW .:. Where Nothing Gathers}

A sharp bark of laughter escaped Janex before she stifled it by clapping both hands over her mouth, though her mirth was still evident by the sparkle in her eyes. Because of this, it was a miracle that she actually caught the little charm that Adam threw to her. Of course she hadn't left, this was entirely too much fun! She spent a moment inspecting the charm, though Adam's third order of business had her perking up and paying full attention again.

"Is today Christmas and no one told me?" she asked. "Also, what Tall, Brooding, and Suspicious over there said," she added with a nod towards Az. "Not that I don't trust you, of course."

Bobbi's memory databank said that Magitech was from Final Fantasy VI, but a super-suit? That wasn't something familiar, and even still Janex preferred to know what she was getting into. But it reminded her of the Incredibles, and she was approximately 0.68 seconds away from quoting Samuel L. Jackson if necessary.  

[LevDa]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 17}
{Ashley :~: TWTNW :~: Where Nothing Gathers}

“There was a Rumpelstiltskin in this universe?!” Ashley shook her head and smiled. “Man I must have missed that.”

Ashley quickly caught her trinity charm and put it on her wrist before she heard talk of magitech. “Oh my god,” Ashley almost shouted in excitement. “Magitech? Where? I need this in my life! Tech stuff is soo much fun!”  

[RhikoDemson]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 18 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Faust : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

"Honeeeey!" came the cat's voice, this time deep once more but loud and overacting, "Where is my super-suit?!" The laughter that followed was that of a child. Faust still said nothing, but couldn't help but crack a smile at his cat's shenanigans.  

[fractalJester]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 19 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Adam, et al. : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

"They do lots, and have effectively no drawbacks, though perhaps some personal preference issues," he responded, taking a few steps to the side and kicking his heel against the platform. A circular portion began to rise up, as if a tube, though it was almost completely empty--not even a glass covering. All that became visible was two crystal focii, one on the top and one on the bottom, and a shifting, amorphous gray mass no more than a basketball in size.

"With everything at our disposal, Daj and I have created crazy-advanced nanite technology. Some of you likely already know that just from your strolls around the castle," he said, walking around the floating matter. "What with the remodeling and constant buzz of activity. But part of that development has been pushing toward a means of upgrading our combined arsenals without relying entirely on magic or transhumanistic practices. Here I present the fruit of our labor."

On cue, the gray mass suddenly lurched toward Adam, enveloping him in a vast, spreading coat of peculiar, refractive material. Within seconds, though, it seemed to sink in and then... vanish entirely, leaving Adam once more standing in more casual attire (jeans, buttoned shirt, rolled sleeves).

"The suits synchronize with your personal brain wave and magical frequencies; as such, you can quite literally control them and their abilities with a thought. On top of that, the formative nanites act like technological stem cells--as in, they can effectively become what you need at the moment," he explained. One second, he appeared normally; the next, the once-invisible layer rose up and slid off most of his form, coming together to form thick, metal armbands around his upper biceps, showing that it could be on 'standby'. It then encased him once again, this time forming a sleek, black body suit. Then, with another thrum of motion, he looked like a purple-painted Iron Man--and showed off the functioning limb-jets by rising off the ground for a few moments. On landing, the armor once more seemed to sink and vanish, revealing Adam again. "This includes visual alteration. For instance, right now this is covering every part of me like a skin-tight suit--but you only seek my skin under my clothes. Combined with the dress sphere, that makes disguises significantly more convincing, such as--"

His face changed suddenly, appearing instead as Balthier, with his clothes changing to match. "Handy trick, no?" he asked, accent perfectly synced. Then he was Adam again. "Holographic capabilities, as well as voice modulation. The visuals are only projections, however--if you attempt to appear too different, you may need the suit to expend some energy and actually add mass where necessary, such as longer hair or such."

"Which of course brings us to powering the suit. How? No need! The nanites have two primary sources of power: light, and mist generation. At all times, the nanites have a back-up storage of photon-charged power, and beyond that, they each individually feed off the ambient magic of the world around them. At worst, you can simply charge it yourself! On the other hand, if you're ever drained of energy yourself, the suit can instead provide you its energy stores for use," he explained. "As far as other features go, the nanites are all connected to my network, meaning at any time you can reach out to Daj or search our databases for information. You can pull up a heads-up display ala google glass, auto-scan the area around you, interface with probably any other system, et cetera, et cetera. However, that's where the personal-preference bit comes in. If you don't like Daj or myself knowing your location basically as long as you have the suit, then you'd have to disconnect, which would cut off basically any network-based features and slowdown many other processes."

"Beyond that, paired with each suit will be your own Ghosts, capable of most of the computerized functions of your suit, and one extra: transmaterialization. Digitally transporting material across vast distances. Have weapons or tools you can't necessarily fit in your dress sphere pocket? As long as you have a connected storage area here in the castle, just think about what you want and it'll appear before you."

"Perhaps most concretely, though, is the actual strength benefit. These suits aren't just features; I could likely simply give you scanners or phones or something if that's all I was aiming for. As long as your suit is fully worn, your innate attributes are enhanced. It's a small increase due to its passive nature in order to conserve energy, but all the same, every facet of your personal abilities will be improved, from your potency to your survival aura and on," he explained. "And speaking of your aura: while wearing this, should you ever be brought to the brink of defeat, and your aura is broken, the armor will protect you from one last instance of damage, giving you a second chance to get out of the fray."

He paused, slowly inhaling, slowly exhaling. "There's honestly a lot of details to keep track of. I don't exaggerate when I say a lot of our processing power went to optimizing this set-up over the past couple days. Questions?"  

[phoenixianCrystallist]

{ATE: An Alliance is Forged .:. 20}
{Janex .:. TWTNW .:. Where Nothing Gathers}

"So, the nanotechnology I'm familiar with through Bobbi's memories also include a form of biotech, as in the nanotech can integrate with the cells of its host to facilitate rapid healing ordinarily unobtainable through normal human cell repair and regeneration," Janex said, her tone suddenly (and probably jarringly) serious. "It was also used in more than one instance to heal or prevent diseases, whether viral, bacterial, or neurological. Is that something your nanite technology is capable of currently, or would be capable of in the future? Because let me tell you," and now her tone was back to its usual jovial lilt, "that would be so freaking handy. Like if we get impaled or a limb chopped off or poisoned or something."  

[AldrickZearse]

[ATE: An Alliance is Forged: 21]
[Day 10: Evening]
[Azrael: The World That Never Was: Where Nothing Gathers]

He, honestly, was both amazed but also disappointed. It was less a suit and more an amalgam of...bugs. Well, he knew what it actually was, but he was honestly expecting something a bit more...oomph-filled. Perhaps he was too expectant on the magitek armor, with it's lasers and missiles.

...Missiles would've been cool.

But he had to admit, a passive power boost as well as handy camouflage...transmaterialization...those would be handy.

"Hrm, color me intrigued." The male was eyeing Adam with relatively neutral eyes, but there was an obvious 'study' level of focus. It would be just another augmentation. So he was leaning towards yes, but still considering it.  

[fractalJester]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 22 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Adam, et al. : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

"Well, your auras should prevent anything that terribly altering. Still, general healing is possible--two of their potential directives equate to life regeneration and energy regeneration," he said. "These are not passive processes, though, and must be activated. Only so many directives can be active at once, so you must be sure to balance their capabilities with your intentions."

"As far as microbial infection or macro-scale body regeneration, nanite tech is capable, just not these particular suits," he went on. "You'd have to come use some healing pods or something similar for something that minute or extreme, respectively. The energy requirements alone would probably drain the suit's entire back-up without some more direct connection."  

[RhikoDemson]

{ ATE : An Alliance is Forged : 23 }
{ Day 10 : Evening }
{ Faust : The World That Never Was : Where Nothing Gathers }

Faust sat in silence, his smirk had rested once more into a neutral scowl while the cat continued to sport a shadowy grin. They had nothing to add at the reveal it seemed, or if they did it was not something he'd share here. It could wait.