Sophistemon

Punchline turned away from the infant, his face still twisted into a grotesque mockery of human expression. "What's happening?" he asked. "I think I missed it." He shook his head to slide his features back to normal, and after an apologetic wink at the baby he bounded over to the window and peered outside. He pressed his face right up against the glass, squishing his nose onto the surface so that his breath fogged it up, and stared into the wilderness outside. "So what am I looking at here, gator-boy?" he asked, the question directed towards Leviathan. "Some kind of family reunion?" He backed away from the glass and shook his head. "I've gotta ask, pal -- were your parents related? I mean, before they were married? Because you're a very ugly bunch of lizards." He grinned, then hooted laughter before socking the other hero softly on the shoulder. "I'm just kidding. If you're headed out there, I can put on my party-face and we can handle it together. What do you say?"

Samuel coughed, choking at the question. He thudded his chest and smiled. "Ah, well, not unless you count show-business. No, actually, I was a performer. A stage magician, if you can believe it. It was... it was a long time ago, so I doubt anyone would remember me." He paused. "Thought I did make a pretty big impression in my prime. I toured the country back then, headlined in Las Vegas... I even had an HBO special if you can believe it." He shook his head, a little mournfully. "I've found a higher calling than that. Now, I get a chance to help people. I'm pretty sure that I might have already saved the world on a few separate occasions, but it's hard to tell sometimes when the danger is over just how bad things might have gone if you hadn't stepped in."

Samuel followed the two women through the apartment, oohing and aahing at the appropriate moments, until at last he was led out onto the deck. When Lynn mentioned the monthly rent, Sam gaped at her with shock plainly apparent on his face. "Are you serious?" he asked her. "Seven-fifty? Seven hundred and fifty dollars for this apartment, in this city?" He grinned, then chuckled. "You aren't evil, you're a saint! Do you have the paperwork with you? I won't just sign today, I'll write you a check for the deposit." He snapped his fingers, conjuring a pen, and held it expectantly in his hand. "I really can't believe this, you two. This is amazing!"

If there's space available, Presto the Preposterous would be perfect for this sort of thing.

@Exaccus Doctor Marley carefully examined Deoxy's work, cooing now and again over something particularly interesting. What he was working on wasn't really in her field, but life at AEGIS had prepared her to understand quite a wide variety of various scientific jargon. It could be said, actually, that she spoke fluent technobabble. When he'd finished his explanation and asked his question, the woman shook her head. "Hah! No, but I wish! I'm a mechanical engineer; I work on the X-O9. That's the big, silver tank-like exosuit that you might have seen flying around." She chuckled. "I swear, not a day goes by when I'm not pounding dents out of that thing. 'Indestructible plating' my right cheek! If I could get my hands on one of those space-metals, now that would be something. But then the budget would go even higher and the taxes in this city are already poking holes in the roof." She shrugged. "Anyway, I was just curious about what you were working on. I'm sorry to bother. If you need anything, we're right over there. We've got some down-time, so just let us know if we can lend a hand." @Avenger Assembled & @Heritage The projectionist nodded, though as he was inside the booth the odds were that neither of the women saw him do it. "You saw that, too, huh?" he called out. "There might be something wrong with the disc. Or maybe it's an Easter egg they put in when they released it on Blu-Ray? Either way, I'm a pretty big fan of this movie and I don't think that I've seen that before. One sec, I'll take us back." The film rewound, soundlessly reversing itself until they had retreated five or so minutes. The projectionist hit Play, but slowed the film so that it progressed at only half speed when they approached the point of origin for the flicker. When it appeared again, he hit Pause. There, frozen on the screen in front of them, appearing for only three frames while the camera panned from left to right, was a clown. His white, plaintive face was smudged with dirt, his curly red hair was mussed, and his garish clothing was stained and tattered. He held a sign in his hands with twelve letters written on it in large block letters with what appeared to have been his black-stained fingers. SAD CLN, it said. PLZ HLP. @Blarghy

Sam's face went a little pale at the mention of getting back on stage, but the idea of Halloween brightens his spirits considerably. "Yes!" he gushes, nodded emphatically. "Yes, I'd love to help." He then laughed along with the others when Lynn transformed into a hideous creature and then back into her normal lovely self. When the subject of surprises came up, he looked at the two women with a slight tickle of nervousness. "Surprise?" he asked. "What surprise?"

Samuel sat down and stretched out his long legs. He let out a contented sigh as he settled in to the chair. "This is incredible," he said. "You're incredible. Both of you. I can hardly believe..." He chuckled. "Well, anyway. Thank you. Thank you both, for everything. I can't say that I deserve it, but I appreciate it all more than you can know." He looked over at Gretchen and smiled. "ADT, huh? I never went in for any of that technical stuff, myself. When I was on tour and I had an idea for a trick, I described what I wanted to my prop-guys and they built it for me. Thinking back on it, I should have spent more time watching them and learning how everything worked than I did doing... other things." He cleared his throat and looked out over the city. "You know, I think that I could make a home here."

Presto laughed, a great roaring guffaw, as Bailey's strike whiffed harmlessly by and broke a table into pieces. "Really, Alton? You're embarrassing yourself!" He breathed and looked at the man across the room, the twisted thing that had once been human. The magician shook his head. "To think, you could have been someone. Oh, well. I've already beaten you once tonight, Alton, and doing it again would be a waste of my talent. I'll let my partner deal with you." He stuck two fingers into his mouth and whistled. "Warne! Focus, man! Baku's a dream-spirit, he eats nightmares!" He pointed at the mutant across the room. "You take Bailey; he's real enough! Let me handle the fuzzy little creep." He stared at the Baku, his mouth pressed into a thin line all but hidden behind the hair of his goatee. "You want my nightmares, Baku? Your eyes are too big for your stomach; I'd give you indigestion. But if you're hungry, I've got plenty of magic for you to chew on." He took a step forward, staring down at the tourist from Japan. "In my home, when I captured your thugs and chased Alton from my door -- those chains. Did you recognize them? They're called Marleys. Like you, they're not native to the real. But I captured them anyway and bound them to my service. Care to see how I did it?" He took another step and started chanting in low, sibilant tones. Normally, the spell would take some time -- several minutes at the least. But time wasn't something that he had, and he forced the magic out, feeding it with energy that he drew out from within himself to hasten the process of casting. Thanks to his earlier spell the effort was merely tiring instead of outright soporific. His body hummed and his wand... faded, its rigid figure blurred between this world and the world of dreams. He pointed the now slightly indistinct shaft of wood at the malevolent spirit and smiled, his eyes only slightly pained by the effort. "It's time to wake up, Baku. Bon appetite." He spoke a word and a searing gout of flame burst from the wand and streaked across the room, arcing towards the newly-vulnerable Eater of Dreams.

We've discussed earlier that between my Skill Mastery feat and high Knowledge: Arcane Lore skill, I can jury-rig a ten point ritual in a single turn, correct? If that's the case I have a plan, but I'd like to confirm it with you first. Nope, we'd misunderstood the rules. That's fine; I'll use Extraordinary Effort to add both ranks of the Affects Insubstantial feat to Presto's Blast attack. And then, of course, I'll use said Blast attack on Baku. Attack Roll: 1d20+10 11. Well, of course. I'm not going to allow that, so I'm going to spend one of my 4 Hero Points on a re-roll. Attack Roll: 1d20+10 27. Now that's what I'm talking about!

The magician nodded. "Oh, yes! It sort of ties into the other work that I've been doing. He and I, we bounce cases off of one another. Freelance work can be a bit of a hassle but it's lucrative as all get-out. Still, I'm glad to have a steady job at the store." He looked over to Gretchen. "I'm comfortable doing research. Learning things, especially about magic, lets me improve myself. It's a great feeling, to stumble across something that can fill in a hole in your knowledge. I get a little bit better every day." He didn't know how much he was free to talk about, especially about Al-Kazar and the research that they were doing at the shop. "Anyway, it's a rewarding experience. I prefer it to my earlier career."

Punchline chuckled. "Hah! Smoked fish. You're all right, sulfur-breath." When Mark addressed him, he turned back around and quirked his head. "Faces?" he asked, incredulous. "Can I do faces?" He grinned, and the corners of his mouth stretched up to reach his ears. "Friend, I can do faces like Bob Ross painted happy little trees!" He looked, then, at the baby. Grin still shining, he bugged out his bright yellow eyes, scrunched up his bulbous red nose, and wiggled his ears. For the coup de grace, he stuck out his tongue and blew a long, wet raspberry right in her soft little face. "Who's a cute little god?" he asked the baby. "Who's an adorable little divinity? You are! Yes, you are!"

Samuel moved to step inside the apartment, a notebook in one hand and a pen in the other, only to stop dead in the doorway. This place was easily twice the size of his current home, and it carried a very different sort of spirit. It was open, breezy, and uncluttered -- almost the complete antithesis of place where he was living now. His mouth went dry and he let out a soft little sound before he made his way across the threshold. "It's... wonderful," he breathed, looking this way and that to take it all in. "I just can't believe it. Look at that fireplace! Those shelves! I have all of my books stacked up in a corner!" He opened the notebook and started to write. "Don't worry about the temperature; a small spell can make this place a perpetual 72-degrees. And as for security..." He looked over at Gretchen and grinned. "At my old place, I just bound a bunch of Marleys to guard the door. It's served me well enough, but..." He tilted his head. "You updated the system? Just how many talents do you have, Gretchen?"

@Heritage Yes, absolutely.

@Exaccus The labs sequestered beneath the AEGIS base are extensive and well-stocked with all manner of scientific equipment, although due to bureaucratic pressure from higher up the chain of command some of it might be a bit more outdated than he'd like. For his more esoteric needs the good Doctor Deoxy might have to make due with jury-rigged devices hastily assembled from parts already available. As he works, Deoxy might notice a small cadre of AEGIS science-personnel peering over their own workstations at him, inspecting his actions and whispering among themselves as he tinkers. Eventually, one of them approaches him. The woman is short, squat, and has a respectable amount of motor-oil staining her clothes for someone who isn't currently laying beneath of a car. She raises a hand and greets him. "Hello," she says. "I'm doctor Marley. The others and I were wondering what you're working on?" @Avenger Assembled & @Heritage The AEGIS agent in charge of handling the projection booth puts the film into the player and then sets aside Xeno for later, after they've finished. Frankly, he prefers the first movie in the series to the second. It had a more psychological edge to the horror and was less of an action film over all. Not that Xenos was a bad movie, far from it -- and they were both enormously better than the two films that followed -- it was just that when he went for a horror movie, he wanted it to be scary. At one point, towards the middle of the film, a flash of color streaks across the screen too quickly to be identified. There and gone again, it might almost go unnoticed by the viewers if not for the stutter of static that accompanies it on screen. The agent thumps the player in annoyance and grumbles something about old equipment and too many tax dollars being pigeonholed for enormous suits of tank-like power armor. @Blarghy

Ethan smiled, then nodded. "Lunch sounds good, Warne. And, hey, no problem. The thing is, everything's about appearances these days. You've just got to know how to bait the hook and they'll bite every time." He chuckled. "We've just got to be careful and not screw things up, that's all."

Game Master Lights, Camera, Action! Presto Dreamweaver Nothing Fancy, Just Hanging Out Upgrade Irradiated Intervention Punchline Puppet Day

Punchline whipped his head towards Cassandra and blinked his yellow eyes. "I wasn't... it was a joke! I wasn't going to sell the baby!" He looked back towards the infant and smiled. "Besides, just look at her! She's precious. There's nobody alive that could afford her!" He flexed his fingers and lowered his arms, admitting defeat for now. "But fine! Fine, we'll follow the veteran for now." He chuckled and looked towards Leviathan, recently returned after having discarded his human disguise. His smile widened when the creature spoke. "Why grandma, what big teeth you have! It looks like I'm not the only one here that likes to shed his skin every once and awhile. And hey, listen: take it from me, scales, there's no such think as too much fun." He wavered a bit, his details going fuzzy and indistinct -- shot through with static -- before he reappeared as a indistinguishable duplicate of Leviathan. Punchline stuck out his tongue and explored the strange new shape of his maw. "Anyone else wanna go out for some wildebeest? I feel like I could eat a horse!" He abandoned the shape and laughed, nearly doubling over. At that moment, Bonfire spoke up and Punchline listened intently. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you, matchstick! You'll be useful if I fancy some s'mores to go with my wildebeest." He chortled, and then pointed a thumb at his own chest. "I'm the pugnacious Punchline, the jester of justice, the clown king of crime-fighting!" He bowed, his spine bending unnaturally so that his forehead clocks the ground with a hollow 'thump.' He straightens, beaming a wide, wide grin. "It's a hoot to meet you all!"

I'm so glad that you caught on to Presto's stalling for time -- it might have gotten ugly if you hadn't. Initiative Check: 1d20+3 5. That's a disappointing roll, but I'd rather save my Hero Points for the combat proper. Let battle be joined!

I can't wait to really cut loose with Upgrade. He's got so many weapons.

Agent Stone looked over at his partner and grinned. He leaned towards him in his chair and whispered, "Go team!" before settling back and nodded his head at their superiors. "Thank you, gentlemen. I appreciate you taking the time out of your day to meet with us about this, and I appreciate even more that you've decided in our favor. Between the three of us -- Agent Warne, Bonfire, and myself -- I have no doubt that we'll get to the bottom of this and bring those responsible to justice." He cleared his throat and started to stand. "Was there anything else that we need to go over? If I know my partner here, he's been compiling leads and it's probably for the best that we get this thing started."

The wand wavers. Just a little bit -- not much at all, really. But it wavers. Presto's face, however, remains stoically and cynically amused. The magician laughs slightly, a harsh bark of humorless, mocking faux-mirth. "That's your offer? We're at the end of a caper and when we finally get to your big 'join me in the Dark Side' moment you offer me... what? Magical therapy? Not even that? You offer me an easy way out?" He raises his free hand a taps a white-gloved finger against his temple. "Do you think that I couldn't magic myself into a good night's sleep if I wanted? That I couldn't erase the memories myself if I needed to?" He lowered the hand. "I'm Presto the Preposterous, Baku. I can do anything. I don't because I don't want to. Because I can't afford to forget her. Because forgetting her would invalidate everything that I've worked for. She doesn't know it, but she's my inspiration. She's why I am who I am, now." The wand was steadfast, pointing at the Baku. "Do you want to know what it felt like, watching her fall? It felt like I was falling, too. Like everything that I was, everything that I'd built, was crumbling down around me." He smirked. "Good riddance." There was a brief pause, and then he lowered the wand. "Still! I'm intrigued. It was you in my head, then? Not Bailey?" He cast an eye at the rapidly mutating adventurer. "I'm not surprised. That kind of magic is as beyond him as, well. As tying his own shoes, really." The smile widened. "I'm afraid that I don't work with amateurs. We wouldn't want poor Alton here to go thinking that we're equals, after all. Release him from your service and then we'll talk."

Punchline frowned, the exaggerated expression pulling the corners of his mouth down, down beyond the confines of his face. He stepped to the side and peered around Monsoon to address Edge. "Yeah, and who died and put you in charge, you big spoilsport?" He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted. "We're in a toy store for crying out loud! Let's let the brat have a little fun, yeah?" He looked at the infant and his smile returned, almost as grotesquely exaggerated as his frown had been, but quite a bit friendlier -- more cartoonish than anything else. Eyes gleaming, he waved at the baby godling. "Hey there, kiddo! Don't you wanna pal around with Uncle Punchy? Between the two of us I bet there's no end to the trouble we could get up to! What do you say?" His eyes flicked from the baby to Edge, and then back to the baby. He held out his arms. "Come on, kid; let's go crack open a toybox and see what's inside!"

Films staring Rhekgar include: Rhekgar the Red: Flame of Eagland Rhekgar the Red 2: Thundergeddon Rhekgar the Red 3: Beyond Thundergeddon Rhekgar the Red 4: Rhekgar in Space Films starring Dirk Saber include: Three Nights in Paris All the King's Men Corinthian Blues Eye, Spy Films starring Helen Ridley include: Xeno Xenos Xeno 3 Xeno: Resuscitation

Colonel Chalmers nods while Adept makes his exit and then clears his throat before turning to address Doctor Deoxy. "Our labs are a few floors down, in sub-level Gamma. I'll send word ahead; they'll have cleared some space for you in the labs to work your magic by the time you arrive." The Colonel extends a rough, thick-fingered hand for Deoxy to shake. "As weird as the circumstances are, it's a pleasure to work with you, Doctor. You come very highly recommended -- the Boys in the Back Room are big, big fans of yours. With your brain, Warne's intuition, Miracle Girl's brawn and Sea Devil's two-foot tongue on our side, I have no doubt that we'll get to the bottom of this in time." He grins, revealing a mouth full of teeth like tombstones -- flat, gray dentistry, some of which are crooked and moderately spooky to behold. He waves the scientist to the door and points him down the hallway. "There's an elevator just down there on the left. The password is, ah..." He reaches into his pocket, retrieves a notebook, and flips through it. "6... 9... 2... 5. That should unlock the doors and let you downstairs." With that done, he turns toward the two girls. "All right then, so here we are. The adults are off on their prep-work. I was only half paying attention, but I think that I picked up on you two wanting to watch some movies. We have a screening room in doors, if you're interested in using that instead of the roof. I'm sure that we can dig up those movies, too; this is AEGIS, and we're nothing if not well-funded. Some of that money went towards requisitioning films for our agents to watch during their little bits of downtime and their overnight stays at the agency. Sound about right to you? Heck, you can even ring down to the cafeteria for snacks for all I care." @Blarghy

Ah, that works! You've learned nearly everything. Expect an IC post (finally) later today. I'm sorry for the delay, everyone!