Thevshi

Timeout Lawrence listened to the interaction between Spaceman, Gamma and the girl as he examined the device the girl and dropped and booted it up. The information that appeared on the screen did little to relax any fears, indeed there seemed to be a lot to be concerned about. "Yeah, this does seem to be control device for other technology." He replied before focusing his blue eyes back on the young girl. "There are others being held by the 'doctor?' How many others, are they all around your age? Does the doctor have any others working with him besides Thesaurus?" The blond teen asked with a rather calm and matter of fact demeanor that his British accent only seemed to bolster.

@Huckleberry @The Sailor Thanks for the IC posts! As mine indicates, this next stage is partially through Kingston and then partially across the bridge. Given the short span, there does not appear to be any way for Mizuki to go into the water Sailor. The Omegadrones are staying on everyone for the moment. Time for rolls and actions.

Timeout Keeping an eye on the approaching Omegadrones, Lawrence began swerving his racer erratically as he continued along the course, even as Mizuki gave her warning about evasive maneuvers. It slowed him down some, but he was still well head of the others and the Koopas, and continuing to get closer to Quirk and that girl that was with him. Of course the Omegadrones were still able to close with him, both firing energy blasts from their power pikes. The first went well wide of the teen, as Lawrence had at the last minute veered to one side, throwing off the Omegadrones aim. However the second timed its shot better, and the energy blast streaked towards Larwrence, only for a time distortion to suddenly move Lawrence back to where he had initially been, causing the attack to miss at the last moment. "Hang in there Consuelo, we are almost through Kingston and to the Lindroos Bridge to the City Center. Hopefully the Omegadrones won't follow us there." Lawrence replied. Up ahead, Consuelo and Mizuki could see the course continue through the ruins of Kingston, before crossing over the indicated bridge and into the City Center downtown. For the moment at least, the Omegadrones seemed intent on pursing all the racers…

Timeout Lawrence gave a small smirk at Baz's bravado as he, as was often the case, quickly talked himself into something of a corner. The blond teen was generally aware of Stronghold, there were plenty of homes near his parents' in North Bay that used them, and he was aware of several corporate interests around the city that used them as well. "Stronghold is a pretty high-end security company, specializing in corporate clients as well as particularly wealthy residential clients." He said simply as he slowed the boat's motor down as they drew close to the pier. "So, do we want to dock and check things out?" He asked his two classmates as they drew closer to the pier.

GM Administrator R'arth did seem somewhat unhappy by both Archeville's clear scientific interest in the Sarcota and Starshot's somewhat laid-back approach to the job. But the Lor mostly kept that to himself as he responded, "yes, the Star Navy would not be ideal, both in terms of the collateral damage, but also not wanting to unnecessarily harm the Sarcota." He replied. "Currently the losses we are experiencing are substantially lower than such a scenario. But they are increasing each rotation, so we would appreciate as much haste as possible." Scientist K'tr'kt did not seem quite as bothered by the possible timeline. The insectoid was focused on Archeville. "Interesting Doktor." Xe replied. "I do not *tik* believe there should be anything *tik* associated with the solar collector arrays that *tik* could be mistaken for a special anomaly. But *tik* who can truly say how creatures such *tik* as the Sarcota may gather sensory information. I can *tik* look through more of our sensor logs and *tik* diagnostics to see if there is anything *tik* that may be along the lines of what you suggest and *tik* provide you anything I *tik* find." "Well," interjected the administrator, "I imagine you two have enough to start with. We of course will provide any additional information that we can, so please reach out to us. You are about halfway through the current night cycle on this side of Ferrum, so expect you may not want to waste it."

Multi-Girl Bernadette and her duplicate had been backed up together as the mind-controlled horde crowded into the warehouse. As things began to unfold, the redhead felt a bit of panic grip her, feeling WAY in over her head, until she heard Charlie's voice over all the chaos, giving out orders and encouragement. Somehow, hearing Charlie’s confidence helped the Irish teen overcome the feelings of panic as she steadied herself for what was likely to be the fight of her young life. That encouragement was just in time as the horde of mind-controlled minions swarmed in after the teen and her duplicate (as well as the others between the horde and Conqueror Worm). Somehow the two redheads were both able to weather the storm of the mind-controlled horde. getting pushed back some, but somehow also managing to avoid getting completely overrun by them. As Ghule stepped forward and took care of some of the horde, it gave Bernadette a bit of space to catch her bearings. "Right, crowd control." She stated, before starting forward towards the horde in front of Ghule. And as before, there were suddenly more than a dozen redheaded teens, crashing into the horde, punching and kicking as they went. In a few moments, they had cleared more space around the Guardians, at least for the moment, as there were still a seemingly endless number of puppets still appearing.

Multi-Girl Bernadette had just finished putting on her puffy winter jacket as she made her way outside to where Charlie was waiting. Looking around once again as she went, the Irish teen responded, "I mean, what can I say, its amazin,' I look forward ta gettin' ta see more than I already have." She gave him a sly smile as she came to stand next to him outside as they waited for the others to start to arrive. "I will admit, me curiosity is killin' me. Though, I might be a wee bit disappointed if this turns out ta just be ya gettin' us all together fer the weekend ta party at the home o' some family that is out o' the country or some such. Would be fun an' all, but seems a bit beneath ya."

Okay, Multi-Girl easily makes the reflex check this time with a 31, same with the toughness save with a 28. Her duplicate misses the reflex check with a 14 but makes the toughness save with a 25. So, Multi-Girl will again unleash her horde of duplicates area attack, she will shift -2 from atk to add +2 damage. She only gets a 19 on the attack roll If that is a miss, she will use her HP to reroll getting a 28 (due to the +10 for rereoll). That is a DC 29 toughness save to a large number of the horde. The duplicate will also make an attack, totally missing with a 10.

Veronica Danger Rex took the opportunity provided by Davyd to take a step back from his sister and Lulu, but the teen stayed focused on Davyd as he addressed each of them in turn, twisting his torso as he did so in a most unnatural way. Of course, the young Danger was not overly surprised by this, he had known his sister had attended Claremont, and generally knew many of her friends from there had amazing powers. The monks had been silently watching the exchange, but clearly became surprised by Davyd's inadvertent display of his powers and several began talking to each other in low voices, using some language that none of those gathered recognized. "No, your right Davyd, I am sure Rex can explain what distracted him the past couple of days, and as far as a Danger family unintended dimensional trip goes, so far this is certainly one of the least dangerous ones." Veronica stated with a small smile as Davyd seemed to realize what he had unintentionally done. Rex relaxed as both Lulu and his sister seemed to clam down. "Yeah, I have not really been able to communicate with them so far. They mainly speak some language I do not recognize. Some seem to speak a bit of Mandrin, but not enough that I can really get much across to them with Cantonese." The teenage Danger stated as he turned back towards the monks, who had gone quite once more after the initial surprise at Davyd’s unnatural contortion. "So, this, I think, is Zong, Quan and Tsang." He indicated three of the monks, who all gave a small bow. "But, as for losing track of time…I mean just beyond the peaceful tranquility of this place, I quickly came across Zong and some of the others training." He looked over to his sister. "Ronnie knows I have studied martial arts here and there as we have traveled with our parents, but I have never really seen what I have seen some of them do. I have been trying to convince them to allow me to train here, but been difficult as we cannot really understand each other."

Multi-Girl Once Jotunn caught up with them, Bernadette and her duplicate dropped down onto the other side of the inner wall and led the way over to where Neko, Owain and Rosalinda were gathered. "Well, wasn' tha stealthiest, but we got through" Bernadette said with a small grin as her duplicate looked down the shadowy path that led into the woods from where the teens stood. "So…do we take tha obvious path, or wonder inta the woods an' try ta find our way?" The duplicate asked the others.

Multi-Girl Bernadette's duplicate managed to roll clear of most of the dark energy wave Ruin launched at her and the lab employee. While she still caught some slight effects from the attack, they mainly cause a slight stinging and cause a bit of shredding to the duplicate's clothes. Looking over to see the green skinned employee hurt by the attack, the redhead duplicate rushed over and helped her to her feet and guided her out into the hallway and out of Ruin’s field of vision. "Ya need ta get clear an' get the authorities here, likely some o' the Freedom League." The duplicate stated to the woman once she appeared steady on her feet once more. Meanwhile, in the lab, the original Bernadette looked over to Ruin. "Alright, enough humorin’ ya, ye clearly are a sociopath." The Irish teen stated as she rushed forward, delivering a solid right hook to the purple-haired teen, who seemed completely unfazed by the attack. Oh bugger, this may be more difficult than I thought. The redhead thought with a frown.

Cool Cape, for current HP tracking: Starshot (unharmed) 0 HP (Xeno currently equipped with a Laboratory and Library features) Doktor Archeville (unharmed) 6 HP (will see about setting up a way for Starshot to get one or two back down the road )

Well, the general philosophy here is that the PCs should typically have a reasonable chance of defeating the villain(s), but that does not necessarily mean only by punching them out. A lot of us also look at things through a lens of "what is good for the story." There are a number of tools that a GM has beyond how they design their opponents. Some here very much let the dice fall where they may when it comes to rolls. I often lean towards being rather generous with using GM fiat for rerolls for key bad guys (or just allowing the main bad guy to stay in a fight longer) if it serves the story by avoiding them being KO'd by a bad toughness save. (of course, this means handing out HP to the PC making the attack). It can sometimes be a close question as to when you have kept a fight going a dramatically appropriate length of time or instead made it drag on unnecessarily long. As I indicated, this is your story, so go with what works best for that story. In addition to being PL 9, Bernadette is very much a damage shifted powerhouse still, which was the idea with her initially as being pretty powerful, but not very good at fighting/control. For a host of reasons I have not done a good job of shifting that over the last few years. Probably within the next month or so, I will giving her a PL 10 upgrade (as a Senior at Claremont) and shifting her towards being more balanced.

Totally did this to myself. Sorry it took so long to come up with ideas for this: First research on the Sarcota: Information is somewhat sparse, which is primarily due to their being primarily the subject of legend until relatively recently. The Lor have identified various accounts of them from other spacefaring civilizations going back centuries (in some cases from before the Republic), but they primarily seemed to be viewed as akin to a mariner’s tall tale. A Lor deep space science survey confirmed their existence during a survey of systems towards the galactic core over 50 years ago. However, plans for follow up expeditions to study them in more detail (among other things) were sidelined by Star Khan and Stellar Khanate’s attempt to conquer the Republic. Even once the Khanate was turned back, the Republic was often focused on other things and plans to study the Sarcota were basically forgotten. This changed just under nine years ago. Following the end of the Incursion, Sarcota began to be spotted in remote systems throughout Lor and Coalition space. While it appears the Sarcota are able to achieve limited FTL speeds, they still appear far too slow to make long distance interstellar travel feasible, though travel between nearby star systems would be possible. There are theories that perhaps they have a means of locating paths through interstellar space that allow them to travel faster than normal. There are also theories that they have a natural means of identifying naturally occurring wormholes and other special anomalies that would allow them to travel vast distances much quicker. This last theory is currently the most popular one, as it has become very clear that the Sarcota have been using the wormhole network created by the Communion, which is likely how they have been able to spread from the galactic core into Lor and Coalition space in a relatively short time. There have been some efforts to study them since their appearance in Lor space (but still not in depth). From what the scientists that have studied them can determine, they appear to sustain themselves on some process very similar to photosynthesis, although it is unclear if they require similar conditions/elements as plants or what byproducts there are from the process. The Sarcota have generally been solitary, perhaps as many as a dozen in a star system, but spread throughout large asteroid belts and the like. There is no clear information on how frequently they mate, or where they gather to do so. It is possible that they have not had a mating period since moving into Lor/Coalition space, or they could travel back towards the core through the wormhole network and it has just not been noticed. As for the data from the collectors and orbital cities, it is very basic in nature. It is primarily data that allows for tacking the arrival and movements of the Sarcota on the planet (although there are large gaps in the data where no collectors or city was close enough to gather any data). From that is available, Dok can see that as indicated, they began arriving on the planet about ten days ago (the last seeming to arrive about six days ago). Since arriving, they have only been gathering around the one particular mountain range, so far they have not ventured too far from it, but as they can be skittish, it likely would not take much to panic one and then it go off erratically, which could lead to lots of damage to the collection apparatus (at the very least).

There is nothing technically preventing that, I have built a similar villain, but I did not feel quite right applying full impervious for the damage she was partially immune to, and kept it at a level where after being reduced in half, a standard equal PL opponent (without any damage shifting), would still be able to hurt her, just the toughness save would be much lower. But that was my call for my thread, your the GM in this one, so up to you. I would note, that Bernadette is equally able to do lethal damage with her attacks, not that she would automatically think to do so (or want to risk doing so).

Yeah, that would be a bruise.

These omegadrones have some ranks of penetrating on their attacks, so will over come that level of impervious.

Reminder of current HPs: Timeout 3 HP Magic 8 Ball 3 HP Rot 1 HP Torpedo Lass 2 3 HP There are currently only two Koopas up near Rot and TL2, though one is a bit behind after being dazed by Rot last stage. RK1 will try to ram into TL2 to prevent her from getting a power up, failing horribly with a 9 on the reflex/drive check, so passes harmlessly behind TL2 who speeds ahead and falls behind. TL2 gets a power up (which is a Star, making her Invulnerable to attacks (including ramming) for this stage and the next!) RK2 will try to catch up, getting a 28! so is right back up there with Rot, but is not attacking this round, as it focused just on driving. Lawrence will take the Dodge action as he drives (bosting his defense by +4 for the stage), and gets a 29 for his Reflex/Drive check, meaning he pulls a bit further ahead and closer to Quirk! And then the Omegadrones descend: Two attack Lawrence: getting 15 and 25 on their attack rolls with energy blasts from their power pikes, which means the second will hit, but miss chance: 18, so Lawrence's time distortion works again and the attack misses. One attacks Rot: flying down to try to stab her with the power pike: 22 which hits, a DC 22 toughness save for Rot! @Huckleberry One attacks TL2, shooting an energy blast at her: missing with a 7 One each attacks the two Koopas: 20 and 14, so the first hits RK1, which gets a 9 on its toughness save, which will put it out of the race! So summary: @The Sailor TL2 just pulled ahead of one of the Koopas that tried to ram her, getting the power up and becoming invincible for this stage and the next. (the Koopa that tried to ram her then had an omegadrone swoop down on it and skewer it with a power pike and take it out of the race). Another omegadrone shot an energy blast at TL2, but missed. Rot missed with her attack and the last remaining Koopa caught back up with her and TL2. An omegadrone flew down and stabbed Rot with its Power Pike (see above for the toughness save neeed). Lawrence pulled further ahead, with two drones shooting energy blasts at him, one seemed about to hit before another time distortion moved Lawrence out of the way at the last moment.

Timeout Lawrence put the engine in idle Mizuki swam over with the man and went over to help pull the man aboard, moving him to a seat opposite where Mizuki was before going back to help her and Baz back aboard as well. With Mizuki already working on getting the security guard warm again, the blond teen went back behind the wheel and throttled the engine back into action, slowly starting toward the pier to the amusement park as he looked toward the park that seemed to have come to life, looking for any signs of movement or activity.

GM Ambassador Malor gave a smile as Rex-01 suggested the engine core, a request quickly supported by the Praetorians. "Of course Science Officer, Praetors, right this way." He gestured towards the exit from the hanger, before he and the Justicar led the way out into the hallway of the vessel. As the group made their way towards the engine room, they passed a few members of the ship’s crew, going about some task or another. As suggested by Traveller, the stopped along the way to allow the inspection of a bank of rear facing turrets. As had been indicated on Rex-01's sensor sweeps, they were currently powered down. They were also currently unmanned. Soon enough, they arrived at the engine room, making their way into the large chamber which housed the engine core. This section of the ship was far more active than the hanger had been, with a little over half a dozen crew members moving about the room, checking various readings and other routine tasks. Although it seemed quite active, to Rex-01 and Traveller, it was not particularly unusual, nor a sign that the ship was using excessive amounts of power. As they entered, Justicar Vor'an stood off to one side, while Ambassador Malor turned back to face the inspection team while gesturing to the room around them. "Please, feel free to examine whatever you wish." He then also stood off to one side to be out of the way of the Praetorians and Lor.

@Fox @Gizmo For when we need to make rolls and such

@trollthumper @RocketLord The OOC for when we need to make rolls and such.

Okay, Mutli-Girl is going to try punch Ruin, getting a 21 on her attack roll, which I believe hits? If so, that is a DC 28 toughness save. The duplicate will spend her turn helping Carnelia get back out into the hallway and out of sight of Ruin. (she should be strong enough to help the only dazed Carnelia get back on her feet and going).

Yeah, that makes sense. (collateral damage is not always considered as much as it should be )

Sri Kath’lana "Of course J'onn, that is what the Star Knights are for." Kath'lana responded to J'onn's thanks from where she was standing off to one side of the bridge. The F'terrix Star Knight was in her green tinted armor, though she currently had her helmet retracted. While generally rather serious and matter-of-fact in general, the young Stark Knight seemed a bit more formal and serious than J’onn had seen during his prior experience working with her. This of course had much to do with the presence of Kyle Steward. Not only had he been among her instructors at Citadel prior to Kath’lana assuming the rank of Star Knight, he was also one of the more accomplished members of the Order within the last decacycle. One of the few survivors of the Battle of Lor-Van, he had played a major role during the Incursion. Following that, he had served as the Order’s representative to the Praetorians, serving alongside that storied group in numerous other missions. It would not be an understatement to say he was one of the primary role models for the F'terrix. When J'onn mentioned the limitations of the Star Lance's sensors, Kath'lana gave a small smile. "Then we will just have to get in close and make visual confirmation."