This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
It appears that I have been given leeway after my recent injuries to actually work on the small experiments in life. My statement on the nature and danger of overwork appears to have moved the council.
Today I am attempting to create a device that will allow one to see their reflection inside of total darkness. To this end, I am testing the use of datk curses in conjunction with various materials used for one-way mirrors.
50.
Result 1: The mirror does not work as intended. It doesn't show anyone's reflection at all-only that of anything else besides a living thing. I brought in the corpse of a previous test rat and found that it, too, failed to give off reflection.
Result 2: I appear to have accidentally created a darkening light. It is like a spotlight, only that it makes things darker. A more verbose description of this phenomenon can be found on page 2 of this dossier.
-Day 2-
Result 3: The reflections appeared to be speaking to the subjects. Subjects reported audible voices, though only the person of the reflection can hear their reflection. I do not know what the contents of what the reflections speak are, as the assistants refused to elaborate on the matter. Subjects appear flustered by the information received.
The reflections do not work in the dark.
-Day 3-
Result 4: I have created another unintended result. Anyone in front of this mirror is lost from sight, unable to be seen by the naked eye. Their reflection is still visible, and their form is as physical as ever. The MIT has requested to take this object. I acceded to this request.
I am ending this experiment for now. This endeavor has been very productive, and I may revisit this in the future.
"I'm sorry, what the fuck." Brutus asked, pointing the mirror. The goal was simple, a mirror that worked even in darkness. Instead, they'd found the...opposite? It seemed to steal the light from the area it was pointed at, like a flashlight, but...a flashdark? He would waggle the mirror, watching the darkspot wiggle side to side.
"Askera!" He would shout over his shoulder, the man who'd been working on the next iteration turned to look at him. "How did you manage to make a Flashdark?"
"A what? Bessie, what are you talking about?" The scholar would stomp over to look at Brutus and watch what was going on. "What in the sam fuck." Both of them stared at the darkness spot, absolutely baffled.
"Hey, what does this look like?" Brutus would ask pointing the mirror into Askera's face.
"Motherf- If YOU MUST gamble someone's eyes, gamble your own next time." The giant winced, but then watched as the scholar began to scribbled frantic notes on his firsthand experience.
"My bad. What're we gonna do with this?"
"I think we need to set that once aside for further testing. Set it aside in that box there."
The giant would sullenly place his fascinating toy back in the box and close it. "Any luck with Argent?"
"Luck is for the uninformed, he continues to remain in the same condition, though he sees to be enjoying the music you brought."
Standing in front of a tall full-body mirror, it's ornate frame carved from dark wood, and standing lonely in the darkened stone room, Yu would've sworn that a ghost was about jump out at him from inside the mirror. And also that there was no way in hell that Askera had managed to throw this thing together in a matter of days, but that was beside the point. There was nothing in the mirror, save the nearly completely obscured, inanimate features of the room itself.
"Is this what a vampire feels like looking into a mirror?" the dark-haired man asked, "'Cause I don't like it. It's unsettling."
Yu stared into the dark abyss for a while longer, before he was about to turn around tell the the researcher that this was looking like a wash when suddenly an image flickered in and out. Yu's brows furrowed in confusion for and he froze, waiting to see if it happened again. And it did. Like a ghostly afterimage a figure appeared before him before disappearing again, the only discernable features in the brief instance of visibility being a feminine appearance and wide, fearful eyes.
"Uh, hey, Askera? Something's going on here," the man informed the researcher, unwilling to take his eyes off the mirror.
The mirror flicked for a third time, then a fourth, before the figure in the mirror finally made it's full appearance. A young woman, shorter than either of the men with long dark hair, tied up with silver hairpiece, flowing down her back, garbed in a red and white dress bearing a sword at her side. "Uh, you seeing this?" Yu asked over his shoulder.
"What are you doing here?" the woman asked in a quivering voice. Yu stared back with a look of shock on his face, surprised that he could not only hear the woman's voice, but that it also seemed familiar. Some far distant forgotten memory struggled through the fog and mire of time to make it's way to the surface, only to be bogged down by amnesia.
"Do...I know you?" Yu asked the apparition.
"Why are you here! You promised you'd never come here!"
"Here? What do you mean? What are you talking about?" Yu asked, before the apparition disappeared suddenly and without warning. "H-hey! Come back!" The mirror gave no response, and leaving behind only Yugam, casting a very troubled look back at Askera Question.
T
Toko
Guest
.
.
Entry 6, Result 1
"Seeing a reflection in total darkness... is that even possible, Research-san?"
She was back at the workshop once more, her feet carrying Toko across the stone floor while the Lepus looked about the various specimens, trinkets and equipments that the lab now held. It certainly seemed to be adorned with plenty more materials that the earlier days, which the rabbit supposed testified to the excellent work of the man in charge of the space.
"Don't you need some form of light source, however small, for that...?"
She was no expert researcher, that much Toko knew and was aware of, but even the Lepus thought she understood how reflections in mirrors worked... which is why Askera's newly proposed experiment stumped the rabbit further. Her work today had been simple, gather various materials that the man had requested in different areas of Finweald before bringing them back to the lab safely.
That part of the job had been done with ease, but even with her payment received Toko had decided to linger a while longer—intrigued by this new experiment that Askera was currently working on. If anything the researcher actually made all this science-y stuff actually rather interesting, and while at times Toko wondered if her presence wasn't an intrusion to the man he had never outwardly shooed her away... not yet, at least.
Much to the rabbit's surprise the man had suddenly let out a cry as this mirror of darkness had seemingly worked, and upon approaching and glancing to the prepared environment Askera had made for the tests she had been surprised to see the defined outline of a beaker shining on the surface of the mirror in an otherwise fully blacked out case.
"Eeeeeeh... sugoi dess ne."
However the initial success soon found itself overshadowed when Askera moved onto the next testing specimen—one of the common gray rats that still remained in the lab. The researcher found himself vexed as the rodent lacked a proper reflection in the same environment that the beaker had.
Any inorganic object that was tested resulted in a success, however whenever a live specimen was added no reflection could be observed. At one point the Lepus had offered her own hand out of curiosity, and again it lacked a reflection... but the scalpel she had been holding showed without issues. The final test had been a recently defunct rodent that Askera hadn't gotten rid of yet but that too was a failure, and as the man was reduced to constant mumbling as he took notes on his clipboard Toko had quietly slipped back out of the lab.
She knew better than to bother the researcher when he was so engrossed in the latest findings of his tests.
This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
Today's experiment involves the creation of a device that I want to make sure works exactly as intended. I do not want to allow for deviation. The intent is to create a field from a device that causes one to ignore their pain, allowing for full strength at most times.
Why is this bad for deviation? I'll let you ask that for yourself. What do you think would happen if a person forgot or ignored the wrong systems about themselves?
33. Complications may have occurred that are described on other pages of the dossier.
Result 1: The field amplified pain. A useful device, but certainly not what I am trying to make right now. We will put this line of thought on hold and attempt to change other aspects of the device.
-Day 2-
Result 2: The field caused what appears to be an effect of short-term amnesia. Subjects continuously forget what they were doing in the last minute, effectively nullifying their ability to remember anything while in the field. This seemed to include the present time, given how the subject was tripping over their own feet when trying to walk with two legs simultaneously.
-Day 3-
Result 3: The field seemed to cause distress and confusion. The subject temporarily forgot that they were Starcalled at all, and panicked at an unfamiliar environment. I was attacked and sustained minor injury.
-Day -
Result 4: The results of this experiment could not be recorded. I could record it, and neither could my assistants. I tried many times to record what this can do, believe me-but I cannot. Thankfully, a researcher in the MIT knows what it does and was able to pass word onto the higher-ups, so they are aware of this possibility at least.
-Day 7-
Result 5: Using a different vein of thought while creating this prototype, I managed to create a painkiller spray similar to the Healing Potion spray I had earlier created. It's a bit compact and easier to make, and thus there may be worth in keeping a few around-even if it is not as effective as I had hoped it would be. As it stands, I have made a painkiller that is easier to use on the battlefield than a syringe would be.
I will be ending the experiment today.
Last edited:
T
Toko
Guest
.
.
Entry 7, Result 1
She had been confident enough for today's testing, after all the Lepus was no stranger to pain with all the rough and tumble brawls she got herself into with the various monsters of this world. This new device idea by Askera-san intrigued her greatly, and when she had stepped onto the experiment room the rabbit had been nothing but smiles as she gave the man a thumbs' up motion.
"Ready whenever you are, Researcher-san~"
After so many days and experiments Toko had begun to trust the man and his talent, for it had never seemed to err too far from his own calculations. As a result she felt confident that this, just like every other experiment before, would be of a similar nature—and when he finally gave Toko the go ahead the Lepus didn't hesitate to produce a shard of earthen stone.
It was supposed to be simple, just use the sharp edge to make a cut on top of her forearm and after a few seconds Askera wold activate the device to see how much the pain was reduced. She winced as the object achieved the expected result, blood beginning to surface from the sizeable nick as Toko saw the health bar go down by one tick on her UI.
"Oookeei, junbi deeess~!"
The shard was passed to the hand connected with the now injured arm, the rabbit now using her free dominant hand to give Askera the universal 'okay' symbol before she watched the man begin to fiddle with the control. In just a few moments it would activate and then she could see how much it reduced the current pain to report it bac—
"Itai! Itai itAI ITAIYOOO!!!"
Her voice suddenly interjected as unexpected pain flashed through her arm, the stone dropped as the Lepus instinctively cradled the limb close to her. It only continued to increase with every passing second, her cries getting louder as the rabbit crouched and clutched her arm—instinctually huddling as close together as physically possible as if, somehow, this would help keep the pain away.
She could barely see Askera frantically fiddling with the controls of the machine to turn it off, her vision clouded and blurry as tears quickly formed and streaked down Toko's cheeks, before the pain was suddenly gone just as quickly as it had arrived. Not wanting to waste the chance the Lepus quickly conjured some Nature magic in her hand, placing it firmly on the wound and healing it quickly, just as Askera opened the door of the chamber to check in on the Lepus.
Things had been awkward after that and, after receiving her payment, Toko decided to dip from the lab. That was enough experimenting for one day... if not perhaps the whole week.
They stood beside a table, upon which sat an unfamiliar device. It hummed benignly, projecting a pale sphere of energy then enveloped them completely.
They had one hand on the device, a single, slender finger currently depressing a button on its surface. They pulled back, suddenly worried that the strange object would hurt them. Shock them. Fear of the unknown struck at their heart and they spun around.
They were in a stone-walled room, along with an unfamiliar, white-haired man holding a clipboard. "How do you feel?" asked the man.
"I-" they stopped. Is that really my voice? It sounded off. Synthesized. Fake. At odds with what they had imagined. What had they imagined?
Their brain chugged, trying to process the thousands of questions that surged and sparked in their brain like tap water in a computer monitor. They swallowed. "Who am I?"
"Memory loss. Well that's not good," said the stranger, making notes on his clipboard. "Appears to be contained within the field."
"What? What does that mean? Who are you?" they asked, fear and worry growing in their pale chest. "How did I get here?" they asked, synthesized voice crackling. "Did you do this to me?"
"Don't worry, this is all part of the experiment."
"Experiment?!"
"We'll have you back to normal soon," said the man. "Just click that button-" he was interrupted by a white haired woman appearing in the room. She hadn't entered through any doorway, just one minute there had been empty space to the scientist's left and then: there she was.
She looked around the laboratory, thoroughly unamused by the situation. "What an underwhelming result."
"What did you do to me? Give me back myself!" shouted the confused subject of the current experiment. "Help me!" she pleaded, looking towards the new figure.
"You did this to yourself! Now just click the button-"
"Shut up," the woman told the researcher.She picked up a long ruler for the chalkboard and handed it to the man outside the sphere. "The sphere blocks long term memory access for sentient creatures. Press the button and put me back to normal."
"You press it!"
"I did last time," she told the researcher, who looked at her like she was insane. "I'm getting quite agitated, so I'd say you have a few seconds left before I attack you. Last time I sliced right through that coat of yours."
"What?!"
"Can't you see how upset I am?" she asked, deadpan.
The scientist looked at her in confusion and his mouth opened to complain, but the memory blocked test subject tackled him from the side, screaming at him. "Give me my memory back!" she called, voice modulating wildly, her bladed hands slicing straight through his lab coat.
The researcher screamed, but yesterday's Corsair froze.
She unhanded the good doctor once more, pulled the long lab stick from his hands, and pressed the button on the sphere.
"Huh. We must work with time travel in the future," she said to tomorrow's Corsair.
"Yes. I told them it was reckless. I didn't need to be here to witness myself attacking him again."
"You could have helped me," said the researcher, pulling himself up from the floor.
"Some things are predetermined," Corsair said, brushing away his words. "Which means I won't bother asking you not to do the experiment tomorrow, but I will relish saying how deeply and thoroughly I told you so."
Entry 8: The Reason Why Meteorites Have A Strange Habit of Falling into Craters
Result 1: This experiment has resulted in a failure. I have written this observation of the experiment. This means that I have observed the experiment. This means that the experiment has happened. This means that I had initiated the experiment. This means that I had properly written out the draft of the experiment over the course of a night, brought it to my MIT superiors and have had the experiment approved in succession.
1.
Now it's finally time to begin. I've taken every measure I could have taken to ensure the safety of myself and to any assistant who signed up for this, who I each warned that this may be dangerous.
I don't believe that the results could be that disastrous based on the estimates of my coworker here, but I still sometimes can't help but worry. I only pray that nothing goes wrong. It feels great to contribute. Just a simple tweak alone could vastly improve the effective strength of Astorean military by great bounds. I could, at the very least-it's why I am attempting this to begin with. Imagine what could be done with such a thing.
Today, with his aid, I am now making an attempt to create a device with the intent of altering the direction of causality. I have made contact with a friend in the MIT beauricratical board who knows a contact with access to the rare and unknown mastery that is Chronomancy. The experiment I have today is a fascinating one!
This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
Apparently a subject had been needed to test on some sort of thingy that goes in the thing... Ilya had no clue, but she had been approached randomly by someone in a lab coat.. So she had agreed to go to the TOWER OF TESTS. To be, well.. Experimented on...
Apparently it had something to do with time magic, which Ilya did want to see... Not many people took up that Mastery, so it not only meant that she would be of great help to whoever the scientist was... But she would also maybe get to see time magic in action...
So here she was, standing with her clothes replaced. She had a weird hospital-like gown on and was ushered into a room, taking a moment to adjust to the odd lighting. She was laid out on a table where hands began to move, every single second being asked if it was okay. Just what the fuck was happening... Either way, she approved of every notion that was made.
Hands began pressing on her and she felt her bones crunching as magic began to unwind and rewind time. She could only silently scream in her head as the pain settled in. However, they still would constantly check to make sure she was okay, but she would assure them that it was fine. If it meant more research she would suffer in silence. Besides, surely there would be something at the end of this experiment for her to regain mental and physical fortitude?
Her body going forward and backwards in time; shrinking and growing with each passing minute. This truly took the pain of growth spurts to a whole new level.
Brutus sat down on a chair, his wrist surprisingly tired for some reason. Askera had wheeled out a...it looked like a flow chart of some sort. "You were part of something I called the Great Game. I essentially, using time magic, would flow you back and forth, back and forth, introducing new variable after new variable and watching the ripples of the butterfly."
He would motion to a dot. "This is you." Brutus nodded along. "We observed the decisions you would make in various sorts of situations, primarily in games of rock paper scissors and having you complete various tasks."
Alright, seemed simple.
"We administered amnestics between rounds to make sure that each round was fresh. We apologize for any fuzziness your head might be feeling, that doctors assure me that will pass in time."
"And what did we learn?" Brutus asked.
"A variety of anomalous situations occurred. Our primary objective was to observe the results of the Rock Paper Scissors, to see if you would make the same decision over and over. Some of you did, but others acted anomalously." He shook his head.
"Anomalously?"
"Some players would always pick the winning action, some would always pick the losing action. Regardless of how tightly or loosely we controlled the variables, the result was always the same. More interestingly was you, Mr Brutus."
The giants eyes widened, this was the first time he'd said his name right.
"You have no memory of the incident, and it would appear that our amnestics were working, but between rounds, you began to act erratically."
"Erratically?"
"You began working on information you'd learned in previous rounds of the test instinctually. You would clearly be confused about puzzles when presented to you, but after moments you solve them with excessive ease. Instead of repeating the cycles like several others, you began to swerve and veer into all sorts of uncharted territory. By the end of the test you were impossible to predict."
Brutus raised an eyebrow. "And what does that mean?"
"I have no idea. The running theory is that somehow your instincts kicked in and began to guide you through the paths. Despite not remembering, your body was acting on what your muscles remembered. The other theory is that...you somehow used some sort of ESP, or tapped into Morphogenetic fields."
"Morphogenetic fields?"
"They're incredibly hard to explain, but in essence it's believed to be a shared social unconscious. One that seems to transcend time and space and allows people to intuit things seemingly telepathically. A great deal of the research into it holds certain phenomena up as proof, but can be rationally explained in other ways. This however, defies any other such rationales"
"That's good then, right? We just made a major discovery?"
"Perhaps, but it could lie in a million other faults in the design of the experiment. The amnestics could have failed, parts of the design could have failed, the time magic could have been insufficient. There could have been queues hidden in the test environment that could have set you off. Hell, it could have been as simple as we didn't clean enough and the scent lingered and you picked it up."
"So..."
"For the moment, it is inconclusive. Be advised, we might ask for you to participate in future studies."
"Do you need anything else from me?"
"You are Dismissed Mr. Dahlgren, have a wonderful day."
Brutus would raise from his chair, shake Askera's hand and then depart, leaving the scientist to stare at the results. He couldn't declare anything conclusive, but he'd triple checked every round, dotted every I, crossed every T. There was no logical explanation on what had happened here, and there probably never would. Either the game had some sort of strange quirk in its coding, or he'd just cracked a major mystery of the world.
Corsair frowned as she read the plans for the test. Her frown deepened into a scowl, that she aimed at the senior scientist present.
"Time travel," she said, biting off each word with her silicate teeth, "is an extremely insane topic for an experiment." She set down the clipboard with as little care as possible and exposited to the room at large. "There are numerous theories as to how time travel works, but it boils down to two popular models: separated and integrated. In the separated timeline model, ever instance of time travel branches off from the original timeline, creating a new alternate reality."
"I don't believe in this model, because it honestly just doesn't make any sense. If you branch the timeline then what happens in the other branch? You just didn't travel back in time? It bleeds into multiverse theory, where every possible action and every permutation of that action splits off into infinite fractal timelines. Tiresome, in my opinion."
"Instead, the integrated model makes much more sense. There is ONE timeline, and all actions occur within in, echoing backwards and forwards. As soon as you DO travel backwards in time, your past actions are altered."
She walked over to the device on the table. Unlike the menacing sphere, the chronomantic object they were testing was a small, purple-hued egg, which balanced easily on its thin point. "When is this calibrated to?" she asked the assistant.
"Yesterday."
"During the previous experiment?" she asked, one steely eyebrow raised in disbelief.
"Uh, yes."
"Well planned!" she said, voice smeared thick with sarcasm. "Let's see how this plays out, shall we?"
A splash in reverse, and in the seconds that follow, the droplet of perspiration ascended back toward his forehead. Erick's brow went from furrowed to relaxed, and he spoke. "elbirret oot eb t'now siht yllufepoh." His gaze moved backward and his smile twisted in reverse to a look of contemplative concern as he looked back over the paperwork and reviewed the control group for the test.
Then, the world froze. A ticking sound like the hands on a clock shattered the silence, and motion began again. Erick perused the tomes, scouring the data that had been provided for information pertinent to the experiment. Playing with time and space had severe ramifications, but if he could get better, if he could gain a better understanding of the powers he had chosen, perhaps he could learn to harness it.
He looked to one of the others working on the material with him, who seemed uncertain. His own concern evaporated as he offered a reassuring smile. "Hopefully this won't be too terrible."
A droplet of sweat beaded on his forehead as he wove the spell and tapped into the fabric of reality. With his fingers like a surgeon's steady hands, he pried back the flesh that separated space and time and began to tug the strings backward...
Drip... drip... drip...
...the droplets climbed through air back toward his forehead, and his lips began to move again after he gave a gentle smile to... wait... hadn't someone been there before? Hadn't there been more people? Had he been alone this entire time? With a blink, Erick reached up to scratch his head, and he paused, dumbfounded.
"Huh," he looked around at the empty room, everything from the pages with notes scrawled across them to the chairs that looked worn, warm, but were clearly empty. There were supposed to be at least five members of the Institute present and overseeing this experiment. "Well then," he shrugged as he spoke to no one in particular.
This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
Today's experiment is a personal endeavor. Recently, I have been informed of the fact that Starcalled who die enough may be subject to becoming trapped within the game indefinitely, the veneer of the game disappearing and their life being stolen away by this pastel world. I will be withholding the matter of my opinion on this phenomena-it is not relevant to this dossier.
I am attempting to create a portable pocket space that can be carried and accessed even by a Lander. The primary focus of my engineering will be centered around carry-able bags, such as a pouch that could be worn on the waist. I want to be able to ideally create something keyed to one specific person or to several specified persons.
If I create this successfully, I would intend to sell it as an 'Inventory Space' to UI-locked players for a price as means to gather more personal funding for my own research, as well as funding for various other projects of the MIT as a whole. The kind of people who would truly need this sort of item are no doubt placing themselves into dangerous situations, and have done so for what I record to be at least the past 4 years-if not longer. These kinds of people likely have money to spare, and so I feel it to be a good avenue of business.
83. The report is succinct and details most of the events.
Result 1: I consider the result to be a failure. The crate I used-a large storage object that I have used as an initial test subject-does not store more than it used to, nor does it store anything at all. Items placed inside of the crate will come out of the opposite side of the crate after about five seconds. Closing the crate does not prevent this phenomena from occurring. It is a very poor storage space and does not particularly help with anything other than on-spot emergency redirection of vectors.
Result 2: I used a fanny-pack for this experiment. The goal was to create a non-Euclidean space in which there was more room on the inside. The holding size of the bag itself has just about tripled in size, but it unfortunately also carries the full weight of whatever is inside of it. I had not considered that weight would still be a factor. It is not practical in any measure to be wearing this while it is full, and could potentially be damaging to the spine to lug around for extended periods of time. Use with caution.
Result 3: The attempt this time was, with the aid of someone adept in Chronomancy, to store an object in a null-space that has yet to be. I have created a backpack that sends whatever item is placed inside to a random point of space within 20m of the backpack. It's not terribly useful, as I can't even aim where the object goes. Extensive testing has shown that objects transported this way will never apparate inside of another object, nor will they apparate in a manner that would cause an object to be inside of it upon arrival.
Result 4: I got hold of a briefcase donated by an administrator of the MIT who stated that he had gotten a nicer one. I turned to dark magic, my new attempt to use a previously logged curse that weakens the fabric of reality in a space. The goal was to create a hole to another dimension in which I could store things.
Results are... mixed. I made contact with an entity known as 'Fomor, the Heart of Avarice', whom I spoke to within his realm. He calls the non-liminal space his 'vault', and he is more than willing to allow me to store and remove my items from the briefcase as I please. According to him, this deal is only a benefit to both parties. He reportedly grows in might as more objects of any kind gather inside of his vault.
This project may have been a success, but I'm still hesitant to release the product in any commercial manner. I don't exactly feel it to be a wise idea to hand a portal to a demon over to adventurers that have already seen enough in their lives...
"You're kidding me, right?" Yu said with a nervous chuckle as Askera explained to him just why this project was a necessity. "We get trapped in the game if we die too often? Like that one harem anime from like the 2010s?" With the dead-pan serious look Askera was giving him, Yugam couldn't conjure up another half-hearted laugh. Not this time. Suddenly his suicidal attack against the Kurungaar Mother seemed far more poorly thought out than before.
"Fuck."
Askera then pulled out what looked like any other crate one might find in the back of a store, or on the pier. Wood, nails. The whole shebang. Aside from the runic markings on it's sides, one would never guess that this was supposed to give access to some kind of storage space.
"Uh, you're not planning on putting me into that as a kind of test, are you?" Askera shook his head. "Oh, thank god, okay. Just observing today then? Works for me."
Askera opened up the crate, and then together, the two began to pack as much stuff as physically possibly into the cubic. And, being that they were supposed to stuff what was more than physically possible into that space, things were not looking good for the researcher and his assistant.
"Hate to break it to you A, but I think this experiment is scuffed," Yu said, turning around with his arms crossed. Right before all the contents shot out of the crate from the side, slamming into the man and toppling him over to comedic effect.
"I'm sorry, you did what?" Brutus raised an eyebrow.
"I contacted a dark entity known as Fomor, who has agreed to let me access a non liminal space to use as storage." Askera said plainly, clicking open the briefcase and opening it to reveal an endless black abyss. "Apparently he grows in strength the more things are in his realm."
"So you've engaged in a Faustian bargain with a demon of some sorts in order to make a product for UI locked players?"
"I engaged in a Faustian bargain for science. I highly doubt this will see the light of the free market, let along any use aside from these tests." Askera replies annoyed. "Could you do me a favor and bring me the bowling balls?"
"I was wondering what these all were for..." The giant replied setting down several baskets of bowling balls on the table.
"They are the test. We are going to feed balls into this thing one at a time and record any nominal magical radiation spikes." Askera replied pulling out something that looked close to a Geiger counter.
"So we're gonna sit here and drop one hundred and fifty bowling balls into this hole and write down some numbers?"
This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
To become many states is an important milestone in the logbook of progress. In our case, we will be attempting to become 'fast'. Yes, this is more or less a speed test.
I am revisiting a previous experiment (reference Entry 9, page 1 result 1 and pages 2 and 3) as the primary inspiration for this test. The way that vectors were simply redirected, while unimpressive to watch, brought fascinating ideas to mind. The goal is to Accelerate something between two pre-constructed gates, point A and point B.
Various methods were employed in an attempt to create this acceleration drive. Today we are focusing on the acceleration of vectors. This may or may not involve the use and exploitation of Dark Magic and kinetic force.
72. There are minor complications not detailed in the overview.
Result 1-3: Object successfully accelerated to point B. Object was destroyed.
Result 4: Object successfully accelerated to point B without destruction.
Result 5: Object failed to accelerate. I have suspicions as to why.
-Day 2-
Result 6: Object failed to accelerate. I am now certain that pure lead just doesn't want to be accelerated by this device.
Result 7: Confirmation of Result 6. The machine does not accelerate lead.
Result 8: The ability to accelerate objects attached to lead is significantly reduced. I do not understand why.
Result 9: An assistant of mine all but insisted to be a human test subject in this experiment for reasons I will not disclose. The result was thankfully a success with minimal harm.
-Day 3-
Result 10: A human test subject volunteered to be a part of the acceleration test. The test resulted in several broken bones. I am pausing the research to investigate the discrepancies between yesterday's test and today.
-Day 4-
Result 11: My assumption was correct. The test subject of Result 9 has lead on their person. I have found that lead, while reducing the speed of travel, significantly increases the safety of flight when given to a living subject. I will be adding a lead disc somewhere in this invention.
"Dude, I'm telling you, shooting people out of these things like human cannons, we could reach new heights, literally!" Yu said to the researcher with far more enthusiasm than anyone volunteering to launch themselves out of a weird non-Euclidian box should. Or maybe it wasn't enough, you had to be insane to do that, right? Right?
"Ok, how about this. If I crack my skull or something, I'll buy you a new pack of smokes, and take you out for dinner tonight," Yu offered in a last ditch effort to convince the researcher.
The offer hadn't worked. What had worked? Threatening to start telling everyone they were married, and that he was going to take Askera's last name as his own. Yugam Question didn't sound very appealing, to Yu either, so the man was more than happy with the fact that he wouldn't have to follow through with his threat.
The new device was far more refined looking than the first one, and much larger, now resembling an oversized naval cannon, as opposed to the small shipping crate it had been before. Aimed at stacks of mattresses, in case Yu's firing velocity was higher than expected, the man gave Askera the thumbs up to power up the device.
Schwoomp!
Yu shot out of the makeshift cannon, fast enough that he felt his heart drop down into his stomach as he sped towards the other side of the room at a velocity humans were never meant to endure, before slamming into the mattresses.
Hitting the floor with a thud, Yu lay there unmoving for a second. So still was he, that one might've thought he'd died, had his body not de-spawned.
His hand raised slowly, a single thumbs up pointing high into the air as a coin tumbled out of one of his pockets, clinking on the stone floor.
Success.
T
Toko
Guest
.
.
Entry 10, Result 1
It had been a while since her last experiment with the good doctor, the resulting experience not having been the most... desirable one at the time. Still Toko understood that was a risk she was undertaking when accepting any requests from Askera-san, and finally she had gotten around to pass by the workshop once more.
"So were studying speed...?"
Alright, perhaps that was an incredibly oversimplification of what the good scientist was trying to attempt... but after a few moments Askera nodded in return. It was just easier to keep things plain and simple when it came to his current assistant, and these test were pretty streamlined as it stood.
Varios objects were lined in front of the Lepus, ranging from small crates to a heavy looking stone block that the rabbit herself had polished out, the end of the long room lined with as many cushioning materials as it could be afforded to keep any structural damages to a minimum. She'd wait eagerly until Askera would finally give his signal, Toko coating her foot in gravitational energy before kicking the object in turn as hard as she could.
Each one flew the distance at different intervals, the man writing all the differences down in his clipboard to compare later. Would the matter and density of the object affect the results, or was it instead the Lepus' own movements and magical application? But they time they had finished kicking things at extraordinary speeds the Lepus was absolutely exhausted and almost tapped out of her energy too... though she was quick to give the man a thumbs up and a grin when he announced the results were satisfactory enough for him to work with.
Nevermind the pile of destroyed items that rested ont he other side of the room... no amount of padding had been enough to protect any of the things from the force Toko had been able to inject into them.
This report was written by Freshman Researcher Askera Question.
I've wondered in my previous job what causes hate to crop up between people, for drama within a workplace to stir and for resentment to create a divide between men (or women). I've seen it happen in many forms. Sometimes it was justified, a terrible event happening between the two causing a rift.
It is the less obvious cases that catch my memory. The people who will find one disagreement with another person, and from then on never see the other in a positive light again. Where once was kindness was now pessimism, one that grew in nobody but the resenter himself like a festering poison until he breaks all contact with the 'problem person' and speak of how they had never gotten along.
I always found it curious how people who follow this pattern will always find a new person to hate in time, usually in the exact same manner. It makes me wonder: can hate be a habit? If so, can it be devised and induced alchemically?
If successful, I may have been able to create a human amplification potion-a way to channel hate into productive means in war. I do not expect the most, but perhaps a buff effect could be made. I am requesting the subjects of this experiment to inform me of any effect that pops up on their UI as well as the emotional stir it creates.
46. There were incidents that are not described in the overview page. Something unexpected occured.
Result 1: No buff or debuff was noted to have appeared, according to subject. The subject imbibing this mixture followed a curious pattern, however. They became less active over the span of fifteen minutes, afterwards requesting a bed to lie down in under the claim that they were 'just tired'. Subject lies in bed for a full seven hours, unwilling to leave or do anything productive. They are willing to play with puzzles or fabricated games in this bed, but grow disinterested and fall asleep after a good twenty minutes of play time.
I allowed the subject to continue resting here and watch the other experiments with me.
Result 2: Subject denoted a debuff called 'spite' with no listed description. Subject prodeeded to be generally unhelpful for the remainder of this experiment. You may note that on the log transcription of conversations on pages 4-9, there was very few conversation between myself and Subject 2-this is intentional, as I have ommited a majority of it.
Result 3: Subject showed immediate results, creating a fit on-site. I was cursed out (this, too was omitted from future pages 4-9) and pushed around. I watched as the subject left the experiment early, taking their pay with them without permission. I did not stop Subject 3 from leaving. This was a surprisingly effective result, though I hope that the effect wears off eventually.
Addendum 3.5: Experiment 3 was a failure. After imbibing the liquid myself, I can confirm that there is no helpful alchemical property. The potion just tastes so horrific that it had caused the subject to leave site at that very moment.
Result 4: Subject grew furious over the course of a minute and attacked me. I have already sustained minor injury from the incident. The subject is still looking for a way to attack me.
Addendum 4.5: The experiment is now over by the time of this note. I noted an incredible reaction from the Subject of Result 1, who had otherwise been lying around-upon sight of my danger, Subject recalls a noticeable spike of heart-rate, an increase in agressive urges and an immediate drive to combat Subject 4.
The resulting fight that broke out caused all parties to sustain minor injury before security personally arrived to stop the battle. An antidote was administered into Subject 4 in the form of the injection I had given to Subject 1 with success-the rage has subsided.
There are yet to be any side effects that are spoken of by either subject, though I have noted that they now have a habit of watching me intently. I am unsure if this is related to the experiment, and have posited a theory in page 11 of this dossier.
Due to inherent dangers involved and unforseen to the researchers on-site, I have chosen to suspend this experiment for now. I may revisit experiments 1 and 3, separately from this line of experimentation, at a later date under a different dossier.
Last edited:
T
Toko
Guest
.
.
Entry 11, Result 1
"So I'm supposed to drink this thing," Toko's gaze moved away from a small glass vial, a dubious looking and viscous liquid sitting inside of it, to look at the man with a raised eyebrow. "... which is going to make me angry, so you can figure out an anger-be-gone potion...?"
Granted, the rabbit was probably summarizing it all a bit too much, but that seemed to be the overall image Toko had gotten after Askera had explained the experiment to her... twice. A shrug was given as the hare popped the cork off the vial, downing the contents in one go like a shot, before her face twisted into a grimace as Toko stuck her tongue out.
"Ewww, what fucking flavor is that?!"
Not to mention that tar-like consistency... honestly Toko hoped that whatever cure the man came up for was better, both in texture and flavor. Other than the assault to her tastebuds Toko couldn't say she felt any different, eventually simply chilling around Askera's workshop as they waited for something—anything really—to happen. Five minutes casually turned to ten, and eventually into fifteen before the Lepus yawned loudly.
"Askeraaa...!" Her voice carried a whine to it, much like a petulant child that had stayed up way past their naptime. "... I'm tiiireeed!"
This continued on for a good half an hour, and when the rabbit actually tried to make some space in one of the tables to lie down the man was finally forced to look for an alternative less he wanted some of his other experiments to end up spilled all over the floor. A small cot was gathered and shoved into a corner of the room, the Lepus having easily gravitated towards it as she nestled within... before promptly ignoring everything else going on around her.
The man had quickly picked up that this was unusual behavior for Toko, starting from the moment that she'd addressed him by his name—without any honorifics too—instead of the usual Researcher-san monicker she had picked to call him by. As the hours passed without much change he had decided to test a few things out, the occasional puzzle and game handed to the Lepus who seemed interested in them for the first fifteen to thirty minutes before she would eventually drop them to the side and curl up for another nap.
He had less success in trying to engage the beastfolk on conversation however, receiving an occasional snort or grumble from the hare if he was lucky enough, and after another hour the man figured he could let Toko simply sleep off whatever effect the potion had triggered on her...
