The days of high adventure (IC)

[MarkK]

Avenger

The Avenger, shadowed hero of the city. The Avenger, grim warrior of justice. The Avenger... daytime errand boy. Another morning, another set of scrawled requests from slumbering undead Jack was pretty sure was written out on actual parchment. Where were they even getting parchment from? Or feathered quills? In the 21st century no less?

As Jack wandered from one office building to the next, from meetings with accountants managing eternal hedge funds to outright picking up mail, a painful flare of sunlight couldn't help but force his gaze away from the comings and goings of the financial district. When he looked back to the towers of steel and glass that stretched to the sky, they were gone. Outright replaced. Oh, there were still towers, but they were made of stone, and well beneath the clouds. Most of the buildings were large townhouses, affairs themselves of grey stone, smoke piping from brick chimneys. The sidewalk under his feet was.. cobblestones? In fact there was no split between sidewalk and road at all, it was all some rough, mass cobblestone pathway. And he barely dodged a coming right from behind haywagon, a rustic looking drover leading his horse ahead.

"Watch where yer goin, lackwit!"

Gruff shouts were drowned out by the buildingfront yells of various criers, proclamining quality scriveners within, or that the 'Forthright Banker's Guild' was now open for the day's business. Or how many chickens were being taken today instead of coin for taxes.

Everything looked like one of the elder's centuries addled descriptions of the days of their youth. Right down to Jack's clothes, the loose, simple shirt and rough trousers of a peasant.

Suddenly that parchment looked completely appropriate.

[Avenger Assembled]

Jack was in an alley in an instant, the sheltering darkness of two particularly towering townhouses small comfort indeed in the sudden onslaught of madness. It was only through a heroic force of will and the pressure of the daylight outside that he kept a mortal gaze on his face, Oh, he could grow fangs and claws in broad daylight if he wanted to, but it hurt, the sun rebelling against the undead beneath it. And the sun was...

The sun. Have I gone mad? But would madness give him the sharp scent of dung everywhere, the rumble of wagons nearby, the shouts and cries of a city transformed? He heard a clatter behind him, and exchanged a look with a startled servant who'd just walked outside with a small, fancily-groomed dog on a leash. As the solid wooden door closed behind the man, Jack closed on him.

Or was it transformed? Was it...something else? "What year is it?" There must have been something in his eyes, because the servant backed up against the closed door behind him, the look of fear on his face growing. When he spoke again, it was with Avenger's voice. "THE YEAR?"

[MarkK]

Doctor Archeville

Ahh routine. There were days where it could be aggravating, or depressingly banal, but there were other days where it was a blessed relief, a focus and order for a too expansive mind that could otherwise spiral off into a thousand endless directions of intellectual chaos. The good Doctor was in the light reading phase of working himself up towards the day's scheduled research, which in this case meant a wide desk piled high enough with scientific dissertations for it to give out the ocassional creak of protest. Archeville realized he was missing a particular book on unified field theory, and spun his chair around to see... a completely different laboratory.

Where once was steel and concrete and a particularly nice wallpapering down in the hallway applied in mathematically exacting symmetry was now hewn stone, tables of foaming vials near to which was.. an actual iron cauldron. And newts in various stages of dissection apparently. Newts with no eyes? Well of course, on the shelf where there should be various chemicals, are instead a number of jars labeled newt eyes. How logical. The eyes had to be somewhere after all.

His chair itself was now wood, though at least it still had mechanisms to spin it around with. Of course spinning back to his desk was no respite, it had changed like everything else, covered now in heavy parchment tomes with titles like "The refined art of alchemie" and "1001 practical spelles"

Also, he seemed to now be dressed in deep, velvet blue robes embroidered with odd gold sigils. And there was a hat on his head. And he could swear it was a pointy one.

[MarkK]

Dark Star

Dark Star had spent hours flying around the city, examining the still strange lives, customs and culture of the people around him, keeping an eye out for threats to their safety. Well now past the dawn he had decided to indulge his usual urge to slip the sundry bounds of Earth and reach out towards the stars again, flying up into the sky, where nothing was around him but constant radio signals and the ocassional cloud as he ascended further still.

And then, abruptly, there were just the clouds. As if all the signals had gone dead, everywhere, at once.

Looking back towards the city, Dark Star found himself looking down at something completely different than what he had finally gotten used to. Freedom City was gone, and some other metropolis overlaid in its place, one that looked smaller, and as if it emerged from the massive forest to the side of it. Even the land was shaped differently, with a scarred wasteland as the city's southern border, and open plains to the north. There was no sign whatsoever of the highways that spiralled out into the rest of America.

[MarkK]

Thunderstanding

Alicia was well into her day, heading on over to the gym. Her thoughts were already turning to the day's promotional events, a few autograph sessions, an exhibition fight where she would outright bounce a bunch of cage fighters off herself at once, all that kind of thing. Traffic was fairly light as she wove her motorcyle through the city streets, and the path familliar enough for her to be a bit inside her own head.

Which made it something of a jarring shock that she pulled up to a wide open field marked out between thatched roofed low houses that looked right out of some old English countryside. It was certainly a training field, as far as she could tell.. weights were being lifted, people were sparring. With practice swords mind you. And there was some kind of practice jousting area from what she made out, men and women on horses riding at some elevated wooden mockup of a man with a shield and arms and torso that spun about.

It was seeing the horse that brought to mind the sense of shifting underneath her, entirely unfamilliar, and lo and behold her motorcyle was gone and she was in saddle, astride a black destrier, who seemed to neigh in response to her confusion, as if to say "that's right, I'm a horse".

She felt a weight on her back, and reaching to feel it, was a sword in scabbard she had apparently strapped to herself. To herself and what little clothing she was apparently wearing, as all the new sensations crashing in on her included the discomfort of a chainmail bikini Red Sonja would have nodded at approvingly.

Everyone else in the grubby peasant garb wandering around apparently found this perfectly normal. Especially what could only be described as a nine foot tall, one eyed, green skinned ogre, giving her a polite nod as it walked past her and into the training area, dragging a massive gnarled club behind itself.

[MarkK]

Twilight Gryphon

The morning was a pleasant one, all soft and warm currents of wind to glide along through. It was almost a shame to alight on a building near Gryphon's classes, but the day wasn't about to put itself on hold for her enjoyment. Flicking on her watch, she made her way down a fire escape and through the alleyway that would take her out in front of the part of campus she was seeking.

Only she emerged to find herself facing a sprawling complex of stone (though in a few cases looking to be marble, and one she swore was made of solid gold) towers and spires connected by intricate spiralling mid air bridges that flowed from one to the next, and in one case, was made wholly of crystal, and outright floating, carrying distant figures from one tower to another.

In place of the building with her lecture hall, was a tower with the sign "Chiurgeon's Academy" emblazoned onto it.

As disoncerting as the glance around from the towers to the rest of a city that had shaped itself out of some medieval fantasy was, a greater shock was the feel of her wings and tail emerged outright from her, special holes cut to accomodate them in the robes she was now wearing. Even more notable, none of the people milling about her, from scribes to drovers, seemed to find her appearance remotely remarkable.

[Cyroa]

Dark Star came to a slow stop when suddenly the signal disappeared; curious but not yet truly worried. Ok, a little concerned considering the magnitude of signals that were no longer detectable. Perhaps his powers had malfunctioned or something. But when he glanced down towards freedom city, he became more than a little worried. A lot more. The whole city was gone.

"Oh darn..." He first irrational thought was that he had done something. He'd been experimenting with his powers to attempt to create wormholes but, once some more rational though settled in, he realized that nothing he had done could be responsible. Some other influence must be responsible.

He was still on the right planet. It was still Earth, judging from the landmasses. But what had happened? All signs were gone. Every scrap of technological advancement one could percieve from low orbit, even with his senses, was gone. Vanished as if it had never been. Someone had done a very bad thing. And he was unaffected.

He let his senses extend as far as he could, searching outward as he slowly descended downwards, looking for any clues or help he could get.

[Sacerdos]

Thunderstanding

“What the--?!â€Â

Alicia’s head whipped about to look back the way she’d come. Her new mount’s tail flicked about in annoyance at the sudden movement. Beyond it stretched a wide lane between twin rows of houses and shops. In the open front of one of the nearer buildings, a blacksmith toiled over an anvil, pounding at a red-hot sword to be. His dwarven companion worked the bellows at the forge in back.

“How?!â€Â

The muscular heroine quickly looked ahead of herself again, her jaw hanging open in stupefied amazement. She cocked her head to stare in wonder at the ogre’s retreating back. Her horse turned its head and gave her a condescending stare, apparently wondering what the hold-up was.

“Huh?!â€Â

Some basic part of Alicia’s psyche was moving slowly toward blind rage. Fortunately, a more rational part took hold before it could get there, limiting the impulse to surly annoyance. She shook her head and beetled her brow, vowing to find whoever was responsible for whatever had happened and beat them until they made it right. Though, she had to admit, that was likely to be easier said than done.

“Hey, you!†she called to a large man in a heavily patched long tunic. “Where the heck am I?â€Â

[Dr Archeville]

... what the #$%@?!

We appear to have on a robe and wizard hat.

Yeah, and someone's redecorated our laboratory!

This is quite fascinating.

Archeville slowly stood up, and rubbed his eyes and face. He looked around, and saw some movement: small figures made of clay, shaped like the ubiquitous robot servants that populated his home. His mind locked up for a moment as he tried to remember what (very) little he'd read on the Golem of Prague, and how he might use Science! to mimic something like that.

"Alright," he finally murmured in German, "either I have been transplanted to some alternate Mazes and Monsters world, or the world around me has been changed in a similar way. Right, let's see what I have to work with."

"Computer!"

"Computer?"

"Hello, Computer?"

"Right, well, I suppose that would have been too easy. Well, I- oh!" He quickly rifled through his robes, eventually lifting them up, and found his Gravimetric Belt and Electromagnetic Screwdriver were still in their original form. "Ah, good, I feared that would have been changed into a metal wand with jeweled studs or something. Alright, those two are the same. These robes are probably as protective as my lab coat, but I'll test them first."

"But slightly more pressing," he said in a firmer voice as he rose up, "is to see what is outside these walls, and to see if I am the only one who is out-of-place." He looked over to where, in his proper laboratory, there would be a pillar of security monitors keeping tabs on local and global news. He was not very surprised to see it was replaced by a small well with several crystal balls around the rim. The balls showed assorted scenes, and when he touched one, the image was transferred to the larger pool of water in the well.

[Raylis]

Twilight Gryphon

Olivia whipped around in panic, fingers rapidly pressing the button on her watch to no avail. At the evident non reaction from those around her she calmed, her tail lashing about irritability, "Hush" she murmured looking at the crystalline elevators and the floating buildings. Her eyes settled on the sign Chiurgeon's Academy. "That's the archaic form of the word surgeon...what is going on around here?"

With a flap of her wings she takes to the air, hoping an aerial view will offer some kind of explanation.

[MBCE]

Doctor Archeville

The gesture was simple and the orbs seemed to obey his mental commands with ease. It was not unlike switching channels using a normal remote control yet there didn't seem to be an actual deviced used to perform the change.

The first picture that formed within the large pool of water was that of a large rustic town. The outside of the town had a tall stone wall with men walking and keeping watch along the rapparts. The men wore similar clothing, rustic armor with a red tunic while carrying long spears. Adjusting the picture within the well, Dr. Archeville managed to zoom in closer on teh picture and noted a heldric badge upon the men's chest.

Satisfied with the new information, he pulled back to get a better view of hte town again. Beyond the wall were rustic towns straight out of the fantasy books the Doctor had read for pleasure from time to time. Deeper within the town was another stone wall that surrounded a hill. Upon the hill was what could be nothing other than a castle. Again, he noted guards walking the walls with the same clothing as those as the outside wall.

[MBCE]

Dark Star

Dark Satr lowered himself to the ground. Everything about the world seemed to have changed. A short distance away, he could see a horse drawn cart moving along a road that led towards a walled town, the only real structures in sight. The cart had a man sitting on the board, wearing what seemed to be clothes more suited to a costume party than wore out in the open.

The driver obviousl hadn't seen Dark Star's descent to the ground but he was the only person present for Dark Star to talk to.

[MBCE]

Twilight Gryphon

Olivia took off gaining height while spiralling slowly about. The area was truely fantasic. Even more fantasic than the strange towers, was the fact that there were others very similar to herself flying form location to location. Some of the people moving about carried more draconic images about their features but all seemed intent on scholarly pursuits.

"Hey, you there!"

The voice came from a yound woman standing on one of the platforms. She carried a large stack of books but she didn't have any wings for flight.

"Could you give me a hand?"

[Cyroa]

Dark Star did the obvious thing to do when you are lost and confused. He stopped and asked for directions.

He drifted down, slow enough to not alarm the man. "Excuse me sir. I seem to be a little confused. Where exactly are we? And what year is it?" He certainly hoped the man didn't panic, one of the reasons he had approached so gently. And it was a perfectly reasonable question after all. Dark Star really needed to know what was going on.

[Raylis]

Olivia flew down to the woman, removing half of the stack of books from her burden "Sure, where are you headed with these?

[MBCE]

Jack of all Blades

Jack of all Blades stood on the rooftop looking down on the thugs as they proceed to work on the door to the warehouse. It looked like it would be a very fun not for the sword wielding hero. The crew down below worked very quickly and soon had the door opened.

Jack smiled to himself, stood and checked the power line that he would use to swing down into the action. He grabbed the line and began the ride to the ground.

As he moved the scene shifted. The warehouse changed to a thatched building. The concrete street changed to a dirt path. The power line he was sliding down transformed into a hemp rope with archaic clothing hanging in his path. Even his clothes had changed to look more like Robin Hood than his usual costume though the sash, bandanna and wig remained unchanged.

It was clear, the hero was no longer in Freedom.

[MBCE]

Dark Star

The driver pulled on the reigns stopping the cart. He blinked in surprise at Dark Star's dark figure but didn't seem too upset by what he saw. "Why you're about a short ride outside of Freedom's Reach, the greatest city in the land. It's the year of our Lord 1310, my good sir."

The driver frowned slightly after answering the question. "Are you new to the area, my lord? Did you come for the tourney?"

[MBCE]

Twilight Gryphon

The woman smiled at Olivia as she gratefully handed over a portion of her burden. "Thanks. I find it very difficult to move from tower to tower when burdened."

The woman points at one of the nearby towers. "I'm heading over there, to the library. Are you new here? I don't think I've seen you here at the Academy before."

[Cyroa]

Dark Star nodded to the man. It had answered the question but not really given him any helpful answers. He still had no idea what had happened. "Thank you sir." He continued honestly, looking around with his enhanced senses, trying to get more of a clue as to what had happened. "Yes I am. I seem to be much farther from home than I thought. Would you mind if I accompanied you for a little while? I would not wish to hold you up in your travels. If it isn't too much trouble, perhaps you could tell me about the city and this tourney?"

[Dr Archeville]

Oh, this just keeps getting better and better.

Sarcasm is not going to help.

Archeville murmured half-formed thoughts as he used the "scrying pool" to scout out his surroundings. He did not yet see any familiar faces, so as far as he could tell he was here alone.

">" he thought out loud, ">" He let out an exasperated sigh, ">"

""

The Doktor paced around the pool for a bit, examining what facts he had gathered, forming and discarding dozens of theories as to how and why he was here. After a few minutes, he stopped, and turned back to scrying devices.

">"

[Gizmo]

Jack of all Blades nearly missed his landing as his surroundings transformed themselves. Acrobatic grace trained to the point of instinct saved him, soft leather riding boots silently touching down on the dirt road. Taking stock of the situation the hero found that his bodysuit had been replaced by a black jerkin and tights; more importantly the power line from which he had intended to draw energy was now a simple clothing line. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, he immediately reached into his coat for his lighter and instead found small pieces of flint, steel and dry linen. Suppressing a groan, Jack glanced about, spotting a flickering torch in a tall, metal bracket where a lamppost had stood moments before. The flame flared then snaked through the air to his outstretched hand, solidifying into the shape of a blazing rapier.

So armed, he turned his attention back to the thugs. Jack had plenty of pressing questions about his predicament, but whatever had happened to him and the rest of Freedom City, his most immediate business still stood before him, ready to enter the thatched building. A smirk played upon his lips as his theatrical tendencies came to the fore. Well, he mused, when in Nottingham...

"Hold, villains!" Jack called, sword held en garde. "What times are these that a masked man in black must be the enforcer of the law?" The young swashbuckler beckoned with his free hand. "Lay on, oafs!" He casually readied himself to fight.

[Raylis]

If this isn't a loaded question... Twilight thought "You could say that, I'm actually a bit lost, which Academy is this? she began to fly toward the pointed library, carefully watching the woman to determine the pace and also curious how she would reach the tower.

[MBCE]

Witch

Blackbird took her time walking about the city streets, getting an understanding of her surroundings. She smiled as she passed a group of college students. They were easy marks for someone of her skills but she had promised the Headmistress to keep a low profile. The Shadow Academy wanted to keep their existence as secret as possible. To most patrons of Freedom City, the school was simply a boarding school for the rich and powerful.

Blackbird turned the corner, ready to return to the campus, when everything changed.

Gone were the high rise buildings. Gone were the concrete paved streets with cars whizzing pass. Gone were the girls in high fashion. In their place, Blackbird saw small thatched roofs that lined cobblestoned roads. Horse drawn carts moved along the roads, avoiding the stalls lining the market area.

Blackbird looked down at her clothing and noted that she wore her costume which fit more into the changes than it did in her own time.

[Angel]

Blackbird looked around in amazement. It looked like something out of a faerie tale. She immediately wondered if Caellin had something to with it. "What have you done," Blackbird whispered angrily looking around for onlookers. She got no response. Damn meddling fae.

Walking slowly, Blackbird looked for someone, ANYONE, who looked like they knew what they were doing.

[MBCE]

Exile

Exile, trapped in a world not of his choosing, was always in search of information that would proof useful with his agreement with the entity known as The Watcher. Within the halls of Gentle Mansion, th mystic had gathered ancient mystical lore in the hopes of one day using that new found knowledge.

While pouring over some ancient texts, Exile turned to gather a small tome to check the information. Exile was surprised to see that his bookcase had changed to hold various scrolls and much less actually books as was there before. Turning to his work table, he saw that it had changed as well. Gone were the modern devices he used to restore the texts. In their place, were vials of liquids as well as archaic writing utensils. Looking around the workshop showed that more had changed. Gone were his modern light fixtures. Now only lite torches provided light in the windowless room. Even the door that lead out of the workshop had changed to one of deep dark oak.

The world around Exile had changed and he had no idea why.