After getting Ulrich thoroughly exhausted (I haven’t buffed her), I give the VI suitable orders for undocking from Stephanie and obeying Ulrich (effectively transferring ownership of the ship), and I head back to Stephanie via my normal route.
Of course, this means the Drift isn't safe to use anymore: I need to plan around not using it… which basically means selling all the Drift drives and replacing them with another method of interstellar travel. But as noted: I CAN do that now. The Alteration Sphere of Spheres of Power has Star Spawn Body; at a caster level of fifteen, that grants the option to add Spaceflight as a trait, which fixes a breathing problem (if any), and lets a target travel in-system in 3d20 hours, or 3d20 days out of system… which is much slower than Drift travel: 1d6 days in system will usually be longer (an average of three and a half days for Drift transit versus an average of 31.5 HOURS for Starflight), but the 1d6 days (average 3.5 days) to Absalom Station, the 3d6 days to worlds in Near Space (average 10.5 days), or even the 5d6 days for systems in The Vast (average 17.5 days) will usually be a LOT less for Drift Travel than for the 3d20 days of Starflight (average 31.5 days). It only gets worse for Starflight on higher end Drift engines like The Rustbucket has (a top of the line Drift engine cuts Drift travel times by a factor of five).
To get it, I need the Alteration Sphere, either Aberrant or Cosmic Body, and of course Star Spawn Body… and I think I prefer Cosmic to Aberrant. Spheres of power has a mildly annoying restriction on ‘temporary talents’: Their effects only last as long as you keep the talents involved, although they stop counting as temporary after I've kept them for a full day… ah, there we go: The Permanent Transformation talent makes the effect Instantaneous, and only costs two more talents known… leaving me with one to spare from my dedicated Alteration talents. Which… is good, as Starflight requires I also grant a fly speed… which I can give via Elemental Transformation and the Elemental Movement trait.
Of course, there's also the targeting issue. Stephanie is a creature already, so I can just apply the effect to her directly with Blank Transformation. Ditto for Star. Ocean will either need to dock with Stephanie, or get more soul repairs. The ship currently growing inside Stephanie, as a biomechanical starship, I can just target. The Brute and The Rustbucket, though? They're out of range of what I can affect with Animate Objects (a Small Starship like The Rustbucket is generally going to be a colossal object, and a Medium starship? Bigger still… I don't have enough of a caster level to pull that off. The Rustbucket we can just dock with Stephanie for transport; The Brute, though? The most I can do is pick up Craft Construct and permanently enchant it as an Animated Object the long way. I could do the same for The Rustbucket… but I'd need to do all the enchanting personally for security reasons (magical constructs obey their creator).
Still… then I could buff them to high heaven; handy. And it is a plan. The other option… sell the ships, get ones that are biomechanical…I've been thinking about upgrading Stephanie's base frame, although that will need to wait until after the birth.
As I’m musing, I get a mental message from Euler, “Ah… can I get a pickup?” I can tell she's broadcasting to everyone.
I blink as I answer, copying everyone as well, “Where are you? What happened? Do you have your Keyhome handy?”
Star answers before Euler: “He was assassinated, or nearly enough. Sudden weapons fire from outside her sensor range; capital weapons, a dozen of them. I'm guessing cloaked ships with data nets as spotters, but I can't be sure.”
“Ah… pretty much, yes,” admits Euler, “I'm functional, but the summons are gone. And… yes, I still have my key, and I just retrieved the ship's link key. The ship is lost, though.”
I shrug, not that anyone except Stephanie can see, “Well… it was always a captured pirate ship. Setbacks happen… but yes, I'll be by shortly to pick you up.”
I Gate into the network, and as I'm walking to the appropriate spot to exit onto the now defunct spaceship, I get a message from Ocean: “HELP!”
Before I can react, though, I get a follow up: “Nevermind; those shots tickle. My shields are gone, but anything hitting my hull is just turning into pretty sparkling lights.”
“Good to know that works,” I send back, “I'm proceeding with picking up Euler. Go empty whatever’s shooting you, all right? We could use a new ship for Euler.”
“Gladly…” I can feel ta grinning across the link, “I even have a drift shadow generator of my own running… they're going to love that, I'm sure….”
I keep getting updates over the mental link as I head to Euler.
“Hi bro! I couldn't let you have all the fun…” Star, obviously.
“Linda! Battlestations!” Wait, why's Stephanie issuing a warning?
“Too late,” Linda replies over the com, “The Rustbucket is down. I'll need a pickup as well.”
Wow, a coordinated attack… given that I'm probably the only one with hyperlight communications, that's actually pretty impressive.
“Wait… seriously, they're RAMMING?!” Star this time. Why…
As I’m popping into reality next to Euler, I get my answer, in the form of panic from Ocean, “I have boarders! They can't affect my smaller portion, but there's too many for me to…” and then silence.
Okay, that’s enough of that. While it was just stuff, it was a small matter, but now?
There's a tiny little second level spell from the Deep Magic book by Open Design for Pathfinder: Chrono Location. It's mostly useful for speeding travel east to west or west to east, because it while yes, it does move the clock… it doesn't sync you with the planet you're on, so for every minute traveled you travel fifteen miles physically. The spell only does one minute per caster level… but quite frankly, that's enough. Combined with Teleportation (or even just rapid long-distance communication), it's time travel without the nasty clause about killing your prior self found in the Teleport Through Time spell. It has it's own nasty clause about side effects… but it's a lot safer than trying to kill myself.
It could still kill me if I prevent myself from going back and roll poorly, though; I'm hoping Mettle will carry me through the effects of a successful save… I just need to not roll three ones, and I'm golden.
So I disconnect from my body, cast and… ah, right. Great… I left my body behind in the future. Eugh. And I'm in the Drift again, because ships move fast.
But I'm still under the effects of the same Interplanar Telepathic Bond spell as everyone else, so…”Out of the Drift, now,” I tell everyone via the spell, “We're about to be ambushed by folks who know our paths in advance… and are scarily well prepared.”
Each of my captains confirms:
“Yes Admiral,” from Euler,
“Yes goddess,” From Linda,
“Doing so now,” from Star,
“Exiting the Drift,” from Stephanie,
…and “All done,” from Ocean.
Then the confusion starts.
“But you just said to,” Stephanie starts.
“Yes, you said we were all about to be ambushed,” from Linda.
“Are you okay, goddess?” from Ocean.
Great… well, easy to sort out, “One of my new abilities… after a problem, I cam go back in time to fix it… but apparently I don't send to me that way. Stephanie, please ask me to meet me in our apartment keyhome for me, thanks.”
“Sure thing goddess…,” Stephanie complies, “please go meet your other self in your apartment keyhome, goddess. Apparently you have a future you waiting?”
There's a brief pause, which I use to Gate into my apartment Keyhome. I can only imagine what's going through my head right now. A few moments later, the other me steps into my apartment.
His jaw drops when he sees the body I'm in, “This is so strange,” he begins.
I must admit, I did fine work on my body… pity I left it back in the future, “For me too. But just to prove it… I dismiss the Fey Form spell, going back to normal scale, and cast Major Creation to demonstrate. I trail off as I watch my mouth start to water. Oh, right. I'm not in my right body… but I must admit, I am pretty hot.
“So yes, I'm you from the future… and I know we haven't told anyone we’re an archeologist by trade, or that our power comes from eating Patricia and our gaming experience. So that should be proof enough. Here…” I reach over and Spam Share Memories a few times to update myself on the prior timeline… it's a spell from Ultimate Magic in Pathfinder, and permits sharing one minute of memory per casting; I give him the last twenty minutes… and cringe when I realize I just wrecked my body… well… at least I can build a new one? He doesn't seem to notice, though, but I suppose that's because he's not meeting my eyes. Meh, whatever.
I do look fine, though… my mast isn't as tall, but it's still there. I wonder….
“Well, I guess the danger is past, then. What do you want to do with the fifteen minutes until time catches up to where you were and we merge?” My other me asks.
I lick my lips, “How about I ‘apologize’ for the trouble?”
I can see the bulge in my pants from here as I start taking off my clothes, “Sounds fun….”
I enjoy myself fully in the little time I have until it's over.
After getting Ulrich thoroughly exhausted (I haven’t buffed her), I give the VI suitable orders for undocking from Stephanie and obeying Ulrich (effectively transferring ownership of the ship), and I head back to Stephanie via my normal route.
Of course, this means the Drift isn't safe to use anymore: I need to plan around not using it… which basically means selling all the Drift drives and replacing them with another method of interstellar travel. But as noted: I CAN do that now. The Alteration Sphere of Spheres of Power has Star Spawn Body; at a caster level of fifteen, that grants the option to add Spaceflight as a trait, which fixes a breathing problem (if any), and lets a target travel in-system in 3d20 hours, or 3d20 days out of system… which is much slower than Drift travel: 1d6 days in system will usually be longer (an average of three and a half days for Drift transit versus an average of 31.5 HOURS for Starflight), but the 1d6 days (average 3.5 days) to Absalom Station, the 3d6 days to worlds in Near Space (average 10.5 days), or even the 5d6 days for systems in The Vast (average 17.5 days) will usually be a LOT less for Drift Travel than for the 3d20 days of Starflight (average 31.5 days). It only gets worse for Starflight on higher end Drift engines like The Rustbucket has (a top of the line Drift engine cuts Drift travel times by a factor of five).
To get it, I need the Alteration Sphere, either Aberrant or Cosmic Body, and of course Star Spawn Body… and I think I prefer Cosmic to Aberrant. Spheres of power has a mildly annoying restriction on ‘temporary talents’: Their effects only last as long as you keep the talents involved, although they stop counting as temporary after I've kept them for a full day… ah, there we go: The Permanent Transformation talent makes the effect Instantaneous, and only costs two more talents known… leaving me with one to spare from my dedicated Alteration talents. Which… is good, as Starflight requires I also grant a fly speed… which I can give via Elemental Transformation and the Elemental Movement trait.
Of course, there's also the targeting issue. Stephanie is a creature already, so I can just apply the effect to her directly with Blank Transformation. Ditto for Star. Ocean will either need to dock with Stephanie, or get more soul repairs. The ship currently growing inside Stephanie, as a biomechanical starship, I can just target. The Brute and The Rustbucket, though? They're out of range of what I can affect with Animate Objects (a Small Starship like The Rustbucket is generally going to be a colossal object, and a Medium starship? Bigger still… I don't have enough of a caster level to pull that off. The Rustbucket we can just dock with Stephanie for transport; The Brute, though? The most I can do is pick up Craft Construct and permanently enchant it as an Animated Object the long way. I could do the same for The Rustbucket… but I'd need to do all the enchanting personally for security reasons (magical constructs obey their creator).
Still… then I could buff them to high heaven; handy. And it is a plan. The other option… sell the ships, get ones that are biomechanical…I've been thinking about upgrading Stephanie's base frame, although that will need to wait until after the birth.
As I’m musing, I get a mental message from Euler, “Ah… can I get a pickup?” I can tell she's broadcasting to everyone.
I blink as I answer, copying everyone as well, “Where are you? What happened? Do you have your Keyhome handy?”
Star answers before Euler: “He was assassinated, or nearly enough. Sudden weapons fire from outside her sensor range; capital weapons, a dozen of them. I'm guessing cloaked ships with data nets as spotters, but I can't be sure.”
“Ah… pretty much, yes,” admits Euler, “I'm functional, but the summons are gone. And… yes, I still have my key, and I just retrieved the ship's link key. The ship is lost, though.”
I shrug, not that anyone except Stephanie can see, “Well… it was always a captured pirate ship. Setbacks happen… but yes, I'll be by shortly to pick you up.”
I Gate into the network, and as I'm walking to the appropriate spot to exit onto the now defunct spaceship, I get a message from Ocean: “HELP!”
Before I can react, though, I get a follow up: “Nevermind; those shots tickle. My shields are gone, but anything hitting my hull is just turning into pretty sparkling lights.”
“Good to know that works,” I send back, “I'm proceeding with picking up Euler. Go empty whatever’s shooting you, all right? We could use a new ship for Euler.”
“Gladly…” I can feel ta grinning across the link, “I even have a drift shadow generator of my own running… they're going to love that, I'm sure….”
I keep getting updates over the mental link as I head to Euler.
“Hi bro! I couldn't let you have all the fun…” Star, obviously.
“Linda! Battlestations!” Wait, why's Stephanie issuing a warning?
“Too late,” Linda replies over the com, “The Rustbucket is down. I'll need a pickup as well.”
Wow, a coordinated attack… given that I'm probably the only one with hyperlight communications, that's actually pretty impressive.
“Wait… seriously, they're RAMMING?!” Star this time. Why…
As I’m popping into reality next to Euler, I get my answer, in the form of panic from Ocean, “I have boarders! They can't affect my smaller portion, but there's too many for me to…” and then silence.
Okay, that’s enough of that. While it was just stuff, it was a small matter, but now?
There's a tiny little second level spell from the Deep Magic book by Open Design for Pathfinder: Chrono Location. It's mostly useful for speeding travel east to west or west to east, because it while yes, it does move the clock… it doesn't sync you with the planet you're on, so for every minute traveled you travel fifteen miles physically. The spell only does one minute per caster level… but quite frankly, that's enough. Combined with Teleportation (or even just rapid long-distance communication), it's time travel without the nasty clause about killing your prior self found in the Teleport Through Time spell. It has it's own nasty clause about side effects… but it's a lot safer than trying to kill myself.
It could still kill me if I prevent myself from going back and roll poorly, though; I'm hoping Mettle will carry me through the effects of a successful save… I just need to not roll three ones, and I'm golden.
So I disconnect from my body, cast and… ah, right. Great… I left my body behind in the future. Eugh. And I'm in the Drift again, because ships move fast.
But I'm still under the effects of the same Interplanar Telepathic Bond spell as everyone else, so…”Out of the Drift, now,” I tell everyone via the spell, “We're about to be ambushed by folks who know our paths in advance… and are scarily well prepared.”
Each of my captains confirms:
“Yes Admiral,” from Euler,
“Yes goddess,” From Linda,
“Doing so now,” from Star,
“Exiting the Drift,” from Stephanie,
…and “All done,” from Ocean.
Then the confusion starts.
“But you just said to,” Stephanie starts.
“Yes, you said we were all about to be ambushed,” from Linda.
“Are you okay, goddess?” from Ocean.
Great… well, easy to sort out, “One of my new abilities… after a problem, I cam go back in time to fix it… but apparently I don't send to me that way. Stephanie, please ask me to meet me in our apartment keyhome for me, thanks.”
“Sure thing goddess…,” Stephanie complies, “please go meet your other self in your apartment keyhome, goddess. Apparently you have a future you waiting?”
There's a brief pause, which I use to Gate into my apartment Keyhome. I can only imagine what's going through my head right now. A few moments later, the other me steps into my apartment.
His jaw drops when he sees the body I'm in, “This is so strange,” he begins.
I must admit, I did fine work on my body… pity I left it back in the future, “For me too. But just to prove it… I dismiss the Fey Form spell, going back to normal scale, and cast Major Creation to demonstrate. I trail off as I watch my mouth start to water. Oh, right. I'm not in my right body… but I must admit, I am pretty hot.
“So yes, I'm you from the future… and I know we haven't told anyone we’re an archeologist by trade, or that our power comes from eating Patricia and our gaming experience. So that should be proof enough. Here…” I reach over and Spam Share Memories a few times to update myself on the prior timeline… it's a spell from Ultimate Magic in Pathfinder, and permits sharing one minute of memory per casting; I give him the last twenty minutes… and cringe when I realize I just wrecked my body… well… at least I can build a new one? He doesn't seem to notice, though, but I suppose that's because he's not meeting my eyes. Meh, whatever.
I do look fine, though… my mast isn't as tall, but it's still there. I wonder….
“Well, I guess the danger is past, then. What do you want to do with the fifteen minutes until time catches up to where you were and we merge?” My other me asks.
I lick my lips, “How about I ‘apologize’ for the trouble?”
I can see the bulge in my pants from here as I start taking off my clothes, “Sounds fun….”
I enjoy myself fully in the little time I have until it's over.
