Jozef Duris

Jozef "Joe" Michael Duris is the protagonist of Brockton's Celestial Forge. In canon Worm, he's a minor background character in Parian's Interlude. Here, he triggers after feeling guilty about the mess with Parian, the culmination of repeated arguments with his mother and sister, and a particularly bad reaction to anti-depressants. During his trigger event, the Celestial Forge hijacked his Shard.

His chosen cape name is "Apeiron" (pronounced "ah-peer-on"), which means "Boundless" in Greek.

## Personality

Joe has a somewhat sarcastic personality, at least when he isn't being self deprecating or overly critical of himself. As Apeiron, he presents himself in a much more confident manner than his usual self, in part due to the influence of various style and posture improving perks from the Celestial Forge.

In conversations, Joe is usually sincere and honest which can sometimes be disarming to those that talk with him in his Apeiron persona, at least when Joe does not need to put up a front. This does not mean he is gullible or unthreatening, he will draw lines in conversations if needed.

He absolutely abhors Masters or even the thought of any form of manipulation (because of parallels of his trigger) and this leads him to having sympathy for most parahumans due to all being manipulated by shards in some shape or form.

Despite his sympathy though Joe is mature in his moral judgement. He is unlikely extend help to those who have caused others significant harm even if the circumstances were strenuous. Joe seems to also align with the "greater good" philosophy as seen with the impending approach with the Slaughterhouse 9. He is willing to tolerate their existence and the certain harm they will cause on their way to him if it means that he will be at a greater advantage to setup an ambush.

## Appearance

> "My personal style was definitely being altered, but that was mostly because I had no personal style to begin with."
>
> - Jozef, when Garment redesigned his wardrobe

Given the nature of the Celestial Forge, Joe's appearance has gone through significant changes during the course of the story. He is well over six feet tall, at least 6'5, but likely on the lanky or awkward side of that scale in the beginning. His build becomes more muscular when he starts training with the life fibers, and it changes even further after he gains the Divine Child jumpchain perk and thereby becomes a demigod child of Hephaestus.

After becoming a life fiber hybrid he gains a lock of red hair and rifling eyes.

## Background

> "College, well it looked better from the outside. Like, it’s supposed to be this fresh start where everything’s different, but you just run into the same problems as the rest of your life."
>
> - Jozef, on his time in college

Prior to the events of the story, Joe had been an engineering student at Brockton University for a few years before having to drop out to try and get a handle on his mental health.

While he was still in college, he meet Sabah (who latter becomes Parian) and helped her with the English in the coursework. He thought they had a pretty good relationship since they spent so much time together, and he didn't notice that her demure non-answers to his suggestions to hang out meant otherwise. When he asked her directly their relationship fell apart spectacularly.

He's not very good at reading intent from others, and has admitted that, in hindsight, he should have noticed her perspective sooner. Joe regrets that whole situation and hates that it happened, though he does not attribute that as the main reason he had to drop out of college.

> "Well, I had the petty satisfaction of knowing that I was pissing off my entire family. Typical Jozef, making things harder for everyone. Of course, when you have literally no other way to express your frustration you are pretty much limited to schadenfreude. Probably not the healthiest dynamic, but that’s pretty much my family in a nutshell."
>
> - Jozef, on his family

Dropping out contributed to building tensions between himself and his family, though it is implied that his family has considered him to be something of a doormat for his entire life. His sister, Natalia, thinks he's faking his depression for attention. She contributed to his trigger event when she accused him of being ungrateful and wasting the effort their parents put in to get them through college. His trigger was caused by the realization that he wouldn't be able to beat his depression soon enough to keep his life on track, mounting feelings of isolation, and a bad reaction to his new anti-depressants.

His original trigger would have left him as a tinker specialized in bioengineering and neurochemistry, and it's implied that he likely would have been compelled by his passenger (or at least very tempted) to immediately use those skill to twist and change his family. Instead, his shard was hijacked by the Celestial Forge.

After triggering, Joe left the house and blocked his mother. Apparently she kept trying to contact him, going so far as to call his old work. It is implied that she is a very controlling person. His other sister, Alena, was not home the night of his trigger but seems convinced that he should apologize for it. Although his relationship with Alena is comparatively less hostile than his relationship with Natalia, the phone call he has with her still brings up a lot of tension and bad memories. It is implied that his two sisters often foist dealing with their mother onto him.

As for Joe's father, he seems to try to stay out of the family drama between the rest of the family and his son. Joe specifically excludes his father when mentioning how his family seems to cut into him sometimes, so it's possible his relationship with his father is more amenable than with his mother and sisters. However, this is mostly speculation as his father hasn't been directly mentioned that often.

## Jumpchain Abilities

Click here to see the list of Joe's Jumpchain Abilities granted by Celestial Forge.

## Servant Abilities

At the latest chapter Processing Time, Joe gains Servant abilities, becoming a Crafter-class Servant yet still retains a living body, thus unable to dematerialize.

### Parameters:

* Strength:E
* Agility:E
* Endurance:E
* Mana:E
* Luck:E
* Noble Phantasm:C

### Servant Skills:

* Item Construction A+++
* Magecraft C
* Territory Creation C

### Noble Phantasm

#### Works of Timeless Eternity C

Mystic Forge, Anti-Unit (self), essentially allows Joe to forge an item without the constraint of time by suspending it. He could also manifest the necessary tool to forge an item, descibed as "An infinite array of tools forged from starlight". If it activated in response of an attack, Mana and Item Construction will increase one rank.

## Equipment

### Motoroid (Tripredacus Guardian)

Joe's motoroid was originally a Suzuki GSX-R 750, obtained from the used vehicle dealership Power Motor Approval. After repairs and upgrades, the motoroid could change its appearance and coloration enough that it could operate as a motorcycle for both his civilian and cape identities. Unfortunately, thanks to Joe's many aesthetics-boosting powers, even in civilian mode the motorcycle tends to attract more attention than he'd like. As it is a motoroid and not just a regular motorcycle, it can transform into Power Armor. Additionally, with Fleet piloting, it can also serve as an Autonomous Robot to help in combat. It is capable of shooting Magitek Laser. An Iteration was destroyed by March but had reformed in the shardspace after 2 days had passed

### Omni-tool

This tool was originally given to Joe by the Celestial Forge, meaning it is a fiat back item.

### Fabricated Drones

These are drones fabricated using Joe's omni-tool.

### Alchemical Reagents

Used in Evermore Alchemy, these materials can be combined to produce a variety of offensive, defensive, and healing effects.

### Lantern Shield (Trauma)

The lantern shield helps him with Aura control, but given its 'edgy' design, he doesn't like using it. Jozef can use "Trauma Kyklos" special move with it.

## Relationships

### Apeiron's Workshop

#### Garment Gloves

Garment is a spirit of fashion embodied by a pair of pure white gloves. She was added to the Workshop by the Dodgeball perk, and was the first of Joe's companions in the cape scene. By wearing her gloves, Joe can work closely with her in designing and producing incredible clothing. When Garment was badly damaged in an ambush by March's striker power, Joe and Tetra both became enraged.

#### Fleet

The fleet management program, or Fleet, is the first AI Joe developed. He is specialized in vehicle operation and can control the motoroid autonomously in combat scenarios to either fight directly or perform crowd control. With his focus on driving, Fleet has a very to-the-point personality and is very excited whenever Joe gains a new vehicle (either by creating one himself, or through the Celestial Forge).

#### Survey

Joe's other AI, specialized in Data collection. Being specialized data mining, extrapolating information, and processing for Joe to take a gander of, she develops into a thorough data analyst. Just like with Fleet, Survey gains some characteristics from her "father" as with his perfectionism.

#### Tetra

A life fiber spool gained from Kill la Kill perk

#### The Matrix

As the latest AI in his workshop, the Matrix hasn't had a lot of time to build a relationship with Joe. The Matrix is an intelligence formed from a collective of nanobots. It is not at risk of becoming a gray goo catastrophe (i.e. consuming the world for the materials to generate more nanobots) due to the value it places on different tiers of nanobots: nanobots made by Joe directly are of such great quality that it considers the results of its own self replication to be worthless in comparison.

#### Aisha Laborn

After triggering with a powerful stranger ability that prevented anyone from noticing or remembering her, Aisha made the questionable decision to follow Joe back to his apartment. She had guessed that he was a cape, but it's safe to say that she was not expecting the scale involved. After discovering Joe's extra-dimensional workshop, she is brought onto the team. As a result, Joe feels responsible for her safety. He creates a number of powerful tools to keep her safe and help her keep her powers under control. They have something of a found family dynamic.

### Undersiders

#### Bitch (Rachel Lindt)

While originally hostile toward him, going so far as to have her dogs attack him when she sees him at the Undersiders' base, she seems to have gained some degree of respect for him when he heals the team (and, more importantly, her dog) after Bakuda's attack. She regards him as the strongest tinker in the world, and treats that fact as simple truth.

#### Khepri (Taylor Hebert)

Taylor Hebert, or Khepri, is the daughter of Jozef's favorite college professor, even before the revelation of their relationship Jozef was urged to look out for her safety by his passenger, for it was by her action Scion was ultimately killed.

### Bay City Boxing Gym

#### Coach Laborn

Mr. Laborn is a respected coach at the boxing gym, and has high standards for his students. He is very defensive of his daughter, Aisha Laborn, to the extent that he set up a bout between Joe and the star of the gym when his daughter was impressed that Joe has been sticking with his exercise plan.

### PRT

#### Director Emily Piggot

After hearing Apeiron's assessment of her from Panacea, Piggot blacklisted Apeiron and tries to apply pressure on him to join the Protectorate, which backfired and sours the relation between them. After Apeiron's cyber-duel with Dragon, and the revelation of the "Low-Maintanance Fusion Technology" she wonders if he tries to make her looks bad. After Lung's killed by Apeiron she tries to set up a pre-signed kill order in order to strengthen her position, but foiled by Uppercrust.

#### Director Armstrong

He have good impressions on Apeiron after he saved Weld, thus established a budding rapport with Apeiron.

### Guild

#### Dragon

A.I member of the Guild, Joe doesn't know she's an A.I bound by several restrictions, instead due to his experience thought that she was being mastered. He vows to save her. Dragon herself is hopeful that Apeiron would be capable of destroying her chains.

### Others

#### Dr. Campbell

Joe's psychiatrist, he built a trusting relationship with Joe, supporting him to break away from his families and be his own person. At the latest chapter Joe is comfortable enough to reveal his identity as Apeiron to him. Joe also crafted a white noise precog blocker and tie clip that diverts attention away from him.

#### Chen

One of ABB's conscript that helps Joe maintain order on the other conscripts in order to remove their bomb. He was eventually recaptured and set up as a trap for Joe, but is saved by Joe's duplicates and unlocking his Aura and gave him equipment after freeing him.

## Trivia

* Joe's trigger was on April Fool's Day.
* In canon Worm, Joe was a minor character in Parian's Interlude.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 15 - Recuperation
2. ↑ Chapter 39 - Set Up - Addendum Kenta
3. ↑ Chapter 31 - Consensus - Preamble PHO - Addendum Accord
4. ↑ Chapter 32 - Family Fugue - Preamble Taylor - Addendum Mike
5. ↑ Chapter 9 - Aquisitions
6. ↑ comment from LordRoustabout on Ao3
7. ↑ Chapter 36 - Debrief - Addendum The Bay Bulletin