Thevshi

Amara looked over toward Liora as the Tetragenian spoke up. "No a very likely occurrence Liora." The young Naram said with a smile as she turned away from the statute of her brother and moved over closer toward her teammate. "Although it has been a few years since the Curator revived us to face the Communion again, things have been so busy that the events before we were placed in suspended animation still seem so fresh in my mind. Sometimes I find myself thinking that I will go into the command center and see Darr and some of the other Imperators there, overseeing everything like always."

GM Quill pulled up the first of Solak's log entries that followed closely after he had inadvertently been pulled into the Quantum Dark Zone. The image of Solak appeared on the screen and began to speak. "It was only a few microcycles ago that the Terran, Quentin Quill was lost into the event horizon of the Quantum Dark Zone we have determined is the cause of the locational shift of the Ardor Belt. Immediately after the emissions from the singularity spiked dangerously, but have since dropped to higher but not hazardous levels. We do not know if Quill can survive being pulled into the Quantum Dark Zone, but are closely monitoring the situation and trying to determine if there is anything we can do to try to free him from it." The next several logs from Solak continued to discuss that they were still monitoring for any sign of Quill, eventually noting that emissions had dropped too much lower levels and it appeared that the asteroid belt had stabilized. The Lor scientists apparently had tried a number of different things to try to cause some sort of disruption with the Quantum Dark Zone in the hopes of possible freeing Quill, but nothing appeared to work, at least from their perspective. The last log entry was time marked 1312.4. "There still has been no sign that the Terran Quentin Quill survived being pulled into the Quantum Dark Zone. All options we have been able to come up with to date have failed to cause any noticeable change with the singularity. The Ardor Belt has stabilized and we have been recalled to Lor-Van." Solak replied. "There is so much we do not know about the Quantum Dark Zone, nor Quill’s considerable abilities. There is a remote possibility that he might still be alive within the singularity and may possibly even find his way out at some point." "With this in mind I have arranged to leave some rations on the station and keep it running in low power mode so that if he is alive and does manage to free himself he can have a place to recover. Quill, if you are seeing this, we are so sorry we were unable to help. Chief Scientist Solak, signing off."

GM The two figures seemed unmoved by Zhu's attempt to dismiss them, and started to move down the isles. Behind Zhu, Lawrence reached up with both hands, each grabbing the hand of one of the teenage girls. At his touch, both Zhu and Lexa felt the world around them seem to shift. Everything seemed to slow down ever so slightly, or perhaps they sped up. It was difficult to quantify exactly, but something had certainly changed. "We should get out of here." Lawrence stated as he released the two girls' hands.

No worries. You each get a hero point. So, Round One 27 Lawrence (unharmed) 19 Not!Megan (unharmed) 15 Not!Robert (unharmed) 13 Rev (unharmed, 4 HP) 6 SFX (unharmed, 2 HP) Lawrence will grant Rev and SFX: Improved Initiative 2 (+8); Speed 4 and Quickness 4. This changes Rev's initiative to 21 and SFX’s to 14, so Rev is up next!

GM Chief Auramada studied Starshot for a moment, a long tense quiet seeming to hang over everything. Finally he spoke again. "Demons from sky attack Kurabanda, kill or capture our peoples, take them to high rocks to dig underground. Demons have camp at edge of Kurabanda forests, raid from there. Starshot and others drive them away? Help free Kurabanda?" "If Starshot intend to help, Kurabanda can guide to Demon camp." The chief leaned forward slightly, his gaze intensifying as he studied Starshot. All around the crowd was hushed, waiting to see what would happen.

Probably initiative time!

GM "If it was a power problem the television and lights should be off as well." Lawrence commented as he walked back over to where Zhu and Lex were. Zhu's botnet began fanning out, not finding anything they could identify as an issue within the house. Power was still on in other parts of the house, there just seemed to be no outside signals to anything. Then suddenly there were two figures up near the exits of the room, one standing in each of the isles along the outside of the seats in the home theater. It was Megan and Robert, or at least at first glance it looked just like them. Only, there seemed something off about them, like they were slightly off hue in color. Zhu could not understand where they had come from, they had not been anywhere in the hall leading up to the room when her botnet had spread out. "Lawrence dear you need to come with us." Said the figure that looked like Megan, but her voice was devoid of the warmth the girls had heard from the woman that had met them at the door. "You're not my mother." Lawrence responded, though there was a bit of fear in his voice.

GM Scanning the station, it was just as Quill had suspected it was deserted except for himself. Looking through the sensor readings, the most recent were time marked from the time he had last left the station though the same time mark as the last main station log. Looking through those sensor readings, he saw that the Quantum Dark Zone had begun emitting increased radiation and other emissions for about the first day or two after he had entered it. Then it began to die down. Finally after about two weeks, it had gone largely dormant, and the drift it had been causing to the asteroid belt had been halted. The remaining readings had held steady at those levels and continued to show the belt was stable once more. As he looked through the laboratory logs, he found video log entries by Chief Scientist Solak, the head of the Lor expedition. Again the last such entry had the same time mark as the other final log entries in the system.

GM Lawrence blushed slightly at Zhu's comment about asking to marry him. He instead focused on Lexa's question about street racing games. "Umm, yeah, I have a couple. But they are the ones without any violence, as my mom does not like those." Lawrence then turned on the screen and fired up one of the game systems and brought the controllers over to where the three were sitting. Soon they were racing various types of cars down the streets of Monte Carlo, Freedom City and other places around the world. Over an hour later, Zhu and Lexa were in a very tight race down the streets of Singapore when suddenly the screen went blue with the words "No Signal" across the center. "Huh." Lawrence commented as he went over to check the game box. It was then that Zhu realized her phone was not getting any signal either.

GM The two Praetorians entered Specta's portal, emerging instantly outside the Tower of the Sacred Assembly of the Prophets at the far end of the Main Plaza. The tower was a tall thin spire, reminding Queenie of what one would expect a wizard tower to look like, except gleaming and metal, instead of stone. At the moment everything appeared to be quite, perhaps too quiet. Like many of the Praetorians that were permanently on CoVic Station (when not out on missions), Spectra had spent a bit of time learning their way of the station and the location of important places. Every time Spectra had been by the tower in the past, there had been at least one of the Assembly's private security forces on duty outside the main gate. Currently there was no one visible.

"If you and your roommate have a relationship like the one I have with Thaelia, I am sure each of you will have a positive influence on the other." Giang replied as they reached the coffee shop. "Not an uncommon result, but not a guaranteed one either." As they entered, the Asian young woman took a brief moment to take in her surroundings. The shop was generally similar to numerous others in the city and across the country. Soon the pair were up at the counter to order. "Just a chai tea, thank you." Once the two had their drinks and had taken a seat, Giang took a sip of her tea and looked over at Zhu. "So, other than school and related issues, how have you adjusted to being in the States? If it is something you might be interested in, there is a large Chinese New Year celebration in the West End's Chinatown. Usually it is uneventful."

GM Soreen and Laark nodded in agreement with Starshot, while Phalen crawled into a corner of the hut. Several hours passed, the Kurabanda bringing some water and roasted meet in carved wooden bowls for the group. Finally, in the latter half of the afternoon, Ermorada returned with several warriors. "You come now." He stared indicating the group. The Kurabanda led Starshot and his crew (plus Phalen) to the largest, open platform in the village. There, several hundred Kurabanda were gathered, divided into two groups along either side of the platform, a wide space between them. There were both male and female Kuarabanda in the group, many of each being warriors, as well as younger ones. At the opposite end of the platform was a large chair in the center of the open space created by the two groups. Seated in it was an obviously old Kurabanda. He wore a resplendent headdress made of hundreds of colored feathers and his chest was covered with at least a dozen amulets, pendants and other pieces of jewelry. His chair had numerous wooden idols carved on the side and at the top. Ermorda led Starshot and his crew toward the center of the open space, pointing to where they should stop. "Chief Auramada, these strangers from far sky!" Ermorda said in his broken Gal Standard, before apparently repeating the statement in the Kurabanda’s native tongue. He then moved over to stand to one side of the chief. The chief looked out at Starshot and his companions for a moment, the spoke in broken Gal Standard as well, "How you come here? What you want? Why you fight demons from far sky?"

GM The trio finished their dinner, with plenty of leftovers that were placed in the refrigerator and then Lawrence began a small tour of the ground floor of the house for Zhu and Lexa. There was the formal dining room, sitting rooms and living rooms, all elegantly furnished. Of course there were also restrooms, pantries and other storage rooms. Next to a living room was his father’s study, which was about what one would expect from an Englishman who dabbled in academia, bookcase covered walls, two large leather chairs, a antique globe in one corner and a table with a computer. Toward the back of the house on one wing was a room his mother had converted into a dance studio, wood floors, mirrors on the walls and a sound system. Then he led them downstairs, to a good sized home theater, with a large screen on one wall. "So, with this we can get TV or movies." He said. "Or it is hooked to several game systems."

GM Quill found the galley of the station to be partially cleaned out, but the Earl Grey was still there, as were some other rations. The cleaning out of much of the supplies had been done in an orderly fashion, not as if someone had ransacked the place. After he had heated up some of the tea and one of the ration packs, Quill sat down at one of the tables with a computer interface and pulled up the station system. By this point the main system had rebooted, and Quill was able to get into the main station log. He quickly noted that there were entries around the Lor time mark that he recalled as when he had last gone to investigate the Quantum Dark Zone, but then there were several dozen other entries afterward, covering time marks equaling at least a month on Earth.

GM Thankfully the Lor made durable technology. So taking his time, Quill was soon able to get the reactor powering back up to full capacity. More of the lighting in the reactor room activated as the more power became available. Once the available power levels increased sufficiently, Quill was able to restart key systems, starting with life support and artificial gravity. All told it took about thirty minutes for him to get enough systems operating on the station for him to be comfortable and to try to access the data that might give him answers to what had might have happened to lead to the station being deserted.

GM "That does not sound like fun." Lawrence said as Zhu described the fate of her luggage and clothes, although he did not quite seem to get what she had meant by pulverized silicon. He smiled at Zhu and Lexa's further comments and interaction. "Yeah, that is often what my mom says." He said in response to Lexa's comments about being sure to take time to play in addition to homework. "My dad somewhat as well, but mainly my mom." The ten year old then went back to eating his pizza, appearing to be much more at ease.

GM From the outside of the small station, there was no sign of damage that one might expect from any sort of attack. When he appeared inside the main airlock, Quill found that it was as orderly as it had been when he had departed. A faint glow emanated from one of the control panels, and while there seemed to be little in the way of atmosphere at the moment, there at least appeared to be a some level of heating still taking place, as the controls and surfaces were still free of any freeze that might have occurred if conditions had been allowed to return to those like the void outside. Flying through the station, it was eerily empty. There were still no signs of any violence, no bodies. When he finally reached the reactor, he found the main terminal still fully operational, the controls reveling that the station had been powered down to bare essentials only.

GM Quill's transmission was met with silence. As he floated there in the void, his senses starting to return to normal after the….nothing of the Quantum Dark Zone. Now that he was closer to the laboratory and able to study it, he realized it looked very different than when he had ventured out on this latest foray. While he could still sense the reactor of the station operating, it was at a very low level. The rest of the station seemed almost to be completely shut down, only the barest minimum of systems operating. From the exterior, the station looked dark and cold. But it was possible that the systems could be restarted and it might hold some answers.

Okay Vorik, a few things, I will start with crunch: Combat: Need to correct Defense to +12. Also you have mispriced the cost of your base combat abilities, you should be spending 24 pp, not 12 (which is fine as without that you are only spending 138 pp). Grapple would actually be +13. Knockback would be -4/-2 flat footed. Skills: I only count 71 points of skills, not 72. Also, why does he speak English? Nothing in his background suggests that would be anything he ever needed to learn. Feats: Please move the Equipment feat up to where it needs to be alphabetically. For the equipment itself, you likely do not need to purchase most of that. The commlinks are no longer compliant with our equipment communications house rules. Also, what does he need the rebreather for? Powers: So, Super Senses: Magic Awareness (which includes Detect Magic) is at a minimum 3 PP, so you need to come up with some more points here. Also need to indicate what sense type it is (visual, mental, etc). So fluff stuff: Kind of needs more on what he is. Is he another human related alien race seeded by the Preservers? Also need more info on House Gernald. Who are they exactly? Are they the ruling family of some cluster of systems? Is it a Trade Guild from somewhere that controls certain systems? Need at least a little to suggest where they are and what control/influence they have. As for the hook to the Praetorians, I think we need to develop that more. The Praetorians are not really reaching out like that, if they were to encounter someone on a mission they might offer that person membership if it seemed the individual might be interested. Given all the circumstances, even hearing about Binder, they might see his homeworld needing him more than they might. On the flip side, why would Binder want to leave his homeworld to focus on more of the galaxy? One other thing on the fluff, why the secret ID? Not as normal in space as it is on Earth.

Ardor asteroid belt just a few light years inside Lor Space Along the inner edge of the Perseus Arm Lor time mark 1801.4 [February 6, 2018 (Terran Calendar)] The Ardor asteroid belt lay beyond any of the systems with Lor Republic, but still within the borders claimed by the Republic. It was a collection of various sized asteroids that stretched nearly half a light year, but was well enough out of the way of any systems that it did not normally interfere with regular trade lanes. But several cycles ago, some unknown force had begun shifting the belts location, threatening to move it to where it would be a hazard to regular space traffic. As such, a Lor science team had been deployed to the asteroid belt to investigate and see what might possibly be done to halt the process. The team had included an unusual consultant, Quentin Quill of Earth, also known as Supercape. Working with the Lor scientists, Quill had identified an usual singularity that was causing the asteroid belt’s migration, a Quantum Dark Zone within one edge of the belt. During one of Quill's trips into the void to investigate the singularity, he had inadvertently been pulled into it, finding himself trapped within it. Unbeknownst to him, that was a little over three Earth years ago.

Except that you are using weapons that are incorporated into the big, giant vehicle. The old D6 Star Wars rules had some pretty good rules about weapon scaling, like if a Star Destroyer tried to fire its main weapon batteries (designed to take out other capital ships) at an X-Wing, it would take a really good gunner or some luck to hit the X-Wing, but the Star Destroyer also had lost of smaller, starfighter scale guns to act as point defense and had normal chances to hit starfighers (and while those guns could hit other capital ships, they likely would do little in the way of damage). There are a lot of things that are sort of clunky about the vehicles rules in M&M, and mostly they are not a problem for most superhero settings, but tend to come up more in space.

GM "No, I cannot do that." Lawrence replied when Lexa talked about going back and changing something that went wrong. "Right now I cannot control over more than a small area, not much larger than that bit of juice. But even then, my dad has talked to me from as early as I can remember about the problems with trying to change time. He has an advanced degree from Cambridge in theoretical physics. They call it the Many Worlds Hypothesis. He explained it to me like this, say you were walking down a path and came to point where it split into two paths and you choose the one to the right. Even if you went back in time and made yourself chose the path to the left, all you do is create a new timeline where that different path is taken. The timeline where you took the path to the right is still there, continuing on unchanged." He then glanced over at Zhu as she asked her questions. "Well, I don't exactly create a bubble around myself, but I am able to do things like homework a lot faster than normal. And…yeah, my parents know about my powers, that is why the put me in the Nicholson School and eventually I will go to Claremont."

Kestevan 79 Coalition Victory Station (February 2018 (Terran Calendar)) It was a typical day for most on CoVic Station, with millions of sentient beings going about their daily routines as normal. But within the headquarters of the Praetorians located on the Main Plaza, it was something of an unusual day, as a majority of the teams members were all present at the same time. Amara Val-Ren walked into one of the side chambers off the main hall of the Praetorian headquarters. The Naram was, as normal, dressed in the costume she wore as Paradigm, a full length white bodysuit with black diamond patterns on the shoulders and the upper chest and back. Each of these patterns had a golden yellow trim. Black gloved covered each hand, going up almost the full length of each forearm, while her black boots similarly went halfway up her calves. Both had similar golden yellow trim. As she walked further into her room, her long black cape trailed slightly behind her. The room was dimly lit and was not regularly frequented. To either side of the room were several rows of holograms representing dozens of costumed beings from nearly as many worlds. As she slowly walked forward, Amara’s gaze drifted over numerous figures displayed. Among them was Raark, the feline F'terrix who had overseen her first missions as a Praetorian along with several of the others than had joined when she had. There was also Chrystaa, a powerful mentalist who had been one of the more senior members, and so many of her other comrades and friends who had fallen over two thousand years ago against the Communion. On the far end of the room, opposite the entrance, were about a dozen stone life sized statues of fallen Praetorians. These had been the memorials Kharag had managed to find time to finish before he had chosen to leave the team to seek out his people. Toward the center of this group was a statue of a male humanoid that resembled Amara. Kharag had captured Daar Val-Ren's powerful physique, the patterns of his costume, identical to Amara’s (though the colors had been different). Kharag had even managed to capture the confident look that was regularly on the older Naram’s face. "I miss you brother." Amara said as she looked up at the carved replica of her brother's face. "I miss all of you." She added, glancing a moment at some of the other statutes and holograms before looking back up at the statute before her.

GM "Well…." Lawrence seemed very hesitant about whether he should say anything more, but after a few moments his reached over to pick up his glass of juice from the table. Turning to hold it out over the floor where Zhu and Lexa could see it, he focused on the glass a moment, then turned it over and dumped out the juice. Just as he did, he opened his right hand and the juice froze in midair like a waterfall suspended in motion. "I can see the flow of time, and in a limited area control it." He turned his right hand slowly toward the right, and the waterfall of juice slowly continued its fall toward the floor before stopping once more. Lawrence then turned his hand to the left, and the juice flowed back upward as if being rewound. Lawrence then held the empty glass beneath the stream of juice and closed his right hand. The juice began falling at normal speed once more and spilling into the glass.

GM "They could just want to cook us and having us walk here rather than kill us and haul our bodies is a lot easier." Laark added as his own bit of black humor. "Comforting thoughts." Soreen replied to pairs' comments about the potential perils they might be entering. But she did her best to remain calm and trust that things were going to work out. Phalen continued to seem to want to crawl into a hole and vanish, but Laark continued to half drag him up the stairs as they began the long climb up. The climb was a long one, but the width of the tree trunk at least made the winding path feel at least a little bit less dizzying. When they finally reached the top they found large platforms built over several nearby branches, with huts and other structures of various sizes on them. Dozens of Kurabanda were going about their daily tasks, but stopped to look at the strangers as they were lead past. Ermorada and several Kurabanda warriors led Starshot and his crew across several platforms and then a short rope bridge to another tree. There they were led to a small hut situated on a smaller side platform. "Wait here for when chief ready to see." Ermorada stated, pointing into the hut.