The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Welldrinker Cult
A shadowy group is gaining power, drawing in people who are curious, vulnerable, or malicious, and turning them into Mystics. They are recruiting people into their ranks to spread the influence of magic in the world, but for what end goal?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
Individual letters popped up on her phone screen as she hunted for the right words for an internet search. Amelia had a good idea of what she wanted, but limited experience or information about what it was.
She lay on her back on her bed in the room in the mansion, phone held aloft. Searching.
Earlier in the week, she had met someone. Someone she wound up liking a lot, although when she’d first met them, they’d almost slugged her. Misunderstandings do happen, people.
One of the things they had talked about was clothing. Her hoodie, to be more precise, and the magical qualities it possessed. Could it stop knives? Yes! Bullets? Yes! Fire and electricity and all the elements. TBD. To be determined.
She was wary of testing the fire resistance, due to the concern of damaging her hoodie... as well as from the healthy fear of becoming a blazing pyre. As for the electrical resistance... that would be a future date. A little experimentation with Adelynn was in order. That had got her thinking, though. What could she do to make sure she cane prepared? How had she imbued clothing with powers in the first place?
She would need to figure out the trick with imbuing clothing first... but she didn’t wanna. Research called to her. And do, she typed asbestos. Then, she blinked at what she’d typed. Apparently fire worried her more than electrical stuff.
Well, okay. She could work with that. She would google—
This one had a bad history to it. Originally it had been used in all sorts of applications, from building construction to the improvement of protective clothing. The main reason Amelia was familiar with the stuff was that she liked to occasionally read old comics... and this one fire guy literally lived in the stuff to prevent himself for burning down his bedroom when he had a bad dream. Every single villain had exploited his weakness to asbestos at some point. She had to figure he had lived with some built in “don’t get cancer from asbestos” super power most of his teen life. That was the second reason she knew about it, drama.
People had been forced to remove it from old buildings, due to the carcinogenic nature of the material. Amelia was uncertain whether her power could replicate the material, in whole... or what materials she had copied to make her hoodie bulletproof in the first place. So she kept reading the Wikipedia article, out of curiosity more than practicality. Surely, one thing would lead to something else. Something better.
Asbestos is composed of silicate materials. It was apparently, a good electrical insulator. She would have to google other electrical insulators.
It was heat-resistant. She knew that. What other things were heat-resistant? Maybe things used by firefighters. Protective equipment. Note to self: google fireman’s coat. Bunker gear. Other fire resistant things? Maybe stuff used in baking??
She knew about its dramatic exodus from the building construction world, but had not realized it had been used for thousands of years, prior to that. The stuff about pottery and Greek history was interesting. So was the thing about Persians having cloth made of it, which they threw into the fire to clean... origin of the salamander myth. Some people thought it was salamander skin. Neat.
She finished reading the article, and decided nope. Not going with asbestos. Don’t need to get cancer in preparation for fighting any fire people today! She closed that tab and searched for—
That article had loads of good information on how she would arrange clothing layers, if she were constructing fire-resistant protective equipment for fire fighters.
It had data about materials, like the Kevlar Nomex mix. Idly, she wondered if Kevlar had been part of her hoodie’s composition. She would have to look that up later.
How did that work, anyways? Did she sew the molecular composition of the material she wanted into the piece of clothing with a nice embroidery? Did she need a special needle? One that would pierce the clothing. Or did she... make that? Mentally.
Anyways. If she wanted to go into intense heat, she would need overlapping layers of protective equipment that gave an outer shelf, a moisture barrier, and a thermal barrier. The outer layer had the whole Nomex Kevlar weave, with a waterproofing finish. Her clothes already repelled stains... what if she made them repel water? Would they be able to be washed? If she ever played with that weave, she would have to only use it on items she wouldn’t need to wash by conventional means. Like dry-clean only stuff. Wait. How did dry cleaning work?
If she made something waterproof and stain proof, and gave it some sort of friction-resistant surface, mud and grime would not easily stick to the thing. If she got slimed, for instance, she could chisel off the slime and be good to go. Goo to go. Heh. So funny.
The whole rip-stop weave thing sounded like something she wanted, and maybe had.
If she made a thing with multiple layers, she could arrange them so they could be easily disassembled for individual cleaning. Seemed like that was how firefighters treated their gear.
The collars and sleeves added additional protection. If she made new gear, it would have a big collar she could turnout, and long sleeves. Or maybe a hood. Though hoods could impede your own field of vision. Also, they’d keep you too warm. She would not want to wear a big hoodie coat in a New York summer. No hood. Big pockets. She made a note of that. Then, she read about the Nomex hood thing and committed that to memory just in case.
She finished up the article, and decided gloves would definitely be a major part of her repertoire. Hand protection would do more for her than just act like oven mitts. If her gloves were cut resistant like her hoodie, then she could disarm a person with a knife at close range... or if she ever figured out some sort of ranged ‘possession of clothing’ spell, she could ghost the glove from a distance to rocket punch someone in the face. She jotted that down in her memory banks. So cool.
Amelia decided to research how coats can be waterproofed next. And then maybe Kevlar.
The waterproofing article was boring and didn’t have much good information to lead Amelia’s search. The link to raincoats gave her some ideas, but...
Oilskins and waxed clothing was only so-so. The different types of coats were cool. Nylon and all that yadda yadda. She liked the Inverness cape. And the trench coat, though that did not meet her needs as well as other things.
Nylon was interesting, historically speaking. Lots of good stuff there. Further reading lead nowhere. So she went back a few articles, to waterproofing. Hm.
Super Hydrophobic treatment for electronics... that was interesting. What was hydrophobic? Amelia googled that.
Hm. Yes. Fascinating. She had not known about the water permeability of the leaves of the lotus plant. Or really any of that. The article lead to silica, titania, and the sol-gel technique. Polyethelyne. Carbon nanotubes, and DWR. Durable water repellant. Which lead to... Gore-Tex.
Gore-Tex, at its surface level, was fairly innocuous. A waterproof, breathable fabric membrane that repels liquid water while allowing water vapor to pass through. That would allow the material to be dry cleaned, wouldn’t it? It was composed of... poly tetra fluoro ethylene. Mash that together and say it five times fast. So polytetrafluoroethylene. PTFE. Trademarked commonly as... Teflon. Hey, she knew what Teflon was. They made pans out of that!
So, PTFE... and ePTFE. Extended PTFE. The extended PTFE was what they used for clothing... needed a Durable Water Resistant treatment... otherwise, the outer layer was not water resistant. It became less breathable, which reduced the breathability of the fabric, which in turn lead to the wearer’s sweat not evaporating within, leading to internal dampness... the whole section of the article was fascinating.
If she wanted to make her stuff water repellant, would she need to utilize multiple weaves. The extended PTFE, the PTFE, and the DWR treatment... or could she just utilize the DWR treatment on its own. Was it available for purchase outside of commercial usage? And was this really a responsible usage of her time? Was it relevant to being fireproof? Kevlar was way more fireproof... and used in bulletproof clothing. She still needed to read that article, but she knew that.
Maybe if she mastered the base weave, she could sort of Bend it and extend it chemically herself. With her powers, or... or was that crazy?
It was a little crazy. She was a little crazy. Like a fox.
PTFE. Teflon. Extended PTFE. All these words ran through her mind as Amelia moved on to the next article. Maybe there would be something that made water resistant frying pans relevant to heat-resist gear. Maybe even electrical resistance, so she could impress Adelynn. Or at least, it would be mildly interesting and she would kill ten minutes.
“PolyTetraFluoroEthylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene that has numerous applications...” the article read. That sentence was dry as hell. She started to skim.
High molecular weight, fluorine and carbon. Hydrophobic. One of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid.
What did that last line mean? Non-stick surface, of course. And non-reactive. So it is useful when dealing with corrosive chemicals.
Melts at 620 degrees, Fahrenheit. Maintains high strength, self-lubrication, and toughness, down to -450 degrees Fahrenheit. Keeps good flexibility at temperatures above -110 degrees Fahrenheit. At temperatures above 650–700 °C (1,200–1,290 °F) PTFE will undergo depolymerization. So what did all of that mean?
The thing could stay strong at low temperatures, up to -450, stay flexible above -110, would melt at 620 degrees Fahrenheit, and come apart at 650-700. It was fairly resilient. So far, so good. She continued reading...
There was a lot of information about dielectric constants and coefficients of friction. It’s surface as like the third lowest... geckos couldn’t stick to a surface with PTFE.
No gecko. No stick.
Used to prevent insects from climbing... one line stuck out to her. It was as-follows: “Because of its chemical inertness, PTFE cannot be cross-linked like an elastomer. Therefore, it has no "memory" and is subject to creep. “
Creep meant... she clicked the link. Wow. Lotta stuff. Some fancy language that basically boiled down to things with creep degrading over time. If they were subject to a lot of mechanics stress, they could degrade. Due to properties, exposure time, and exposure heat, and structural load. So heavy loads taxed the structure of the chemicals... as did extended exposure to heat, and other things.
So it degraded over time. Idly, Amelia wondered if other things affected with her powers did something like that? Would her bulletproof stuff... last forever? And how had she made herself knifeproof? Was the fact she had not fully blocked the kinetic energy behind the strikes when she had trained with Eevee due to degradation of her powers affected medium? Or was it simply as strong as it was?
Back on topic, she eyed more information. Strain accumulated as a result long term stress. Not a sudden thing. Time dependent. There were various factors that affected creep.
Yeah. It made sense to her that maybe an... she would call them enhanced articles of clothing... one of those... might not last forever. Even bulletproof vests didn’t last forever did they? Nothing lasts forever.
Clothes could wear out. Would she need to repair the enhancement?
She read the tab about prevention of creep.
Solid strength dissolution. Applying... this was complicated. Her flawed understanding read it as applying atoms of one element to another, like applying multiple coats of paint. Covering up cracks. Creating a new, stronger surface. With elements of other stuff? Huh? This article was very complicated. What was the science of her power, anyways?
“Case-hardening or surface hardening is the process of hardening the surface of a metal object while allowing the metal deeper underneath to remain soft, thus forming a thin layer of harder metal (called the "case") at the surface.” She read the related article.
She could probably do that with layers of psychic whatever... did she have psychic whatever? She would have to speak to someone who knew her before, about her powers.
Who knew her then and now? Uh... Mirror? That... that really was it. She had not hung out with a lot of mansion folks. Back in the day. Ten or what butt years ago. But maybe after her powers had come in, she had? She could ask around. Maybe that Serena woman would know?
But yeah. She could figure out psychic layering. Psychic weaving. Was she a psychic? Keeping stuff softer beneath and harder outside... while still not affecting the actual feel of cloth. Hrm.
Why was it that her bulletproof hoodie did not feel like it had points of— whatever it was she had used to help with that. Metal stuff? Kevlar? She’d look up Kevlar again.
And what was involved in giving an object properties like that? Did she, like, CARVE tunes into it in the shape of freaking molecule diagrams? Atom shapes? Crap. She would google magic coats too. Maybe some fantasy author had figured this all out.
She went back to the creep article. So much reading. She was like a scientist.
Cuz I’m a creep. I’m a loser. Amelia suppressed the sudden song stuck in her head as she ogled the article.
Grain size. Particle dispersion. Precipitation hardening. Yeah. Lotta atomic crap. She would figure out how her own power worked. Back she went, to the main article. After she read about super alloys, of course. Because it was neat.
Elements could be added to superalloys to tailor them... heh... to tailor their properties. Could her clothes have had special properties added specific for the benefits they gave? To reduce brittleness, if one weave had that problem perhaps? Strengthen another? Could all that atomic tinkering be stable?
Back on the PTFE page, she continued her study. It was hydrophobic. Could withstand heats. Didn’t let things stick to it... kind of like that anti-stain feature her hoodie had. Except it could get really wet and still stay wet. It was not hydrophobic. So she did not have that, yet. But she could...
PTFE was nonreactive so it could withstand corrosive things like acid. So she could have clothing that withstood acid. Could also be used to relieve friction and wear and tear on machinery when used as a lubricant... but she was making clothing, not lube. So whatever.
She read about how it behaved when PTFE was melted. It became a gel? Neat. What were its applications and uses!
The majority of its usage comes from insulation of wiring. There it was! Because it was dielectric. A great insulator. That... now that could be useful for impressing Adelynn.
Good insulator against electric shock. High melting point. Heat-resistant. Low friction. Ease of wear. High resistivity. Used in the production of carbon fiber and fiberglass... as a film between them. Which meant... oh. Just anti-stick coating. Okay. She read more. Non-reactive. Used in hoses and stuff, and where corrosive chemicals were present. It had plenty of uses. Another was in clothing specifically. The Gore-tex. Hydrophobic stuff. Helping with waterproofing. That would be useful for clothes she wanted to be waterproof, such as a big leather duster... if she went that way.
Leather could be waterproofed and could be dried and cleaned, as such. There were ways to care for leather. But if she could make it so that she never had to think about that, well then, that would be even better!
Why was she so fixated on the leather duster idea? Was that a bit of the old her slipping in? Was it simply style? Stylish? Or was there more? She had thought about enchanted clothing. She would google enchanted leather coats. Yes.
If she stretched the material to contain small pores, and placed it between fabric layers, she could make waterproof, breathable fabric for outdoor apparel. She’d follow that up with the appropriate water resistant protection if needed, because she had read about needed that... and that spray could creep. Wear off. And—
It could repel stains. That was redundant, but useful!
The stuff about fireworks and carbonaceous spot had nothing to do with her. Neither did lube and twisty puzzles. Diffusing a transmitting light... she had no idea what that meant for her. A lot of the rest of it’s used were extensions of what she had already covered. As for safety...
Pyrolysis at 392 degrees Fahrenheit, released... gasses. But not in amounts excess enough to cause health problems.
Deterioration at 500 degree Fahrenheit. Decomposition past that. Degradation byproducts could be lethal to birds. And in humans... polymer fume fever. She would not be cooking on her coat, so this was less important to her. And if she were at those temperatures in her coat, polymer fine fever was going to be the least of her concerns. Still... what was polymer fume fever?
“Polymer fume fever or fluoropolymer fever, also informally called Teflon flu, is an inhalation fever caused by the fumes released when polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE, known under the trade name Teflon) reaches temperatures of 300 °C (572 °F) to 450 °C (842 °F).[1] When PTFE is heated above 450 °C the pyrolysis products are different and inhalation may cause acute lung injury.[2] Symptoms are flu-like (chills, headaches and fevers) with chest tightness and mild cough. Onset occurs about 4 to 8 hours after exposure to the pyrolysis products of PTFE. A high white blood cell count may be seen and chest x-ray findings are usually minimal.” The Wikipedia article stated.
Neato. She would have to be careful about being near something affected by a supposed PTFE weave... and keep it from birds if it were burning.
She finished the articles on polymer fume fever and PTFE. Found an article on the advantages of PTFE on a website called Fluorotec.
PTFE IS AN INCREDIBLY VERSATILE MATERIAL, it proclaimed in bold lettering.
Yes. Yes it is.
The article basically told her everything she had already learned from Wikipedia, but her teacher had always told her to cite sources other than Wikipedia. Follow the rabbit hole of links so your source has sources. Reputable sources. This was what looked like a plastics manufacturer firm or whatever. So they probably made stuff utilizing PTFE. That was about as reputable as one can get.
The article said: “If you were trying to invent a highly flexible, chemical resistant, thermal resistant, non-stick and electrically resistant material, and it hadn’t already been done, you’d be hoping you could come up with a material somewhere nearly as good as PTFE is in these areas.”
So yes. Exactly what she wanted. All in one place. With hydrophobic effects thrown in. And she had not even had to worry about asbestos! Or cancer.
The nice she figured out this maybe she’d dig at Kevlar. But first—
She needed to google big ridiculous leather coats and magic.
Amelia scoured the internets for... enchanted leather duster. After scrolling down past several ads for very real, NOT enchanted, leather dusters, she found... Harry Dresden’s duster. It was a fan page. That was about right. She clicked!
She also noted a TV TROPES article in badass long coats, and filed that one away for later when she was fine with disappearing for hours down that particular rabbit hole. Apparently badass long coats were a thing. She wasn’t crazy. Neo did it in The Matrix. And lots of others too. But with Harry Dresden... good god. She had been a blatant thief of ideas hadn’t she?
The first line of the fan wiki article basically summed up her entire power idea.
“Harry Dresden owns a black duster, enchanted to withstand, within limits, Magic and fire.”
Magic and fire. Sure. Mutant abilities were magic? But knives, bullets, and more? She read on.
Having something fireproof enough to toss it into a fire, in order to bake crud off it so it’s easily chipped away... fun. Spoiler alert to a short story. But fun. Useful, if she ever had something gross she needed rid of. But wouldn’t the PTFE thing be just as useful, if she ever cracked it?
She finished the article, and was left wanting... so she just googled the damned character. One would think a fan wiki would be more in-depth. Jesus.
On the Wikipedia page for the character, she did not open any tabs other than items. If she wanted spoilers for a book series she had already read, but might like to read again (for the very first time), she would do so. But she only wanted data on the big damn hero coat.
Amelia scrolled down to the first mention of the duster. Several paragraphs down. The dude had loads of equipment and accessories. More than a freaking Barbie, even! She idly wondered if he had both the Dream House AND the sexy ride?
Harry’s duster was charged and strengthened to be able to ward off even military grade gunfire.
Her hoodie had handled civilian rounds. It had knocked her back on her ass because she was small, but it had protected the hoodie and herself from much worse. It was the fall, and what she had fallen into which had hurt her arm and shoulder. If she figured it out, would the damage protection weave assist against (up to and including) military grade rounds. When would she have need of such a feat?
The duster protected against combat energy magic. So, kinetic energy. Impact protection. Durr.
Waterproof. Stain proof. Two things she either wanted, or had. Cool.
She stared at the Wikipedia article as it rapidly dwindled down with the data about the freaking coat. Again. Again, fans failed to list specifics. She sighed. Then, her phone rang. She picked it up.
It was Aurum. He wanted to talk with her. It had been days since she’d caught up with him, after she told him about the elephant in the room. The DeAging event. What did he want?
He wanted a sitter. For when? Oh okay. Hrm. He had HOW MANY KIDS?!
For the moment, she paused the googling. She would have to pick up later. She had to mentally prepare herself for sitting the sudden influx of brats her brother had blindsided her with. Googling things would simply have to wait until another day.
Another day, it turned out, was several days later. Maybe even a week. She had taken Adelynn on a date to the aquariums since her last foray into her internet search history. She had met her ex-girlfriend, and learned a few things. Practiced a few things. Experimented around the mansion. Yadda yadda. Several days had passed before she once again remembered what she’d been looking into. Then, she had to rack her brain as to the why.
Why. Why was this duster thing important? Well, that was a really good question! It was important because Amelia had figured she had based an entire chunk of her mutation around the theories behind the object. Short of reading the entire book series again... and it had like 14-15 novels in it, she had checked... her best bet had been the internet.
But the internet had failed her. The fans had failed her. The article about the coat on the fan wiki had been short and vague. The Wikipedia article on the character had not gone into his methods. What were these methods to his madness?! But she had not looked at... of all things... the TV tropes article on the badass long coat. What new hells would she find when she entered the rabbit hole here?
Amelia went down the rabbit hole.
The rabbit hole had some good information. Apparently, the duster was both bullet and knife resistant, but NOT impact proof. Rather, the impact is spread out across the whole body to lessen it. By reducing the pressure of the physical blow significantly. That was sort of how she had worked out what she had done... wasn’t it? Maybe?
Further reading said he had to enchant it and keep the enchantment maintained through routine maintenance. He carved magic runes into it, or sewed them with a needle... or something. The article wasn’t decisive about the how. But it said the item needed upkeep.
Did magic deteriorate? Was that why? If she had read the series, she would have known that every sunrise weakens an enchantment because the rising of the sun is a purifying force. Or something. Thus, constant routine maintenance would be a thing for any object of power he enchanted. Since she did not know that, Amelia did some creative googling to try and find an answer.
After a couple of different searches, she came to “Dresden file enchantments.” She found a Reddit article. It had spoilers, but she figured it would answer the exact questions she had. And better than the magical items article on another fan wiki. Which told her what she’d already got.
According to the WAY spoiler-filled reddit thread, his coats enchantments lasted months, and he could make them run for more than a year, with skill and practice. If he laid them down right.
Amelia figured her skill level was far less than that of a professional wizard, whatever that was. It was likely she lacked the skill to enchant an item for a year. Probably not even months at a time. Not yet. Especially not at the moment. Thus, her enchantments... they probably only lasted a week or two. Three weeks, TOPS. And that was giving her an insane amount of credit. She was kind of a screwup. It was likely worse than that. And how many enchantments were they talking of, here? Were her multiple enchantments wearing off?
If they were wearing off, what sorts of things would cause such a mess? Amelia did not want to have her enchantment wear off without her knowledge, and be absent at a critical junction. That was a great way to get shot, and have it STICK!
Damage. Probably. It was a question of creep, wasn’t it? Everything comes back to creep. Repeated or sustained damage could wear down items. Time was also a factor. Heat. There were numerous variables, but... it seemed to her, from a purely hypothetical standpoint, that damage, time, and heat could weaken her hoodie. In that case, this hypothetical think tank told her, she had already worn the enchantment pretty thin. Hell, if the two week length of the enchantment were imposed, Amelia was DANGEROUSLY close to having the whole enchantment fall apart.
Fsssk!
She was guessing, but it all sounded right.
How could she fix this? She would have to hammer out the specifics of how she had accomplished whatever she had accomplished.
Amelia was fairly certain at least one weave layer was the Kevlar layer. She actually had a Kevlar vest now, thanks to going to her apartment for some things... she had been a cop. She had kept the vest. If she wanted to, Amelia could rip it apart and study the insides. Or look up the atomic structures. Or something— maybe her initial discovery of the whole thing had been less rooted in science. But for her, now... science was a winner. She read the article some more.
Dresden tattooed the enchantments into the leather duster. She looked at her hoodie. No visible tattoos. But— if her power made a semi-visible psychic sort of construct/wave.... could she lay it on the clothing and sort of weave the enchantment throughout? Tattoo it.
If she had discovered it in a situation where she was under pressure and lacked supplies, then tattooing the object would have been a ridiculous idea. She’d have needed her own power. A thought struck her. She called her brother.
“Hey, Bro... was there a time in the past year or so when I came back and... like... it was really stressful. And I bragged about being bulletproof or some crap?” Amelia rambled incoherently.
There was a notable pause, and then her brother Aurum (the golden boy) casually asked: ”Oh, you mean when you were kidnapped by SUPER and had to create a magically bulletproof straitjacket to help you escape from their stronghold on this side of the rip in time and space?”
“Hold up.” Amelia said. “What the fack?!”
Aurum laughed. He actually laughed at her. ”What? Nobody told you about that? You mean you didn’t just sort of vanish from the lives of your friends and family after the whole thing with your other self from another world, and the infiltrating the organization that kidnapped you for a year?”
“What?!”
”Hey.” He said reasonably. ”You blindsided me with that crap WHEN it was happening. And did not tell me anything about it. Really. I had to drag it out of you. Over several months. You wanted to protect your friends and loved ones. But you did brag about that damned bulletproof straitjacket!”
“God. That’s, like, so incredibly shitty. But also wildly convenient. To an insane degree.”
Derp. Yeah. She really should have asked her family before she searched in vain for a person at the mansion she had confided in about her power. Aurum knew some stuff. Not all the stuff. He knew she had figured it out in a cell while bound in a straitjacket. And that she had broken out using her powers, and fought some guy with no dick. That it was bulletproof. He did not know the mechanics, but he figured it was something she could have done while stationary. So entirely by the virtues of her mind. Amelia thought on that after the call, as she returned to the article.
The duster had been tattooed with invisible runes. Invisible black runes on black duster. The duster required constant upkeep in order to maintain the enchantments. Multiple layers of enchantments.
The thread comment change degenerated into Burger King and toilet humor... but there was an interesting comment about blue play doh and magic. Which were two things she had never expected to see mentioned in the same sentence.
It said something about magic being largely a symbolic sort of thing where things work better when they’re made to symbolize the thing or act they’re meant to achieve...? When it symbolizes something FOR YOU. By your focusing of your energy. Like with the shield bracelet thingy Harry used, where it was made of solid metal, a barrier against harm. And the new one had interwoven metal, symbolizing “interwoven defenses.” And it, like, had actual little shield charms on it too. She had read that somewhere. Cute little bitty shields. Yet another bit of symbolism.
So she needed to figure out what the symbolism meant to her. How she thought of stuff. How she symbolized it. Because it was personal.
There was also a good comment about the old shield bracelet having been damaged several times, weakening its defenses. Making it less efficient at channeling power. CREEP! It kept coming back to creep.
The old bracelet was inefficient and focused on one thing. The new one was made with several different interwoven bits of metal. So it focused on many things. Had she woven her defenses so they worked like that? Yeah probably, if she was such a huge freaking nerd.
Wow. It was amazing what she could learn about the world (and herself), from random people on the internet.
The thing about most of his magical devices being tools others could not use was interesting. Could other people use her hoodie, or was it simply an “Amelia thing”? Was the hoodie a foci? Did it help her focus on a task? Or did it store energy, then do a thing? It was the latter. Definitely the latter. She had not focused one bit at all when she had used it to help her block that bullet. Nope.
The duster did things even when Harry was not using it. So, too, would her hoodie. She had decided. It was so. There was no way that she could have designed it any differently. She knew herself. Even if she was a mess, she was not that selfish. Not beneath it all. ... Even if she had done as Aurum said she had, and vanished for over a year to try and do something stupid and dangerous without sharing it with anyone she cared about. Really.
Ahem. Anyways. Another comment said the tattooed markings sort of tethered the enchantment energy to the object. Like acting as an anchor, similar to a ward being anchored to a threshold? She did not know what those were. But the whole idea made sense still. Were there any more useful comments she could steal?
Tools like the hoodie would be expensive, and not just monetarily. Time was an issue, they were a time sink. Even if you were skilled, such things required an investment of time, for preparation and maintenance. Refreshing spells. Etc. Almost a part-time job. So she could probably only have a handful of tools if she ever figured out how to replicate and increase the number of enhanced items. Enchantments.
That was all she got from the remaining comments. She closed the tab with the reddit thread.
Hrm. So what she got from that was that she needed to weave enchantments into her duster, and when she did she needed to sort of tattoo them. With needlework. Or a psychic tattoo gun. This would require experimentation.
She needed to experiment. Now who did she know who was good at experimenting?
...
Actual experimenting, Amelia. Stop thinking about Adelynn.
Well, Evelyn was pretty good. She had helped her figure out some of the stuff with the sais. So Evelyn was who she should spam about all of this then? Maybe...?
Evelyn could probably help her science the heck out of this. Okay.