Heritage

January 13, 2010, 6:55 PM Det. Morena Colby's Office, 13th Precinct The office didn't have much in the way of furniture, just two desks facing each other with matching chairs, a few file cabinets and a coffee maker. The window faced the alley and the grimy brick wall of the Italian restaurant next door. One side of the room was devoid of character, though dark squares on the walls indicated spots where several framed pictures, now departed, once hung. The other side was as crowded as the former was empty; carved African masks lined the walls, a Zuni fetish doll served as a paperweight, and several strands of cheap Mardi Gras beads were wrapped around the fluorescent desk lamp that provided the only illumination. Morena Colby, the room's only occupant, was without a partner for the first time in five years; at thirty, she was one of the department's youngest investigators, and she'd been paired with Linus Lisowski, easily the oldest, for three of those five. Leaning back in her chair, she stared blankly at the unoccupied desk, with its fresh blotter and cup of sharpened pencils, and it stared right back at her. If it had eyes, it would have seen a beautiful young woman wearing khakis and a light sweater, her police issue .38 revolver snug in its shoulder holster. Her dark sad eyes were heavy with fatigue, and her long brown hair hung straight over the back of her chair. Lisowski, against all odds, had made it to sixty-five, retired, sold his house and moved to Arkansas back in December; he'd sent her a lovely Christmas card, with a picture of him and his wife Carolyn, smiling on the porch of their new home. The card stood open on a corner of her desk, a constant reminder that not every cop's career had to end badly. Even so, the statistics were grim; cops have a higher rate of divorce, suicide and substance abuse than any other job in the U.S. Add to that Colby's own department, the Supernatural Crimes Unit, had one of the highest burnout rates on the force, higher than vice or narcotics. The cases she worked often ended badly, if they were closed at all; human sacrifice, missing organs, spontaneous combustion, blood hexes, each more bizarre and twisted than the last. But Lisowski, bless his soul, had somehow found the humor in it all, and not the smug David Caruso quips so many cops tried to pull off; Old Linus saw the humanity in everybody, even the craziest pimp hopped up on meth and chicken blood. Oh sure, it wouldn't keep him from popping the guy in the mouth if he really asked for it, but somehow it all just seemed to run off his back, like the rain off his old gray slicker. Colby wearily rubbed her eyes as she reached for her coffee mug; with Linus gone, she'd had never felt so alone. Morena Colby, I have need of your services.

Still holding him, Grim sighed deeply. "Well, I'm still kinda mad you...and feelin' mad is better than feelin' hopeless, so...I'm staying mad for a little bit longer." She created a ping-pong paddle and gently bumped him on top of the head a few times. "Bad, bad Colt." After a few seconds, she spoke up again. "I want you to meet my family; not right away, or even all of them necessarily. Hell, I think Uncle Karl is still serving time from when he lifted that Grand Cherokee." She ditched the paddle and relaxed her loving deathgrip a bit, leaning back so she could search Colt's face with her deep brown eyes. "I know it's like every guy's nightmare to meet a girl's family, but I feel like...it's important, y'know? Like I said, not right away or anything, we got plenty of time, but I do want you to meet 'em someday." Grim smiled and rolled her eyes. "Well, maybe not my mom; Mom's kinda terrifying, actually." She gave him a quick kiss, but wanted a bit more, so she followed it up with a nice long one; when she fiinally came up for air, she rested her head against Colt's cheek. "So, d'you want me to call my close personal friend, the guardian of the dimensional veil?" She flips out her cell. "I got her on speed dial."

But the changeling wasn't in a hugging mood, at least not yet; she remained standing, right in front of Colt, and was in fact visibly upset. "Why didn't you say you were trapped here? Does this mean I'll never meet your mom, or see where you came from? I mean, I know that's not the issue right now; dealing with this Angel Eyes guy is a much bigger deal, but dude, this is huge!" Grim resumed pacing, her hands balled in fists of anguish. "Why didn't you tell me sooner? I could have-" She stopped suddenly, her hands dropped to her sides. "I could have done nothing; there's no way-" Then her eyes lit up, like she was struck by lightening, and she leapt into Colt's startled arms. "Wait, there is a way, or at least there might be! Phantom is the guardian of the dimensional veil; it's her job to keep people from jumping back and forth between alternate worlds all willy-nilly. At the very least, we have to tell her about Gillman and his buddies, and maybe then..." And then the wind left her sails once more, her mercurial emotions surging like the tides. "But what if she wants you to leave, and not come back? She was a total hag to me the first time we met, because I spent time in Avalon. Gah!" She buried her face in her hands, the rapid shifting of her own thoughts and emotions catching up with her; at length, she wrapped herself around the man she loved, as if to shield him from extradimensional threats, her chin resting on his shoulder. "Oh God; one way or the other, this is really, really bad news..." :(

The small fae woman frowned. "It's kinda hard to describe, really; I guess it's kinda like...trying to blow a bubble when your outta breath. Actually...here, hold this for a sec." Grim handed Colt her hot dog fork, then took a few steps away from the fire and held her hand out in front of her. "I've never really pushed it before, to see if I could, y'know, do something more impressive. And we're not in a combat situation, so what the hell, right?" She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, which she slowly let out. "Got it." Suddenly there was a massive Chippendale desk, nearly twice as tall as she was, standing at the edge of the campsite; the door panels were carved with barouque woodland scenes, vaguely reminiscent of the Pine Barrens they were currently camping in. When she opened her eyes and looked up at the huge piece of furniture that loomed over her, Grim was clealry delighted. "Oh my God! I made a fourth thing, a big fourth thing! Check this **** out! Ha-ha!" She took a step back, and almost lost her balance. "Hoo boy, that took a little out of me!" She points at it vigorously. "Can you see this? I am the Glamour Master! Or Mistress, whatever!"

Lenya makes a face of mock-horror as she follows the group in the direction of the cafeteria. "It is dog? Even in the darkest times of Soviet Union, schoolchildren got to eat horse." She shakes her head sadly. "Truly it is sad day for the once-great capitalist paradise." Looking to change the subject (and get her head back in the spy game), the faux Russian lass starts digging in her backpack as she askes nonchalantly, "So what is favorite class of everyone? In math, I am not so good, but history is more my favorite." Yeah, as long as no one asks me about Russian history :roll: :?

The changeling shook her head as she turned her dogs over the flames. "Nah, right from the bottle's fine; we've swapped spit before, so that's no big deal, plus then I don't have to send the table away, since I can't maintain more than three glamoured objects at a time...well, not counting my clothes, that is." Grim snuggles up to Colt and sighs deeply. "Mmm, we should probably finish unpacking before we get too wasted on that stuff; I'll take a swig now, though." Taking the bottle from her boyfriend, she raises it too her lips and takes a lady-like sip; the resulting facial contortions are truly a sight to see, several of them quite impossible for mere mortals. "Gyah-hah-hah! Oh Lord have mercy! That is liquid fire, alright!" She hands the bottle back to him and shakes uncontrolably for just a second before regaining her composure.

Grim's ears were actually curving slightly forward as she struggled to hear the various conversations over the din of the crowd, her hands cupped to cut out the extraneous noise; she'd revereted back to her patrol outfit since events had taken a more serious turn. "It sounds like Fulcrum might be...radioactive? But it sounds like she's as confused as we are. Oh God, I hope that's not true!"

Wary of pulling any shennanigans due to her epic failed bluff last hand, Grim sighs and rubs the bridge of her nose, thinking of heading back to her friend Kiki's couch for a long night of blissful sleep. "Check."

Okay, missed the first roll with a 20, will blow an HP for reroll. Reroll get's me a total of 28 - whew!

:shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: 8-)

So I think we can lock this one up, right? Since it's spilt into two new threads.

Fair enough; that might be a solo thread, or we might bring everyone else into it later. We'll see what works better.

Well either we can wrap it up and I can start a new one, or Grim can see Colby as part of this thread; which works best for folks?

I did some editing, Durf; let me know how it looks.

Okay, sure, I can scale those back a bit, and balance the skills a bit; she is an artist with pieces in small galleries who does teach art to others, but a 12 is probably a stretch. The artistic side of her has been a part of the character since before she had any magic abilty; it's one of several ways she uses to combat work stress, and one of the ways she gives back to the community, since police cases often end tragicaly. I will balance out her skills, but I feel Craft (Artistic) is a big part of why I like this charcter.

Here's the final revised sheet for Detective Colby (thanks for your help, Geez!):

For the hell of it, using the same cut as previously (I previosuly packed the deck back into its box, untouched), I dealt out a flop, in this order: 10 of Diamonds, 6 of Clubs and King of Spades. Do we want to use this flop?

Apparently abandoning any attempt at subtlety (in her defense, there aren't any other occupied sites nearby), Grim had fashioned a table where she was prepping dinner, along with two chairs. "Nah, I'm good; glad to hear the e-cig is working out for ya." Ah, those sensitive ears! She reached down into the food supplies and fetched out the previously mentioned bottle of Jack. "Here, if you want to wet your whistle, you can start 'er up." She flipped it end over end toward him, fully confident in his ability to catch it on the fly. Soon she joined him back by the fire, with several slender hot dogs speared on two long cooking forks; offering one to him, the changeling gave him a naughty wink. "You want to...hold your own?" ;)

Still pacing, Grim's quicksilver brain struggled to grasp the enormity of the situation; at one point she stopped, like she was about to say something, but then she just frowned and dropped down onto a stool that thoughfully appeared below her. Seconds later she was up again, stool dissolved into nothingness, holding a little wooden rocketship in one hand, and an unauthorized Colt action figure (complete with Stellar Cycle!) in the other. "So let me get this straight. You're telling me that you crashed through the space/time continuum (or whatever), and landed in our dimension-" And here she brought Little Colt not-so-gently down to the surface of the bed, leaving him in a twisted jumble on the bedspread. "And then these guys came lookin' for you-" She brought the rocket around in lazy circles, closer and closer to Little Colt, until it 'landed' next to him. "And now none of you guys can get back-" Finally she produced a goofy-looking hand puppet, sporting a calico dress and red yarn pigtails. "And your mom's not actually here." 'Momma Colt' shook her head 'no', and covered her wooden face with her tiny hands. "Is that about it, honey? 'Cause that's a lot for this girl to take in." Momma Colt nodded in emphatic agreement.

The tiny shapeshifter looked like she'd just taken a two by four to the face; mouth agape, eyes as big as saucers and not a word to say. Her jaw worked noiselessly for a few long seconds before she finally regained the capacity for speech. "Whuzza-hah? Lasers? Trains? Your mom's here?!" :shock: Grim hopped down off the counter and spun on her heel to face Colt, jabbing an accusatory finger towards the injury. "'Splain! 'Splain now!"

Grim heard Colt come in, but was in the middle of chatting with her Uncle Joe in Chicago; she signed off as quickly as politeness would allow, then shrunk down to pixie size and flew out of the computer room, zipped down the stairs and into the kitchen, where she blossomed back to full size, wearing her usual off-duty T-shirt and sweats. "Hi guys! Mmm, smells good, Jack." Darting forward, she claimed a chunk of tomato and popped it in her mouth. "Mmm, I loves them termaters!" She hopped up on the counter, gave her boyfriend a quick kiss (she'd been making an attempt to scale back the PDA in front of Jack, out of courtesy), then gave him a questioning look. "So what's so crazy about today, hon?"

Edited Motivations section above, hopefully that works better :)

Fair enough; I think that was me trying not to step on Barnum's toes after she shut down the Department 32 sub-game (which she was sort of treating as her own turf), but then I went ahead and mentioned it on Colby's business card in a recent post, so I'm a bit of a hypocrite I will edit this.

Char edits for Grimalkin (not sure of how to handle adding Sidekick): 1. Title block to read: 2. Feats [42PP] 3. Equipment 2 (this is going towards paying for HQ) 4. New feat: Sidekick 19 (Platinum 15) [4pp] 5. After Complications, add: Sidekick: Lt. Morena Colby 6. Abilities 40 + Combat 24 + Saving Throws 15 + Skills 27 + Feats 42 + Powers 51- Drawbacks 8 = 191/191 Power Points Done By Angrydurf

Edits to Colby's sheet 1. Heading should read 'Det. Morena Colby - Heritage - PL6 NPC (Sidekick) 2. Change to 'Power Level: 6 (95 pps)' 3. Change Ritualist feat to Artificer 4. Craft (Artistic) 12 (+15) 5. Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 12 (+15) 6. Perform (Percussion Instruments) 4 (+6) 7. Personality & Motivation to read as follows: "Morena has developed many interests to help her cope with the stresses of police work. In her off-hours, she likes to work in her studio, a converted garage behind the West End house she bought two years ago (she rents out the second floor apartment); she prefers sculpture and pottery, and several of her pieces can be seen on display in galleries in Riverside and the Theatre District. She also teaches art to children at a local community center on weekends (as well as meditation classes for their parents), and still drums with a percussion group based on the Freedom College campus once a month, playing one of her several djembes. And at least twice a year, she goes with friends on a week-long backpacking trip, typically to Upstate New York or the Carolinas. Colby understands that in a city like Freedom, crime is not just limited to murder and robbery; far worse things go on at night, unspeakable things, and she's one of the few detectives willing to work in the unglamorous Supernatural Crimes Unit. Sometimes the weight of that responsibility is almost too much for her, but she still snaps up her cellphone and gets dressed any time of day or night when the weirdness hits the fan." Edit: it might jsut be easy for me to draw up a new sheet and submit that, because I've thought of a few other changes.