01/01/2010 | 22:33 - 10:33 PM
Location: Abandoned Trainyard, Northern Brockton Bay.
"And... done." Dropping the last piece droplet of the blood of his enemy into the bubbling pale green liquid within his enormous, person-sized cauldron, the man who had just killed somebody smiled. The person who had just tried raping a corpse- yes, gross -right in front of him, the corpse of a woman he had killed himself, hanged from a meat hook right by the ceiling of the abandoned factory that led directly to his evil lair. With a grin, he gazed at the cauldron as the liquid started to be absorbed by the metal, seeing the rusted metal lose its rust and become a proper copper cauldron. "Oooh, what upgrades do I get?" If you're thinking that he's weird for not feeling bad about killing somebody, let me just say, he is fucked up.
Trauma does that to you sometimes, and
[Your Cauldron of Monster has been upgraded to the E Rank!]
Immediately, he received two points- He already had [Goblins] and [Slimes] as his first F-Rank monsters, with him also taking [Compliance] and [Supply] as his F-Rank Sigils- Let me show you their descriptions—
[Goblins]
Takes 1 second to produce.
Tiny, weak, things, hovering around three feet tall. Emerge with, and know how to use, primitive weapons; stone spears and bone clubs. Actually fairly clever, but wholly uneducated beyond the necessities of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
[Slimes]
Takes 2 seconds to produce.
A small blob of animate gel, about the size of a human head, capable of secreting an exotic acid that can (slowly) dissolve through anything. Can reform to an incredible degree, becoming less than a centimeter thick. Bullets and blades don't do much (except in extreme quantities), but a single blow from a club can splatter them beyond repair, and fire is rapidly fatal. Doesn't understand orders well beyond "go here" or "eat this".
[Compliance]
Normally, your monsters are fully obedient to the letter of your commands, but may misinterpret them accidentally, or willfully if they consider themselves mistreated.
This ensures every monster your Cauldron of Monsters produces is fully loyal to the cause, and that their interpretation of your commands leans very closely to your true intent. You may modify the general mentality of each variety of monster your cauldron can produce. Even without this, your monsters will never directly harm you unless directly ordered to do so- misinterpretation will not let them kill you.
[Supply]
In addition to monsters, your Cauldron of Monsters can produce supply packs.
In the time it takes to summon a monster of a given variety, it can also produce 250 supply packs, each sufficient to sustain a monster of that variety for a single day. Unopened supply packs can be automatically teleported to monsters in need of them, and will not decay. Your monsters will always be extremely clean and hygienic.
—and now? Now he had completed the upgrading ritual to take his Cauldron of Monsters from the frail and weak Rank F to the not much better Rank E. The ritual was quite simple, actually, it only required him to feed the cauldron the "blood of his enemy", as in, singular enemy. So he found somebody he didn't like, ie this weirdo who killed a woman and was going to rape her corpse, and decided "Hey, you're my enemy now!" and sicced his two hundred (at the time) Goblins on his ass! They dragged the guy to the abandoned factory he had taken refuge in, whereupon he told his green guys to make a crooked meat hook and used it to hang the corpse of the guy to bleed it all into his cauldron! The more it filled the cauldron, the hotter the liquid within bubbled until it became green and then it vanished, completing the ritual.
And now he has two new points to use. "Hum... Don't really like the monsters, but I do like the sigils, might as well take two." He took two E Rank sigils, [Telepresence] and [Artifice], mostly because the first granted him a wide network to work with and the second granted him a proper use for resources that he could gather. He knew that he couldn't exactly hide three thousand and six hundred goblins in an abandoned factory forever, so he is planning on quickly and switfly establishing a safe territory for himself, and have his monsters make better gear too. With [Telepresence] he can keep an eye on his base even when not present, and with [Artifice] his little monster friends will start producing better gear with worse conditions and resources.
[Telepresence]
A psychic network links every monster and you together.
This network can be used to store and exchange information in any form, including text, speech, and snippets of sensory data. You may mentally control your Cauldron of Monsters, activating, deactivating, and modifying its production from any location.
[Artifice]
Your monsters are significantly better at all forms of crafting.
Though they still need tools and infrastructure, it does not have to be as good (clean rooms for making electronics can have a bit of dust), and though they still need materials, they do not have to match perfectly (ordinary stone can be used in place of iron ore, but still needs to be processed into ingots).
When high quality tools and materials are actually used, the power of this aspect of Artifice is instead directed to a general augmentative effect, noticeably improving effectiveness. So long as any one of your monsters knows how to craft something, so do all of your monsters, at least to a basic degree.
All crafting and manufacturing mostly operated by your monsters runs at double speed.
He could've taken [Hardening] or [Intellect], but he decided he would take those after his next upgrade to Rank D, which he needs to.... Huh, establish a base and offer five enemies to the cauldron. "Well, that can be arranged..." He turned to look around, the floating screen before his eyes faded from view as he concentrated- immediately, he could see through thousands of eyes, listen through thousand of ears, and feel through thousands of hands. It was overwhelming for a moment, but only a moment, as his mind easily adapted. He gave orders with a thought, spreading it through every Goblin like a tidal wave, they were to tidy up this place and make it cleaner! The night was still young and he needs to establish a base quickly, because he knows what world he's in! He also separated three different goblins, naming them Bingle, Bingi, and Bongo and telling them: "Guide the slimes, they're instructed to keep moving forward and eating their way, making a cave. You are to push them around with these-" He gave the rusty metal pipes: "-in case they get lost."
"Yes, boss."
"Sure thing, boss."
"Will do, boss."
One by one, the three goblins went down the slime tunnel that was being carved- every two seconds a slime would slide off of the cauldron by his side, and crawl their way into the tunnel too. It was a tunnel big enough for him to go through without having to kneel or feel claustrophobic! He is not a worm to wiggle and writhe at the embrace of the earth, so that he shall not do. He eyed the cauldron as yet another slime crawled their way out of it, only for yet another to do the same two seconds later- it wasn't as chaotic as watching globs of green be spat out like snot from the cauldron, fly for a second in the air and vanish, only for a goblin to appear right next to the cauldron and the process to repeat itself every second- that was quite chaotic, and also what taught him that he could determine the trajectory of where the creature he summoned would go.
Like the slimes, he told them to go dig a tunnel, so every slime would come out of the cauldron knowing to do that- he told every goblin to move and give space to the others as they appeared, then he told them to use their spears and clubs to look around for anyone, once he knew he was alone in this place he told them to stay to the side.
But seriously, having 3,600 three feet tall little green men with spears and clubs wasn't quite fun- they took too much space! So he had the slimes go down, at least a few feet down- about twenty or so, before he started to use them to make an underground chamber where he told the goblins to make their own homes inside. So, he had about 300 Goblins at the factory, 3,297 goblins down at the underground chamber, and three goblins following the slimes as they went further down to create an even bigger, wider chamber to house more goblins and whatnots.
"Probably should think about building security..." He will limit himself to just this factory, can't bring down the whole city now, can he? He mentally turned off the cauldron, stopping it from producing slimes. He looked back at the "supplies", sighing a little... Well, he wouldn't starve, but he can't exactly live on berries for the rest of his life! Berries, enough berries to feed a single goblin- a whole box full of red, black, green, blue, yellow, pink, grey, and whatever other color these berries could have! The supplied he would get for slimes? Rocks, mold, bones. That's it. These packs neatly appeared every beautiful stacked little boxes big enough for a child to hold, that once opened, can't be closed anymore- And hey, they also have their monster types written on them! [G] and [S], for goblins and slimes! Oh, they also seemed to contain much more than they seem to, but once empty, the box will simply vanish. If opened and with their interior spilled out, the box will then vanish, leaving everything spilled behind.
So, uhm, he might have just cured world hunger?
Regardless, he had to stop the cauldron from summoning these boxes of supplies alongside every single monster, but he had enough food to sustain an entire kingdom solely on berries by this point! Oh, after the first few slimes, he stopped the supply line altogether- he had no use for stones, moss, and old bones. He happily gave them away to the slimes by dumping it all on them. He knew that other different monsters would give different supplies, such as meat, grains, and maybe even metal? Regardless of such broken system that broke the law of physics and conservation of mass, he now wanted nothing more than to upgrade his cauldron once more.
Time to get to work! With a single thought, he used [Telepresence] to call up a small squad of 10 goblins with him as he left the abandoned factory he woke up in- The full moon in the sky further hid them from prying eyes in its darkened shadows while also illuminating the dark streets, dark streets which public lighting had broken down years ago and had not since been repaired. In the dark of the night, he was guided by his 10 goblins who had better night vision than him, allowing him to find suitable sacrifices. Eight men, all wearing blacks and reds with dirty and tattered boots that had seen better days, all gathered together over an alleyway where chuckles and broken cries echoed out of.
He sent a single, lonely goblin down the closest alleyway, hidden, to listen in to their conversation- and what he heard made him smile, for he had found suitable sacrifices.
"-teaches you whores respect the superior race-"
[Telepresence] was great, because it was like a private internet network but only for his monsters. They could send each other text messages that appeared like floating screens that only they could see, could send audio recordings and photos to each other, and could even engage in something akin to video and audio calls, like a phone- But him? Oh, he was able to send them direct information right into the goblins brains, telling them what he wanted them to do without saying a word.
Crude spears flew, blood was drawn.
January First, Two thousand and ten. Eleven pm, Brockton Bay.
That was the night that Damien Dagon became the dreaded and feared Typhoon, King of Monsters.