Metamorphosis Device

Metamorphosis Device
Size	Small
Colour	Blue
Shape	Heptagon
Line	Horizontal Line

The Metamorphosis Device, informally called the "pill machine," is a device from a small Nyars box with a blue heptagon and a horizontal line. It can take a small amount of material and turn it into a pill which causes various changes in people.

Elsewhere in this article, the material(s) put in the Metamorphosis Device are referred to as "samples" and the people consuming the pills are referred to as "subjects".

Current rules for use

1. The machine stays with either Nyars. Miyamoto or someone he appoints/his replacement can request it back from him. Other than that, it does not leave Nyars’ possession.
2. To make a pill, you bring ingredients to Nyars, he takes them and makes a pill, then gives that pill to you.
3. After paying a token, you may make 5 pills (token goes to team fund). The first 15 pills, whatever they are made of, are free though (only 15 free pills per person, no making pills for free for someone else). A pill counts after it is made, even if it is never used.
4. No space magic (amps, manips, ‘black box’ tech) goes into a pill. Exceptions can be made on a case-by-case basis, and Nyars /Steve will determine what can be considered safe enough to allow making a pill. Miya can veto a pill if need be. This is mainly to prevent another Gratesplosion, getting yourself killed is your own problem.
5. Don’t assume you get your pill until PW confirms it in your action.
6. You can pm your ingredients to PW if you want to keep them secret. However, the fact you are making a pill should still be put into your bolded action in the thread, to allow tracking how many one has made.
7. Miyamoto is explicitly made aware of what ingredients went into what pill and what the result was. The idea isn’t to undercut people once they’ve found a profitable combination, but to ensure the information isn’t lost IC upon a character’s death.
8. Failure to comply to the spirit of the law will end in tears and sorrow.
9. If Hep people want the machine back, we’ll send it back, but it’d be nice if they then also ensure it’ll actually be used.
10. If anything was missed , it’ll be added when needed. These rules can be subject to change.

History

It was originally purchased by Stacy, who sold it to Grate, who had it confiscated by Miyamoto, who left it on Hephaestus, where it is once more being used by Grate.

During Stacy's ownership of this device a large number of pills were created although not all were consumed, whilst the majority of these pills were consumed sequentially by the same subjects it did provide a fair amount of data that gave a clear indication of some of the principles behind this device.

When Stacy first obtained this device he placed a gauss round in the center which was ground away by the machine and its viewscreen displayed a message indicating he should either add another ingredient or wait for the pill to be produced, after adding a few more ingredients he waited for the pill to be produced and went in search of a willing test subject, namely Xan. When Xan consumed this pill he was transformed into a hallucinating mutant indicating that this device was designed for the initialisation and guidance of artificial metamorphosis.

After the devices purpose was identified random experimentation was begun in earnest and with the consumption of the third pill the theory of "symbolic alchemy" was established.  Unfortunatley as the random experimentation progressed Stacy began to use himself as a test subject and both he and Xan ere forced to seek medical treatment due to the crippling side effects their pills had wrought upon them, Stacy later passed the machine on to Grate for continued experimentation.

Once given to Grate, he began to prepare for testing, gathering a few native creatures which resemble crosses between insects and rodents. Before he could begin full testing, he attempted to give himself a power-up by consuming a pill made from a manipulator battery. This lead to the incident referred to as Grate-3^2, which caused devastation to the base on Hephaestus, damaged the ship, and may have damaged the machine itself. Afterwards, Miyamoto confiscated the machine, and refused to return it to Grate, instead leaving it on Hephaestus as a public device.

After the Sword left Hephaestus, Grate began experimenting with the Metamorphosis Device, with the express purpose of enhancing sods and other soldiers. This project was termed Project Asartes; it was during the planning phase of this project that GreatWyrmGold gave the Metamorphosis Device its "official" name.

Whilst waiting for the Hephaestus flesh pits to produce the first batches of sods to be used in testing Grate attempted to utilise a number of Beetle-Ants in his experiments, this lead to the discovery of a precursor effect which caused the test subjects to explode into gore before the transformational effects could take place. The exact requirements to avoid or induce a lethal reaction to this effect are still unknown.

Recorded Pills

pill number	name creator	ingredients	name test subject	effect
1	Stacy Buttle	gauss round, some nail clippings and a small quantity of xeno spit	Xan	grow enormous sharp ragged teeth, coated his arms and legs in metallic scales from the elbow and knee onwards, and triggered a permanent hallucinogenic xeno spit reaction
2	Stacy Buttle	gauss round and some hair	Xan	caused Xan's metallic scales to grow into 50 lbs metal clubs and caused his hair to morph into tendrils that can wiggle around on their own
3	Stacy Buttle	a single spoon	Xan	caused a large dome-like metallic growth to protrude from the top of his head and swelled to weigh over 100 pounds
4	Stacy Buttle	derived from reverse engineered alien sand and some of the splattered remains of Lyra Arden	Stacy Buttle	caused his body to feel sluggish and let him feel his pulse throughout his entire body
5	Stacy Buttle	coffee and metal shavings	Stacy Buttle	caused his skin to become grey and flaky like "a robot with dandruff" whilst simultaneously hyper-stimulating his mind and body that required will rolls to function sanely
6	Stacy Buttle	identical to the fourth pill. It was derived from the same ingredients fed into the machine in the reverse order	Stacy Buttle	began feeling dizzy, his body lost feeling in its extremities and he began having trouble breathing
7	Grate	manipulator battery	Grate	caused his body to become comprised of seemingly pure "space magic". While a will roll was made after this pills consumption the roll itself was failed, after losing control Grate ran from the ship creating many anomalies as he did so
8	Aphra Artimaz	???	Sir Jackson II	Gave him knowledge of how a Gauss Rifle works.
9	Mycroft Jones	The blood of Lyra Arden and Abigail South.	Mycroft Jones	You become fuzzy, gain an addiction to yarn and cannot stop yourself from chasing laser pointers. You do however, gain pretty good night vision and the ability to fall several stories without injury.
10	Mycroft Jones	His own blood.	Mycroft Jones	You become rather plump and your skin turns a ruddy red.
11	Aphra Artimaz	Bird wings	Sir Jackson II	Replaced his arms with bird wings, large enough to let him glide but not fly.

The first recorded pill was made by Stacy and was derived from a gauss round, some nail clippings and a small quantity of xeno spit, when consumed by Xan it caused him to grow enormous sharp ragged teeth, coated his arms and legs in metallic scales from the elbow and knee onwards, and triggered a permanent hallucinogenic xeno spit reaction. It is unknown why this pill caused Xan to grow scales and fangs but it has been theorized that the xeno spit enzyme not only caused a permanent hallucination but also guided the transformation to bring Xan's physical makeup closer to that of the creature that produces the enzyme.

The second pill, also made by Stacy and consumed by Xan, was derived from another gauss round and some hair. This pill caused Xan's metallic scales to grow into 50 lbs metal clubs and caused his hair to morph into tendrils that can wiggle around on their own.

The third pill, again made by Stacy and consumed by the now hallucinating Xan, contained a single spoon. When consumed it caused a large dome-like metallic growth to protrude from the top of his head and swelled to weigh over 100 pounds causing him to become pinned to the floor by the weight of his numerous metallic growths.

The fourth pill, yet again made by Stacy, was derived from reverse engineered alien sand and some of the splattered remains of a deceased teammate. it was consumed by Stacy himself and caused his body to feel sluggish and let him feel his pulse throughout his entire body.

The fifth pill, made by the ever present Stacy, was derived from coffee and metal shavings. when consumed by Stacy it caused his skin to become grey and flaky like "a robot with dandruff" whilst simultaneously hyper-stimulating his mind and body causing him to become a shaking and jittering mess that required will rolls to function sanely.

The sixth pill, still made by Stacy, is almost identical to the fourth pill. It was derived from the same ingredients fed into the machine in the reverse order. When consumed Stacy began feeling dizzy, his body lost feeling in its extremities and he began having trouble breathing.

The seventh pill, finally made by someone other than Stacy, was Grates ill-advised and ill-fated manipulator battery pill. When consumed it caused his body to become comprised of seemingly pure "space magic". While a will roll was made after this pills consumption the roll itself was failed and the ability to control this new form was never established or confirmed as being possible, after losing control Grate ran from the ship creating many anomalies as he did so and was destroyed by the armory master to prevent him from attracting the attention of undisclosed space magic entities.

After this the pill machine was confiscated by Miyamoto and later donated to the Hephaestus science division to be used under strict security protocols. while its continued functionality has been confirmed no successful transformations have since occurred.

Properties

It has been determined that including materials or substances that induce temporary reactions like coffee and xeno spit provide permanent reactions after the transformation is complete.

it has also been determined that while the material of the sample used to make the pill affects the result, it is not the only factor. For instance, while a spoon caused a large, helmet-like growth, a gauss round combined with nail clippings and a hallucinogen caused metallic scales to grow on the subject's arms and large ragged teeth to burst from his gums, alterations which appear unrelated to the ingredients themselves indicating that material source may be a factor. Further investigation is required to determine the exact causes and effects of such factors.

There appears to also be a precursor effect that causes either non-sentient or less sophisticated organisms to explode like blood filled water balloons, the exact reason and requirements for these deaths is unknown but it is possible that this precursor effect's function is to trigger the metamorphosis while the later transformational effect is guided by the pills ingredients.

Donation Box

Just outside Nyars' room there is a donation box. Written on the box is:

"Terms of use for box are as follows:

• Anyone can place items in the box as long as they are not sources of, or being actively affected by, space magic.
  
• Items can only be removed from the donation box if they are to be immediately used in the pill machine.
  
• Pills made from these items must be ingested immediately, although the creator need not be the ingesting individual."

Contents

• 1 EMP claymore
• 1 thermal camera
• 1 robot arm
• 1 PDA