AN: Long chapter that explores the SI's motivation for his powers and drawbacks selection. If you're not interested in spending time reading through this there will be a short list on the information section where the SI's selections are listed.
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"...some questions." I finish with no one to hear me.
I check every part of the room that I suddenly find myself in and try to find a possible exit but come up with nothing. So I take a look at the tablet given to me and see it has a webpage displayed on it.
Lt Ouromov's Worm CYOA V17
I look at the URL section and see: CYOA written on it.
This was the paperwork. A freaking CYOA loader. And the wonderful world of Worm was to be my new home. Banzai.
I had a strong suspicion that I was shunted off to this room so that the robotic lady wouldn't have to deal with my complaints and anger. And boy was I raging.
But I had been shunted off to an empty room with no visible exits and no one to complain to. So I did the logical thing and just started filling out my 'paperwork'.
On the tablets were three buttons. They read SP, Done and CP in that order. With the SP and CP buttons at either ends of the tablets and the Done button on the center. Pressing the SP and CP button caused the number 0 to appear while pressing done caused a dialog box to pop up.
Pressing Done will lock in your choices and send you to your new home.
Are you sure you would like to proceed?
Yes No
I hit no and go back to the page. Well if I'm going to do this might as well do it well.
Pressing the Meta box caused it to expand with almost all the options greyed out and my options already locked in place.
Meta (Target): You. Gain 5 SP.
Meta (Awareness): CYOA. No points.
Meta (Other): Unavailable.
I closed the box since I couldn't make any changes and moved on to Difficulty. This too had the options locked. Was I actually going to be able to choose something?
Difficulty: Standard (Don't be a baby.)
Starting Points: 0 SP. 0 CP
I moved on to scenarios since there was nothing to select and I finally got some choices. I noticed that starting my new life on the canon start date granted me a pathetic 10 SP and 10 CP. I'd rather have more time to prepare instead so I looked at the other dates available. The day Taylor triggered, day she started getting bullied, week her mother died, and so the scenarios went as far back as the Dawn of Time. What was I supposed to do with that? Go and kill Scion in the crib? Nope. I selected 19th Century as my point of arrival. The cost was a bit high but having around two centuries to prepare myself made it appealing. Granted I would have to select a 10-year period in which I would randomly appear but that wasn't a deal breaker. So, I selected it which prompted a dialog box to appear on which I selected 1800-1810 as my decade of choice. Options other than the starting date were greyed out so I moved on.
Scenario: 19th Century '1800-1810'. Cost 15 SP and 25 CP.
I move on to Character and look at the options on Incarnation. Character-Insert. Pass. I did not want to body jack anyone, even a fictional character. Reincarnation. I liked being an adult and going thought infancy and puberty might make me jump off a building so pass on that as well. And so I took the last available option.
Incarnation: Drop-In. Gain 5 SP and 5 CP.
I wouldn't have any identity in the world because of this but I'm sure I'll manage to get around that problem. Selecting Drop-In caused the rest of the options to be greyed out so I moved on to Perks.
From the vast options available to me I selected these Perks:
Blank. Cost 5 SP and 15 CP. Trumped the Trump. Cost 5 SP. Who wants to Live Forever. Cost 5 SP. Invictus. Cost 10 CP. Natural Leader. Cost 5 CP. Comic Book Physics. Cost 5 SP and 5CP.
Blank and Trumped the Trump would protect me from most Thinkers and Trumps while Invictus would protect me from all Masters. Who wants to Live Forever and Natural Leader would allow me to create and run my own organization to fulfill my goals while Comic Book Physics would make sure that I do not accidently tear through the world.
Towards the end I noticed that the World Perks section was greyed out but I wasn't too worried about them. If the power I wanted was available it would be easier to defeat Scion and the Endbringers.
I skipped the Drawbacks section for now since I wanted to select the powers to match them first. So I moved on to the Power Origins.
I selected: Shardless. Cost 10 SP and 10 CP. Since I didn't want an unknown parasite squatting in my brain. Plus I wasn't going to wait two hundred years to get my powers.
Moving on to Powers I skipped Lesser Powers and selected Physical Powers. And there it was. hom*o Immortalis (Marvel). Cost 40 SP. They could have doubled the cost and it still would have been worth it. I selected it without hesitation and moved on. Nothing else on the Physical section interested me so I moved on to the Mental and Psychic section.
Reading through them I decided to skip them since Cosmic Energy would be able to mimic most of the abilites listed. The next section was listed as Magic and Mystic Powers.
I knew that the Worm universe did not have magic, but I decided to get Master of the Mystic Arts to cover my bases. 15 SP. Besides, using magic would make me undetectable to the Parahumans since they wouldn't know how it worked.
Since I already had Cosmic Energy from being an Eternal the Spiritual and Divine Powers did not interest me. The Technology section interested me more. After arriving in the 19th Century I'd be forced to live a simple lifestyle until the industrial age rolled around. So a technological power to speed up the development was a must.
Deciding to stick to the Marvel theme I selected: I am Iron Man! (MCU). 25 CP. This would give me the knowledge of the greatest minds of the MCU. It also gave me general technological knowledge of the year 2020.
On the Objects of Powers section I decided to take Perfect Armor. Cost 18 SP. While my selected powers would make me extremely durable I wasn't about to take chances with my second life and so I selected something that was most likely to protect me.
Deciding that my powers covered all necessary bases I move on from Powers to Skills. There I select Talented Artist and Stealth for 5 CP each since the Cosmic Energy would make me strong but not skilled on those aspects. And since I wasn't sure if my technological powers would cover it, I decided to get the Formal Education: Doctor for 10 CP. I also selected Politician for 10 CP and Teacher for 3 CP since I had plans that required that knowledge. I then moved on to Items.
I immediately select Laptop for 2 CP as well as Media for 3 CP. Thank the Gods for their bountiful mercies. So I wouldn't have to spend my days watching a man fart a flamethrower for entertainment. Now I didn't begrudge the Gods using me for entertainment either since I know how bored I'd have been if I didn't have these devices. I selected Wikipedia for 3 CP to consult in case I needed more information and Solar Battery for 1 CP for powering my devices. The Companions section was locked so I moved on to Missions.
For the Missions I was given a choice between three random missions or one write-in mission by the Gods. I read through all the given choices and some seemed to be easily solvable with my powerset while others would need some prep work. Since I couldn't count on the God's not being absolute bastards, I decided to take my chances with the three random missions. The options locked on to Protect the Hero, A Little Slice of Paradise and The Catalyst. Not too bad.
The Setting option was the next one and there I saw that my option was already locked in. Earth Zeta. I couldn't remember any references to this particular world so I read it's description. Due to your arrival being marked as extremely pre-canon, your access to Canon Earth Bet has been locked until the Year 1988. Earth Zeta will be the world in which you will arrive with your arrival marking its point of divergence.
Well sh*t. This would make some of my goals much harder to reach but it would also make the Worm canon that I was aware of much relevant. Eh. You win some you lose some. I selected Random for 8 CP, since I could just fly to my intended location, and closed the Settings section. I then decided to make my way back to the Drawbacks page to finish up my 'paperwork'. There I selected the following:
Endbringer Target for 10 SP and 5 CP. You are the Worthy Opponent for 10 SP and 5 CP. Chosen One for 5 SP and 5 CP. Saintly Purge for 10 SP and 5 CP. Fallen Worship for 5 SP and 10 CP. The powers of an Eternal were so vast and strong that even 25 percent of it would make me the most powerful being on Earth during the 19th Century, also I had tons of time so I chose Acclimation for 15 SP and 15 CP, Jet Lag for 10 SP and 10 CP, Snail's Pace for 20 SP and 20 CP, Snails Are Quicker Than You for 20 SP and 20 CP and Quarter Pounder for 10 SP and 10 CP. I also selected Not Faster not Slower for 10 SP and 10 CP.
These drawbacks would make it so that I only had 25% of my strength at the beginning and it would take eight years to grow to my full strength. Sixteen years after I get back my full strength, I'd have twice that.
After selecting my Drawbacks I noticed that I had a balance of - 8 SP and 16 CP, so I switched over to the points coversion section to trade 16 CP for 8 Sp bringing my balance to 0 SP and 0 CP. Waste not want not. Satisfied with my choices I hit the Done button and this time I hit Yes on the dialog box. As soon as I did so the tablet disappeared and the floor opened up to swallow me.
AN: I would like to apologize for the delay in chapters and the deletion of the previous chapters. I started rewriting the chapters since I wasn't able to get much information about pre colonial Australia and I couldn't pace the story to match the timeline. I'll be writing at a slower pace since I'm still reading up on the history of the world at 19th century and I want to do this properly. I also opened up too many possibilities with the Atlas and Polymath powers so those have been removed so that the powers of an Eternal become the main focus for this story as I intended.
