Alchemical Solutions is a Worm/Exalted crossover Forum Quest currently running
on SpaceBattles.com. It is the story of Enduring Order Administrator, AKA Taylor Hebert, dealing with effectively being a magical communist robot and a mission to save both her own world and a dying god. Also, Autochthon screws things up.
Run by Gromweld, a former Blizzard writer, and inspired by Conquest Quest. There are currently 24 discussion threads, and a Story-Only Thread in need of updating. Dormant, likely dead, since March 2021.
Alchemical Solutions contains examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: A Tinker in Philadelphia is unable to create a truly sentient mind without it going on a rampage, forcing him to restrain himself to animal-based drones. Then appears Weaver, the (apparent) walking embodiment of everything he sought to realize and is unable to achieve.
- Apocalypse How: Creation has been devoured by Oblivion, after being conquered by the Ebon Dragon.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Few people are willing to believe Taylor about her true nature, the existence of a universe with magic, or about the dying god that is Autochthon. Recognizing that no one really would, she holds off on telling anyone these things for quite some time. Even when she tries to explain it the upper-echelons of the PRT and Protectorate, she's met with strong skepticism at best. Taylor and Marrow thus decide to take matters into their own hands.
- Artifact of Doom: The Eye of Autocthon, the device that is literally so powerful it ends up being a Literal Genie because it can't work on a small scale, seems to have materialized in Taylor's possession. And it's sapient, although nice to Taylor because she treats it like a person.
- Came Back Strong: Every Alchemical Exalt does this, as part of the process of becoming one. Taylor's case was a bit more literal.
- Deus est Machina: Autochthon, the Great Maker, the Machine God.
- Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: After Simurgh dive-bombs Taylor at The Cradle, Taylor realizes that Simurgh can't actually see her in a precog sense, due to the Thinker-disrupting effects of Essence-based materials, and Simurgh can only predict Taylor's actions through logic. She thus decides on the most illogical, insane course of action available: rushing in and kicking Simurgh in the face. Not that it really does any damage, mind, but it felt satisfying.
- Doomed Hometown: The Endbringer attack on Brockton Bay is very very different. Behemoth targets Taylor personally, and it doesn't take its inability to destroy The Cradle well. And since it can't find Taylor while she's using her cloaking charm, Behemoth just burrows underground and manually creates a volcano, dooming BB in the process.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- Taylor is considered at large as the very first traceable Case 53. Her new Alchemical body is quite inhuman after all.
- With the story progressing, Weaver ends up confessing she was reconstructed by someone from another dimension, leading some people to conclude she's a purely artificial creation, with the Tinker responsible for her construction giving her Taylor Hebert's personality setting.
- Even the Girls Want Her: Both Miss Militia and Clarendon's gay principal have commented on Taylor's looks, mainly to forewarn her that a lot of other people are going to be interested. Taylor has very conflicting feelings on the matter.
- First-Episode Resurrection: Of course, Taylor only died in order to be resurrected in the first place.
- Flashback Nightmare: Taylor suffers these after the attempted assassination.
- Follow Your Nose: Aegis does this once while Taylor is cooking.
- Food as Bribe: Taylor uses her amazing cooking skills (enhanced by her crafting powers) to bribe people into doing jobs for her and to shore up her poor social skills.
- Healing Factor:
- Taylor, as an Exalted, heals four times faster than normal humans. On the flipside, she can't be quickly healed by a parahuman, since her real body is made of magical metals.
- Vajra (formerly Marrow) has the ability to extrude dozens of small "spider" machines that can regenerate lost tissue and repair damage, either in herself or in someone right next to her. Taylor is immediately jealous.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Improbably enough, Crawler, in part thanks to carefully directed and hidden emotion-inducing blasts from Gallant and well-prepared manipulation from Vajra. He decides to adopt a new cape name: Defiant.
- Bonesaw, potentially. "I think they're due a little teenage rebellion", indeed.
- The Undersiders adopt a new team name, take Amy Dallon in as their new leader, and join The Guild.
- Heroic Safe Mode: Taylor enters this during the Behemoth attack on Brockton Bay, unable to process her emotions as Behemoth rampages. She enters a state of high Clarity (acting machine-like, extremely calm and composed, and ruthlessly logical)—which is very helpful at the time, but her lack of understanding of her own charms and the flaws in her Exaltation process prevent her from coming out of the state for quite some time. Thankfully, she learns how to prevent it from happening again.
- Hoist by His Own Petard:
- Jack Slash either thought it'd be fun to torture Iris of Innovation into the Slaughterhouse 9's newest member, or that keeping it in his hands would torment Taylor. Instead, Iris of Innovation's personality "core" got overridden by Vision of Vengeance, who in turn decided to make Jack's existence an exercise in excruciating pain, followed by death. Granted, Vision of Vengeance nearly went Omnicidal Maniac afterward, but Taylor was (barely) able to shut him down from the inside.
- Bakuda gets taken out by one of her own bombs.
- The Simurgh tries to hijack The Cradle, and gets most of her head melted off for her trouble.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: The Endbringers take things up a notch or ten whenever they're coming after Taylor. Behemoth tries to kill her with his death aura from ten times its normal range, only for it to fail because of her defensive Charms. He also uses lightning attacks from three times their normal range when hunting Taylor. The Simurgh does away with the Endbringer schedule altogether and dive-bombs Taylor and The Cradle from orbit at Mach 114.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: Taylor's crafting enhancements extend to cooking, including the ability to automatically craft Exceptional examples with one of her charms. Given the difficulty of crafting Exceptional things, her cooking can be literally superhuman.
- Instant Armor:
- One of Taylor's Charms lets her integrate and extrude armor using Hammerspace. This includes equipping a full set of Powered Armor in a few seconds by extruding it into the appropriate position.
- One of Vajra's Charms allows her to rapidly grow crystalline armor out of her body. Fitting, considering that her power was to do the same thing with bone in her old Case-53 body.
- Invisibility: One of Taylor's Charms handles this, to an exceptional degree. It's so good that it even bypasses the Manton Effect – meaning that it even works on the likes of the Endbringers. It does have its drawbacks, however: bypassing the Manton Effect means that she isn't protected by the Manton Limit, either, as Taylor finds out the hard way the first time she runs into Vista. She also can't attack anyone/anything without breaking the cloak immediately and rendering it unusable for a short period.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Glenn Chambers points out that Taylor needs to be very careful about avoiding "dark Simurgh" comparisons...or using her terror-inducing anima banner. Or her swarms of dark insects in public. He's at least reasonable about it, though, and Taylor comes to respect him.
- Killed Mid-Sentence: Glory Girl, in the process of saving her mother from Behemoth. She has just enough time to realize that she's stuck and screwed, turn and call out to Gallant before Behemoth's lightning bolt makes her explode before his eyes.
- Lightning Bruiser: First Prayer of Perfection, formerly known as Marrow, a Case-53 hero in the Philadelphia Protectorate branch, embodies this. Extremely tough, capable of generating her own, highly durable crystal armor, a set of thrusters for high-speed movement, super-strength, the ability to shoot shards of crystal that wreck all but the toughest targets, and a lightning-enhanced punch that can obliterate things thought to be Nigh-Invulnerable. She takes up a new, highly appropriate cape name after the Exaltation: Vajra.
- Mistaken For An Impostor: After finding Taylor's corpse in the locket, her reapparing as a robot girl is met with some suspicion. A few people (like Cauldron) end up concluding she's actually a very elaborate AI with a personality setting based on the true Taylor.
- No Social Skills: Taylor literally started as this, according to Exalted mechanics. She's been working on it since.
- Oh, Crap!: The reactions of the players, repeatedly. One gets delivered to all of Brockton Bay when Behemoth shows up with zero warning. Taylor herself has one when Simurgh comes screaming from the heavens at her at Mach 114 the moment Taylor initiates the Exaltation process for Saki and Sakura.
- Powered Armor: She's built such a suit, which includes antigravity thrusters. It's even capable of tanking a lighting strike from Behemoth, albeit at the cost of temporarily being shorted out and requiring a full restart.
- Robot Girl: Taylor is an Alchemical. She can look like either a robot or a human (or a human with some robot-parts if she wants to use her powers).
- Socially Awkward Hero: Taylor started with very low social attributes and abilities. The players have been consistently raising the latter, but she's still struggling. She'll jump in front of a bullet without thinking but has to call up someone she barely knows for advice when she's asked on a date, before she says yes or no. The "date" abruptly ends when she accidentally knocks his head into a wall and has to carry him to the infirmary.
- Super-Senses: Taylor has Optical Enhancements, including Innate Night Vision and X-Ray Vision. One of them is a medical scanner; she no longer scans boys who are looking at her.
- Super-Toughness: Taylor, being an Alchemical Exalt, is a little tougher than a normal human.
- Support Party Member: Taylor is severely lacking in direct combat capabilities, and has to rely almost entirely on her own tinker-tech creations for offense, defense, and mobility. The addresses the mobility and defense aspects when she finally completes her suit of flying Powered Armor, but it isn't until just after the Slaughterhouse 9 attack Philadelphia that she completes her offensive tool: a variable-yield railgun made to look like a tinker-tech crossbow. She tries to stick to her real strengths—command, control, coordination, communication, stealth, scouting, battlefield awareness, surgery/first aid, distraction, and harassment—whenever possible, but it doesn't always work out that way. Especially when the Endbringers seem to really have it out for you personally.
- Supreme Chef: Taylor, due to her crafting enhancements applying to cooking. Also serves as the Team Chef.
- Taking the Bullet: Taylor deliberately puts herself in way of a bullet fired at her rather than dodge, as it would have hit Vista otherwise.
- Unknown Rival: Weaver is totally unaware of Saint - who flat-out loathes her for being a seemingly AI which evolved enough to attain sentience and as such become a danger to humans.
- Wham Line:
- “Ooh, Sirkalla! That’s a pretty name! I’m Riley!”
- Also: "Die, so that my daughter can know peace."
- During the Behemoth fight, Myrddin begins complimenting Taylor... using Exalted terminology. Including referencing Oblivion.
- World's Most Beautiful Woman: With Appearance 5, Taylor is regarded as one of the most beautiful people in the world.
