Date: October 26, 2011
Location: The Menagerie (Formerly Kovacs Meatpacking), Long Island City
Lloyd Nipple stood on the rusted catwalk outside his new office, looking down at his kingdom. The factory floor was a cathedral of concrete and iron, currently empty save for a pile of scrap metal Gibraltar was slowly consuming and a Niffler sleeping in a hammock made from a discarded hazmat suit.
"It is a shell," Lloyd murmured, leaning on his Raven Staff. "A hollow giant, we must give it veins and a heart."
He descended the metal stairs, the sound of his boots echoing in the vast space. It was perfect for Dark Magic as the residue of death, even the death of cattle left a spiritual imprint that made shielding spells stickier.
"First order of business," Lloyd announced to the empty room. "Perimeter defense."
He walked to the large wooden crate he had brought from the apartment. Inside sat the ceramic pot containing the Devil's Snare, the plant had grown.
It was no longer a shy seedling but was a tangled bush of black, oily vines that pulsed with a slow, predatory rhythm. It sensed the new environment, the dampness, the shadows and reached out a tendril to taste the air.
"You have outgrown the pot, my friend," Lloyd told the plant. "And honestly, you are too polite, a guard dog should not just strangle intruders, it should traumatize them."
He picked up the pot as the vines wrapped around his wrist, testing his skin, but retreated when they felt the hum of his magic.
Lloyd walked to the main loading bay entrance. The ground here was cracked concrete, with weeds pushing through the fissures.
"Gibraltar!" Lloyd called out.
The Rock-Hound looked up from his breakfast which was a rusted radiator. He burped, a puff of rust dust escaping his lips, and waddled over.
"Dig," Lloyd commanded, pointing to the concrete directly inside the massive sliding doors. "We need a trench, 3 feet deepal and Wall to wall."
Gibraltar grunted and approached the concrete floor. He didn't use a shovel; he used his face and slammed his rocky jaw into the floor like a jackhammer, CRUNCH. He ripped up a slab of concrete, chewed it briefly to test the flavor, found it to be bland, and spat it aside.
Within twenty minutes, a trench had been excavated.
Lloyd filled the bottom with the soil he had bought, a mix of potting soil, bone meal, and crushed charcoal.
He removed the Devil's Snare from its pot. The roots were a thick, white knot of tubers. He planted it in the center of the trench.
"Now," Lloyd whispered, reaching into his pocket.
He pulled out a small glass vial. Inside floated the Gamma-Gland he had harvested from the sewer rat. It glowed with a sickly, radioactive green light.
"Alchemy is the art of equivalent exchange," Lloyd lectured the plant. "But genetic modification is just forcing nature to drink energy drinks until it develops a complex."
He uncorked the vial and poured the glowing green sludge directly onto the roots of the Devil's Snare.
The reaction was immediate as the plant shivered, a low, hissing sound emanated from the leaves. The black vines turned a bruised purple, Veins of neon green began to glow beneath the plant's skin.
It didn't just grow but erupted.....
Vines shot out, latching onto the iron pillars on either side of the door. They thickened instantly, becoming as wide as pythons. Thorns the size of daggers pushed out from the stems, dripping with a viscous clear liquid.
The plant writhed, weaving itself into a living net across the entrance. It blocked the light, plunging the factory floor into deeper shadow.
> [Mutation Successful]
> Species: Gamma-Snare (Devil's Snare Variant)
> Trait Added: [Rad-Poison Thorns]
> Trait Added: [Photosensitive Rage] (Plant becomes more aggressive in light, rather than retreating)
> Security Rating: High
Lloyd stepped back, admiring his handiwork.
"Excellent," he nodded. "Now, if the Girl Scouts come selling cookies, they will learn a valuable lesson about botany."
Location: The Office
Time: Noon
With the door secured by a radioactive strangulation hazard, Lloyd turned his attention to the second problem: Power.
He sat at his desk, smoothing out the crumpled blueprints of the Arc reactor.
PROJECT: ARC-MINIATURIZATION
Lloyd studied the diagrams, he didn't understand the physics equations scrawled in the margins, but he understood the geometry.
"It is a circle," Lloyd muttered, tracing the design with his finger. "A torus, the energy circulates in a closed loop, accelerating until it reaches critical mass."
He recognized the principle, it was similar to how a Time-Turner contained temporal sand, or how a Pensieve held memories. It was a containment field.
"The Muggles use Palladium as the focus," Lloyd noted, reading the chemical symbols. "A heavy metal which degrades. It poisons the blood."
He tapped the paper with his Raven Staff.
"Why use a dying metal when you can use a living crystal?"
He pulled the Star Sapphire from his pocket. The massive gem gleamed in the dim light.
"This stone," Lloyd reasoned, "has a mana capacity of 500 units. If I enchant it with a Capacious Extremis charm to increase its storage, and then etch it with an Absorption Rune..."
He grabbed a piece of blank paper and a charcoal stick and began to draw.
He wasn't drawing circuits but was drawing a Runic Array.
He kept the torus shape of the Arc Reactor, it was aerodynamically sound for energy flow but he replaced the copper coils with silver wire which was better for magic.
He replaced the Palladium core with the Star Sapphire.
"The device will not generate electricity," Lloyd murmured, his charcoal snapping as he drew a sharp angle. "It will generate ambient mana and it will act as an artificial Ley Line Node."
If he could build this.....he wouldn't need to plug his base into the city grid and wouldn't need to pay Con Edison.
The reactor would suck in the background radiation of New York, the emotions, the electricity, the heat and convert it into pure magical energy to power his wards.
"A Mana Reactor," Lloyd whispered. "The Ministry would send me to Azkaban just for drawing this."
But drawing it was one thing, building it was another.
He needed silver... Pure silver and lots of it.
"Subject 42!" Lloyd shouted down to the factory floor.
The Niffler, who was currently trying to teach Gibraltar how to play fetch with a hubcap, looked up.
"Inventory check," Lloyd called out. "How much silver do we have in the Void?"
Subject 42 patted his belly, he thought for a moment and held up three claws, then he made a tipping motion.
"Three candlesticks and a tea set?" Lloyd translated. "That is insufficient, we need industrial quantities."
He leaned back in his chair. He had money, but buying silver bullion raised questions.
He needed a source of high-grade metal that was off the books.
His eyes drifted to the newspaper clipping he had pinned to the wall.
NEW YORK SANITATION DEPT: STRANGE SLUDGE CLOGS PIPES IN SECTOR 7
Sector 7....That was near the old chemical plants.
"Chemical plants," Lloyd mused. "They use silver nitrate, they use platinum catalysts."
He stood up, grabbing his coat.
"Gibraltar! Stop eating the architecture. We are going on a supply run."
The gargoyle groaned, dropping the half-eaten hubcap.
Lloyd looked at his blueprint one last time.
"Tony Stark built his in a cave with a box of scraps," Lloyd quoted the news report he had read.
He smirked, picking up his Raven Staff.
"I am going to build mine in a slaughterhouse with a box of magic."
Location: Sector 7 Sewer Access, Queens
Time: 3:00 PM
The sewers of Sector 7 were different from the ones near the apartment. These pipes were lined with a thick, orange residue.
Lloyd walked along the narrow maintenance walkway, the Lumos orb floating above his head. Subject 42 rode on his shoulder, wearing a tiny bandana over his nose to block the smell.
Gibraltar walked behind, his heavy footsteps splashing in the muck.
"System," Lloyd whispered. "Scan for heavy metals."
> [Scan Active]
> Environment: Highly Toxic
> Detecting: Lead, Mercury... Silver (Trace Amounts)
> Source: Filtration screens ahead
Lloyd walked forward. Ahead, a massive metal grate blocked the flow of sewage. It was clogged with debris.
But glinting in the filth were thousands of tiny, shiny flakes, Industrial runoff. Silver shavings from a factory upstream that had accumulated here for years.
"A placer deposit," Lloyd smiled. "In the most disgusting river on earth."
"42," Lloyd pointed. "The grate, Filter it."
The Niffler looked at the sewage and looked at Lloyd, he made a gagging noise.
"Do it, and I will buy you a gold watch," Lloyd bribed.
Subject 42 narrowed his eyes.....Rolex?
"Casio....Gold plated."
Squeak.....(Deal)
Niffler hopped down. He didn't jump into the water but activated his Void-Belly suction.
He opened his mouth and inhaled.
He didn't swallow the sewage but acted like a vacuum cleaner. The specific magical intent of his greed filtered the water, the filth passed by, but the silver flakes, were sucked into the vortex of his pouch.
It was mesmerizing, a stream of sparkling dust lifted from the sludge and vanished into the small creature.
Lloyd watched, calculating.
"That's two kilos..... three kilos....."
Suddenly, Gibraltar let out a low growl, the gargoyle turned around, facing the darkness of the tunnel behind them.
Lloyd spun, raising his staff. "What is it?"
The water in the tunnel rippled. Something was moving toward them, something big.
It wasn't a rat and it definitely wasn't a gator but was a mass of white sludge that seemed to be pulling itself along the walls.
> [Enemy Detected]
> Species: Albino Slime (Chemical Construct)
> Origin: Accidental animation via magical runoff interacting with industrial waste
> Threat: Corrosive. Immune to physical damage
"A Slime," Lloyd groaned.
"I hate Slimes. They ruin your shoes."
The creature reared up, a towering wave of acidic goo. It hissed, the sound like bacon frying.
"Gibraltar, stand back," Lloyd ordered. "You are made of stone; acid will pit your finish."
Lloyd stepped forward, he didn't have a wand, but he had a Staff and staffs were designed for elemental control.
He pointed the Raven Skull at the sludge.
"You are mostly water," Lloyd stated. "Toxic, filthy water but water nonetheless."
He tapped into the Star Sapphire he had in his pocket and felt the surge of 500 mana units.
"Glacius Maxima!"
A beam of pale blue light erupted from the raven's beak and it hit the sludge.
The water inside the creature froze instantly. The chemical bonds snapped, the hissing turned into the sound of cracking ice.
In three seconds, the threatening monster was transformed into a white sculpture of frozen sewage.
"Art," Lloyd quipped, tapping the ice with his cane.
"Now, 42. Finish the silver, we have a reactor to build."
He looked at the frozen slime.
"Actually," Lloyd paused. "Chip off a piece of that ice, Industrial acid might be useful for etching the runes."
The Niffler sighed, but pulled out a small hammer, a Magizoologist wasted nothing, not even the monsters.
Authors Note:-
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