I go through the motions of introducing myself to the human resources team, but truthfully I am busy exploring my own mind. Thanks to the “Celestial Grimoire” and the “Celestial Forge” my mind is filled with alien information that I did not learn myself but that I know, nonetheless.
My previous suite of abilities are all interconnected sets of powers I possess for reasons that are, as of yet, unclear to me. They range from elemental abilities; powers which allow me to manipulate three of the four classical elements and things connected to them, powers that seem to stem from Norse mythology and stories relating to angels and demons as well as their relationships with humans, and a final, curious set of powers that seem to relate to this world.
I can also sense the absurd ease with which I, supposedly, can use my powers, so long as I will them to activate… I don’t doubt I’ll be testing how easily I can actually use my powers, as it is one for me to believe it’ll be easy for me to tap into the supernatural and another thing altogether for me to actually use these strange powers.
I also possess “Items” related to each suite of powers that I possess, some of which are terrifyingly potent and others of which are okay at best. Though some of my items do things like promise me perpetual, passive income, or grant me a place to live if I ever run out of money which is nice.
Once I am given the stack of paperwork that I need to complete to do my onboarding I get to work. Occasionally, I allow myself to feign normalcy by gazing at my surroundings and pretending that my focus isn’t perfect and uninterruptable, barring something supernatural happening to me.
During my examination of my surroundings, and because of my powers as a “Mirror Demon” I can study and stay aware of my surroundings with laughable ease, I see something amusing that I half hadn’t expected to see in a corporate setting. The office looks like something out of an “Urban Fantasy” “Slice-Of-Life” television program. Perhaps a tenth of the people here are people in the expanded, generous sense of the term instead of being literal humans.
They look like people, but people as determined and brought to life by artists. Cartoons work alongside flesh and blood human beings, and as I listen, I can hear them speak and talk about “Reports”, “Seasonal numbers”, and other business-related terms. In its own way, its kind of funny to hear cartoons, the sort someone might see while watching TV on a Saturday, talking about financial figures and making estimates for quarterly sales.
My final set of powers seem to relate to cartoons, humans, and so-called “half-toons”, rare hybrids born of human-cartoon relationships. These abilities, in some respects, are some of my strongest and are the only powers native to this world, or “Setting” that I possess. These powers relate to the curious abilities possessed by cartoons, sometimes known as “Cartoon physics”. The items that come with them are also neat, though none are particularly powerful in the same sense as some of my other items…
The powers given to me by the two “Celestial” objects I now feel in my soul are far, far more chaotic than the rest of these abilities. According to the contract I signed back when I was pretending to sign into the building, a contract which gave me a pair of “Essences”; the “Essence of the Celestial Forge” and the “Essence of the Celestial Grimoire”, I now have a pair of powers that allow me to grow stronger the older I get and the more devoted to progress I am.
It is this, frankly bizarre, pair of powers that steadily fill me with chaotic “Perks” and “Items” from across the omniverse. In a part of my mind that is steadily filling with information on the perks and items in my possession while I engage with the human resources team, these perks and items fill me with knowledge and abilities beyond the knowledge and abilities I had previously gained…
These abilities are not the only “Essences” I possess either! Signing the contract didn’t give me two essences, it gave me six. The other four essences I now possess are the “Essence of the dollmaker”, the “Essence of the virus”, the “Essence of the corruptive goo” and the “Essence of the magic contractor”. I have full knowledge of their abilities, and their capabilities are very impressive even if they aren’t quite on the same level as the two essences that I signed a contract to acquire.
I mentally peer at the few items my essences have added to my inventory. One of them is a lighter, one that radiates magic. One of the others is a collection of rocks known as “Enhancement Ore”, that would allow me to greatly enhance any weapon I created with it. There are a few other items that I have already been given, but the real treasure I managed to get my hands on out the gate are two things: a simple, but extraordinarily powerful “Intelligence Booster” and a set of “Databases”.
The booster to my intelligence is not a complex thing. It boosts my intelligence to a staggering degree, and is itself part of the reason why I can so easily feign being present and paying attention to my coworkers while actually delving into the depths of my mind.
The areas where it boosts my intelligence the most relate to engineering, physics, and society-scale inventions and reforms. I explore previously non-existent corners of my mind and I see blueprints of all sorts of inventions, from weapons of mass destruction to large scale inventions that could easily eradicate starvation in entire countries if actually made on the scale I can envision them at.
As far as the databases go, I can clearly visualize any piece of technology from the collective totality of the Star Wars franchise, including the “Expanded” universe. Schematics for technology from civilizations as advanced as the “Rakatan Infinite Empire” fill my mind.
Normally such technology would be impossible for me to make but I can manipulate the earth, including metals and crystals. If it’s me it might well be possible for me to make the technology I seek to make, assuming I can get my hands on enough raw materials to do so…
Though this quickly proves to be an unnecessary concern as I sense new items dropping themselves into my inventory. Three of them are copies of an unambitious looking item that upon closer examination is revealed to be papers documenting that I am the owner of countless mines across the planet, each of which is incredibly prosperous.
Each of the three copies of the item refer to different mines located in different parts of the world. These items, uncreatively named “Mining Rights”, ensure that my technological ambitions are within reach.
I audibly chuckle when I see this, and this causes my coworkers to glance at me. I smile, somewhat sheepishly, at this and am able to come up with a excuse quickly owning to my childhood.
“Sorry, I was just remembering what one of my friends at the orphanage I grew up in told me once. It just made me chuckle.” I explain, and my remarks cause my colleagues to pale a bit. In my experience no one ever wants to ask an orphan about their childhood, and I am internally relieved to see that even, and especially, in a workplace this rule remains true.
I quickly return to my work, a smile on my face as I discover that my own childhood experiences reflect certain realities that I can take advantage of. As an orphan I didn’t have many advantages growing up, but the ability to inflict awkwardness and tension merely by talking about my childhood was helpful more times than I care to admit.
At this point I’ve spent nearly an hour and a half in the office. I’m over halfway done with my work for the day, and that’s all thanks to perks I possess that allow me to be speedy.
The passage of time begins to creep on Santi. The young man slips back into thinking about the paperwork before him, though he continues to hone his potent powers as a mirror demon.
When Santi is nearly done with the impressive pile of paperwork he was given, he gets up and visits the closest office bathroom for men. The man does not actually need to go, his mysterious ascension has freed him of such a base burden, but he is grateful for the first real break he has had in nearly an hour. He utilizes one of the “In-Setting” perks he has, an ability possessed by some cartoons named “Senseless Media Sense” which allows him to know if he is being recorded and finds that he isn’t.
He senses more things becoming a part of him, this time it’s just multiple copies of two items: three machines known as “Dwemer Centurions” and a strange database known as the “Uchiha Jutsu Archive”. The database is less useful than the centurions are, because at least for now Santi does not have the ability to use “Chakra”, the potent energies needed to perform jutsu but as he mentally scans the archive he quickly realizes that the database also contains written down instructions for magical rituals relevant to this world, such as information on creating and modifying cartoons and other potent magic.
These items are, incredibly enough, fairly trivial compared to some of the things that the office worker has gained through the magical artifacts tethered to his soul, but it doesn’t stop him from smiling. They are still impressive items, even if they are less useful than some of his other possessions and alien powers.
His powers make it hard to upset the young man, at least at the moment. He is cognizant enough of his powers that he is aware of their incredible weight compared to the normal powers exhibited by people in this setting. He gazes at himself in the mirror, and activates a power of his. His skin begins to vibrate intensely as he wordlessly focuses on one of his more curious powers: “Stunt Doubles”.
He focuses on the power for a few moments before it fully activates and a clone of himself appears next to him. The clone is a perfect copy of the young man, and Santi looks at him and he continues to smile as he feels the man’s mind synchronize with his own.
“How curious…” The man thinks, and the clone smiles back at him.
“I agree… It’s kind of interesting, though.” The clone replies. The two are speaking telepathically, via an innate connection that they possess. The clone then falls silent as he waits for Santi to give him an order.
“Stunt Doubles” produces perfect clones of the person with the ability, and the clones eagerly do as their creator asks for a whole month. Santi considers what to do with the clone for a moment, as more than anything else the clone was created by Santi to confirm that the powers he feels inside of himself were actually real.
“Hmm… I suppose you should go to work.” Santi eventually states, causing the clone to nod and to wait for the man to disappear. Both figures possess sharp enough hearing to know that no one is nearby, but they also both know that there are cameras in view of the door leading in and out of the bathroom. Santi nods at his clone and he, somewhat unwittingly, hints at his refined physique as he leaps at and into the mirror in front of him.
He does this by utilizing one of his “Mirror Demon” powers, and he phases into the thing with curious ease. All the while his internal artifacts come blazing to life once more.
The artifacts tethered to his soul, supercharged by one of his “Norse” perks, begin to rumble to life. They connect with the greater omniverse as they come to life and grant him curious new skills, such as a buff to his alchemy and a skill at drowning people that he immediately knows could be useful if he leans into the fact that he is an eerie elemental being.
Santi enters the land known as “The Mirror Dimension” and he finds himself in an inverted version of the bathroom he was just in. He studies his surroundings for a few moments, before he decides to try and utilize one of his brand-new powers: “Eyes See All Or Eyes See None”. The figure puts his hands over his eyes and performs a short incantation.
“I can’t see you so you can’t see this.” He mutters, causing himself to disappear. This renders him invisible but also unable to see… out of his own eyes. He still has a reflection, and this reflection is able to see. The figure uses his reflection as eyes and he looks through it as he walks towards the door leading in and out of the bathroom. As he steps out of the bathroom and the door shuts behind him he is “blinded” temporarily but that is little more than inconvenience to the man.
The strange figure, unseen by the mirror-versions of the people in the office begins to walk. He is able to make his way to the elevator by listening to his surrounding and the reflections of him that appear on the handful of reflective surfaces that dot the office. The office is filled with mirrored versions of his coworkers and he uses his reflections to stealthy walk out past each and every one of them.
He is, somewhat unknowingly, bolstered by some of his perks as he makes his way past his coworkers, even his cartoon ones, and he quickly becomes grateful for the chaotic nature of the celestial artifacts within him.
As soon as he is in the elevator he waits for the doors to shut and then taps the button to go to the lobby. The elevator begins to descend, and the figure takes his hands off his face.
“Huh… Alright!” He says as he listens to the gentle elevator music that comes from speakers installed in the elevator. At the same time he senses the elevator beginning to descend towards the ground floor of the building.
The figure leans against the back of the elevator and when he senses the elevator shuddering to a stop he closes his eyes and taps his feet against the floor beneath him. This is a conscious act on his part, a move designed to ensure that he gains control of the machine he is in. Thanks to his nature as an unusually gifted being granted an array of perks when he underwent his mysterious apotheosis he can easily do something as simple as take control of the elevator he’s in. He wills the machine to continue its downward journey, and the machine stops slowing down, before it begins to pick up speed.
“Nice.” Santi says, simply, when the elevator reaches the bottom of the building. He steps towards the still closed doors, and he wordlessly activates one of his “Primordial” powers: the ability to turn his body into water, which effortlessly slips through the thin crack that separates the elevator’s metal door. The creature does not reform when it is through the door, and instead remains a bizarre puddle as it begins to slink towards the front of the building.
Santi is determined to step out of the building, and he only has one more obstacle standing between himself and the building’s exit… The security guard. The inhuman creature, who is currently fully embracing his nature as an inhuman being, quickly and silently flows, moving like a slime from a video game might. The slime flows over to an area beside the desk where the security guard, an exact replica and reflection of the guard from the “Normal” dimension is currently idly studying a computer screen that is currently displaying a program connected to cameras throughout the building.
Several areas do not have cameras in them. Some of those areas include the inside of elevators and bathrooms, so Santi has managed to completely evade notice so far. The creature is quietly grateful for this, as it means that his escape has gone off without a hitch so far.
My entire body being water feels… weird. I am a small puddle of water, but I know that in this state I can easily control myself through my ability to manipulate water, and I can also move as readily as I can when I am in a “Human” form. If anything I feel… shaper, stronger, heck even smarter, in this form, not in anyway weaker.
I gaze at the security guard who is lazily staring at the computer monitor in front of her. She seems wrapped up in her work but I can tell that she isn’t actually paying attention to it. I have so many tools with which I could get past her, and free myself up to explore, all I have to do is choose which of my handy abilities to use on her…
