NOVEL NEXT Act 46: Paranoid Poppers And Popping Powers
Act 46: Paranoid Poppers And Popping Powers
--- Joshua Durand ---
It had been a few days since he created Dulcinea, and now that she had settled into the kitchen he decided to see just what kind of culinary creations his own culinarian creation had come up with.
"So what sweet treats have you decided to make for your debut?" Joshua asked as he took a seat beside Avery, Fishy, Doodle, and his coat. (Wait what?)
He turned towards his tailcoat before it opened a ravenous maw full of teeth and a pitch black abyss. "Oh, right… you're technically alive." (I forgot about that…)
Deciding to ignore the fact that he spent half his time wearing carnivorous clothing (which is kind of metal) he instead focused back on the candy skull chef as she and her cookie minions left a plate of these little fried balls in front of him.
"Dado que este lugar es un bar y que estás muy familiarizado con la comida de bar, decidí ceñirme a esa temática por ahora." Dulcinea explained, while reminding him that he really should get on that whole subbing thing so that he could actually understand her.
"I see…" He nodded appreciatively.
"No, no lo haces." The candied dream told him candidly.
"Right, so um let's just try these." He chuckled nervously before popping one of her treats in his mouth and tasting… "Why do these taste like a test I didn't study for? Or people leaving and never coming back?" (How is that a flavor?!)
"I'm also getting hints of: you're a failure and you'll die old and alone." Avery added with a frown. "There's also an aftertaste of: is my girl dead?"
Off to the side the other three dreams eating the dish all shrugged, apparently not picking up any of that.
"¿Tal vez debería haber frito las preocupaciones un poco más?" Dulcinea admitted, before writing something down.
"Yeah… I'm not sure if we should be serving these to people." He confessed, a shiver running down his spine as he bit into another popper. "Yeah, no these are not-"
His danger sense flared with a clarity like never before, prompting him to instinctively twist his head out of the way of a small fireball that Dulcinea had thrown at him.
"No vuelvas a insultar mi cocina, o si no, ayúdame, me compraré una chancla." The chef warned him in a tone that brokered no argument.
Mostly because even if he couldn't understand the words themselves, his danger sense was underlining her words like nothing else.
Which is why he slowly bit into another popper, this time noticing how there were faint traces of Madness flowing into him from it. Not enough to actually give him Madness, but enough that he could recognize certain similarities with his own Madness field if a bit different.
(Okay… So these things are doing… something to me…) He realized, narrowing his eyes at the little poppers with no small amount of paranoia. (Now is it a good thing, or a heart attack from grease and cholesterol type of thing?)
He was smart enough to not ask Dulcinea for answers to these questions.
Scene Consequences
-Dulcinea has created a new Meal made from (D12 =) Worrying Madness.
--Paranoid Poppers: (Costs 1 Anxiety based Madness) If consumed before a Show/Event double the effective level of Passive Perception based skills and abilities. (I.E. Street Smarts and Dangerous Detection.)
---
Feeling a little paranoid about the firepower of the dreams he could take into the field with him, Joshua decided that it was time for him to give Doodle a bit of a budget increase. And sticking with the theme of using the little dream to scare off any potential complications he went ahead and fed him a [Horrifying] Madness.
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The process fairly different from the distinctly different kind of horror he'd gotten from eating Dulcinea's cooking.
Namely in that he just gathered a bunch of Madness together and shoved it into the dream. A process that seemed to tweak his design ever so slightly, Doodle's jacket growing a bit longer and fangs peeking out ever so slightly from his mouth.
"Alright, so how are you feeling?" He asked the Doodle, not sure if those little changes had caused the dream any sort of unpleasantness. "Anything new? Unpleasant?"
Doodle seemed to consider it for a moment before raising a finger as if he'd gotten an idea. He then gained a look of concentration on his face as if he were trying to channel some kind of great power he barely understood.
(I really hope I don't look like that when using my Toon Field.) If he looked that constipated his street cred was going to be nonexistent.
Eventually though he felt a faint chill down his spine, one that set his danger sense off enough to make his eyes dart around the room. The lights above began to flicker, and the darkness in the corners of the cabaret began to grow a bit darker, a cool breeze whispering through the theater air.
"Ugh, can you, uh, can you turn whatever this is off… it's uh, it's not reminding me of good times." Avery confessed from the bar, his fingers inching towards a bottle.
"Yeah, I think that's good enough." He agreed, raising a hand towards Doodle. "I can definitely think of some ways for a 'horror atmosphere' to come in handy, but outside of Halloween or Horror night none of those are in our Cabaret."
Doodle lost the look of concentration, and within seconds the shadows brightened and the flickering lights stopped as the room warmed up a few degrees.
"Not my usual aesthetic, but we could use a few more 'subtle' tools in our arsenal." He admitted, offering Doodle a light head pat that was more Joshua patting the wall than anything given how the dream ducked out of the way before making his way to the bar.
Scene Consequences
Thanks to infusing more Madness into him Doodle has gained a new ability.
-Horror Atmosphere (Costs 1 Focus) Stealthy. Any unit that comes within (Ink Doodle) Meters of a Doodle, will now take slight Morale damage each action until they notice him.
*Stealthy: If the attacker is [Hidden], target units perform an Awareness check if they fail attacker remains [Hidden].
Note: Doodle has reached the Madness limit of his current level.
---
Even in the waking world, the faint paranoia that had him considering how best to avoid danger. Enough so that he decided to try messing around with his Ink Flow a bit more, given how it was both his main escape option at the moment.
After a bit of testing he reaffirmed something that he was tangentially aware of, namely that he could only really flow to places he was aware of. And while there was a bit of leeway in what 'aware of' was considered, such as the empty space around him that he knew was there even if he couldn't see it, he was still limited by the fact that he couldn't just flow through a wall.
"Okay, so it's not line of sight limited, and it's not limited by a vagueness given how I can move through pipes and a slightly open window… But I also can't just imagine the next room over and flow there." He told himself pacing back and forth in thought. "Then what is the limiting factor?"
If he tried to flow through a solid wall he'd crash into it, but if he tried to flow through a chain link fence there was no resistance. "Maybe it really is a sort of 'dash' rather than an outright teleportation…"
There were significantly worse limitations but… (I don't like rules holding me back.)
(Which is why rules were made to be broken!)
He let out a huff of amusement before considering his powers once more, and remembering one that offered him additional 'awareness' of the world around him. "Maybe that'll work…"
Downing a vial of Malice before testing out his idea, given how even if he couldn't do it without the Malice now, he could learn how to do it if he could pull it off with the drug in his system.
Swaying to some sweet sinful swing, he slapped down an Ink Tag before sashaying to the next room over and tagging it alongside every other room in the living floor of his home. Each one enhancing the spatial awareness he had of his home.
"Alright, let's try this now." He mentally reached out to the flow of Madness between him and one of the tags, and unlike the other times he'd tried to feel for the other rooms he could feel a flow between his current position and his tag. "That's what I want to feel!"
With a grin, he grabbed the flow and rode it straight into a wall.
"Motherfucker!" He cursed as his broken nose began to set itself.
After a moment of laying there he let out a pained sigh, "Okay, solid walls are still a problem… but this is still a big step in the right direction. Especially if I can use my tags for my other powers too."
That was enough to soothe his hurt ego, even if it did absolutely nothing for his still aching face.
An ache that only grew worse as he spent the rest of his vial time trying to break through this wall… metaphorically given how Chris would kill him if he did that literally.
Scene Consequences
-Thanks to Malice Vial and Experiment Bonuses Gained 2+D6/2=3 XP to Ink Tags and Ink Flow
--Currently: Ink Flow Lv. 4 (3/10) and Ink Tags Lv. 5 (5/12)
--Gained 1 Malicious Madness for maintaining the Malice Chain.
Perk Revealed: Tagged Flow (Requires: Ink Flow and Ink Tags Lv. 5): Can blindly teleport to any placed tag within (Base Flow Range + Ink Tags) meters.