Chapter 156 - My SI Stash #56 - The Warcrafter by RHJunior (WormXWorldofWarcraft) (2/2)

”Even the owl and the treant?”

Even the owl and the treant. And now for skills-- or crafts, professions, however you might call it. Coincidentally, you get all the gathering skills as a freebie, regardless. Along with fishing, cooking, first aid, and archaeology. He peered at the screen, seeming to squint. What an odd amalgamation of skills, he noted.

”Engineer,” Adrian said without hesitation, cl_i_c_k_i_n_g the appropriate box. ”And Enchanting.”

Be warned, the skills won't work like they do in the game, Agent said. You won't be able to take a handful of copper bolts and some sheepskin and make a helicopter. And some of the materials needed, while they do exist-- you will find creating or finding the more exotic ones to be difficult.

”I didn't figure they'd have bars of Adamantine down at the corner drugstore,” Adrian said. ”But I figure that at the very worst most of the skills and knowledge in Engineering would apply in the real world-- er, my real world-- as to be useful anyway.”

And enchanting?

Adrian grinned. ”You basically admitted that it worked just fine on Azeroth. I figure wherever I'm going has to be similar enough to both Azeroth and my own reality to make it work and for me to be functional.”

Agent c_o_c_ked an eyebrow. Yes, his appearance was coming right along. Clever boy. It is true: all three universes operate under the same thirteen cosmic forces as every other. Still, you may find it difficult to obtain ingredients like Strange Dust and Astral Essence, even with your Disenchanting ability.

”And ain't it interesting how many Engineering projects can be 'disenchanted' for ingredients?” Adrian grinned even wider. He paused. ”Thirteen forces? I thought there were only four.”

Agent's head was still only a blank white shape, but Adrian got the distinct impression of a knowing smirk. So young and so much to learn.

Adrian shrugged that off. ”Anyway, Alchemy would be even dicier about ingredients… I mean, when the nearest source for peacebloom is Azeroth, it's a bad idea to take Alchemy as a profession. Besides which people are antsy about taking ”home remedies” someone whipped up with back yard plants. Tailoring is too limited, as is leatherworking… even the toughest armor you can make from those is like tissue paper next to chain or plate. Blacksmithing? You could make a Venn diagram of the ”mining” skill-- which includes smelting, making ores and other metallurgy-- and engineering, and the overlap would be Blacksmithing.

”Plus Enchanting and Engineering come with their own salvaging skills, in addition to the three basics.”

Agent smiled--- the mouth suddenly appearing on that blank bespectacled face was a touch alarming. Very good. Very very good. You might just stand a chance. He gestured to the screen. And now a name? The blank box blinked, waiting for an answer.

Adrian only hesitated a moment. ”Bayleaf.” He looked at Agent. ”My old World of Warcraft handle.” he shrugged. ”It's also a healing herb. I considered ”WarCrafter,” but that sounded too… aggressive. I want people to know I'm not just there to run around getting in fights-- I'm there to help.”

Agent nodded. Done and done. The choices on the giant screen vanished, leaving the worgen character standing in a battle ready pose. Below him blinked a single option:

ENTER WORLD

Adrian looked over at Agent. ”Well?” he said, a little nervous. ”So where's my big debut gonna be?”

A world almost exactly like your own… within 99.9999 percent actually. He grimaced, obviously unhappy to disclose the rest. But that ten thousandth of a percent difference is a doozy. Agent waved. The image on the screen faded, to be replaced by an aerial view of a coastal city. An American one to judge by the flags waving on some of the buildings. This is Brockton Bay.

Adrian felt the nonexistent blood drain from his face. ”Worm? You're sending me into Worm??” he floated there, listless with shock. Had he been truly solid he would have hit the ground with a thump.

Yes. Or rather, it is one of a multiplicity of universes in this local brane where this timeline is, has, or will play out. So you are familiar with this particular panverse. Agent cleared his throat nervously.

”Oh yeah, you might say that,” Adrian laughed bleakly. ”Worm? The Wildbow-verse? One of the most famous superhero genre online fiction worlds, and one of the most notorious? Oh yeah, I know about it. It's a superhero deconstruction-- if you can call someone violently smashing a basket full of puppies with a sledgehammer ”deconstruction.” The storyline is like a cross between a demolition derby and a head-on train collision stuck on instant repeat, with someone standing off to the side pushing toddlers into the middle. It starts with a teenage girl being tortured into a psychotic breakdown and ends with an APOCALYPSE by a MAD OMNIPOTENT COSMIC SPACE WHALE DEMIGOD. It's so grimdark it shits BATS!

”I'm supposed to fix THIS? Stop SCION from destroying a couple dozen parallel worlds? With nothing but some werewolf druid powers? The entire Justice league backed by the Avengers, Optimus Prime and Chuck Norris couldn't hack this!”

Godlike powers are not what is needed here, Adrian, Agent said gently. You know that in the original timeline, that--

”That Taylor Hebert ends up saving the world? Or what's left of it, anyway?” Adrian said. He scowled in anger and suspicion. ”So why not let her do it again?”

Because the price paid, even if she wins—by countless billions of innocents, including one poor innocent girl-- is too terrible.

”If she wins?”

As the unaltered 'verse plays out, the margins between victory and defeat are far narrower even than they look. Agent looked away, his white eyes staring at the endless plain around them. Far more often than not, when the original events are allowed to play out in yet another universe… Taylor Hebert loses.

”...well ain't that just a ray of sunshine,” Adrian muttered, his veins ice cold.

Adrian, I am, in Agent terms, normally a ”low roller.” These are the highest stakes I have ever played for. But every universe in this particular panverse of this particular brane has been labeled as being at high risk. The need is so great that I was able to barter for more intervention-ch_i_p_s than all my previous rounds of the Game combined-- and I have spent nearly all of them just to find a champion, prepare them, and inform them in such great and terrible detail. He hesitated, then placed a spectral hand on a spectral shoulder. Even so, if you wish to withdraw, you can--

Adrian shook his hand off. ”No,” he muttered. ”No, I'm not gonna quit. How can I? If it was one person I was saving, I wouldn't. But with a whole world? A whole multi-world of people in danger? I can't back out… I'd never be able to sleep again.

”It's just… what can I do? Taylor had… has… will have insane-level powers that will put her B_A_R_ELY on toe-to-toe basis with one of the Space Whales. What can I contribute in the face of that?”

Often the fate of worlds hinges not on the most powerful, but on the least, Adrian said gently. Throwing overwhelming power into the mix won't save the day here. I didn't pick you to save the whole world in one swoop; I picked you because I wanted someone to go there and do the right thing. The little things. Maybe you won't even be in the final battle--- but even the smallest good deed in the right place can change everything.

Adrian sniffed. ”Save the girl, save the world?”

Something like that.

He got to his feet. ”So let's do this then.”

Agent gestured to the screen. ”Bayleaf” had reappeared, floating in the foreground over the skyline of Brockton Bay. Just walk through the screen.

”When and where--?”

Somewhere in the Brockton Bay area, I cannot be more precise. And late September, several months before--

”Several months before the locker incident,” Adrian-- Bayleaf-- said grimly. He was already imagining what he'd do if he got his hands around Sophia's neck.

I was unable to secure you identity papers, he said regretfully. I did not have sufficient ch_i_p_s for that level of direct involvement. It would have involved either mass memory editing, time travel, or somehow creating a false identity and paper trail sufficient to fool the resident tinkers, hackers, and Dragon herself. I recommend you pass yourself as a refugee from one of the cities destroyed by Endbringer activity or the like. Secure yourself some finances, obtain a residence and submit yourself to the authorities as an emancipated youth to be enrolled in Winslow High… they have streamlined that process due to the number of young people rendered orphaned and homeless by superhuman catastrophe.

”Urgh. Not even a driver's license, maybe?”

I spent all those points on concealing you from more important threats, Agent said drily. While your powers are in no way derived from the Entities or their Shards, you will be imbued with a false Gemma and Corona Pollenta that will trick most medical scans, and even most psions.

”I can see why that's important. A cape without a Gemma or Pollenta? That'll attract attention nobody wants. What about Contessa? Or the Simurgh?”

Agent gave him an evil smile. Due to the combination of your alien powers, your nature as a being from outside their timespace continuity, and the… well think of it as a ”holographic” Shard projected by your false Gemma and Pollenta…. you will be a rather large blind spot for the lot of them. In the truest sense of the word; much as your brain 'paints over' the blind spot in your own vision, you will be a blind spot they aren't even aware they have.

”Ohoho. I can see why that cost a lot of ch_i_p_s.”

Worth every one. Especially for Contessa and her Cheat Code Mary Sue 'path to victory' power. She's in for a hell of a surprise if your paths cross. If you see her, punch her smug head up into that stupid little hat, would you?

”I sense a backstory.”

No, I just despise her existence on principle. Her overriding influence makes things WORSE, by ERASING potential options from the board before they can even be considered. And considering the shitty nature of the 'victory' her Path leads to…

”Not a friend of the Agents, yeah.”

Or anyone. Nothing causes more Hells on Earth than people like Contessa or Doctor Mother, who think Mother Knows Best. He closed the folder with a snap, it disappeared in a cloud of sparkles. And that is it for pre-flight checkup , he said with a hint of amus_e_m_e_nt. Ready?

Adrian nodded. ”Let's do this.”

Just step forward into the screen, Agent said. Be warned, you're going to get one hell of a download of knowledge and neural information, in addition to having your body dramatically metamorphosed. You're going to get knocked out… and your recollection of your ”time” here may be a bit fuzzy for a while. Just remember: your first step is to get into Winslow and help Taylor Hebert. Beyond that… you'll have to improvise.

Adrian nodded and straightened his shoulders. Maybe he couldn't save this world. Or any world. But on the other side of that screen there was a little girl who was going to be kidnapped and enslaved by a supervillain. There was a group of teenagers who were going to be railroaded into villainy. There was a miracle healer who was going to utterly destroy her own life with one terrible mistake. There were countless innocent people who were going to be destroyed in the crossfire between gangsters, drug dealers, and Nazi lunatics. There was one young woman on whom the entire world's fate hinged, who was going to be put through utter Hell on Earth for no good reason.

Maybe he couldn't save them all, but if he could save one, he was going to damned well do it.

Remember, Adrian: you are not as limited as you think.

He stepped through the screen and the world went dark.

In the realm he just left behind, the screen winked out. The endless twilit plain disappeared, and all detail faded away till there was nothing but a vaguely humanoid figure of glowing smoke floating in the void. Agent clung to the shape for a little while longer; he found it-- appealing for some reason.

Another glowing amorphous shape appeared. That seemed to go well.

Indeed it did, Agent agreed. Hello, Oversight.

--for a given value of well. Your stratagem in this round… eludes me, 'Agent.' Most would regard it as incredibly unwise to reveal so much to their Avatar beforehand. Especially of our own inner workings.

Revealing the Game?

Revealing-- or at least hinting-- at just how far you have gone, Oversight said. He knows that you are gambling on his future. What will it do to his chances, I speculate, when he realizes just how reckless a gambler you are?

To win big, one must risk big, Agent retorted. As risky as my past stakes have been, have I not produced victories like any other Agent? Innocents spared, lives rescued, worlds saved, futures changed for the better?

And each time, you have spent more...”ch_i_p_s”…. Than you have gained, Oversight said, his voice heavy with chastis_e_m_e_nt. You have been running at a loss for cycle after cycle. One more ”victory” like that and you will be destitute. And now you spend your last few Quatloos on a desperate gamble-- on not one world, but multiple parallel worlds in peril, and a single lone Avatar to try and stem the tide?

And if he achieves one small good deed, I will weigh it as worth the cost, Agent retorted. You and I have different value judgments on what constitutes a profit, Oversight.

How did a spendthrift like you persuade the Exchequer to even loan you as little as he did? Oversight said scornfully.

Agent indulged himself and let a slow, genuine, visible smirk spread across his illusion of a face. Because I ill_u_s_trated to him that I am playing a longer game than it looks, he said. I do not intend to save one panverse world… but two.

Oversight's regard-- what a material being would have called a puzzled look-- passed over Agent. Then came a moment of comprehension. Azeroth, he said. You have somehow incorporated Azeroth into your gamble. He ”glared” suspiciously. How?

Consider the fate of Azeroth, Agent said. Their technology, their thaumaturgic sciences, have been barely sufficient to save them from catastrophe over and over again. And each cataclysm has been worse than the last...while their sciences have barely progressed a few short, halting steps in thousands of years. Do you know why?

He didn't wait for Oversight to reply. Because they have continually failed to unify their theories. Paladin powers, arcanist abilities, druidic ”nature” magic, gnomish and goblin technology--- all of it operates under the same scientific laws; it's all a continuum. Yet their various 'schools' remain divided-- in part by the conspiracy of outside forces but also by politics, by ideology, by terminology, by symbology-- they even use different maths for each; one works in base eight while another works in base ten!

The closest any of them have come in tens of thousands of years to a grand unification theory have been the druids. Their world philosophy is about both diversity and balance, and they subsequently have hodgepodged bits and pieces from all the separate disciplines and have, miraculously, made them work together, discovered which ones were all but identical under the trappings…

And you have just sent out a Druid, Oversight said suddenly.

A druid, and an engineer, and an enchanter, Agent said. From a world whose scholastic philosophy is entirely about unification and finding a single grand underlying theory for Everything and More. Into a world full of artifactors and devisors and ur-scientists. When he starts trying out his new powers, flexing his new skills, if he starts digging deeper, if he begins cooperating with the natives of similar mind-- he will begin discovering parallels and synergies that will be staggering in their implications. Staggering enough to trigger discovery of the true Grand Unification Theory… and a new model of the universe that will give both Earth Bet and Azeroth--- which he shall surely be drawn to visit next-- the tools to overcome.

IF. The single word from Oversight was enough to weigh like mountains.

That is where the risk comes in, Agent agreed . But it is the risk that makes it all worthwhile.

Adrian woke with a start, the icy wind rushing past him snapping him to consciousness. He rattled his head, utterly disoriented. Weird images, some strange dream-- a glowing man, an Agent of some great cause, or … a game contestant/host… offering him the deal of a lifetime… what?

He raised his hand to rub his eyes-- and a massive clawed paw groped at his face. He yelped before he realized the clawed, hairy hand was his own. As was the hairy, muscular arm it was attached to…

”HOLY--!” He felt himself over (not like that, you freaks.) In a mere second he had stock of himself: massive hands with semi-retractable claws; seriously hairy c_h_e_s_t rippling with muscle, arms like fur stockings stuffed with footballs, powerful digitigrade legs with padded clawed pawed feet, wolfen skull and muzzle, pointed ears, wet nose-- no tail though-- coal-black fur over everything-- He was clothed in a loose cotton tunic and trousers that hung loose on even his massive form and flapped madly in the upward rushing wind.

”Holy crap, it was real,” he said to himself. ”Then that means...” He looked up.

Spread out below him was a city-- a city that HAD to be Brockton Bay. It hugged the coastline and curled around an enormous harbor. He could see-- that had to be the PRT building. Or maybe it was Medhall? He couldn't remember a description. But there, that over there had to be the Protectorate base, floating out in the water, oh wow, he could see the glittering dome of the forcefield, wow a real forcefield… He could see everything up here, he was out over the middle of the bay--

He was over the bay--

Over-- the bay--

Slowly, the rusted gears of cognition clunked into alignment.

”HOLY CRAAaaaAAAaaaaAAP!!!” he began flailing wildly, which only started him tumbling, as he suddenly realized he was thousands of feet in the air without a plane. ”AGENT, YOU RETARD!”

He indulged in a couple seconds panic (he was really high up) before he realized he'd better get a grip or he was going to say hello to Earth Bet in a really sudden and final way. He gasped for air as he lay out spreadeagled, slowing his plummet. ”Okay, breathe breathe breathe, remember, you're a worgen—Worgen can't fly!!- no, but worgen druids can, come on, change into your flight form, bird bird birdbirdbird come on OWL OWL OWL--!!”

He felt a massive, sort of internal twisting and folding, and suddenly where there had been a plummeting, panicking Worgen, there was now a plummeting, panicking, giant owl. It was several long eternities before he managed to right himself and began turning his demented flailing into at least an effort at flapping. Finally, his long dive began to turn into a swooping glide. He leveled out mere feet above the waves and flew, wings spread wide, hooting in victory…

”hooo Hooo HOOOO..”

And plowed into a whitecap a few yards from shore.

A wheezing, waterlogged Worgen sloshed his way to shore a few moments later. Once the waves were no longer lapping at his ankles, he bent over and shook. What had to be a gallon of water sprayed over the sand. He stood up, relieved and feeling a good bit lighter, if not precisely drier. He shook the last of the water out of his ears in time to pick up the high pitched w_h_i_n_e of… was that an electric turbine?

Around the end of one of the derelict sh_i_p_s came a low, sleek motorcycle. It looked, Adrian thought, rather like someone had crossbred a lightcycle from Tron with a particularly old school Harley. The rider looked to be wearing a full suit of futuristic armor, with only his bearded chin showing from underneath the visor on his helmet.

Of course, Adrian thought. With disgust. Armsmaster. It would be the egotistical wannabe Iron Man who'd find him first. What were the odds? Of course they probably had all sorts of futuristic radar out on that floating base looking for incoming flying threats. He wondered what radar profile a wolfman plummeting from 10,000 feet left behind…

The armored hero pulled to a halt in a spray of sand a few yards away. He dismounted quickly, pulling out a collapsing rod that folded out into a six foot staff, a shimmering blade snapping into existence at the end. He planted one end in the sand and struck a commanding pose. ”Stand where you are, don't-- WHOAAH!”

Apparantly whatever Armsmaster had been expecting to see, it hadn't been a sodden, bedraggled, seven foot tall wolf-man. He actually staggered back a step in surprise at the sight of him. Then, obviously miffed at his faux pas, he whipped his halberd down into the 'armed and ready' pose, the blade pointed at Adrian's c_h_e_s_t, his thumb on some button or other on the haft.

”Uh, Hi,” Bayleaf said, grinning sheepishly and waving.

In retrospect, smiling at an armed and armored man with a mouthful of fangs was probably a bad idea. But really, the taser dart had been a bit much...