Sophistemon

This was... a rather roundabout way of scoring an interview. Normally, Sam would have left the door shut, gone back to his research, and quickly put this little encounter out of his mind. But the bait had been laid, whether Brush had known it or not. This Count Schwarz was a reclusive occultist, with reclusive being the operative word. Recluses tended to have secrets and a reclusive occultist would therefore know a thing or two about secret magic. Brush could hear a lock being clicked. And then another, and another. Finally, the door swung open and Sam revealed himself, a moderate scowl visible behind his goatee. "If I'm understanding you correctly," he said. "You've come to me, a magician, so that I could help you get an interview with someone else who knows magic." Not exactly a bad idea, at least concerning Sam himself. It wasn't as though his own mystical education was what you'd call 'complete' in any sense of the word. "But I'll admit that you have my interest. If I help you contact this man, this Count Schwarz... what's in it for me?"

Samuel Steiner stood from his seat in the kitchen and cracked his back. He'd been sitting too long, spending too much time on the computer -- still, the man on the other side of the door was an intrusion, and he could feel a dark cloud of irritation forming overhead. "Steiner," he muttered to himself as he made his way across the cracked and peeling linoleum. "It's mister Steiner; for Pete's sake. 'Presto' is a stage name..." He peered through the peephole and saw the atrociously-dressed reporter on the other side. Sam was wearing his costume -- he was only very rarely not wearing his costume -- but it was magically disguised as pair of bluejeans and a white polo shirt with dark green stripes. Compared to the man in the hallway, he was overdressed. "Mister Brush?" he said, loudly enough for the writer to hear through the deceptively thin wood of the door. The name was familiar, but only in an academic sense; the magician had read a few of his articles, but knew nothing about the man himself. "Mister Brush, I'm very busy. If this is going to be another hit-piece on why I should be back in prison I'm afraid that I just don't have the heart for it."

A perfectly average response to a perfectly average roll; that makes sense to me.

Intelligence Check: 1d20+3 11. Ah, excellent. My bad luck's still intact. I don't suppose that roll teaches me anything?

Ethan stroked his chin and wondered if there was coffee available for himself anywhere nearby. When he spoke, however, it was slightly less self-absorbed. "We'd appreciate it if you sent us a copy of your findings," he said. "We'll compare what you've dug up to what we've found and do some more fact-checking along the way." He looked over to Warne, and then to Clarkson. "Look, I'm probably not the guy you want taking point on your debriefing; I've always been more SWAT than detective, do you follow me? I'm a follow-up guy, so I'm going to butt out now and let the other agents have their say; it's more their area of expertise than mine." He mouthed the word 'sorry' and motioned to the older agents, encouraging them to add on to what had already been said.

Presto the Preposterous Dreamweaver. I've Got a Golden Ticket. Upgrade A Show of Force. Irradiated Intervention.

The gunfire forced Presto back and he took cover behind the bedroom wall. He fired off another blast of elemental lightning as he retreated, but barely took the time to aim. "You know who I am!" he shouted. "You'd have to, or you wouldn't be here. But if you know who I am, why would you come so unprepared? Don't you know what I've done? What I'm capable of?" He grit his teeth and breathed. "Give up!" he bellowed. "Give up and you might get out of here still looking like you! Give up or I'll have four more fish for my aquarium!" He reached down and took up the phone to see if Warne had picked up. He could talk a lot of bluster, and even back some of it up, but four against one was a bad proposition no matter how you sliced it.

Attack (Blast, Elemental Lightning): 1d20+10 13. Ah, a lame roll this time, but one that I can work with. Ducking back through the door and into the bedroom should confer cover, I'd think.

You know what, Vahnyu? You're right. I'm going to go through his combat stuff and trim it down to save some points. He could use more offensive powers and you've given me a great platform to launch off of. Thank you. Robert Goodman, Jr. was raised in a Catholic orphanage located in one of the less affluent neighborhoods of Freedom City. His 'mother' was the Mother Superior, Mary Margaret, and his best friend was a girl named Judy Valentine. He fell in love with her, but Judy broke his heart without even knowing it by marrying another man. In most love stories that wouldn't be the end of things, but it's really complicated in this instance because Judy decided to marry Jesus and become a nun herself. She works at the same orphanage in which they grew up, and Bob visits from time to time in both of his personas to visit his 'family' and goof off with the children. I haven't decided yet if Judy knows, but Mother Margaret definitely suspects something. I love this. I'd been thinking of giving him a devastating weakness to electromagnetic interference that would affect him like Krytonite by disrupting his signal and pulling him apart, but this is much wackier and more fitting to the character. Making that a complication, and its effects sillier than they are dangerous, is much more in line with the character's concept. Thank you!

Ethan sighed. "Good morning, Bonfire; this is Agents Warne, Clarkson, and Stone. We were wondering where you've been and wanted to touch bases with you. We've been working on moving forward with the Gas Man investigation and were interested in knowing if you'd managed to dig anything up between contacts." He glanced sidelong at Adept and unspoken words were said between them. "How available are you right now to have a conversation? I'll be honest, it might go on for a while and be pretty in-depth."

I think that we've just got a different design philosophy, is all. I've spread the character a little thin in trying to set the groundwork for later development, granted, but I feel that a balanced approach will have been beneficial to build off of in the long run. And, heck, if I'm wrong there's no foul in applying for a respec! I do appreciate your commentary, and I'll keep your suggestions stored away for when it comes time to update the sheet. This is great stuff, and definitely something that I'm going to crib when I expand his repertoire of offensive maneuvers.

Thanks for chiming in, Vahnyu! You've given me a bit to go through, so I'm going to break it up into sections. D'oh! Looks like I'll be investing in an alternate power somewhere down the line! Thanks for the heads-up, though; you've saved me from eventual frustration. Ah, but he isn't a regular repairman anymore. Bob Goodman is, for all intents and purposes, dead. Punchline masquerades as the man that he used to be by using his Morph power, but there's no real 'Bob' anymore -- which is why his scores are so high. He was torn apart and rebuilt as a living television signal; you can think of him as a much wackier Doctor Manhattan in that regard. He may look human, but he's definitely not flesh and blood. He's harder, better, faster, stronger than he was before. I definitely considered this but, as I want to invest in ranged attacks later down the line (I'm going to have to, if Thrown isn't going to work the way I'd hoped) I'd prefer to set the groundwork now, while I can, instead of doing it piecemeal later.

Ah, thanks for the tip! I'll edit that right away. Hammerspace was a must-have, Raveled! His Variable Physical feat represents pulling weapons out of thin air. Eventually I'll buy some ranks of Thrown for his Strike to symbolize some ranged attacks, like pies and pop-guns, and some ranks of Equipment so that his Hammerspace is a little more useful.

Hello, everyone! I've spent the last week or so working on a new character and I think that it's finally ready for some real revision. As always, I appreciate each and every comment and critique. Fluff: Crunch: Notes:

Ethan, having finished his drink, sobered up almost immediately. "Yeah, let's talk about that vacation." He looked at Warne, and then back to Clarkson. "How can it be, after everything that went down, that we didn't have this guy under surveillance? We're AEGIS, for crying out loud! We watch everybody and we lost track of Bonfire after he nearly nuked the east coast? We don't have actual supervillains getting as close to wrecking the country as this kid and we let him go to ground without a handler?" He shook his head. "I'm not judging or anything, but wow, yeah, we need to find him and figure out what's going on pronto."

Presto saw the monster evade the chains, which caused the mindless things to float harmless by, and watched as it puffed up to shriek. The sound of it was loud enough to pop his ears, and he grimaced. What's more, he could feel the roar worming in at the edges of his mind, trying to find the cracks in his resolve so that it could change his thinking. "My brain," he grumbled. "The dreams, this thing. You're here to attack my brain. Well, I won't stand for it!" At that moment, a bullet whizzed by and struck him in the shoulder. Though it was thankfully repelled by the enchantments of his suit, the impact still stung. "Gah!" he shouted. "All right, that's enough. Do you hear me? I've had enough!" He looked back out through the bedroom doorway and saw that the three human attackers had been subdued by his defenses. A smile worked its way across his features as he aimed his wand once more at the monster. A bright line of flame erupted from the silver tip of the wand and seared through the air at his abominable opponent. "You want magic? You want magic? I'll make you all disappear!" While shouting, he used his free hand to conjure up his phone and quickly thumbed the 'redial' button. He dropped the phone to the ground, where it rang, and hoped that Agent Warne would hear what was going on from the other end and make an appearance.

All right, awesome. I'm going to attack the big ugly one; let's try a gout of fire this time. Attack Roll: 1d20+10 25. Presto's using his Move action to pull out and dial his cell phone. He's just going to let it ring; hopefully Warne picks up and hears the commotion.

If one were looking closely they might have seen Ethan run down the hallway, completely miss the door that he was looking for, and then jogging back to enter. His face was sweating and he was clearly out of breath. "I'm... sorry," he panted. "Lilly... softball..." He swallowed, puffed air, and continued. "I wanted to catch the first few innings, you know? Let her see me in the stands. I swear, this kid -- she's gonna be MVP any day now." He looked at Clarkson. "I got your notice, so I'm pretty much up to speed. Do we have a plan yet?" He wiped his forehead, strode over to the water cooler and poured himself a drink, which he drained in a few frantically hurried gulps. "God, wow. I really needed that."

Okay, here are your requested rolls in the order that your requested them. Will Save: 1d20+4 23. Toughness Save: 1d20+10 25. Headquarters' Snare x3: 3#1d20+10 29 29 25 Whoa, now how's that for a pleasant surprise? I'd like to pause on posting my actions until I know how our friends react to the Snares, if that would be all right.

Samuel's face went blank and a blush began to creep its way up his neck to color his cheeks. "No, Lynn," he said, his voice oddly monotonous. "I was just playing along." He calmed down when she rested a hand on his shoulder, his embarrassment fading from mortification into something slightly more tolerable. "I, ah, thank you!" he said, and nodded. "Vodun? You know, I've looked into it, but I've never practiced any. Dealing with the Loa..." he shrugged his shoulders. "I've read that they like trades, and I try to avoid making deals with extra-dimensional beings -- especially the ones that don't believe in extensions... or deferments." After Lynn left, Sam cradled the journal in his hand. Linguistic roadblock aside, he was holding it. He was holding one of Al-Kazar's journals -- one of many! There was no telling what he might accomplish once he'd learned Yiddish himself. Nearly a full minute passed before something clicked in his head and he looked at Gretchen. "You were in the hospital?"

Presto took in the details of his assailant -- the unkempt and dirty clothes, the shifting plates of armor, the sharp claws, the manic expression -- and swallowed his fear. He'd faced tougher-looking opponents before and come out on top. If things turned against him in battle he always had his handy-dandy teleport spell, which he had practiced so extensively that he could perform it in his sleep. It might not be needed, however, for at the first indication of hostile intent the wards he'd prepared began to manifest. Ghostly chains appeared, rattled menacingly, and attempted to wrap themselves around the monster, to constrict his arms to his sides and render him much less threatening. Before waiting to see the outcome of that struggle, Sam aimed his wand and uttered a word of power, unleashing a mighty bolt of lightning at his enemy.

Headquarters' Snare: 1d20+10 12. Attack (Blast, Elemental Lightning): 1d20+10 20. A lesser man than myself might start getting discouraged, maybe even develop some sort of persecution complex. Me, I'll just bear my misery with the same quiet dignity with which I endure everything else in my life.

Awesome. So, in addition to Presto's actions, would you like me to roll the headquarters' Snare effect?

Samuel chuckled. "Yiddish? Yiddish?" He lifted a hand to his face to muffle the laugh before he stepped over to a chair and sank into it. "Oy vey ist mir," he groaned, quoting one of the more well known and memorable phrases of the language: Oh, woe is me. He looked at Lynn, then, and Gretchen. "Lynn, you've been very helpful. I wouldn't know Hebrew from Yiddish from Greek at this point." He sighed. "Anyway... they aren't my journals," he said, somewhat grudgingly. "So I have no say in what you do with them. But... and I speak from experience here... maybe it isn't wise to trust the uninitiated with the unknown magical knowledge contained therein?" He was trying -- really trying -- to keep the bitter jealousy out of his voice, to disguise how uncomfortable he was with the idea that someone else might read Al-Kazar's words before he could. He almost succeeded. The former stage magician shook his head and blew air from his mouth. "I can... research a spell. Something to translate his writing. It needs to be exact, you know. Imagine what could happen if this Levinsky person mistranslated something and we tried one of your grandfather's spells. What if it backfired? Our translation has to be perfect and there's nothing more perfect than magic. It... I've never done something like this before, I admit that, but it shouldn't take me more than a few days to figure out."

The shotgun went off and Samuel Steiner, who had been having one of the strangest dreams of his life before moving on into merciful blankness shot out of bed, his eyes wide and his head pounding. At first he thought that he couldn't possibly have heard what he'd thought, but further gunshots put that disbelief to rest. He was out of bed in an instant, looking this way and that, thinking. Calm down, he told himself. This isn't your first raid; you've been through all of this before. Remember Oregon, and the dealer that wasn't a dealer? He spoke a word then, so softly that it was inaudible to anyone but himself, and his pajamas changed from a brilliant set of crimson silk to his now expected suit-come-costume. The fabric rippled as it shifted shape and color. The last thing to appear was his mask, which formed over his eyes and caused them to glow with an eerie silver light. The dreams were already fading, but he could remember enough of them to suspect that they might have something to do with what was going on and, regardless, the pounding in his head made him mad enough to spit fire -- which might actually happen, depending on how things go. He snapped his fingers and his wand, tucked as it was inside of a dimensional pocket that he'd sewn into the right sleeve of his tailcoat, appeared in his hand. He turned, stepped out of the way, and levitated his dresser up over his head and then out the door and into the main room. He upended it in front of the main entrance, spilling the drawers -- not the mention the clothes inside -- onto the floor before he dumped the remains as well, creating an obstacle for anyone who attempted to enter. With that done, and not a moment too soon, he ducked back into his room and peered out, wand at the ready, as the door burst in and some thing stood mad and panting in the remains of the frame.