Brockton's Celestial Forge

**Brockton's Celestial Forge** is a fanfic written by Lord Roustabout and cross-posted to a few different fanfiction sites. The fanfic also has a TV Tropes pages for Tropes and Word of God.

The fanfic uses The Weight of the Quill - Variant Mechanic, with gradual point progression (100CP = 2000 Words) and the Celestial Forge Version 1. Every time 100 points are earned, the author makes a roll to see what power might be obtained. The power is purchased immediately if there are enough free points, otherwise the points simply accumulate for the next attempt.

## Synopsis

> "The Celestial Forge is the greatest combination of crafting powers in Jumpchain, meaning it is the greatest combination of crafting abilities in all of fiction. In Brockton Bay a forgotten side character's trigger event ends with him linked to the Celestial Forge rather than his intended shard. His expanding collection of tinker abilities drag him into the city's cape conflicts."
>
> - Fanfiction summary

The protagonist, Jozef "Joe" Duris, connects to the Celestial Forge when it hijacks his original trigger event. During the course of the story, Joe gains compounding powers in an array of different fields ranging from nanobots and giant robots to alchemy and magic. He rather rapidly becomes a major player in the Brockton Bay cape scene.

## History

This first chapter was posted to AO3 on May 1, 2020. It was later posted to FF.net on May 5th and then to Sufficient Velocity on July 19th of the same year.

## Timeline

Rough Timeline provided by Whamodyne

Up to date till Chapter 41 Drag out Preamble Chen

**Friday April 1st 2011**

* Joe triggers at his parent's home in Captain's Hill neighborhood due to stress and depression at a toxic family dinner. Yes, Joe did trigger on April Fool's Day. There is a joke in there somewhere I feel it.

**Friday, April 8th**

* Start of the story.

**Sunday, April 10th**

* Joe goes out as a cape for the first time, and he encounters Oni Lee. This is Joe's first fight, and he has yet to choose a cape name.
* After the fight with Oni Lee, he briefly meets the Undersiders

**Monday, April 11th**

* Tattletale posts an anonymous message to PHO reaching out for a meeting.

**Tuesday, April 12th**

* Joe finally sees the message Tattletale had sent and agrees to a meeting later that day. He meets the Undersiders, which at this time includes Taylor.
* The Undersiders commission Joe to make them knives. He agrees to work with them as his passenger tells him just how important Taylor is to the future of the world.

**Thursday, April 14th**

* Joe delivers the knives to the Undersiders in the morning. They rob the bank at noon.
* Joe, feeling guilty for the damage he indirectly caused by providing the weaponry, meets with Amy Dallon and heals her broken wrist. The fallout from this meeting shapes much of the PRT response to Joe (who still has not chosen his cape name).

**Friday, April 15th**

* Joe gets Garment Gloves while out on his morning run.
* Joe passes his motorcycle DMV test and gets a motorcycle that afternoon.
* Joe chooses his cape name, "Apeiron". He also makes an account on PHO with that name.

**Saturday, April 16th**

* Joe has an appointment with with Dr. Campbell, his therapist. The ABB starts the bombing spree right as the session closes.
* Apeiron fights with Bakuda as well as Uber & Leet while rescuing and healing the Undersiders at the storage facility. This is Apeiron's second fight and his first public appearance.
* Garment Gloves patrols around the Docks neighborhood and meets Flechette and Shadow Stalker.

**Sunday, April 17th**

* Apeiron rescues Weld from the bottom of Brockton Bay, followed by a call with Director Armstrong facilitated by the Ward.
* Aisha Laborn follows Joe home into his workshop.

**Monday, April 18th**

* Garment Gloves has meet and greet with Protectorate at the gym in the morning.
* Joe has a call with Lisa (Tattletale), during which he states that he doesn't plan on taking any action soon. This is immediately
* Aisha attempts to infiltrate an ABB financial center and ends up accidentally caught in an explosion of spikes. She is badly injured, and calls Joe for help.
* Apeiron departs to rescue Aisha, and for the first time has a serious load-out prepared and ready. He busts into ABB financial center, heals Aisha and has her retreat to the safety of his Workshop, then works to mess up ABB finances.
* Apeiron fights against Uber & Leet, during which he displays ability to repair, upgrade, and integrate other tinker's work into his own during combat. This is Joe's third fight.
* Joe acquires a volcano (which is alarming, because Aisha is currently in his Workshop), and later briefs Aisha on his powers.
* Finds out March is the ABB thinker, and she has an annihilator ability.
* Joe has a call with his sister that causes emotional stress.
* With Aisha's help, he is able to synthesize Lethe water and make Celestial Bronze.
* Crafts Ren, his first named object, to help Aisha control her power. He also gives Aisha an omni-tool watch.

**Tuesday, April 19th**

* Acquires Veritech VF-2SS Valkyrie II main variable space fighter.
* Joe surfs the volcano and spends some time training against the duplicates.
* Joe meets Taylor in the library to discuss how they should address the awkward internet reaction, and discovers she is the daughter of his old faculty advisor. He is invited to Taylor's home, where he meets and is questioned by Danny Hebert.
* Amy learns of her family backstory.
* Joe acquires his first 600 point perk, Master Craftsman. There are 34 more 600 point perks left in the Celestial Forge.
* Apeiron goes online and chats with Weld on PHO, and the conversation is monitored by Dragon. That leads to an online meeting between the two tinkers where they work together to try to crack Bakuda's Deadman's code.
* The collaboration between the two tinkers stops abruptly when emergency is formally declared in Brockton Bay: Dragon's code now forces her to follow the restrictions against working with Apeiron, as per the order of the local director. Apeiron attempts to bribe Dragon with reproducible fusion power to continue confab, pushes idea that she is Mastered.
* Dragon attacks Apeiron when he concludes that she is mastered and offers to help. He fights in retreat, ultimately tapping into the ability of his Labratorium to fight against hostile AI and managing to beat Dragon. When she reports her intention to move to Brockton Bay to chase down Apeiron, Dragon describes him as a scoundrel. Both Dragon and Dragonslayers decide to head to Brockton Bay.
* After Dragon fight, Joe goes out and puts out docks wide fire set by Lung rampaging earlier that night. He does not go out in costume, and the city isn't actually sure who was responsible for putting out the flames.

**Wednesday, April 20th**

* Joe speaks with the Undersiders about their debt to him and what he is looking for. He gives them scaled down omni-tool watches. Later he makes a wrong assumption over the source of his "I am Iron Man" perk.
* Garment Gloves visits the bank to get a business loan and chooses a location for her boutique: a retail location a block from the gym.
* Joe researches Natural Alchemy potions and starts developing hand-crafted divine nanotech.

**Thursday, April 21st**

* A number of upgrades are completed, both for the workshop and his equipment.
	+ Joe and Garment work together to make new boots and combat uniforms for each other. Later, he spars with Fleet driving the Motoroid in order to get a feel for the Boots of Kickass.
	+ Joe builds a mantic energy circuit throughout the entire volcano base.
	+ Joe's duplicates turn Trauma the lantern shield into a soul bound wristband that anchors a subspace inventory.
	+ Joe upgrades his cerebral implant to be Shatterbird proof.
* Survey creates the identity of "Delphine Mertens" so that she can work as a lawyer for Garment.
* Garment signs the lease for her new shop and starts to move in her things.
* Aisha introduces her father to Garment in new shop and they discuss the option of Aisha working for Garment.
* Joe gives Aisha her power armor.
* Apeiron patrols into ABB territory, which leads in to a massive confrontation between Apeiron and the ABB that spans across the entirety of Brockton Bay.
	+ The encounter starts with a call between Apeiron and Bakuda, with March joining after a few exchanges. Apeiron keeps up the banter in order to trace the connection to their location. When the call is cut off, the fight between Joe and ABB spreads across the city.
	+ One duplicate heads to take down Bakuda's base and manages to get info on Bakuda's Deadman's switch, allowing them to trace all implanted bombs. The other duplicate goes to rescue Chen and, after healing him, gives him a magic sword, armor, and unlocks his Aura.
	+ Apeiron makes his city-wide scans of ABB forces and bomb effects available to the public.
	+ Apeiron is ambushed by a swarm of Oni Lee's using March's sting attack, almost killing him and causing severe damage. March and Lung setup a televised execution while he lies bleeding on the ground struggling to recover.
	+ The life fibers were embedded inside Joe's body during the explosion, and the exposure to blood causes a massive surge in life fiber energy. This gives him enough power to fight back. March takes a serious blow and flies into a shipping container.
	+ Damage from Dust blasted into his body necessitates that he use his lantern shield for the Aura control it facilitates.
	+ Oni Lee finally takes a serious hit and retreats. Lung ramps up even more.
	+ Joe gets the beast roar perk and turns into a half-human half-Inostrancevia. Apeiron transforms and fights Lung over the Bay. The duplicate shows up in a Gundam and takes over the fight. Dragon enters the fight against Lung in one of her powered suits.
	+ Joe and the Gundam kick Lung high into the sky, where he is targeted by Fleet and killed by the motoroid launching at FTL speeds.
* Aisha shows up in her new power armor, retrieves Joe, and then flies back to Garment's shop in stealth-mode. The remaining duplicate gets him on the medical table to be worked on.
	+ That night multiple sets of duplicates work on Joe, trying to figure out how to separate Tetra from him without killing either. As part of this Joe is given a new super heart made of exotic materials.
* The Undersiders with their watches are sent into the "Dark Zone" as sensor platforms to send back into to Survey who reports it on the Apeiron info website.
* The duplicates use alchemy fission powered by souls to split Joe and Tetra from each other.
* Tetra and the divine nanomachines join The Workshop Crew as individuals.
* Joe finally figures out that his powers are based on fictional universes.

## Trivia

* The protagonist of this fanfiction, Jozef Duris, is a minor background character in Parian's Interlude in canon Worm.
* Joe triggered on April Fools day.