Respite 8.7

2005, July 10: Lordsmith, Babylon

I spent Sunday with Riley. I woke her up at the crack of dawn so we could begin stretching before guiding her through some of the basic forms of Shojin kenpo.

According to the Shojin monastic tradition, it was customary for initiates to climb the mountain and dedicate themselves in full, giving up all earthly attachments. Barring a few exceptions, they weren’t likely to descend the mountain for years, until they proved themselves well-versed in the philosophical teachings of the temple and were trusted to conduct themselves wisely.

As such, there had never been an acolyte as young as Riley. Joining the temple was a choice, one that was not made lightly nor in haste. The Eye was young, but even she wasn’t six.

Thankfully, I had no intention of following everything in Shojin tradition. My own martial art was a cobbled-together mess of Shojin and Wuju anyway. However, that did leave me with a bit of a conundrum: I was unsure just how far I could go with her so I did my best to be gentle, incorporating little games like Simon Says into our training. My morning workout was no longer a workout for me, but seeing Riley tired but happy made it worthwhile.

Perhaps I’d copy a shonen trope and make myself some weights to train with. That way, I could drag myself down to her level and we’d both have our training.

I then led her through Lordsmith and Neverland as I’d promised, introducing her to some of the biotinkered and magical plants and animals there. Each time, I drew on the course on ethics Eugene forced me to take in DC, reinforcing the way each creature fit into the local ecosystem and why they were made.

The truth was, Riley would never have a normal understanding of bioethics. The “sanctity of life” was well and good, but Riley was someone who’d violate said sanctity no matter what she did. So, with her power in mind, I decided to focus her education on “usefulness” and “belonging.”

The goal wasn’t to curb her tinkering, not really. That was an exercise doomed to failure. If anything, she’d likely come to resent me and sneak some projects on the side should I restrict her too much.

No, the goal was to teach her prudence. By showing her how the broader ecosystem worked, how each creature was useful for humans, and how the humans of Lordsmith cultivated the world around them, I hoped to instill in her a sense that living things required a purpose, a function that allowed them to fit with one another like puzzle pieces. I wanted to shift her perspective from the individual to the broader ecology and the wholeness it represented.

It wasn’t perfect. Life wasn’t perfect. But it was a start.

I then left her to her own devices before going off to make more Worldstones and Wayfinders. By evening, I’d finished inscribing the runes on the model of Quebec City, which meant the seven biggest population centers in Canada would be added to the network.

It was time to expand, maybe set something up in Western Europe for better collaboration between the Meisters, Kingsmen, and other heroic groups there.

Come evening, I set up several of my dragonfly drones around Lordsmith before setting out different dishes atop the chimneys. The “fae” didn’t visit every night, but it would be good to keep watch.

X

2005, July 11: Phoenix, AZ, USA

“No,” I said, putting my foot down. “Absolutely not.”

Glenn Chambers, because the last PR director got sacked during my nap, looked back at me in confusion. He blinked owlishly, trying to register that, yes, a thirteen year old just told him no and he’d just have to live with it.

“But why not?” he asked, almost but not quite a whine. “The premier of Last Christmas is exactly the kind of thing you should show up for! No one but a handful of the organizers will know. You’ll be a surprise guest. They’ll probably expect some rich fat cat or an A-list actress and then, BAM! Hyunmu! Back from the dead! It’ll be perfect! You can show up in a cloud of mist, do some tricks for the crowd a bit-”

I cut him off with a flex of my mana. True Ice warped the air around us, drawing clouds of mist from his breath even in the toasty Phoenix summer. “No. I can’t do anything about it existing, but I refuse to condone something that romanticizes an endbringer attack.”

“That’s not what it’s doing-”

“That’s exactly what it’s doing, Glenn. I lost friends there. I refuse to condone some bullshit docu-drama glorifying the way my friends died.”

‘We could convince him,’ Wolyo growled in my mind.

‘Perhaps witnessing his own end will make him appreciative of those who have gone before,’ Farya mused.

They didn’t care. Not really. The Kindred cared not for the morality of man. The end was the end, simple as. I knew this.

And yet, they were responding. I was as much part of them as they were of me. For a few minutes above the skies of DC, I became death. And now, my own humanity was bleeding through to them, however slightly. It was sweet in a way, but the last thing I needed was to have to explain to Rebecca why the Wolf ate her PR director.

He must have seen the dangerous look in my eyes, or perhaps the touch of the Kindred was more tangible with my irritability, because he backtracked quickly. “Fine, fine, no movie premier. But maybe we can have you visit the Wards in different cities? You being back is a huge deal, Hyunmu. Wards membership shot up because people admire you, especially the younger kids.”

“So what? What do you want me to do with them? I have no experience in leadership and me just showing up and telling them what to do would just undermine the local leadership.”

“You’re right, but your presence would raise morale in itself. Go on a patrol or two. Be seen around town. Take down a few of the local bigshots. That’ll keep most villains’ heads down, the smart ones at any rate. And if the Wards have a tinker in the city, maybe mentor them a bit?”

I thought about it. Patrols weren’t long, not when I could move at silly speeds. I’d rather not play hopscotch through the country however. “I’m open to the idea, but I refuse to visit every city. Let’s prune the list to the ones that have one of my former teammates: Phoenix, San Francisco, Albuquerque, Brockton Bay, and Jacksonville sounds fine.”

“How about Seattle? Wonderla-”

“Wonderland can go die in a fire. Bitch abandoned civilians and ran through the Wayfinder before closing the gate after her.”

“S-She did?”

“Yes, I was there,” I said with a glower. Inside my soul, the Wolf growled a warning. I made a note of it. He chased those who “fled from death” and I could feel his influence on me begin to stir. “I understand her fear, but that doesn’t mean I respect her. If she didn’t want to help, she should’ve at least turned the Wayfinder over to someone who would have stayed to keep the gate open.”

“Okay… Not Seattle then… But those five cities are a little… small? How about the cities of the Triumvirate on top of that?”

“Pass. They don’t need my help.”

Glenn looked like he wanted to argue but let out a defeated sigh. “Fine, as you wish. I still think you’re not using your image to its fullest potential.”

“And that’s fine. I have more pressing tasks in mind.”

“Like what?”

“Adding to the Worldstone Network for one,” I said dryly. “Feel free to hype that up as much as you please, without requiring my presence for ribbon cutting ceremonies or whatever.”

“Well, I can’t say you’re not busy at least.”

“Quite. Good day, Glenn.”

“Wait, will you at least consider a PHO AMA?”

“An Ask Me Anything thread? Sure. Actually, I do need to formally introduce Riley to the world, don’t I?”

“You do. Your mother is a very public figure. Her adopting the last Slaughterhouse survivor raised some eyebrows, though Director Lyons has kept the paparazzi away for the most part.”

“Understood. I’ll host that at some point.”

“Don’t take too long. Meanwhile, I’m going to start hinting at your return. You’d be surprised at what a few words in the right circles can do.”

“That’s fine. I don’t care so long as I don’t have to be involved. Until next time, Glenn.”

X

2005, July 11: Hyunmu’s Lab, Babylon

I looked over the hextech capacitors I’d made before the coma. Next to it was a coolant I’d derived from True Ice, along with plates of a petricite alloy that was many times more durable than conventional metal and virtually immune to most expressions of powers. All of it, it was supposed to be part of the Galio unit, a hextech titan that towered over Behemoth.

There was a time when I thought that the best way to counter the endbringers would be to have a drawn out slugfest with a mecha of my own. That was how all the protagonists did it, right? Gundam? Guren Lagan? Pacific Rim?

Should all else fail, the original plan was to have my Galio unit grab and hold Behemoth while Hero used Stilling to destabilize the core. With enough shield emitters crammed into the mech, it should be possible to neutralize Behemoth’s final explosion for whenever he converted his own core into a nuke. Or, at least, we ought to be able to minimize the blast so as to not lose an entire subcontinent to the fallout.

But then came the Mask. It was my focus, proof that I was a card-carrying member of the Kindred. It was also the single greatest offensive ability I had. Barring the personal weapons of the Aspects, or perhaps some of the other spirit gods, I couldn’t think of a single thing from Runeterra that could claim to be its better.

‘We are greater,’ Farya muttered, her usual melodious voice almost petulant.

‘I think you’re a tad biased,’ I told her.

But whether the Kindred were superior to the Aspects or not, the point was moot: I already had my silver bullet, the thing that could kill an endbringer. Building anything else for purely offensive reasons was a waste of time; I didn’t need more killing potential.

After all, what could stop Death?

Which was why I was in my lab now, rethinking Project: Galio. A mech didn’t need to be a source of firepower. It could also be an invaluable support unit. As mighty as the Kindred were, they couldn’t do lots of things. They couldn’t heal, protect, scan for threats, coordinate allies, nor evacuate civilians.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

With Dragon online already, I wouldn’t have to worry about coordination or reconnaissance. Which meant I should make a mecha that could help protect, heal, and evacuate civilians, a sort of all-purpose tool that was useful both in and out of endbringer battles.

‘In that case, does it even need to look like a human?’ I mused to myself. I took out a notepad and began to sketch idly.

‘Why protect them? They will all meet their end in time,’ Wolyo growled.

‘Because their end doesn’t have to be at an endbringer battle. Or any other tragedy. Humans should be free to seek their own happiness.’

‘So long as you do not postpone their passing indefinitely.’

‘Never,’ I said, and meant it. Introducing immortality, even if I could, sounded like a truly horrible idea. Modern society wasn’t quite ready for that kind of fantasy bullshit. ‘Any ideas on the design? Maybe I should make a giant sheep?’

‘Your mockery is noted and unappreciated,’ Farya said.

‘I mean, a wolf would clash with its protective purpose. Wolves are predators after all. But a sheep? Hmm…’ I briefly shared my mental image with them, a towering, mechanical lamb that stood head and shoulders above some indeterminate city skyline. On its back were cannons that lobbed bundles of poro-shaped wool through the air. Where each landed, the woolen balls formed protective spheres around the people.

‘Hehehe,’ Wolyo laughed, a rumbling, scratching sound.

‘If you wish for symbolism in your creations’ aesthetics, use your own sigil, you foolish human,’ Farya huffed. I could feel her flustered indignation through our bond and I sipped at it like fine wine. Who knew? Farya was weak to mockery.

Then again, I doubted anyone else had the sheer nerve to poke fun at her before. Or if they did, they probably didn’t get to savor the achievement.

‘Alright, fine, fine, sorry. I’ll stop. You’ve got a point anyway; a turtle would be thematically appropriate.’

‘I do not tell you to create in the likeness of a turtle for simple amusement. You are Kindred. Let your name resound.’

‘Figures. The stronger my legend, the stronger you are, right?’

‘It is so. Those who pass on will know your name. Every soul we guide will empower us. Should you become more like us, our presence in the mortal plane will tax you less.’

‘Fine, but where do they all go?’ I asked curiously. I’d told Joseph and the children at Lordsmith that there was a River of Souls, but I didn’t actually know myself. Then, with more worry, ‘Please, please don’t tell me I’ve been sending people to the Runeterran death realms. Oh, god, I haven’t been sending them to Mitna Rachnun, have I?’

‘Of course not,’ she sniffed.

‘Oh, good, because that’d be all kinds of fucked up…’

‘Indeed. Ochnun drives lesser souls mad.’

‘That’s not what happened to Mordekaiser. He remained and took the place over, didn’t he?’

‘And who said he is not mad?’ she whispered. ‘He believed souls will fade and deluded himself into lingering in a realm that is intended for transience. He is mistaken. They merely pass on.’

‘Well, that’s… good to know…? So, turtle?’

‘Turtle. A legend is easiest to manifest when there is a symbol to rally around.’

‘Alright, but I’m calling this Project: Gamera.’

‘We care not what silly name you give your toys, only that they advance your legend.’

And that was how I ended up designing a giant turtle-mecha. Truth be told, I had a lot of fun with it.

To start, I decided that Gamera would fly, its four legs flattening out into paddles when not on the ground. This wasn’t just a stylistic choice: If my mecha could fly, its size wouldn’t be constrained by the width of whichever city’s streets happened to be the theater of operations.

Lifting such a large construct into the air would be a challenge, but I’d already made White Walkers, my boots, that generated clouds beneath my feet. Making four, giant versions shaped like clawed, webbed feet wouldn’t be out of the question.

Second, the overall form would be that of Hyunmu, the Black Turtle of the North. Its tail would be serpentine, both to better reinforce my legend and so I had a place to house a literal army of drones.

The idea was to build oblong, diamond-shaped drones that could overlap along the length of a central “spine” to form the scales of the serpent. Each scale would be inscribed with runes from the Unsealed Spellbook Keystone, probably with Barrier, Heal, and Teleport. The swarm of drones would fan out across the city and evacuate civilians before returning to the serpent body.

The spine would act as a charging station while the serpent’s head would be able to send out orders to the collective. It would be a secondary control station that could operate independently from the main body. I’d need help with creating a virtual intelligence program tailored for the task, but hey, that was what Richter was for.

The main body, a thirteen-section turtle shell, would boast eleven layers of shielding, with the two shoulder plates being omitted to house scaled up variants of Jhin’s Curtain Call. I’d already made one such variant, designed to work with the relic pistol. The eleven shields would layer over one another, sacrificing the mobility of the drones in exchange for far greater durability.

Weapons made from relic stone worked by siphoning magic directly from the Spirit Realm, or in my case, the Rune of Inspiration. It was why on Runeterra, they were found exclusively on Helia. To fuel such a monstrous number of shields and two, giant relic cannons, I’d need a truly absurd amount of magic. I could only accommodate this by forging another Nexus, one that would act as Gamera’s beating heart.

After hours of coming up with schematics, I leaned back to admire my work. It was glorious, almost fifty feet tall at the shoulder and three times as long without counting the tail. It was also completely beyond my manufacturing capability at the moment.

“I need to industrialize,” I muttered. I’d always planned to expand my lab’s manufacturing section, but I’d never gotten around to it before the Simurgh showed up to rip me a new asshole.

Naturally, I had no intention of doing it all on my lonesome. I dialed Hero; he did say he’d been working with the other tinkers on Cauldron’s payroll.

“Hello? Andy?” I heard his voice come through. There was the sound of clanking metal on the other line.

“Hey, Eugene. Are you busy with something? I can call back.”

“No, I mean, yes, I am, but it’s good to hear from you. You called at a good time actually.”

“Oh? What’s up?”

“Hold on, let me put you on speaker.”

There was a spark of static before a second, feminine voice came through. “Hello? Hyunmu? I am Dragon. It’s a pleasure to speak with you for the first time.”

I paused at that; I hadn’t expected to meet her quite yet. “Hello, Theresa. Just call me Andy please. Were you and Eugene working on Guild projects?”

“Ehh, kinda,” Eugene said. “I’ve been running some tests to figure out the limits of my specialization. She and Andrew are here to give me an update because they’ve taken over much of the general background work.”

“Ah, hello,” came a third voice, male this time. I took this to be Andrew Richter himself.

“Anyway, it’s good that you called because I wanted us to touch base with each other. We ought to also talk about what exactly we should start Riley on.”

“Agreed,” I said. “I’ll start then. Alongside adding to the Worldstone Network, I’ve been thinking about a mecha primarily designed for endbringer battles but deployable in other scenarios.”

“Do you of all people really need another superweapon?”

“No, which is why it’s going to be predominantly defensive in nature. You know those rings that I gave mom? The ones that shield, heal, and teleport her away in an emergency? I’m going to scale them up and put them on a bunch of drones.”

“Good idea. You’re going to need to upscale your production a great deal though, which I’m guessing is why you called.”

“Yup. I could also use some help designing an AI to coordinate the drone swarm. I was hoping Andrew could help me out. Or if it turns out that our tech isn’t really compatible, at least a more user-friendly interface to make it all more intuitive for the secondary pilot.”

“That’s fair. We can talk about that. Maybe we can help each other. As for me, like I said, I’ve been experimenting with the Stilling but it’s slow going. I’ve been going out on missions to clear my head when I need to.”

“Don’t let the criminals hear you say that. They’ll riot when they find out you only show up when you need stress relief,” I joked.

Andrew spoke next. “As for me, I’ve taken over the production of general hardware used by Guild operatives. Or rather, my AIs have. I mostly just manage the scripts and forward relevant information to different people.”

“What does that look like anyway? It’s not like we can give every Guild member their own tinkertech armor, right? Most of them aren’t even combatants.”

“That’s right; the majority of the things I oversee aren’t tinkertech, stuff like portable water filters, efficient solar batteries, body armor, more robust communicators and the like. They’re tinkertech-adjacent, but they don’t require nearly as much maintenance. It’s all thanks to Theresa. She was able to disassemble tinkertech we had lying around. Though she couldn’t fully replicate them, she was able to reverse engineer some of the technology to advance our mundane technology by leaps and bounds,” he rambled, exactly like a proud father.

“It wasn’t much,” said AI demurred. If I didn’t know she was incapable of blushing, I would have thought she sounded flustered. “I am uniquely suited to analyze large data packets.”

“That’s still impressive,” I told her sincerely. And it was.

Dragon triggered post-Newfoundland, following her father’s death, the realization that she would never be free of her restraints, and that Saint would never leave her alone. Clearly, my peers had decided that Dragon didn’t need to trigger if we had the original AI tinker alive and on retainer.

That she was able to glean anything at all from tinkertech, however minor, even without a trigger event of her own, was a genuine cause for celebration.

“Thank you, Andy. It means a lot coming from you. On my end, I am predominantly responsible for overseeing father’s other AIs. None are fully sapient, but we are considering adding a sibling to our unorthodox family,” she said with a happy trill. I couldn’t help but wonder what she’d be like if, or more likely when, she became a big sister.

As they talked, I became increasingly impressed with the scale of their operations. Though Andrew monitored the gear produced for the Guild, and Dragon herself, Dragon was notably busier.

She liked to disassemble confiscated tinkertech in her spare time and oversaw several subroutines and non-sapient AIs that monitored PHO and the global banking system at large to crack down on financial crimes. The latter, of course, with approval from the Number Man.

Of the products themselves, of particular interest to me was a form of hydrogel, a hollow, plastic, bead-like substance filled with fluid. Rather than build tinkertech products as the final output, they’d instead built tinkertech machinery that could produce materials that were both mundane yet many decades more advanced than the limits of current technology. In this case, by manipulating the water concentration and the polymers that form the outer shell, they could adjust its physical properties.

These could then be mass produced to construct ablative plates for body armor. The finished product was both lighter and much more durable in the short term than anything on the market, especially useful for medics, international aid workers, and the like who were not expected to engage in prolonged combat yet might encounter fighting in the course of their duties.

The father-daughter duo asked for my assistance with two more ongoing projects regarding hydrogel: First, they’d managed to create a semi-permeable membrane that would dissolve harmlessly in the body. The idea was to fill each gel with a dose of potion, or perhaps a variant of the Elixir of Iron, to grant Guild operatives a measure of healing and durability. I was required to adjust dosages for time-released modules.

Secondly, they’d found my notes on pyrogel. Or rather, Ziggs’ notes on pyrogel. I’d made the stuff alongside Graggy Ice, a project mom still teased me over.

Fortuna had then taken several, unreasonably large packets of pyrogel to blow off the side of Mt. Merapi, creating a secondary vent for lava to flow and diverting the majority of an eruption that some stupid shaker caused because he thought he was paying tribute to Behemoth… who he worshiped as the avatar of Batara Kala, the Balinese god of the underworld.

Andrew and Theresa thought that a special, biplastic casing would keep the explosive gel stable. If it could, the material could be readily shaped into whatever charge was needed, and replace many other blasting agents used in construction. Whether it was building bridges or digging canals, industrialized pyrogel could solve a lot of problems for the civilian sector.

In exchange for my expertise, they agreed to upgrade and expand my lab. I could do it myself, but between the Worldstones, Wayfinders, Project: Gamera, teaching Riley, and learning more about Lordsmith’s mysterious visitor, I could stand to have less on my plate.

Author’s Note

If you think about it, Andy treats the Mask like Armsmaster treated his nanothorns in canon, like a superweapon that could slay an endbringer. He’s not wrong. In the end, the Mask is an extremely powerful weapon, but it is horribly lacking in the utility department. And not everything can be solved by throwing literal Death at it.

The Runeterran afterlife is one founded on reincarnation. We know this for a fact because Illaoi is capable of ripping your soul straight out of its body, no matter how many lives you’ve lived. Lives. Plural.

That said, the Death Realm is a nebulous place much like the Glade or Bandle City. It’s part of the Spirit Realm; we know this because of the Ionian Spirit Blossom Festival. This means that the Death Realm is a place that is fundamentally shaped by the beliefs of the various cultures on Runeterra. All the afterlives are real. Freljordians believe that when the Wolf takes you, you go to the Beyond and join the Great Pack. Ionians go on a spirit journey led by a kitsune guide.

Just about the only constant in the death realms is Ochnun, the language of the dead. Knowing it allows the user to manipulate souls, even compressing souls into constructs (that’s Morde’s armor by the way). It is a language that Andy speaks fluently as a consequence of his soul being bound to the Kindred, though he probably doesn’t even know he has that perk lol. Again, consequences. More on that later.

Thank you for reading. To reach a wider audience, and because I enjoy a more forum-like setup to facilitate discussion, I like to crosspost to a wide variety of websites. You can find them all on my Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/fabled.webs.