Some Warpunk in Cybercraft! [Fanfiction]

DenB

Before you read this, folks on SH have been extremely kind so far. However, I have no way of know which camp the folks using my email came from. So here we are. The comment I refer to below is on RR. the only other place I post this story.

A note from Den B

So let me be clear, I'm sick of this.  But now I have also had some coffee. So I'm thinking more clearly.

On one hand, I'm shocked and pleased I have as much of a following as I do and I realize if I let this get to me I'm letting yall down. I won't drop the story. I was a bit upset when I wrote that, but I will likely flip to another story idea I had for a while until I calm down.

Sorry I let my temper flare over this. I should have just ignored it, but I'm kind of annoyed by folks not reading my notes and then commenting on something well explained by my notes. My interest in interaction with folks has led to this. Since I'm a lonely person I'm quite vulnerable to this kind of thing.

From now on I'm not responding to anything about this issue, yall will see how I deal with Krieg in the fullest of time or not. 

I going to call this out, this one last time, because I've gotten similar private emails and messages to a similar effect. This is just a good opportunity to bundle all the arguments into one last attempt at getting yall to let me try to fix a problem before acting like I'm trying to murder yall's favorite franchise. If I screw that up then yall can murder me, metaphorically speaking.

This is my response to a comment on chapter 84. Which to be fair I'm not sure how accurate google translate was. Marked by ().

(Okay, if the translation function was working properly...

I'm tired of going over this again, but I'm also tired period so...

Research? Yes, I did research. More than I wanted or needed to... The problem wasn't a lack of research. I poured over Krieg's lore and nearly tore my own hair out several times, trying to find a viable way to use them. The research alone almost killed the reason I started this. So please, for the love of all that is holy, never make that accusation again. I asked people not to lore master me and this gets up to that line.

I suppose I should also mention I have been collecting 40k since the mid 90s. I am intimately familiar with it's horrors.

At the end of the day this is for fun. I'm doing this for my entertainment and hopefully yours. If folks don't like a call I've made that's okay. I repeat once again, I'm not doing this for money, notoriety or anything other than my own enjoyment. I'm not trying to become a professional author. I am not trying to make any grand points about anything. I'm just trying to have some fun maybe talk to a few folks I wouldn't have otherwise.

But that doesn't mean I don't take this seriously. As you have demonstrated, people are pretty serious about their hobbies. 

The problem was and is that I stubbornly stuck to a set of rules I set for myself when I starting writing the story. I rolled them, and I told myself to stick to the rolls. I tried to sidestep my rules and that went down a worse rabbit hole. In this story, that lands us here, with 40K being incorporated into the world.

Do I need to reexamine my charts for rolls? Absolutely. To I need to be less stubborn about how I handle obviously dangerous material? Again a thousand times, yes.

My author's notes detail this struggle quite well. So, I don't know why I'm bothering to explain this again. Maybe it's that for a brief moment I forgot this is still the internet and all the same rules apply.

Let's all leave this here and now. Or don't and I'll move on to a different method of dealing with my solitude. Because at the end of the day, anyone causing me more stress over this makes the point of my sharing this story with yall null.

Last point, am I crazy? Obviously! I've made no effort to seem otherwise.)

I think I'll just write and try to forget all this happened.

I'm an isolated older man with no particular claims on maturity or wisdom, who has been buried too much in his work and responsibilities, for far too long. So, I forget the best ways to deal with folks sometimes. My bad.

Let this stand as a testament to misunderstandings and the frustrations of trying to come out of your shell.

This was all time I could have been writing a chapter, what a waste.

The sun kissed the city and we were all more than a little inebriated.

I myself could barely mumble out a semi-coherent sentence. The others, well lets just say they all were worse off than me, except for John. John was bright eyed and looked like he was having a ton of fun watching us make fools of ourselves.

In what I thought was a brilliant move, I had a solution for that, and I used it. Regrowths and Cleanses all around. You get a Regrowth, you get a Regrowth, and you get a Regrowth!

I was channeling minute flows of mana on several folks at a time. If I hadn't been riding the booze train I might have realized what an accomplishment that was.

It wasn't until I hit myself with a Regrowth, that the idea that pouring mana into a bunch of Moxes who weren't used to magic was a dumb play on so many levels.

Shit.

Thankfully, I didn't have to hit any of them with enough mana to cause Those kinds of issues, alcohol took only a brief burst of mana to dissipate. If I had gone that far, I'm not sure things could have been calmed down at all.

They certainly noticed I was making them feel a lot better though. The responses varied dramatically.

I got accused of jacking them with drugs, chemicals or nanites. Which given what little I knew about the Mox was a no go. They have a hair trigger when it comes to that shit.

If it hadn't been for Rita and Mateo sticking up for me, they might have tried to remove certain equipment that my ladies hadn't had the pleasure of fully using yet.

As it was, I apologized profusely, because causing trouble even unintentionally needs to be rectified if you want to maintain trust. And I had come around on the Mox, they were alright in my book, so I wanted to keep a connection open.

Now some where just miffed at losing their buzz, and others were intrigued by the feeling mana gave them. So it's not like the whole room wanted to skin me, but it was enough people to be a problem.

Oddly, it was Susie herself that settled the whole affair. A few quick tests showed I hadn't spiked or hacked anyone, and that everyone was healthier than they were before. Not much because I wasn't really focused when I was throwing spells around like they were going out of style.

Susie said that pending a demonstration I was not doing anything wrong, and she thought it was all a misunderstanding.

That was very reasona...

Wait, that was very suspicious. Okay, what the hell did she want?

So I suggested that she should pick two different kinds of folks, one close to fully borg and one close to being fully 'ganic. Why did that matter, they asked. I explained that it would become obvious after a few minutes.

First one of the girls that worked as a bouncer, she was mostly chrome. Her name was Sam. She laid down on a table, nervously fidgeting, when I asked to touch her.

"Do you have to?" She sounded scared almost.

"Strictly speaking no. But I can work faster and better if I do. I don't have to touch anything other than your hand if that makes it better?" I kept my voice even, not quite the tone I'd use with a stray dog, but not far from it either.

She nodded and gave me her hand.

Sam was roughly 80% chrome at this point. Mostly only a few muscle groups most of her digestive tract, the majority of her brain and her reproductive organs were still meat. That said practice on the Nomads back in New Lordaeron had shown me I could soothe the interface between flesh and chrome and that's what I focused on here. A lot of her chrome was poorly implanted. Outside of that I fixed a few hormone imbalances.

Did she have one of the most wild experiences of her life? No, probably not, but her voice sure let everyone know she was enjoying her treatment.

"Did you actually just give her several orgasms just by touching her hand?" Rita stare at me incredulously. Folks were riled up again though the focus of their attention seemed more positive, at least for the moment.

"Technically, yes, but it's just a side effect of the process. Something about the energy used causes this in people who lack a certain amount of the energy to begin with. Though I was told if I found myself flooded with a higher level of energy than I normally can handle the same thing would happen to me." I explained while pulling more mana from the thin atmosphere.

Everyone seemed to calm down a bit after that.

Finishing with Sam, I suggested that she find a better Ripper. Which on reflection was another obvious landmine. Of course, shitty work like this wasn't done with her consent at least not originally. I had been looking at the attempts of a Ripper to fix the mess left behind by some Maelstrom bullshit.

"Fuck, I'm just poking all the buttons today. I sorry, Sam." I meant it.

"No, it's okay. You had no way of knowing that that hadn't been a botched job. I feel so much better now. Thank you." She seemed a lot more cheery than when she laid down.

She got up and went to sit down for a while.

Next up was George.

George worked the bar with Mateo, and was about 70% ganic.

He laid down on the table and shoved his hand at me like I was offering the job he always wanted.

Outside he was a well put together dude. Nothing seemed wrong with him.

Inside he was a fucking mess. Every organ was to some degree messed up. I worked on them one by one until I finally got down to his private areas. At some point someone had tried to remove his bits. Also someone had done severe damage to his waste exit port.

Was this Scavs, Maelstrom, or the vengeance of a jealous rival? The ministration of prison violence? I couldn't make sense of it.

What the hell was going on here? Poor bastard had been through a blender and then the blender violated him.

That didn't set right with me. On a fundamental level I now felt obligated to correct this mess.

I put all my effort into fixing him every bit of concentration and every ounce of mana was turned toward making this man whole again.

When his man tackle was whole once more and his other issues were healed, I started to come back to the world only to find him crying.

I didn't know what else to do, I gave him a hug. We could all use more hugs, right?

All the sudden I was a flotation device and he was drowning.

"It's okay now, Brother. It's over." Fuck me, I didn't know what to say. So I said the first thing I could think of.

"George!" Susie latched on to both of us and George slowly transferred all his attention to her. This allowed me to separate myself.

Good thing too. They started making out right then and there. Whoa!

I realized after a moment this is what Susie wanted, or was hoping for. This was Susie's input and someone had scrambled him good, probably because of her.

This city was still showing me it's cards, and I didn't think it was even remotely through yet.