Pandaemonium
Posts 78
Power Level 25
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Post by Dullahan on Oct 26, 2016 11:43:31 GMT -7
Stabilizing Limen's condition was the easy part. Dullahan suspected that she would have survived being maimed by the dragon even without his help. But she had still been left short an arm, and that would take a bit more work to rectify.
Dullahan's civilian self was a bit shorter but also a bit lankier than Limen. This was fortunate, because it meant that the replacement limbs he had prepared for his own body could be used for hers with only minor modifications. When Limen awoke on the operating table in Dullahan's familiar workshop in the slums, she'd find that her arm and shoulder were gone, a smooth metal plate in their place. The plate had an attachment port with an electronic plug (already integrated into her nervous system) and several screw holes to bolt it in place. Hanging from a nearby wall was a row of replacement arms, all lifelike in appearance except for their matching plugs and bolts.
It would be possible to wake Limen at any time, but it would be healthier to let her regain consciousness on her own. In any case, there was still more work to do.
Dullahan had read the note passed along with Limen's other belongings. At first, he had dismissed the request for a muffin button as a frivolous joke, but the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like it might be a worthwhile challenge. Muffins took up a large amount of space, were vulnerable to spoilage, and could easily be crushed by careless handling. He had some ideas about how to mitigate all those problems.
The reason why Dullahan kept so many spare arms was that each one could be used to a different purpose. Only their basic metal frames and electronic motors were the same. The rest of the space was filled with various specialized gear. Some arms were packed with extra hydraulics to make them stronger, some had gyroscopes and precision electronics for finer tasks, and some had completely separate tools like weaponry or radar equipment. This new arm would be specialized for muffins.
The interior of the forearm was mostly devoted to a batter containment reservoir, because a relatively small volume of batter could make a relatively large volume of muffins. The outer forearm had a port concealed beneath the skin that could be popped open in order to refill it with muffin batter found in the field. Batter insertion was done through an airtight one-way valve, allowing the contained batter to be stored under high pressure.
The elbow contained an electronic battery and some sensors to provide the arm's user feedback about the current state of the arm. The battery powered two heating coils. One ran through the center of the forearm in order to pasteurize uncooked batter for long-term storage. The other ran alongside a tube from the forearm to the upper arm where the muffins would be cooked.
The upper arm was essentially a mini oven, vacuum-insulated from the rest of the arm in order to avoid causing burns. The batter would be injected into a row of muffin-shaped cavities in the arm's metal structure. A hatch in the upper arm could be flipped open with a cybernetic command at any time, allowing cooked muffins to be extracted. Whenever a cavity was detected to be empty, batter would be injected and the surrounding heating coil would be activated to begin cooking a new one.
Finally, the wrist and palm were designed to hold a decent amount of frosting and sprinkles for use if cupcakes were desired instead of muffins. Limen hadn't explicitly requested this, but Dullahan hadn't known what else to do with the extra space. The frosting was dispensed through a port in the palm. The pump Dullahan had appropriated for this purpose was a bit higher-pressure than necessary for the task, but that could be fixed later.
All that remained was to test the device. Limen would wake to the smell of cooking muffins.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 278
Power Level 25
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Post by Limen on Oct 30, 2016 20:58:42 GMT -7
Limen woke slowly. Her consciousness lugged itself reluctantly back into work, chasing off the tail end of her dreamless sleep and dragging with it her last memories from the fight that had happened… an unknown variable she was going to name ‘t’ ago. She didn’t bother with her eyes - oddly out of habit, as she was normally the sort to wake at the drop of a hat and be ready to fight the second afterward. For lack of a better protocol (which was to say any protocol) on what to do the waking after being knocked out in a dragon attack, her body had decided it was going to run the ‘pretend to still be sleeping’ safety measures. Even if her sense of touch was in a mild state of panic and confusion for lack of anything left of and including the left shoulder. That, she certainly remembered.
Damn, these dragon fights. In the last dragon, she’d nearly lost a close friend. This one had nearly cost her her life. The fact that she’d lasted through the scene of two dragon battles and was still around to brag about it was, itself, an extraordinary feat. But it also meant she was seriously overdrawn on her bank of luck.
There wasn’t any ifs about it; she wasn’t still alive because of skill or allies or any careful planning, it was because she had miraculously succeeded in not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No, with the number of wrong places and times that fight had had, and all the multitude of things she would have had no chance of living through had she been so much as casually in between its point A and B, perhaps it was more accurate to say she’d somehow managed to be in all of the right places at the right times.
Because her single slip up had cost her her arm.
Even before this, she was having a hard enough time as was just not dying by accident to these supers, who had these absurd growth rates while she had hours of practice every day that lead to minimal margins of improvement. While her friends were finding exponentially upward slopes, she was coming to an asymptote. And now what? Her data (updated this morning- er, the morning of the dragon attack) said that both arms were necessary for firing bows, and quite useful for scaling buildings, and balance, and two fists were kinda nice for fist fighting. She felt like she’d just been slapped in the face with her own, severed arm. How long was she going to be able to keep this up without it?
Really, how long did she expect she’d be able to keep any of this up? But… it wasn’t like there was anything else for her to do. Those doors had closed a long time ago.
She had become aware of it soon after waking, but the smell drifting about the area was just now registering itself to a noun. Limen was disappointed with herself that it’d taken this long to place it. Finally knocking herself out of the snooze, she pulled herself up to a sit, slightly unsteady in adjusting to the change in bodily weight distribution, and surveyed her surroundings.
The metal plate that was now where her shoulder was not was the obvious oddity. It was strange to see looking down and then in her peripheral, like this wasn’t actually her body or something. At least the location, to some degree, was familiar. Limen hadn’t ever been happier to see the insides of a warehouse. She knew she could rely on her factionmates, but to actually see that Dullahan had bothered to help her, it meant more than she could could rightfully express.
Instead, a wide grin spread wide over her face. “You… you seriously made muffins. Don’t tell me, Dullahan-” A yawn caught her in the middle of his name. “Have you created the device that will bring world peace, end world hunger, solve every problem we have?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 78
Power Level 25
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Post by Dullahan on Nov 8, 2016 16:30:07 GMT -7
The sensors inside the arm indicated that his initial heating scheme for the muffins was inadequate. Ordinarily, muffins would be cooked in an oven, which would immerse them in high-temperature air. The arm's system of using a central heating coil resulted in an imbalanced thermal profile, burning the batter closest to the center and undercooking the batter closest to the surface.
This was outside Dullahan's area of expertise. He hadn't eaten (let alone cooked) an actual meal since he discarded his digestive tract, one of the first modifications he had made to his own body. Even before that, he had survived mostly on leftover fast food after his parents and older siblings had passed out for the night. However, from a pure engineering perspective, there were still some obvious solutions. He could try installing a second heating coil through the outer shell of the arm, but this would take up space that could otherwise be used for armor. He could try circulating hot air through the muffin chamber, but that would require moving parts and external ventilation that could compromise the arm's natural outward appearance.
Dullahan's planning was interrupted as Limen roused. The expression on her face brought his train of thought to a screeching halt.
The limbic system is a substructure within the brain that primarily governs emotions and motivations. It is also known as the paleomammalian cortex because of its evolutionary origin in early mammals. Unlike reptiles who largely engage in individual lifestyles and produce large numbers of young who are left to fend for themselves, most mammals engage in social behavior and form family units in order to raise their young. The limbic system developed in early mammals along with this evolutionary strategy.
Dullahan had removed his own limbic system. The functions related to memory had been replaced with microprocessors and electrodes to stimulate the remaining parts of his brain as necessary. The functions related to emotion and social behavior had been removed without replacement. But he had still lived his pre-superpower life with his limbic system in place, and the neural connections in his cerebrum had developed under the influence of the removed structure.
As a result, Limen's clear relief and appreciation still had an effect on Dullahan. Even though the reward centers that normally governed that sort of thing were gone, there was still a sense of rightness that hit him without any apparent rational source. As far as Dullahan's brain was concerned, this kind of reaction was fundamentally 'good', and no amount of introspection would be able to distill the reason any further than that.
The disorientation lasted only a moment. Unaware that the inner workings of his mind had defied his attempts to modify them, Dullahan slid the muffin arm on a ceiling rail over to Limen.
The arm's compartment popped open, revealing its unevenly-cooked payload, and Dullahan answered Limen's question.
"I created a muffin-cooking arm."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 278
Power Level 25
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Post by Limen on Nov 22, 2016 17:35:43 GMT -7
Limen wordlessly observed the arm sent her way, genuinely stunned by both it and the accompanying explanation. Her nose had not betrayed her - that was indeed the smell of muffins. This, too, was indeed an arm. Now there was something that needed to be tested.
Limen liked to think herself a connoisseur of good food even if she had less than zero evidence to support this claim, and took it upon herself to use these skills to judge the arm muffin of Dullahan’s creation. Silently, she extracted the baked good and took a large, contemplative bite (followed soon after by the ingestion of the rest of the muffin and the cleaning of her dough-covered fingers). Unique texture, and the center left a charcoaled aftertaste she hadn’t experienced in any other muffin. By her expert opinion, this muffin was of very high quality.
Between the muffin, the matter of fact statement that this was a muffin, baked by an arm, and probably a bit of the shock that she was now lacking in an arm; It was at this point that Limen was no longer able to contain herself. She gave a precursive snort, raised her remaining hand to her forehead (taking care again with balance), and burst out laughing.
It took her several seconds, but with a long sigh she finally regained her ability to make comprehensible words. “Gotta say, this is a first, waking up in a friend’s warehouse that smells of baked goods. Even got to faint dramatically in battle after losing myself an arm and making a request for a muffin button.” she had to resist the urge to snicker, and managed to a mild degree. “And then you seriously took it as a challenge. Dullahan if you had a body and I had another arm I would hug you right now.”
Her grin was to teeth. She raised her eyebrow mischievously. “This leads to but one conclusion from which the singular necessary course of action can be drawn. Can I try it out?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 78
Power Level 25
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Post by Dullahan on Nov 28, 2016 16:22:43 GMT -7
Dullahan awkwardly let the comment about hugs pass without reaction. He didn't have much positive experience with hugs, but he was aware that most people considered them good to give and good to receive. He decided to file the comment as a further showing of gratitude.
The question about trying the arm out was met with more enthusiasm.
"Of course. We will need to go through some calibrations as well, but they should be simpler than those that were required for your eye."
The rack of replacement arms on the wall began to move, sliding next to Limen for her examination and use.
"In light of your concerns last time regarding unexpected failure, I have refurbished and updated several of my own spare arms as well. I no longer use my humanoid body with any regularity, so you may take all of them. I recommend that you carry one or two spares with you at any given time... perhaps more during dragon attacks.
"The attachment point on your arm will automatically detect and connect to any compatible limbs you hold against it. Feel free to do this now. You can then detach the limb with a mental command at a moment's notice. This could be used to quickly swap arms in the field, or to gain an advantage if you find yourself grappled or otherwise immobilized by something holding the arm. It will take some time to manufacture further replacements, so please try to retrieve any discarded limbs and keep any dust or grime from getting into the attachment ports."
The arms on the rack all popped open, revealing their various mechanical insides.
"You should consider which arm you wish to bring with you according to your expected needs. I can immediately provide you with one strength-specialized arm with integrated hydraulics, one precision-movement arm that uses gyroscopes along with the highest-quality electronics I could find at the time, one arm with an integrated spring-loaded sword in the forearm, one arm with an integrated rifle, one arm almost entirely hollowed out for storage space, and two fairly balanced models with approximately double the average human strength and three times the average human steadiness. I also have unfinished net-launcher and flamethrower designs which I abandoned when I stopped using my humanoid body on a regular basis. I may be able to provide you with custom designs as well, if you have any other needs that aren't satisfied by these."
Dullahan's voice synthesizer was convenient because it meant he didn't have to worry about running out of breath during long-winded explanations. Nonetheless, he paused for a moment to look at Limen through the warehouse cameras. Seeing her eat the dry, crumbly muffin reminded him that humans require hydration too. Shortly thereafter, his equipment rack delivered her a bottle of purified water.
"If you wish for an integrated beverage dispenser to go along with the muffin cooker," he added, "I recommend losing your other arm as well."
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Pandaemonium
Posts 278
Power Level 25
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Post by Limen on Dec 17, 2016 0:25:43 GMT -7
Limen picked up one of the arms - designated one of the balanced ones, as it were - and surveyed the workings. She understood it about as well as she could hope, which was to say hardly at all. It didn’t really matter, she guessed. Given the number of things her physics teacher would deny to the nines to be possible she witnessed on a daily basis, understanding what made something happen was one of those luxuries she was perfectly fine going without. The rule of thumb was, if it worked, there wasn’t a lot of reason to question why it did. The answers probably had something to do with cthulhu or the sort anyway. She would simply do her part to keep the mechanisms clean. Adding in a bit of extra time to the usual chunk she squirreled away for cleaning her gear wouldn’t be hard. If an arm was going to be done in, it wouldn’t be by a bit of dirt.
The size of the limb made it a little bulky to carry more than two around with her at any given time. She doubted she’d be able to stuff another into her shoulder bag, but she bet she could make room in her motorcycle bag. The largest thing there was her first aid kit, but perhaps that could be migrated elsewhere. It would be worthwhile to have an extra hand around.
But there was an arm to try out and she’d done enough dragging of her feet. Limen followed instructions and held the arm to the port, perking up a bit when it connected. Almost immediately she saw an improvement in her balance. It was kind of like putting on a pair of slippers on a cold winter day; it was right and it was good. The absence of scars, wounds, or the calluses built up on the hand was a little off-putting, besides the whole mechanical arm thing, but she bet after a week it’d seem all good and normal again. Probably.
Limen rolled her shoulder and began testing the limb, flexing the arm and the fingers. “How similar is controlling it going to be to a birth arm?” She asked. The hardware was bound to be superior to whatever whoever built babies had, and she had the mental bit of keeping an arm steady and where it should be pretty well down, but she dealt in minutes enough that if one was wearing a different hat and that caused a slight disconnect between brain and arm, she’d notice. And adjust, but she was curious how long she should be planning to be shooting at trees instead of people.
The mention of custom designs was an invitation for Limen to begin churning through ideas of possible left arm implementations. If he could do an arm for fire on demand, what about one that shot acid? Or perhaps a grappling hook arm for those high and hard to reach places, or an air guitar arm, or an arm that had a shark for a hand? The amount of things one might be able to do with these bendy sticks stuck the the side of the human body were suddenly becoming clear and abundant to Limen.
The arrival of water broke this train of thought. Limen hadn’t realized how thirsty she was until she was reminded that water was a thing, and didn’t hesitate putting the new arm to use retrieving the bottle and, after unscrewing the lid, downing the contents. It took great effort to not choke herself on the liquid by laughing.
“It’s hard to resist a doctor’s recommendations.” She chuckled once the bottle was empty, but again she'd have to turn him down. “I assure you, if I misplace any more of my limbs, you’ll be the first to know.” She gently placed the empty bottle beside her. “You don’t miss your humanoid body, I take it?”
Limen realized she’d never actually seen Dullahan in anything humanoid before. She guessed if your powers allowed you to make bulldozer bodies, it was a little hard to justify non-bulldozer alternatives.
It was then that an idea occurred to her. “Arms, you mentioned custom ones. There actually is something.” She began slowly. “Think you could make an arm that could generate and channel electricity? A shocking arm, so to speak?”
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Pandaemonium
Posts 78
Power Level 25
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Post by Dullahan on Jan 3, 2017 5:11:55 GMT -7
Dullahan was pleased to see Limen quickly familiarizing herself with her new appendage. He had initially feared some degree of buyer's remorse at the realization that her old arm was gone, but if that was an issue, it would have come up by now.
"It will use the same neural pathways," Dullahan explained, "and the weight and balance will be similar, but you will still likely notice some difference. Furthermore, there are differences between the arms themselves. You will need to acclimate yourself not only with each arm you intend to use, but also with the experience of changing between arms. In my own experience, I found that it took only a couple of days to regain sufficient coordination for my purposes... but my purposes were much less demanding than yours are. Be careful."
The question about his original body was unexpected. It had been a long while since he had wasted any time considering it. After taking a brief moment to examine his thought process and confirm that his conclusions were unchanged, Dullahan answered.
"Shortly after removing my body, I also removed the parts of my brain that enable sentimental attachment. Therefore, I only miss it in the sense that I miss the very few functions I am unable to replicate in my artificial bodies. In particular, while I can simulate vital functions well enough to pass casual inspection, none of my artificial bodies would be able to pass the scrutiny of a visit to a doctor's office. I keep most of my original body in storage on life support in case I need it for that purpose."
The talk of doctors' offices did remind Dullahan of other civilian matters. While he doubted that his parents would sober up long enough to realize his absence, that didn't mean that his lack of attendance at school would go unnoticed forever. It might be worthwhile to make a few token appearances just in case he needed a valid unpowered identity at some point in the future.
But with the mention of a new arm design, all unpowered concerns were quickly moved to the back burner. Limen's request was an interesting one, given that it indicated that she needed some source of electricity to manipulate. Or was this related to her possible power incontinence? Dullahan certainly didn't want to endanger the project by prying. The implementation would be straightforward either way.
"Providing electrical channels to any desired ports or integrated devices should be trivial. The power storage and generation is less so. There are several tradeoffs to consider with regard to intensity and longevity.
"The simplest option would be a battery... most likely lithium ion. It would last a relatively short while, but you could carry spare cells or plug yourself into a wall socket in order to recharge.
"Alternatively, you could install a miniature engine... internal combustion or perhaps hydrogen fuel cell. Longer lifespan and higher voltage, but some degree of noise and expelled vapor. Ease of refueling would also depend on the energy source.
"Lastly, we could use a small nuclear reactor similar to the one aboard the Voyager space probes. It is less dangerous than it sounds. Short-term output is decreased, but you would not need to refuel for the rest of your natural lifespan."
It was a measure of Dullahan's increasing respect for Limen's acceptance of bodily augmentation that he bothered suggesting shoving a nuclear power plant into her arm.
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Pandaemonium
Posts 278
Power Level 25
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Post by Limen on Jan 29, 2017 23:29:43 GMT -7
As the largest point of interest, Limen continued testing the arm; seeing how each of the joints moved and how far, how wide movements felt, and how much force it could exert on her other arm when she pushed against it. It did feel different - same in the way she moved it, but different in the way it moved. Something was slightly… off. Like the plot of a horror novel. Her thoughts or swapping between arms like hats for different daily occasions were dashed, but as long as it didn’t go rogue in the night and try to kill someone, she was good with this new partnership of body and arm. She’d just pick a favourite. And take a few days off in the case of said favourite’s loss.
Limen was envisioning Dullahan 1.0 stored away in a docks warehouse, waiting for a hapless unlucky to happen upon; what she assumed given his name to be a headless body waiting for the rare day flesh was needed. Now she her explanation and reason to not spread rumors if she ever found something of the sort. Then again, she realized, she may have already caught sight of this ghost. So said a memory of spotting such a body in Dullahan’s workshop before.
“You’re not missing much. Doctors are just people with fancy slips of paper and white coats who want to tell you the obvious and call the police.” Limen shrugged. “But do you have any reason to see a doctor of the official type anymore?” Considering a lot of his biological problems seemed like they could be fixed with ‘more metal’.
Hearing what could be done with a hand was akin to being handed a new explosive weapon and being told to give it a test go. Limen was beaming and finding difficulty in sitting still. It was just a little different in that this was just discussion of it, but that didn’t matter in the slightest after two words; ‘nuclear reactor’. How much danger that could entail didn’t register, let alone phase her.
“I would love to have a reason to lay a territory claim to electric car charging stations,” Limen began leadingly, and continued formally. “But I think the best option here is obvious. I can’t see any negatives that could outweigh a nuclear reactor.” Limen leaned back in the chair so her weight rested on her arms behind her. Her expression was contemplative. “If there’s any space left, could you devote it to precision over strength? Strength’s great, nothing quite like telling a wall what for, but if I’m close enough to unitize it in a real fight, something’s gone really wrong. My right should be able to cover the rest.”
Another habit she might have to develop there, but if it meant not having to carry around the generator that frayed and zapped her and was misplaced and zapped her and got a little wet and zapped her, she’d call that a fair trade.
On that note, “And is it possible to make waterproof?” She chuckled.
She tried to think if there was anything else. Nothing came to mind, save a question resulting from a mind finding its task complete and nowhere afterwards to go.
“Say, if you can upgrade things like human arms and alter your brain with things like sentimentality, can you upgrade your brain? Like objectively. Faster processing, more memory, that kind of stuff.”
She was on some level aware that she was asking a lot of questions, even for her. Just as she was on some level aware that the last time she had been conscious, a dragon had been turning the city into a community garden, an unknown amount of people had failed to bribe Death, and she’d come a lot closer to the same than she would have liked. It was not a bad thing to let only one of the two occupy her mind, and it was not a bad thing to pick favourites here either.
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