this is crazy

[from_scratch]

Cam is watching a new recording of Atriama, tail swishing in the gap in his couch, and doesn't stop to pause the show when he feels a summons go by.

Comments

[from_scratch]

"What kind of art do you like?"

[wormcan]

"The kind no one else can do! This one time I turned someone inside out. And you saw the combination of two capes. I could build a super-cape out of even more and use it to kill an Endbringer!"

[from_scratch]

"Well, that would be very impressive, but I do not think anyone wants you to build super-capes until you have a few years of good behavior under your belt."

[wormcan]

"Drat. Well, what do you want me to build?"

[from_scratch]

"I'm not trying to hire you, I'm trying to figure out there's conditions under which people will let you leave here alive."

[wormcan]

"How about if I tell you how to kill Crawler? Sorry, Ned."

[from_scratch]

"I don't really have to kill him, I can just leave him there. I don't kill people recreationally, you know."

[wormcan]

"You don't, do you. Weird."

"I'd want to know how to kill Crawler," Flambe interjects.

[from_scratch]

"Do you want it badly enough to let me take Riley home, give her a basement full of mindless bodies, and cross your fingers that she really doesn't like plagues that much?"

[wormcan]

"...no."

[from_scratch]

"So we have a conundrum."

[wormcan]

"What if you take her powers away?"

[from_scratch]

"With what, a copy of Hatchet Face? Does he even work normally on Tinkers? Anyway, I'd love to know how to keep her in his range and be able to maintain him without getting cruel and unusual."

[wormcan]

"Yeah, that. See if she can set up something to maintain him, then handcuff them together forever."

[from_scratch]

"So you want me to let Bonesaw out of her box... give her surgical tools and a mindless cape..."

[wormcan]

"And a weapon from every tinker in the world pointed at her."

"Wouldn't have to be a whole copy. Just the brain, and I can even pare that down a bit further."

[from_scratch]

"Brain alone wouldn't be alive for long."

[wormcan]

"Puh-leez, I did my first brain in a jar when I was eight. I can keep it alive until, until something goes wrong I guess. Wouldn't be able to maintain it, obviously."

[from_scratch]

"I'm not sure how this even starts, because you'd have to be near the brain to operate on it, I assume."

[wormcan]

"I've operated on Hatchet before. I'd have to use remote robots, but it'd work. Or if robots sound too scary I could build the vat and you could make a copy of the brain already in it. Or you could do the same with the jar I made when I was eight, but that one wasn't built to last."

[from_scratch]

"You're being awfully cooperative about all this. You don't mind the power suppression aspect?"

[wormcan]

"I'd rather have the basement full of mindless bodies, but you did say the other option was killing me."

[from_scratch]

"Peanut gallery? Thoughts?"

[wormcan]

Peanut gallery's divided. The retributivist faction does win out eventually.
"Even if that works, she said it wouldn't work forever. There'd be a free and fully powered Bonesaw as soon as her machine broke down. The machine she'd be the one building."

[from_scratch]

"This is true. Does anyone else on tap know how to build a stable brain jar which does not have to involve Riley's personal expertise? No one need actually do it as long as they can point me to reliable plans."