Take One/Journal
From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe
Remains of a journal found in a burned out ruin in Steel Canyon, some time in the near future. The entries before 10/3/2005 are lost.
...
Despite all the charity work I did during the weekend I still managed to beat up enough real criminals to reach security level 31. My generous nature has also been recognized by the civilians of our fair city since my estimated Influence now rates over 800.000 - and that's after I ordered three new suits from Icon. I guess it pays to help you slackers beat up Clocks and Freaks. Either that or all my Japanese fans have unusually strong clout within Paragon City.
Some guy called The Reconciler, apparently a Hero of the City although I had never heard of him before, was desperate to get a badge for his collection. He caught up with me when I was busy chatting up Phillipa Meraux and since I saw this as a chance to impress the lady I decided to help him out. If she saw me with that supposedly esteemed hero she might give me her phone number sooner, or something.
After what seemed like an eternity of beating up Freaks, Aliens, Suits, Vegetables and other assorted weirdoes we had finally managed to uncover a memory-erasing scheme going on within Cray Inc, freed an A.I. from a Cray laboratory (although I believe it was just some spotty geek with an IRC client and too much free time on his hands playing a prank on us all) and stopped several kidnappings and assassination attempts on various people.
At the end of the day I got her phone number, but she still hadn't heard anything about any threats against the war walls, so the Reconciler and I went separate ways and I promised I would let him know if I hear something. I'll be sure to ask Miss Meraux about it when I take her out tonight.
I must have done something right because it wasn't long after my date with Phillipa that I achieved security level 32. I knew she had friends in high places but I didn't expect things to move so quickly.
It's all very hush-hush but I guess I can tell you guys that I helped Manticore with something and all I got was this lousy badge and a swift promotion to security level 33. I guess he knows greatness when he sees it, or maybe it's because he's a natural hero as well.
Oh, and it turns out that there is a threat against the War Walls. Phillipa told me over breakfast that now and then scientists working on the walls are attacked by Rikti trying to sabotage the walls. She promised to let me know first about any sudden attacks on the walls. There's a badge in it for those who help protect the War Walls, and I think it should be mine.
Our valiant defense of the Terra Volta reactor must have opened a few eyes down at city hall. I've made security level 34. Still no news on the War Walls.
With the aid of Gospel V, GridironGoliath, Stranglehold and British Fox, I managed to defend the War Walls against a Rikti attack. We were all awarded a shiny badge for our effort, and I was promoted to security level 35. I'll be sure to thank Phillipa properly tonight.
Freedom Corps called, they mentioned something about my test results of the mandatory screening after the mission in the reactor, that I had to talk to them in person. I'm sure it's nothing serious, though.
Security Level 36 rolled by, seemingly without even trying. I've been busy with a lot of new contacts and I guess they are all pleased with my work and City Hall had to do something about all these commendations.
One of the most interesting events was a science fiction convention which turned out to be a trap set by some kind of Rikti-lovers' society. I don't know exactly what they wanted me for, but the Rikti waiting there are now back wherever they go when they are beaten. I never got around to check if they lived or died, but I doubt the Ziggurat is full of aliens. Considering their teleportation technology I'm sure they have rigged up their own emergency teleporters to bring their fallen back.
I talked to Jack Wolf of Freedom Corps and he says that their tests indicated an increase in synaptic activity in my brain, growing at an alarming rate, ever since we came out of the reactor. I don't know what to think of this yet but I have started some internal research about it.
There, that didn't take long. Ok, it seems that my brain cells have formed a mysterious matrix, which, while not only increasing my mental capacity, also functions as the biological equivalent of a dimensional gateway. This shall require further study.
Saving the city from the machinations of Nemesis and Crey, as well as stopping a sinister "plot" by the Freakshow to blow up the Terra Volta reactor has earned me security levels 37 and 38 in quick succession.
I have closed the dimensional gate in my brain, and I'm back to normal, more or less. It was fun while it lasted.
I helped Thornchilde with some missions of hers, fighting Rikti and Carnies. It showed those people in City Hall that I'm ready to take on the big leagues, and they welcomed me to security level 39.
My contacts all seemed pleased with my work. Too pleased. First they would go silent and claim that they didn't have any jobs for me until I reached level 39. Then, when I finally got the clearance, they would just send me on to their acquaintances. Then they would refuse to work with me until I was level 40.
I decided that it was time to take a little break and catch up with my studies. When I was done, 32 minutes later, I spent some time trying to impress City Hall by arresting various villains in order to gain the badges they award for them. The Lost, the Hellions and the Skulls had a rough time for a few hours as I scoured the city looking for their leaders.
Then I went searching for historical plaques, reading up on the past as I explored. Obviously, I was bored out of my skull. You'd think a guy with the brainpower of a small galaxy could come up with some way to amuse himself, and you'd be right. The problem is to make it last. However, this is not the time and place to discuss my autoerotical habits.
Just as I was about to succumb completely to the dreary humdrum life of an ordinary student, Statesman and his friendly fascists attacked the Rogue Isles, nearly causing an international incident in the process. Siren's Call and Warburg beckoned, and I knew this was a chance to impress City Hall and my new reluctant contacts.
I threw myself against the forces of Arachnos and any other villain I could find in both areas, fighting for control over the hotspots of Siren's Call, or running patrols on my own in Warburg, cutting off supply lines and providing intelligence on troop movements. I even managed to get one of the scientists kept underneath the missile silo to give up part of the missile launch code, but unfortunately they discovered this and changed it before I could find the other two parts of the code.
It seems like the higher-ups kept a close watch on the warzones, because it didn't take that long for me to get noticed. I escaped from Warburg with a well deserved promotion, and celebrated by heading straight for Icon in Founders' Fall, where Carson provided me with a new fashionable costume which would be sure to impress presumptive sponsors and the new crowd I was supposedly going to start hanging out with.
I guess it's time to make another update on this little journal. My new contacts have kept me so busy I have hardly had time to do anything but fight, sleep and fight some more. I love it. Much time has been spent fighting Rikti, Carnies and Malta. I have also been visiting various strange dimensions, for example the world where the Clockwork King rules. We defeated him, of course, but I have a feeling his minions eventually would rebuild him.
In another dimension I discovered a diary which apparently belonged to an alternative version of myself, who had taken over his world and killed everyone in it. I like to think that I am now the only one of my kind in the multiverse, and this fills me with great pleasure. There have been many other dimensions, mostly involving Rikti struggling to open various dimensional gates, but they have all been taken care of with little difficulty, and some help from club members such as Stranglehold, Thornchilde, Icicle Inferno, and others.
Recently I have begun working with a couple of interesting but highly secretive individuals, mainly investigating the Malta and their sister organisation, the Knives of Artemis. I intend to follow this working relationship to the very end, because I have discovered several interesting facts during these operations. Unfortunately I can't reveal them here, at least not yet. Suffice to say that it has provided me with higher clearance than the president himself, an astounding security level 42.
I have designed my own web grenades, using the same material as I use for the line in my Grappling Gun to form the web. They have proven invaluable for grounding flying villains and keeping my targets standing in place rather than running for their lives. I wish I had these when I was chasing prisoners all over Brickstown. I'll never understand how people locked up in prison get enough exercise to keep running for that long.
After defeating and/or capturing what seems like an endless amount of Carnies, Malta and various extradimensional creatures I have reached security level 43. I got a fresh set of enhancements and feel really badass.
Notable events: fighting Baphomet, twice, and Nosferatu. Defeating Baphomet gave me a badge or two. Nosferatu just gave me the satisfaction of victory.
I have fought plenty of Rikti and learned that there are at least two factions among them, one of which wants to make contact with their home world while the other seems content to remain here, and perhaps other differences as well. The barrier which prevents them from reaching their home world also appears to be magical rather than natural or scientific in origin. I wonder if it has anything to do with the Rikti banishing all religion and gods from their world.
Nemesis seems to think he's the smartest man in the world. He's wrong, of course. I've destroyed or subverted every one of his plots that I've come across, often before he even knew what was going on. My contact seems to think that Nemesis somehow have used us for his own convoluted plots. I didn't care to update him on the real situation. He probably wouldn't understand if I tried to explain.
It has been an amusing couple of weeks but now that Nemesis is (unwittingly) working for the good of mankind I feel it's time to take it easy for a while. Maybe I'll go check out the Shadow Shard, I hear it's a cool place to visit. Oh yeah, I made level 44 during my little tango with Nemesis, and found an interesting alloy in another dimension which could be used to make kick-ass shuriken. I can't understand why I didn't get some of these before, they are great.
All my old friends think that I'm the best thing since Ascendant, but that doesn't seem to be enough to impress my new friends, who refuse to give me any new missions until I'm level 45. The Shadow Shard looks more and more tempting. If I'm not back by monday, send a rescue team. Bring sandwiches and Red Beast energy drinks.
I believe I've done enough for the Shadow Shard, at least for a while. The mad god Lanaru threatened to break apart the world, or bring it back together - nobody was quite sure of which - and that would have been bad for the locals. I joined a hurriedly gathered group of heroes and we travelled deep into the broken dimension to try to stop Lanaru.
Since I came back in one piece we can conclude that we succeeded, but not without sacrifices. There are things in that world that I would rather not talk about since anyone who wasn't there would never believe me. General Hammond, the leader of the military operation within the Shard was sufficiently impressed to recommend me for a promotion, and with the others I've already earned in the Shard that brings me up to level 47.
During the chaotic and quick-paced fights against Lanaru's agents I've learned how to quickly calculate the best way to defeat a large number of enemies, and for a short time I can hit them harder and with greater accuracy.
During the chaotic and quick-paced fights against Lanaru's agents I've learned how to quickly calculate the best way to defeat a large number of enemies, and for a short time I can hit them harder and with greater accuracy.
Another day, another promotion. The Shadow Shard owes me, big time, or if it's the other way around. I've spent the last few days beating up Thorns. They have been busy kidnapping people in that other dimension to use for sacrifices, for whatever sinister purpose. The locals wanted to canonize me or something but general Hammond convinced them that a promotion was more useful, so here I am at security level 48.
Time flies when you're having fun. I developed a new kind of exploding shuriken and with these babies I've been laying waste to even greater numbers of extradimensional and local enemies. When I stopped Malta from gaining footholds in three different dimensions and crippled their dimensional technology I was awarded a promotion to level 49. Unai Kemen seemed worried that I was trying to take his job. Silly person. Why would I want a dead-end job like that?
It's been a wild and crazy ride, with its ups and lows, but surely it wouldn't have been possible without all of you guys. Yes, that's right, today I've become a Hero of the City. I wish I could say exactly why but nothing really out of the ordinary has happened which could have convinced the powers that be that I was ready.
Sure, I helped capture Siege, and Neuron. Mother Mayhem, Shadowhunter, Diabolique... and Nemesis showed up again, despite our previous encounter... but there was no final showdown of epic proportions. I don't think I even saved the world this time.
It's a bit disappointing really, but life is rarely as dramatically correct as we want it to be.
It was just a matter of time before the inevitable came to pass. I had been wasting my time in Pocket D for weeks with nothing left for me to do in Paragon City. No real threats or serious challenges remained. I tried to keep myself busy in Siren's Call and Warburg but it seemed too much like we were just there to get out of the way. Our "superiors" don't want us running around asking stupid and uncomfortable questions in the city. Stowe us away in a warzone and let us fight each other. It will keep us occupied. Might even get a few of us killed. I'm sure Malta is involved in this. Look at Warburg. Those Titans look awfully familiar, and over there nobody even cares if you're a hero or a villain. It's every man or woman for themselves. It's got Malta written all over it.
It was easy to find passage to the Isles - perhaps a bit too easy. If it's this simple I can't help but wonder how many of us lead double lives... Once I had arrived safely I made contact with a few of the free agents who refuse to bow down to Arachnos and Lord Recluse. I checked out the local fauna but I'm no real herpetologist so I couldn't tell you much about that. Later that day I came to Port Oakes where the real fun began. So many villains have escaped justice and found refuge in the Rogue Isles. Some of them even boast about their deeds in the local rag. Now I'm at their doorstep, and they will learn that there is nowhere they can run to where I can't find them.
Taking some time to clear out unnecessary or undesired memories. It's been a busy week. Has it just been a week? Five days. Seemed like longer. I've discovered that Arachnos runs a tight ship. It seems impossible to move or do anything without a spider popping up and taking notes. Fortunately the organisation weaves a tangled web and one leg rarely knows what the other seven are doing, so I haven't had any trouble avoiding what goes for justice around these parts.
This is particularly clear when it comes to a certain spider, Brass, who's some kind of head of security in Aeon City. He doesn't seem to know who I am, or he doesn't care. To him I'm just some disposable muscle available to do his dirty laundry, and it sure is dirty. If his bosses knew what he was up to they would scoop out his brain and slap it into one of the obiquitous security drones faster than a scoop-monkey at Baskin-Robbins.
So I get to see what goes on behind the scenes. Something very strange is happening with the power company, for example. Another strange thing was some guy called Professor Echo who kept showing up, claiming that he knew me. Must be from some future I haven't been to yet. It would explain how he always knew when I was going to show up.
So far I've tried to avoid the other lowlives in the isles but I might have to reconsider this policy. After all, if I'm here, who knows how many other heroes are here, trying to make a difference.
Had to leave the Isles for a while, deal with things at home. Graduation and such. Now I have to figure out what to do next. I'll probably stay in school, indulge in some research or something. My self-analysis personality tells me it's good to keep in touch with other people, and I think it might be right. I'd end up a crazed hermit if I left now. More crazy. Anyway.
Went back to the Shadow Shard. There was a Circle of Thorn plot to bind Faathim the Kind and use his power to fuel a ritual of some kind. I never did find out what the ritual was supposed to accomplish, it didn't seem important at the time. We stopped them so it doesn't matter now. Faathim's not insane like the other gods in that dimension but it's hard to tell with deities.
Still no news on that Malta plot. They're working on some big robot, bigger than usual, and I've tracked down the lab where they are putting it all together but I need more people to take it down, in case they got one of the prototypes online. It will have to wait until I can get a team together. Heading back to the Isles, Sharkhead Island beckons. Fortunately it's got a portal to Pocket D so it's easy to move back and forth. DJ Zero always looks the other way while I slip out the red side.
In Sharkhead I learn about the Cage Consortium. Everyone in this place turns a blind eye to the blatant corruption. I've talked to some Family capo, even helped him weed out some of the competition. I figure I would have to take them out anyway, might as well let him think I'm on his side. The local miners' union seems to have a problem with capes. I guess they are used to the Destined Ones of the Islands and now attack everyone at first sight. I incapacitate them with as little pain as possible.
The miners almost seem to worship some kind of ghost, the Scrapyarder. He showed up today, leading a massive number of miners. I helped fight him, he and his half-insane followers were rioting in the street, setting fires and smashing everything they could find. Even if their anger is justified it doesn't mean they can endanger innocent people. The ghost was put to rest but they say he will return, over and over, seeking revenge for what Mako did.
Arachnos does indeed weave a tangled web. They are fighting amongst themselves constantly, just barely hiding their intentions and actions from each other. This has been most helpful for my purposes here, since I have been able to play several Arachnos operatives against each other, or against other organisations.
There was the case of operative Vargas, who was so blinded by ambition that he couldn't tell when someone was feeding him false information and setting up a feud between the Council, the Freakshow and Arachnos. They say the Freaks got the original information which made them the targets of both Council and Arachnos troops from an old scrapped hard drive, but one might wonder who gave them the hard drive to begin with.
What's worse is these strange dreams I've been having. I don't normally sleep but lately I've found myself waking up from short naps, vague dreams slipping from my memory. Which by itself is rather disconcerting, since I have perfectly photographic memory and must in fact make an effort to forget anything I don't wish to remember. All I can remember is a name, Maros, and a pair of burning green eyes. I have to figure out more about this but at the moment I don't know where to start.
I haven't felt like adding to this journal for some time. A lot of things have happened since my last entry, many of which have distracted me from my work in the Rogue Isles. I'm not complaining though - not when the distraction is as lovely as Rain. Too bad I can't say the same about the former nictus shard turned Warshade who decided to seek asylum inside my body and then went catatonic or mute. I've been asked to let it stay inside me until it recovers from whatever trauma it's suffering, but now it's been weeks and it still hasn't even talked to me. Fortunately I've joined up with the League of Justice and I believe their leader and other distinguished members have the knowledge and expertise needed to solve this little problem.
Anyway, back to the Rogue Isles situation. I would actually have avoided the place even if I didn't have all these other things to deal with. It made me feel weird. Like something or someone was making me do things and then altering my memories. It shouldn't be possible but who knows what's really possible these days. The really disturbing thought is: did I really not go there? I seem to have made "friends" I can't quite remember when I first met them. Of course I might have removed the memories myself for some reason but why would I do that? Whatever was going on has stopped now. Ever since I got the Warshade passenger I haven't had any lapse in my memory, so I guess it's good for something.
Recently I've been working with a demon hunter called Hardcase. He's scum, but with a shred of decency. He hunts demons and tries to protect the innocent people of St Martial from being possessed or worse. Out of all the scum I've met here he's probably one of the few I don't mind working with. We parted ways on what might almost be considered friendly terms, and he gave me some insight on the cult of Arachnos mystics known as the Mu.
Time for me to see some Freakshow punks about the forbidden Rikti technology they've stolen. I'll probably write more later.
Technician Naylor is an Arachnos operative who tries to understand how the ancient portals hidden in the Oranbegan ruins all over Nerva works. I gave him a couple of hints with some dimensional coordinates I had found in a Nemesis base and a tome on portal construction I picked up in a Circle of Thorns temple. In return he let me go through the portal first which I hoped would give me a head start before the rest of Arachnos came bumbling through and made a mess of everything.
We were late for the party though. The dimension I arrived in had already been invaded by not only Longbow and Devouring Earth but Nemesis as well. Fortunately for me, these Nemesis troopers belonged to one of his armies that I had subverted back in the day, and they had an interesting story to tell. According to the soldiers I rescued Nemesis had a new plan to attack me, and when I learned what the plan was I couldn't help but smile.
There was a time when I was playing a weird game with Nemesis where I would thwart his plans and he would keep changing them and I would keep thwarting them, always trying to keep several steps ahead of each other. It was entertaining for a while. Anyway, back then I set a plan in motion just in case I ever needed a perfect alibi for whatever reason. I left just enough ideas and suggestions in his archives to plant the seed for the very plan he was now about to set in motion. It was all my idea to begin with so I already knew what was going to happen, but I played along anyway since it was necessary for the plan to come to fruition.
The plan was quite simple. Nemesis would create a perfect automaton duplicate of myself and use it to cause crimes or infiltrate hero groups, or whatever. It would discredit me and provide him with secret information. This was the original plan that I had injected into his warped mind. He had added a slight twist to it by suggesting that the plan had already happened, just as described, but that the incomplete automaton - me - had escaped and believed that it was the original. Laughable, but he always underestimated my true power. It didn't make any difference to what I had planned anyway, so I went along with it.
After a few mishaps in various dimensions where I pretended to be an escaped automaton, or pretended to believe that I was the escaped automaton, I finally tracked down the base where they stored the actual automaton. It hadn't been assembled yet, but it didn't matter. All I needed was irrefutable evidence that Nemesis could build a perfect duplicate and I would have a perfect alibi for all the gray-area activities I had been forced to take part of lately.
Beating up Aurora Borealis and Infernal doesn't go entirely unnoticed, and Longbow had certainly noticed that I didn't consider them much better than any of the other criminal organisations infesting the Isles. Reports of this must have had made it back to the Phalanx and Paragon City, and with an upcoming review I needed to cover my tracks if I wanted to keep my Hero License.
So, whatever illegal activities you guys heard I had been involved with, just remember: a Nemesis automaton duplicate did it.
...
Ok, I guess this will need some explanation. What do you mean, Take One is a Warshade now? Well, you see, there I was in the Rogue Isles, trying to set up various villain factions to fight each other or generally causing trouble for the cowards who hang out in the Isles, when I overheard one of the doctors at the hospital in Cap au Diable talking about a nictus shard she wanted to steal from the Council, to vivisect in her laboratory or something equally sinister.
So I approached her all incognito-like and volounteered to get the nictus from the Council base. She was obviously not much of a people-person because she failed to see through my simple disguise and had no problem with sending me to get the shard. I invaded the Council base with my usual style and finesse and when it was all over I noticed that the nictus had left its former host and moved over to me in the confusion of the battle. This was unexpected, but saved me the trouble of lugging an unconscious Galaxy Archon all over town. That might have attracted some attention even in the Rogue Isles, and I don't want too much attention when I'm over there.
Anyway, I decided to not tell the doc or the guy she had prepared to suck the nictus out of the previous host, but took a quick trip back home and went to see Shadowstar, the Warshade rep in Galaxy City. After some explanation she agreed to take me to see some of her colleagues. They checked up on me and my passenger and came to the conclusion that the nictus was still too weak to be safely dislodged or exorcised or whatever it is they do. It might be hurt or killed in the process, and that might cause it to explode or something which doesn't sound like it would be an improvement on my health.
Apparently the best thing would be for me to carry around this thing inside me while it regains its strength, until it is healthy enough to be removed safely. I don't see how I have much of a choice in the matter unless I want to risk painting the surroundings in a striking shade of brainmatter, so of course I agreed and here I am... nursing a hangover with a personality.
So far it's been a blast. I've been checking in on some Council activities, stealing some decryption keys and followed up on some strange business with the Outcasts and the Circle of Thorns. The Thorns were trying to buy a warshade from the Outcasts, apparently to research the warshade possession. Fortunately we could stop them before... I mean I could stop them before some other unfortunate warshade got caught in their trap.
Then I joined some of the Leaguers taking on a horde of Crey clones in a hidden laboratory somewhere. It was almost like the good old days, with the added benefit of hanging out with Rain and dancing in a fountain like an italian movie star. I can't wait to see what will happen tomorrow.
...
Every day since the thing happened I've been going back to Shadowstar's friends for a checkup. I'm pretty sure they don't care how I feel, it's the being inside me they are concerned with. Yesterday they said that it seems to be growing stronger and that our joint efforts have been good for its development. I hope this means that they can start thinking about how to get it out soon.
Quite frankly I don't think they know exactly how to do it yet. I met a man who was one half of a Warshade pair. His kheldian half had been torn from him in a magical ritual by the Circle of Thorns. He didn't seem to have taken it too well. In fact he seemed broken. I can only hope that whatever method the kheldians will use is less invasive and more gentle than the brute force of the Circle magic.
Before I left one of the kheldian experts said that I could expect some unusual happenings any day now. Apparently my kheldian is approaching a "special" stage in its development. In my experience that usually spells trouble and I sure hope this isn't going to be like puberty all over again. I can't help but imagine that whatever is going on could prove fatal to a weak and fragile creature, which would of course have a detrimental effect on my own health... Going to take it easy for a while so I don't disturb my passenger too much.
...
What a great day! Dancing at the Pocket D, showing off the new costume I got from the kheldians. Afterwards I went with Rain to The Hollows and cleared up some villain bases. It worked great, the only strange thing was that my costume seemed to move on its own sometimes. They had told me it was designed to help the kheldian part of me to focus its energies, and that it would allow them to check up on me from a distance. It is quite comfortable actually, despite the strange appearance. Anyway, the spines on the shoulders would move now and then, but it didn't feel bad and nobody teleported me to an emergency room for mental surgery so I didn't pay it much attention. How could I care about such trivial matters when I was with Rain!
Eventually we got a clue to the whereabouts of Frostfire, the Outcast leader. His base was well guarded but still didn't provide much resistance to our combined powers. It wasn't until we faced Frostfire himself that things started to get really weird. He just looked at Rain and she was frozen in ice. His men brutally beat her down while she was helpless! Of course I charged them, sending out energy spheres in orbit around me, but it was no use.
I was caught in a block of ice and just waiting for the Outcasts to finish the job, when suddenly I was free, teleported out of the room. Before I could figure out what was happening I was flying, shooting bolts of energy everywhere from my tentacles. I was unstoppable, fuelled by emotions stronger than anything I ever felt before. Anger, sorrow, fear - it all turned into black-purple bolts and tore the Outcasts and their leader into barely living shreds. It was almost intoxicating...
Rain was still alive, but unconscious. Somehow I managed to wake her up despite a sudden abundance of clumsy tentacles and a distinct lack of hands. After we caught our breath I went to see Shadowstar to tell her and her kheldian friends about what had happened. I was so sure that this had to mean that the former nictus shard was strong enough to get by on its own, but as it turns out the strain of the battle had apparently caused it further harm somehow. I can't really tell, it seems just as before to me, but now I can also change into the so called Dark Nova form. I've been more or less ordered to keep calm and out of trouble and let the poor thing heal, so I guess this means I'm not doing anything fun for the next few days. Typical.
...
Recent investigations have revealed to me that Nictus shards are used to create not only the Galaxy Archons but also Void Hunters and Warwolves.
This might be bad.
Fortunately some of the people I've recently saved from the Council's Nictus experiments have told me that the Nictus can only possess a weakened and willing host. I've also learned that my current situation is exactly how the Council prepare a weakened Nictus after they arrive to Earth, except they of course use unwilling hosts for the creature to inhabit while it regains its strength. This doesn't make me feel comfortable.
...
What do you do with the power to change the world?
I have held it in my hand. It is a book, or it was a book when I found it. They say it can take on different shapes depending on the time and place or even the people involved. The Malleus Mundi. Scirocco thought he could use it for good. He was planning to turn the world into his idea of a utopia, to pay his debt for all the bad things he's done ever since he became Scirocco. He wanted me to find the book for him, and since I was using him to get to Recluse I decided to give it a shot. At the time I hadn't found out what kind of world he would create with it, and I didn't know what the book was capable of. I'm not sure it would have made a difference if I had known then what I know now.
I'm not going to bore everyone with the story of how I found the book. Suffice to say that once I had secured it I saw no reason to just give it away without at least looking at the pictures first. So I memorized it, and then brought it to Scirocco. That was when he told me what he was planning to do. He'd basically remove free will and make himself the ruler of the world, because he figured he was the only one moral enough to hold that position. After the world was made perfect his sins would have been washed away and he would have found peace of mind. Madness. I wasn't surprised to find out that Lord Recluse was aware of Scirocco's plans and had decided to punish his lieutenant by letting me stop him. Yeah, great, thanks a lot. Oh well, it wasn't like I had planned on letting him go through with it anyway.
Apparently it wasn't much of a crisis after all. The book I had given Scirocco looked alright but something was missing. The power that is the Malleus Mundi can't be copied, and when I had memorized the book the power went along with the information, leaving the book completely mundane. Scirocco still tried to perform the ritual described in the book, but without the actual power of the Malleus Mundi at his disposal he was doomed to fail. He figured it out just after I had defeated him, and I could almost hear the snap when his heart and spirit broke. Arachnos had claimed him entirely and what little good was left in him had finally run out.
I left the Isles soon after this and haven't gone back since. I've had so much else on my mind, first and foremost the warshade I still couldn't seem to get rid of. The creature was obviously more traumatized than anyone had imagined and it simply refused to communicate with me. I had learned to "prod" it in various ways to make it do things with those marvellous quantum powers but it wasn't like a real kheldian fusion. I was still myself. The warshade's mind and personality was all but non-existent, and the only time it did anything on its own was one time out of self-preservation when I had been knocked unconscious by a lucky Frostfire. I had been carrying the broken kheldian in my head for months now with no sign of improvement after the initial few weeks.
I didn't come to the conclusion lightly. I mean, I had in my head the means to change the world. I could perhaps have done something to prevent world hunger or cure diseases or end all wars... but all those things are supposed to happen, sort of. They are also very complicated affairs and affect a lot of people, for both good and bad. I'm not used to magic and I didn't have any chance to experiment. The power was a one-shot deal. I could not change my mind if I noticed I had made a mistake. So I decided to just put my own life at stake and cure my warshade companion.
Using the power was almost like formulating a complicated wish to a trapped genie. I was pretty certain that if my desire wasn't formulated in a way that left no room for interpretation, bad things could happen. I had too much to lose for anything to go wrong so I created several personality fragments and put them to work analyzing my "wish". Several weeks later I had come up with what I considered a foolproof plan which would both cure the kheldian and separate us in a way that didn't harm neither him nor me.
To minimize the danger to the surrounding area in case something actually did go wrong I persuaded Unai Kemen to let me go to one of the unpopulated dimensions to perform my ritual. He didn't have a problem with it, so a few hours later in a dimension where the war between Mu and Atlantis had left Earth a magically scorched desert fourteen thousand years earlier I sat down in the lotus position and started to unravel the complicated "formula" I had worked out. It took eight hours to think it and channel the power through it, but I can summarize it quite easily; cure the warshade and let him merge with a duplicate of myself. As the last remnant of the power of the Malleus Mundi slipped from my mind I opened my eyes and looked at myself looking back at me.
We went back to Earth and went our separate ways. There were no reason to say goodbye, it would have been like greeting your image in the mirror. I went home and wrote this down so everyone would know what had happened. I was left with enough memories and knowledge to let me survive in this world, but most of the special training and meditation techniques that Rich had invented is gone. With them went the super-intelligence that was dependent on his conscious control of his brain functions. I guess he thought I should get a fresh start and be allowed to figure some things out on my own. Typically for him, Rich told Unai that I would do the favors he had asked for in return for using the portal when I get the required security clearance. I could not really refuse, it would have seemed ungrateful.
...
The rest of the journal is blank.
