Chương 52: 46: Wages of Merit?

While frustrating as usual, the discussion with Verity had also been... not exactly reassuring but at least... placating? Nobody ever liked being manipulated or following someone else's lead, but having to deal with things and people you did not like was, indeed, part of life. Thus the question arose; could I do better if I was the one making the decisions? The instinctive reply was "yes", of course. That's what almost everyone would answer in a knee-jerk, inconsiderate sort of way.

Given some time to reflect on the matter would have most of us realize that making decisions of life and death about other people was horrible and we wanted nothing to do with it. Those with a lot of ego would pridefully insist that they could do the job anyway, or would simply not care about those that would die to their every mistake, every hesitation, every lack of skill or information.

The existence of such people is the best argument against trying to take power from an existing successful leader in a war, even if you are one of those people. As far as I was concerned, how could one have proper ego, self-importance, if they didn't have a proper idea of their self? I knew what things I was good at, what I could be rightfully confident about even if sometimes a bit less confidence might serve better, and running a war was not one of them.

Reaching out across an entire city for both information and tilting the odds in our favor? Yeah, that was beyond me still. Either way of seeing it, I did not want to be in Verity's position. I might not like it, I would still curse and rage at being manipulated, but as long as I had no alternative solution to propose and things were going better than I could have made them? Staying out of it and doing my job was the best choice, though I'd kick the everything of anyone that tried to make me admit it if I could.

Ugh, enough with the heavy introspection. We were still alive despite being ridiculously, hilariously outnumbered, the bad guy got a hell of an egg in his face after being forced to turn up in person and still not saving one mad dog collaborator, where could I have some fun in this underground dump? Reaching out with Force Awareness and all those Vigilance points that gave me superhuman sensory acuity, I searched the base for my friends. What I found... really wasn't what I had expected.

xxxx xxxx"Here you go dear, one plate of ginger and chocolate chip cookies, freshly made." The old woman that by now had become our resident hedge witch handed over a gleaming silver plate full of what had to be ambrosia, because after the week I'd had it did smell as heavenly as any food of the gods I could imagine.

"Thanks, auntie Sarah," I told her and took a bite out of the glorious bounty that had found its way to my hands. The peppery, almost minty and sharp tang of ginger heralded the sublime goodness that was the slowly melting chips through the crispy and warm wafer. I chewed slowly, savoring every bite, then bit into another cookie and another as I practically melted into the chair with a moan; I had truly found Paradise.

"Those are... impossibly good," I congratulated the cook between bites.

"It's the magic, dear," 'Auntie' Sarah admitted with chagrin.

"My old Ma's recipe was mighty good and I am not a bad cook if I say so myself, but in the last few days I found I could simply make things taste better than they ever did." She sighed and wiped her flour-covered hands nervously on an apron that had stayed miraculously, stubbornly pristine despite all her efforts in the past few hours.

"Maybe even better than would normally be possible. Some would call it cheating, I guess..." she wrung her hands but I immediately shot down that train of thought.

"Aunt Sarah, if someone ever tells you making these cookies" I waved at the platter while using Proximakinesis to prevent every last crumb from falling off my mouth or the cookie I was biting into "is somehow 'cheating', you can tell me... so I can raise a permanent force-field around them that prevents them from ever laying a hand on the awesome miracles you can now make."

"Thank you for your words of support, dearie," the old woman said evenly but still preened from the praise. The two of us enjoyed the just desserts of our labors for a time, the overfull plate emptying at an alarming rate. At least my powers meant I could no longer get fat... probably. Maybe? It didn't really make sense for a magic-fueled body that adjusts to my wants and choice of attributes to get fat, right? Better double-check that before spending more time with our new hedge witch.

The plate was dangerously close to empty before Auntie Sarah leaned back in her chair, sighed in contentment then asked.

"Say dearie, have you seen my nephew? Verity said he's recovering and that I shouldn't be worried but..." she fidgeted.

"... well, it's us old folks prerogative to worry, no?" She chuckled and it sounded a bit forced.

"And he just up and vanished a couple hours before so I'd been wondering if you know... seeing as you're friends..."

"Oh he vanished, didn't he?" Yes, yes he had.

"He's probably in his lab again. You know how it is, boys and their toys." Unless there were friendly redheads around; then it could be another matter entirely.

"Don't worry about it; as long as the base isn't attacked and he doesn't leave it he can't hurt himself by accident given the new magical bodies. None of us can." Probably and as long as we didn't really try.

"I suppose... I'm just a worrywart, you know how it is. I feel like he's getting in trouble when I don't know where he is..." she chuckled.

"Did ever since his mother left and didn't come back..." I... had nothing to say to that that would be both true and not alarming so I said nothing. Because I knew where Jerry was and I wished I didn't. Not so much because of him and Mandy still snogging after a good twenty minutes but because of how I'd learned about it. It turns out that if you have good enough super-senses to see people through walls, you also have good-enough super-senses to see them through clothes... or through their skin...

or through muscles and organs. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. The only reason I hadn't seen all of that before was that I hadn't really looked... and once you see it you cannot unsee it. No matter how much you wanted to. Deliberately not looking was possible but every so often I'd forget and someone's insides would be as visible as their outsides. Hence cookies - all the cookies.

I would have tried alcohol but even trying to drown in in wouldn't have worked with my constitution. Maybe I could convince Auntie Sarah to brew magically enhanced drinks? The idea definitely had potential so it was added to my collection of potential distractions for future and not so future use. Speaking of distractions, the whole sex thing had probably been ruined for me at least until I could get more control of the new senses.

There was no stronger turn-off than being able to see the billions of parasites on and within any potential partner and if that weren't enough being able to see them basically skinned, or reduced to a skeleton, would have sufficed as well. But that was future-Maya's problem for after this stupid invasion ended. Until then, I'd settle for ambrosia in cookie form.

xxxx xxxx Back in my private quarters on base that others would claim was actually the girls' bathroom, I'd cast off my torn, filthy, bloody and very smelly attire by simply dismissing my costume. The sheer practicality of clothes changes and clean-up on demand in a neat, at-will accessible package had often tempted me to spend more points on that particular power, and only the deadly threat of the alien invasion requiring all resources for even a chance at survival had stayed my hand.

Force Adjustment once again proved itself a girl's second-best friend by providing a steaming-hot bath and the Proximakinesis-made lock on the door ensured uninterrupted... research. Yes, let's call it that. But then my languid slide into the pine-scented, magically-cleaned pool was ruined by a simple fact; the near-boiling water no longer was warm enough.

It still was as hot as ever, objectively, even felt hot to the touch, but it was an empty sensation because it no longer had the same impact on my augmented physiology than it could previously achieve. My baseline state was simply too resilient, too immutable even without any boosts to respond the same to the water. And since I was about to get tougher still the problem would only grow, both now and in the future.

Unlike with my senses, on the surface this was a problem of simple physics by at least one point of view rather than a complex biological or mental issue beyond my skill to resolve. Well, biology could have been an issue if I tried to simply weaken my body to make it still susceptible to the effects of a warm bath.

Except for reflexive reinforcement against harm, my power would not let me apply it to my body like that because changing my own physics without perfect control would mess with my body's chemistry enough to instantly kill me. On the other hand, the water was inorganic and largely inert, so I could adjust its own physics with relative impunity. Adjusting the cohesion between its molecules by an order of magnitude gave it the consistency of honey without being sticky at all as adhesion had remained the same.

Then the same minor adjustment of molecular collisions that heated it in the first place melted it back down to the viscosity of normal soap water but also caused every bubble to grow to gigantic proportions until a loose foam covered the whole pool. I could live with that however, and dipping a single toe into the new and special bath solution found it as toasty and nice as I remembered. It steamed a bit more though, even sizzled a little when I dropped into the pool but otherwise nothing alarming happened.

So what if it was significantly more corrosive due to the higher temperature? That only added to the flavor texture. I played around a little more, ensured the mortar between the bricks didn't melt or dissolve in the liquid with the temperature of molten lead, noted which pipes had been illegally made with high lead content and which were once plastic that was rapidly denaturing and generally all the bits and pieces that would need to be replaced for me to continue taking hot baths in the future.

So far, it was proving to be a sustainable proposition for the foreseeable future, provided my powers in general and Force Adjustment in particular remained up to the task. I lay on my back in the modified but totally not experimental or explosion-prone bath, banished all other worries from my mind, then reached for one thing that had changed even more than my attitude towards Verity or my understanding of super-senses.

Name: Maya Wennefer Bio: female human, 17y3m13d Word of Force [33 pts] Force Adjustment III, Force Awareness II, Forcefield Creation II, Forced Acceleration III, Immutable Force II, Lasting Force II, Proximakinesis III Other Powers [24 pts] Chronal Leap I, Empowering Regeneration IV, Focused Invulnerability I, Instant Action II, Retributive Defense I, Super Suit I, Spatial Distortion I, Spatial Leap I power points: 8/65 Attributes [8/65] Might 29, Agility 14, Reason 6, Vigilance 9, Ego 14, Luck 2 Yeah, something definitely fishy was going on here.