This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Tree branch: check. Assorted lightweight seed-bearing fruits and nuts: check. Other seeds: check. Water bottle, for when she has to veer away from the river: check.
Better not linger in her starting place too much longer. Yellow's faster than her and may have already come home to a wreck. Thorn might have a habit of checking up on the place, even, just in case. She's invisible, inaudible, unsmellable - that won't help if he sends someone thorough. Or comes in person.
She sets out.
She's been flying for about thirty minutes after her shopping trip when she falls through a tear and squeaks inaudibly and lands in the middle of -
imeanforever
imeanforever
Promise makes gatepairs.
The capes don't care where the gates go in the infinitesimal space between Mortal Point A and Mortal Point B, so she scatters them around for her own convenience. One pair over the Steppes, for if she ever wants to go back to the Queenscontinent. One pair over an ocean she knows about, flying distance from a coast. One above a flock of sky-islands. One above part of the Valley Continent, farther than the Brockton Bay singlet gate from where she's currently making her home. One over the Flowerswarm. One over the Crystal Reach. Widely distributed phenomena distinct enough for her to have heard of them and make gates in relation to them.
There are two more instant settles, although no two of a pair have the courtesy to open at the same time. The others will have to wait.
"Oh, and if you must throw things through the gates to see if they're done yet, please don't use anything egregiously mortal, or local life of any kind. Pebbles. Anything interesting-looking could get someone trying to find the gates on purpose."
The capes don't care where the gates go in the infinitesimal space between Mortal Point A and Mortal Point B, so she scatters them around for her own convenience. One pair over the Steppes, for if she ever wants to go back to the Queenscontinent. One pair over an ocean she knows about, flying distance from a coast. One above a flock of sky-islands. One above part of the Valley Continent, farther than the Brockton Bay singlet gate from where she's currently making her home. One over the Flowerswarm. One over the Crystal Reach. Widely distributed phenomena distinct enough for her to have heard of them and make gates in relation to them.
There are two more instant settles, although no two of a pair have the courtesy to open at the same time. The others will have to wait.
"Oh, and if you must throw things through the gates to see if they're done yet, please don't use anything egregiously mortal, or local life of any kind. Pebbles. Anything interesting-looking could get someone trying to find the gates on purpose."
wormcan
Each recipient agrees to that. They were aware that these aren't literally between points A and B, and have no reason to want to increase the danger from the infinitesimal space.
imeanforever
Okay. So everyone is duly warned, the gates are all settling, and Promise should probably not go on her library trip until the rest of them have settled and they're all open in their pairs and operational. Does anyone have suggestions for what she should do with the intervening days?
wormcan
They don't strictly speaking need her here to test her master powers against Master powers, but she might want to see the results for herself.
imeanforever
...Yes. That would be sensible. And they do kind of need her there at some point before or during, unless they want the imprisoned capes ordered to use their powers, since that's currently all they aren't allowed to do. That and give Promise names she doesn't ask for from people who aren't about to directly attack her.
...
"All of these Masters are reasonably trustworthy in their own right? I assume, or you wouldn't want them around me and three supervillains."
...
"All of these Masters are reasonably trustworthy in their own right? I assume, or you wouldn't want them around me and three supervillains."
wormcan
"I don't know most of them myself, but they're all answerable one way or another. And this would be an extraordinarily stupid setting for them to suddenly betray us.
The best power I can think of for this would be Valefor's, but he actually is evil enough that we wouldn't trust him with this even were he available."
The best power I can think of for this would be Valefor's, but he actually is evil enough that we wouldn't trust him with this even were he available."
wormcan
One can give simple commands that the listener automatically follows, where resisting is possible but comes with a minor inconvenience. Another can make it impossible for the victim to take a particular action without fulfilling arbitrary conditions. A third can make listeners susceptible to suggestion, and then give them commands that they will obey even if it kills them.
imeanforever
Well, Promise is not going to accidentally die if they are mistaken in trusting Cape #3, and they seem comfortable enough with the intermediate possibilities.
And she's had worse.
But she gets ready to put her eardrums out if she doesn't like something she hears.
wormcan
They test it on Bakuda. In case it somehow ends with canceling all existing orders, she's the least immediately dangerous.
"We'll need you to give an order. Maybe any time I say go in the next five minutes, she is to raise her right hand and not her left. That way the order is coming from before she's affected by the power."
"We'll need you to give an order. Maybe any time I say go in the next five minutes, she is to raise her right hand and not her left. That way the order is coming from before she's affected by the power."
imeanforever
"All right."
To Bakuda: "Over the next five minutes, when the Director says 'go', raise your right hand, and keep your left down, for one second."
To Bakuda: "Over the next five minutes, when the Director says 'go', raise your right hand, and keep your left down, for one second."
wormcan
To the visiting capes: "Remember not to mention any real names, or cape names if they share any syllables. If you're unsure, don't use it at all."
imeanforever
"Hello," Promise remarks to the capes who aren't the first to be tested. "I hope you don't mind that I hope you can't get Bakuda to do anything."
wormcan
"Why not?" asks Cape #1. "It's not just a case of bragging rights, or they wouldn't have asked me to come out here."
imeanforever
"If they can be convinced I'm secure enough, I'm a Birdcage alternative, or part of one."
imeanforever
"The problem is that I'm a single point of failure, but if I just tell someone not to use their power, and then capes like, well, you three, can't counteract that, they're as easy to contain as any normal mortal. Frankly I'd prefer a model where I also told them not to commit particularly egregious crimes and then they could go do whatever else it is mortals like to do all day instead, but involved parties seem very set on this whole 'prison' concept."
wormcan
The other cape shrugs. "Maybe they think there'd inevitably be holes in the orders and don't want to upset what they've got."
#3 is still staring. "And there's a chance they'd go for this?"
#3 is still staring. "And there's a chance they'd go for this?"
imeanforever
"Only if they want me to keep catching supervillains, but they seem to want that. I'm seeing if the Director will keep her word to get Bakuda sent somewhere less obviously hellish than the Birdcage. Lung and Oni Lee may be a lost cause, it probably depends."
wormcan
"But they said Bakuda bombed this city. You'd do that even though she deserves it if anyone does?"
Capes numbers one and two switch out, the returning one reporting that Promise's orders overrode his completely.
Capes numbers one and two switch out, the returning one reporting that Promise's orders overrode his completely.
imeanforever
"Oh, the fact that she's really a terrible person means that I don't object much to using her for this experiment, but the point is to make sure she doesn't bomb any more cities, and anything to upset her beyond that seems... I'm not sure how to describe it. Objectionable, anyway."
wormcan
"And you can have a chance at keeping them out of the Birdcage because you know their names?"
imeanforever
"Sort of. It helps that I also have other powers they want access to and their ability to bribe me will sharply drop off if they can't accommodate my preference for decently treating people. I don't know what this will look like long-term - in particular, if I can be compromised by Masters... which should probably be gently tested as long as you're here... solving this problem will also involve having some way to keep me effectively away from any prisoners whose names I have once I've told them not to use their powers et cetera."
wormcan
It's #3's turn to hopefully have no effect. She goes in to the room with Bakuda and starts singing.