Delightfully Strange

[magictechsupport]

At the end of the universe,

A man steps into a bar and looks around. "Huh, nobody told me they installed a break room here."

With Slayer Juliet.

With Kappa's Dagna.

With Eclipse!Bell.

Comments

[magictechsupport]

"Ah, three letter acronyms. CEO, CTO, EOF, TRO, top level corporate kinds of guys."

[cross_and_bow]

"Gotcha. What kinda corporation has dimensionality problems when someone moves offices?"

[magictechsupport]

"A magic corporation, of course. Mutliversal Thaumics Unlimited, senior tech support staff, at your service. I'd rather not talk about work too much if you don't mind, though."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'll tell you about my job as a vampire slayer if you tell me about yours as a multiversal magic tech support guy."

[magictechsupport]

Eyebrow-raise, and he does something with his glasses. "Which kind of vampires? No, nevermind, likely I've not heard of them. Sure. I don't know where to start explaining my job beyond 'fix things' though."

[cross_and_bow]

"Bitey snarly sunshine-allergic vampires. I don't know if the species has a name other than 'vampire' to distinguish them from alternate universe peers. How many multiverses do you serve? Supporting what products? How do they get ahold of you, do you have interdimensional phones?"

[magictechsupport]

"The interdimensional phones are what I spent most of today fixing. MTU sells a little bit of everything, or supports subsidiaries who do it for us, but the core products are communication, teleportation, divination, transmutation, and protection. I mostly work with communication and teleportation divisions. I'd need to look at my files to find the exact number, but suffice to say it's at least 'lots'. Are your vampires obligate anivores? That is, they must live off sentient beings to survive."

[cross_and_bow]

"No, they can live off animal blood, it's just that turning into a vampire removes the soul and with it all impulses to consider that preferable in any way to hunting down human snacks. Lots like hundreds or lots like tens of millions or what? Do you work in a fiat currency, that sounds like it'd be hard if you're that spread out."

[magictechsupport]

"Then your vampires aren't of a kind I know. I wouldn't call Multiverse Trade Units fiat, they're backed up by magic. The number's somewhere in the middle. Hundreds of thousands."

[cross_and_bow]

"How do you back a currency by magic?"

[magictechsupport]

"There are alternate currencies that MTU can be traded for, which are generated via sacrificing something, and magically grant the thing sacrificed upon redeeming. My favorite is Clarity. It's like two coffees on top of a wit-sharpening potion."

[cross_and_bow]

"Huh. How do you generally go about onboarding a new universe?"

[magictechsupport]

"I'm not all that familiar with the process, I'm tech support. I do know the suits divine for a risk assessment first. Frankly, I don't have a good feeling about that, given what you've told me so far."

[cross_and_bow]

"...Yeah, safe my universe isn't, but that's why all those things you mention sound so useful to have. Do you guys just sell comforts to the comfortable?"

[magictechsupport]

"It's more about risk versus reward. The suits don't want to put their employees in supernaturally dangerous places, that way lies huge lawsuit payouts. I might be able to swing you a link crystal, arrange for deliveries, but a branch office is right out."

[cross_and_bow]

"How do link crystals work and what kind of sacrifices am I looking at to have a nest egg that will buy me substantial oomph?"

[magictechsupport]

"That depends a lot on what you have available. VIT is a three-to-five day loss or gain in general physical capability. CLA is the same but slightly longer period, and general mental ability. MNA is, magical fuel, if you have access to magic and it runs on a thing you can sell some. AP is the same but represents your permanent magical power. It runs much, much higher. EMO is the ability to feel emotions. Temporary, not removed entirely for the duration. LUK is luck, limited to minor and moderate things because interfacing directly with fate is usually a terrible idea. DIV is divine intervention. I'd know already if you qualified to sell that. And here I thought I was done with work."

[cross_and_bow]

"I can't get local magic to work for me, I've tried. I have technically had contact with divine things but they kinda suck so I don't know if they'd be interested."

[magictechsupport]

"I can scan you anyway if you like, to see if you can mint MNA. Oh, link crystals. I can't sign you up to the official network without a lot of paperwork, but I run a private one. Off the books. I'd hook you into that. From your perspective, you would want to send a message and talk at it, or when it changes color want to hear what it has to say. If we're both on at the same time it'll hold a conversation, but that's about it. Very cheap model."

[cross_and_bow]

"Very cheap model, he says, about his interdimensional telephone with a will-based interface. Yeah, scan me for mana minting, it's not like any mana I have is doing me any good."

[magictechsupport]

He sets down his drink and opens a briefcase to reveal surprisingly technological looking magical things. He takes one out and points it at her, investigating its display.

"It's a bit of a process, encoding for a new magic system. Mind monologuing about your world a bit while I set it up?"

[cross_and_bow]

"Not at all. So, there is magic, and there are vampires, and there's an absolutely unfair quantity of demons who are even less humanlike than vampires, and there is me, she who stands against the darkness blah de blah until one day I bleed out against the darkness and am replaced with a different randomly selected non-consenting teenage girl in the mystic destiny. The powers with which I am to attempt to survive my late teens and early twenties and, if I'm really good, possibly even mid-twenties, are super strength and speed and agility, good combat instincts, and prophetic dreams and vampire-detecting powers that alas do not have their own tech support line because mine don't work. Witches are a thing but I can't seem to be one, possibly for the same reason I can't seem to be a prophetic dreamer, which is a terrible pity because it would be way more my style than hitting things. Not that hitting things is not great fun with enough practice."

[magictechsupport]

"...You want a resurrection insurance contract. Those are far above my head to arrange on my own recognizance but I will definitely be submitting your world for branch candidacy, risk or no risk, it sort of needs it. You have at least three different thaumic signatures on you, by the way."

[cross_and_bow]

"Three? Can you tell what they - are?"

[magictechsupport]

"Not with any precision yet. Two are similar to each other. The third is probably your strength and combat instincts, it has large VIT potential. I'll figure it soon enough, I enjoy tricky magic."