Plip. Plip. Plip.

The only sound in the bathroom was the dripping from the faucet as Perry stared at the wall, thinking about his night.

Fiction always described your first kill as life-changing. A scar you would carry around with you for the rest of your life.

It was bad, to be sure, but about the actual act, Perry was a bit numb, like he was still processing exactly how he felt about it, and would revisit it later at a more inconvenient time. It was the surrounding aspects that bothered him right now.

His entire life, Funkytown had been something of a playground. For him, it was about as safe as a neighborhood got, despite being rife with crime and maneating monsters.

Because he’d taken being universally loved by Manitians for granted, he’d put someone else in a situation where they’d forced him to kill them. Perry didn’t mourn the loss of demonspawn that turned to murder the instant it became worth the risk to do so.

If anything, Perry was embarrassed.

Perry could have easily handled the situation differently and still gotten an answer from the hag without a fight to the death. Everything had gone down because he was flexing his magic knowledge to impress Heather.

Dad… Perry thought sourly as text began scrolling past his gaze, interrupting his self-recriminations.

For harvesting the entirety of an opponent’s Causal energy, you gain 437 XP.

Harvesting, I.E. killing them. Dad really went all out with the design of the XP system.

Perry had already suspected that he might get more experience for killing something than he would for simply putting them in jail. More possibilities snuffed out, more XP. It made sense.

He REALLY didn’t want a system that incentivized being a killing machine murderhobo.

But here we are.

Now that Perry knew this, theoretically…Theoretically, Perry could go on a killing spree and get himself to the level where his stats surpassed human understanding in a couple hours. Maybe if he nuked a district, he’d be unstoppable immediately afterwards.

The potential for abuse was literally astronomical.

The only things stopping him were people at the top like Solaris who might snuff him out in a microsecond upon getting notice of his rampage, and the fact that Perry wasn’t an enormous dick.

I wonder why I don’t get those notifications when I fight prawns and other monsters? Maybe because they’re not people, not opponents. They’re just monsters, who don’t really have much of a choice in their behavior. Less causal potential.

Perry sat in the tub, staring at the scrolling text intruding on his moment of relaxation.

Congratulations! You are now a level 5 Garage Tinker.

Paradox Zauberer (Perry Z.)

Class: Garage Tinker

Level 5

HP: 6

Body: 5

Stability: 5

Nerve: 10

Attunement: 25

Free Points:7

XP to next level: 3051

Every five levels you may purchase Perks using your free points.

Some Perks may not be affected by Attunement. These Perks are indicated with an Asterisk (*)

Some perks may require additional costs to implement in the form of HP, Body, Stability, Nerve, or Attunement. These perks are indicated with (HP,B,S,N,A)

Available Perks:

Sliding Stats (Variable Cost)*

Spend a number of free points to gain the ability to slide an equal number of stat points between different attributes.

Example: With the 3 point version, User may move 3 points in any stat to any other stat until further notice. Does not effect free points received upon level up as a result of modified Attunement, but will effect perks used while Attunement is modified.

The stats may be moved in any combination, to a maximum number indicated by the amount of free points invested in the Sliding Stats Perk.

More points may be invested in Sliding Stats whenever Perks are offered.

Blueprint (3) or (3N)*

User may create a blueprint charged with their perks. If another uses the blueprint to create the object detailed therein, all the User’s applicable Perks apply to the creation.

Only one Blueprint may exist per instance of the Blueprint Perk. If a new blueprint is created above the limit, the oldest Blueprint becomes mundane and loses its properties.

Summon Garments (1,3, 5)

(1) Summon mundane clothes onto the User to combat exposure or indecency. 1/day

(3)Summon common Hyperweave for excellent protection from attacks to combat conventional threats. 1/day

(5) Mentally mark a User-created armor: User may summon that armor unto themself 1/day. User may change the subject of the mark 1/day.

Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Cross-Class (20)(5A)

For twenty free points, and five points from Attunement, you may choose a perk from another Tinker specialization.

Space Tinker

Industrial Tinker

Geo-Tinker

Bio-Tinker

Ray Tinker

Submersible Tinker

Sonic tinker

…

The list went on for a while, each of the tantalizing options locked behind a price tag that Perry couldn’t afford just yet. That was where most of the really good passive boosts to his tinkering were.

Perry estimated he might afford them by level fifteen.

Looks like I didn’t have to worry so much about runaway growth.

The Perks here existed to further drain his free points and delay the inevitable stat explosion.

Multi-tool: (1,3,5)

(1) At will, summon a tool. The tool may have an internal motor and battery system, and weigh no more than 2 kilograms. This includes everything from a wrench or spade to a handheld angle grinder or cutting tool. Only one tool may be present at any time.

(3) the tool may have an internal reservoir of material or objects that remain after it is used, such as a welding device, nail gun, caulk-gun, or glue-gun.

(5) the maximum mass of the summoned tool increases to 50kg.

Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Weapons do not count as tools for the purpose of this Perk, however tools may be used as improvised weapons.

Scent: (3)

User may determine an object’s constituent ingredients and gain some insight into its manufacturing method by sniffing it.

Material specialization: (1)

Pick a material affected by your Spendthrift Perk. It is treated as significantly less expensive when altered by the perk, further boosting its effectiveness. This perk may be chosen multiple times, applying to a different material each time.

Aerosolized: (1)

User gains the ability to summon a cannister, no larger than 20oz of gas-propelled or aerosolized material at will, including but not limited to:

Spraypaint

Adhesive

Insulation

Rubberization

Spackle

Cooking oil

Lubricant

The materials created must be mundane, widely available and plausibly purchased. Their effectiveness is improved by Spendthrift.

Underestimated (1,3,5,10,20)

The User’s experience with the unknowable has been assimilated. If the make or material of User’s armor is viewed with disdain, ridicule or pity by an enemy, that emotional reaction opens the door for an embedded cognitohazard to infect their mind. The cognitohazard inflicts a scaling debuff that impairs the enemy’s ability to damage User’s armor and by extension the User inside.

Example: wearing a trashbag as armor may subtly weaken an enemy’s limbs causing the power of their strikes or accuracy of their gunfire to be diminished, indirectly boosting the armor’s effectiveness.

Higher tiers inflict more powerful debuffs, which may prove lethal to infirm or unhealthy enemies.

Higher tiers may be purchased whenever Perks are offered.

Offered by Claudette’s Hippy Bullshit

Well, that last one looks kinda spooky, but also very handy, Perry thought. It added a tangible benefit to being underestimated, which could lead Perry to a string of wins in which no one could really explain how they lost. Could be a good hidden card to keep under his hat.

Perry also liked…all of them, really, except for Material Specialization.

If he could spend a point to improve a certain materials multiplier, that same point could be spent to raise ALL material’s effectiveness.

Perry just didn’t see himself needing it any time soon.

Scent was deeply interesting to Perry, because he would be able to make huge leaps in reverse engineering other Tinker’s gear by sniffing them. It might also help with chemistry and finding weaknesses in other tinker’s designs. All in all it was a solid choice. Just a bit too expensive at 3 free points to purchase.

Perry was pretty sure he wouldn’t mind trading 3 points of Nerve for a Blueprint perk.

Multi-tool was handy, especially at tier two. It also lacked the asterisk indicating a perk was unaffected by Attunement, meaning the 2kg limit was most likely much higher, and the performance of the tool itself might similarly be boosted.

Again, too expensive to buy tier two right off the bat.

Why was it too expensive? Because Perry’s Attunement had just gone up by another 2 points, and Perry needed his Stability to start catching up or else going on a killing spree was going to seem more and more like the logical thing to do to powerlevel.

That was unacceptable.

Level 25 of Attunement gave a 3.3X multiplier. Level 26 gave 3.5, so Perry wanted to raise his Attunement by an additional one point, to allow next level to have eight free points to spend, rather than 7.

In order to play catch-up, he would have to dump four free points into Sliding Stats and use that to decrease his Attunement and bolster his Stability, making an eight point swing in favor of his sanity. After that, he could put a few more points into Stability than Attunement every level until the two equalized.

Additionally, Perry could move four points into Attunement at will, when he really needed to make something powerful, which could definitely come in handy in the future.

This put his spendable free points at 2, which was woefully low, and limited his perk selection.

Perry could dump those points into Stability and Attunement, But they wouldn’t make a major difference until a level or two later.

Right now, they could buy him one of several different choices that could further boost his flexibility.

Material specialization, summon garment 1, multi-tool 1, Aerosolized, or Underestimation 1.

Mat spec was pointless at the moment, Perry felt. And the first level of Summon Garment was more quality of life than tangibly useful.

Which left Multi-tool, Aerosolized, and Underestimation.

I choose four points of Sliding Stats, Multi-tool and Aerosolized, along with the Nerve cost version of Blueprint.

Underestimation was great, no doubt about it, but Perry would have to spend a lot of time and effort making new suits and perhaps combining its effects with Material Specialization to shore up the use of substandard materials, to make it truly shine.

Right now, Perry’s suits didn’t look half bad, and that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.

Perry’s legs twitched against the side of the bathtub, his toes emerging from the soapy water as his entire body began to tingle like it’d fallen asleep.

The power settled into place, and suddenly, Perry felt the ability like it’d always been there, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that if he wanted a chainsaw, it would appear in his hands.

Multi-tool was an obvious choice for field repair and scrapping, but there was one important hidden reason to choose Aerosolized that the System had neglected to mention.

Perry reached out, his fingers gently resisted by a dimensional barrier.

Something cold and cylindrical settled into his grasp. He rested his forefinger on the nozzle of the cannister.

Perry leaned his head back, closed his eyes and opened his mouth.

PSSSSSHHHHHH

Whipped cream flooded Perry’s mouth.

Was it worth a single stat point? Maybe. Maybe not.

Perry set down the whipped cream and pulled a cannister of compressed chocolate mousse out of thin air.

But I think I’m going to enjoy it enough to make up for that.

When he hit level ten he would be more balanced between Stability and Attunement, and he could afford to look into taking some of the more expensive Perks. For right now, Perry appreciated the versatility offered by the two inexpensive Perks he’d picked.

***The Next Day***

Perry was riding the massive troop transport elevator up the side of the wall, the surrounding supers fidgeting with their gear and ammo as they came closer and closer to their date with the prawns.

“We didn’t get the opportunity to properly greet each other the other day, we were all too busy.” A cloaked man said, offering Perry his hand from the bench across the aisle. The shimmering dark blue cloak moved around him like a living thing, with electric blue veins throbbing inside it.

“I’m Dark Cloak,” he said helpfully.

“Paradox,” Perry said, taking his grasp and shaking it. Perry had seen the cloak form shapes and become hard enough to pierce the hide of a prawn. It was flexible and strong, but the range wasn’t great. Mobility was good, because Dark cloak could use it to fly or run extra fast.

It was a bit like a guy wearing a Heather.

Dark cloak’s partner was Wrecked, a man wearing a mowhawk and thick gloves who caused anything he touched to die or fall apart. His catchphrase was obviously, ‘get wrecked!’ Wrecked was wearing some movement enhancing Tinker gear on his feet, legs and spine because he wasn’t quite fast enough to tangle with prawns without getting squished.

In the corner was a girl with a big cherry blossom stenciled on the front of her hyperweave, carving a piece of wood nervously.

Next to her was a man muttering to a box of weasels. He had scratches all over his face and seemed to be missing a piece of his ear.

Across the room was a Tinker riding a blocky drone with no visible rotor blades or propulsion. The young man muttered to himself as he scrolled through his pad, fingers blazing. Dozens of drones rested nearby with inordinately powerful guns attached to them.

I would’ve expected more armor for a Tinker, Perry thought, but didn’t bother to mention it. Maybe the guy had some kind of forcefield. Hopefully. Worst case scenario, he was an amateur that had come to some unspoken, misguided understanding that everyone else would focus on protecting him while he ‘handled’ all the prawns.

There were people like that.

It was while Perry and Dark Cloak were discussing the tinker and the possibility of him being a glory-hound that it was mentioned that Washington city didn’t have an Anchor.

“Then…who takes over for the most powerful super when he or she dies or goes crazy?” Perry asked.

“Why would you need that?” Dark cloak asked.

“Well, I mean, who runs your government?”

“Elected officials.”

“Who punishes Supers who get out of control?” Perry asked.

“The police.”

Perry raised a brow.

“Do the police have supers in them?” Perry asked.

“Of course. Some of them are supers.” Dark cloak said.

“So they enforce civilian law and super law equally?” Perry asked.

“Why wouldn’t they?” Dark cloak asked.

“Well, I mean, In Franklin city, police are entirely civilian law enforcement and Nexus keeps an eye on supers. It causes less police officers to get vaporized.”

“I don’t see the need to separate them. Just send super police after super criminals.” Dark cloak said with a shrug.

“I mean…who enforces your super police officer’s good behavior?” Perry asked.

“Who enforces Solaris’s?” Dark cloak asked.

Perry scratched his head. “I guess there’s no such thing as a perfect system.”

“Not really, no.”

Perry stayed silent for a while, pondering the differences between cities and which was better. Finally he decided there was no better or worse: Just different.

“Did you have to take Ethics classes growing up?” He asked.

“No, why?” Dark Cloak said, his shadowed face looking genuinely confused.

I changed my mind, Washington City is better.

The klaxon began blaring as they approached the top of the wall, a strobing red light indicating that they had ten seconds until the gates of the elevator opened and they changed shifts with the previous team.

CLUNK!

A heavy impact rocked everyone in the elevator, nearly causing Hardcase’s patched up mechsuit to topple over.

“That’s not right,” Dark Cloak said, frowning as he looked up at the reinforced doors leading to the wall.

Pincers sheared through the heavy-duty steel above them like craft scissors.

Among the sounds of the klaxon and the surrounding supers beginning to yell, Perry faintly heard his phone go off.

He patched it through to his helmet.

POSSIBLE WALL BREACH IN YOUR AREA.

STAY INDOORS AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.

Well, looks like it’s gonna be another long night, Perry thought as the prawns began squirming their way into the massive elevator shaft.