Dr Archeville

"As your fellow Lab-mate Supercape might say," he clapped and smiled, "'capital idea!'" "What it reads now is my 'face' mind, the frame of mind most people see me in at board meetings and business dinners." He straightened up slightly, smoothed out his (transgenic spider-goat) silk shirt, and walked across the room with the confident assurance that they had both seen in him numerous times. "And now," he stopped, but kept himself turned away from them. A moment later, he turned around, and they noted a severe shift in him. He was slightly stooped over, head down, and moved in short bursts, practically leaping from one workstation to the next. The monitor showed a massive flood of activity in the frontal lobe, and a similar but slightly lesser flood in the parietal lobe. Dragonfly knew these areas well: they were the ones that had been enhanced in her own brain to make her so good at what she does. She also noted a decrease in activity in certain areas, a pattern she had seen in brainscans of people suffering from assorted social anxiety disorders. Checking back on Archeville, he was tinkering with one of the prosthetic arms on Miss A's workbench, mumbling as he swapped out and rearranged components.

Unfortunately, Jubatus's Danger Sense was not amenable to it. The test seemed simple enough, at least after the third time the doctors explained it. In most such tests, it used to be that physical probes would be inserted into the brain to poke bits of it, and record how the patient reacted. But that required cutting out part of the patient's skull, which simply would not do for an outpatient procedure! Fortunately, recent advanced with ultra- and sub-sonic pulses (like the ones used on fetal ultrasounds) allowed the doctors to probe parts of Jubatus' brain without all that messy cutting and sawing. But his feline ears could pick up those ultra- and sub-sonic sounds, sounds the primitive, fight-or-flight part of his brain recognized as dangerous. His timeshift kicked in, he reflexively strained to break free, and his movement made the beam wave through numerous regions of his frontal lobe, not just the tiny part they had been targeting. This surge of activity caused something akin to an overload, and part of his frontal lobe shut down temporarily -- the parts that made a human mind a human mind. In a normal human, this disruption would present itself as a massive regression to an infantile state of mind. In Jubatus...

Archeville admired the work for some minutes, "excellent work, both of you! And it does not muss my hair!" he chuckled. "So, it broadcasts to here," he turned at last from the mirror and approached the monitoring station, "but we will not look at the results until after the two weeks? Can it not be used to monitor my mental activity in real time, set an alarm in case of any spikes of activity outside of certain parameters?" "Speaking of parameters," he finally faced Dragonfly and Miss A, "shall we run some tests before I go, see what it reads when I perform some of my routine edits to my meta-intellect?"

"Be aware, liebchen," Archeville's calm, dulcet voice emanated from her Interceptors communicator, "that two of the hunters remain on your trail. I am leading three of them away from you. I am thus far able to keep well ahead of them, so you should have no problem escaping them. Once I get these three far enough away, I shall rejoin you and our new friends." Archeville flew on, idea racing through his head. " Warlord, "

Hanover, Haus von Archeville, Sub-Basement Laboratory, a few moments ago Archeville banged his head on the overhanging lamp when the alarms sounded. "," he called, pushing aside the circuit he was working on with one hand, rubbing his head with the other, "" Dimensional breach detected. Metahuman conflict detected. Two combatants, subjects unknown. Thermal flux detected. Wide area manifestation. The wall before him shimmered to show the view from cameras near the scene, mostly stoplight cameras and a few webcams from offices in the area. "," he muttered as a silvery monkey brought him his Gravimetric Belt, "" Midtown Were Thrude a mortal of lesser constitution, she may have felt a twinge of nausea and vertigo as gravity warped spacetime near her and played hob with her inner ear. If she were not a child of the storms (and insulated in thick ice), the slight electrical disturbance would have made the hairs on the back of her neck and arms stand on end. And if Archeville's microwormhole were not opening behind her, she would have seen the super-scientist emerge from the blue-gray portal that winked in and out of existence like the stars in Nótt's cloak. "," she heard a small voice behind her say, in oddly accented Old Norse, ""

Dok'll take 10 on some Know/Theo & Know/History checks on the way over, getting 17. So he should recognize Fenris, but have little idea who Thrude is (other than 'Thor-Girl?').

By the grace of Shaen, I roll initiative for Doktor Archeville. ... or I would if Invisible Castle was working. To the Chat! +7 = 12 total (Only +7 b/c Dok's not coming in with his Enhanced Intelligence feeding his Speed of Thought.)

Vat-grown gene-tweaked eyeballs!

Y'know, that is something you could put in an IC post ;)

After taking a Move Action to switch form Enhanced Cha to Enhanced Wis, yes! 38 total.

Apologies from me, too, for misunderstanding the "bringing in other PCs to help" bit. Though I do still want to see an entry for this on the Timeline.

Exciting! Archeville would be passingly interested in seeing someone positively embodying aspects of the extensive mythology of his homeland (stupid Nazis co-opting everything!), but I'll pass on joining since I'm already going to be in your Epic Space Adventure. Please do not forget to add this to the timeline/index.

He is trying to lead them away from where Fulcrum & Co. went, so he is * checking behind occasionally to make sure they're following * moving fast enough to keep ahead of them (based on how fast he presumes those giant wolves can move), but not so fast they lost sight of him * he is trying to be heard, again so that they'll keep on him

Sounds reasonable. :approved:

Looks solid, there's just one small thing I'd like clarification on: how do his two Vulnerabilities work together? That is, what happens when he's hit with a magical fire/heat effect?

Nah, that works perfectly fine for me! Fluff's great, crunch is solid -- :approved:

So began the thought through Archeville's mind as a quintet of throwing axes flew at him. He managed to avoid one, but three hit, though his force field blunted much of the impact so it was instead like being hit with a baseball bat (which was still unpleasant!). But one hit with just enough force and at just the right angle against the plane of his force field that it caused a temporary overload; the field dropped just enough for the axe to get through and cut his pretty, pretty face! Fulcrum did hear a slight cry over her Interceptors' comm. Shock (from both the pain and the whole situation) touched off something in him. His skin and hair began to shift in color, and clenching fists revealed the buddings of wicked talons. His pained grimace contorted into a more piscine look of rage... but then, just as suddenly, they all snapped back, and Archeville was back in his right mind (and body) before you could say "how many fingers am I holding up?". Re-checking his Belt's operation to make sure all was functional (and switching to his full force field), he looked down at the armored hunters. "Klug!," he cheered, "Jetzt, lassen Sie uns sehen dass wie gut diese Jäger von Ihren aufspüren können!" He then bolted, perpendicular to the way Fulcrum and the others had gone.

Welcome to the club, Gizmo & Heritage! 1 Dr Archeville 11,225 2 AvengerAssembled 7,284 3 quotemyname 7,081 4 Electra 5,566 5 Geez3r 3,818 6 angrydurf 3,754 7 Barnum 3,587 8 Gizmo 3,547 9 ShaenTheBrain 3,530 10 Heritage 3,397

When were she & Fenris jar'd? And how does she know English?

The women's discomfort increased his own discomfort, but he soldiered on. "That was my only such outburst, yes," he reassured,"all others have been strictly verbal outbursts -- the most visible outlet I have given to the dark Other within me, or, hopefully, that was within me -- and the aforementioned sleep-designing. But the verbal outbursts were few; I have become fairly adept at concealing all the horrible, horrible thoughts that ran through my head." He softly cleared his throat again, "in an odd way, though, I have all my problems to thank for all the good I have done: I became a hero not just clear my family's name, which my grandfather dragged through the mud (and my father's own fall did not help)," he added in a lowered tone, "but also to give me some beneficial goals to focus on, a safe outlet for my energies." "Now, as for your plan: I do think long-term monitoring would be ideal, and is a project I have wanted to do for some years. But thus far it has been a technique I have been unable to implement," he cocked his head ever so slightly, "I wonder if my Other was subtly influencing me, setting up a mental block so that I could no do so? In any case," he clapped his hands sharply, "I am hoping that the three of us working together can resolve this issue!"

Stupid non-technological 'robots'! That's definitely 3 hits. 4, if he's flat-footed (which he probably should be, since he failed the Sense motive check and believed the golems were obeying him like all good lil' giant deathbots should), though I'd also argue that if that's the case, that'd be enough of a setback to earn an HP. Fortunately, Dok's cloak still has some force field with it, so he's not totally hosed. Four DC 30 Toughness saves (1d20+15=28, 1d20+15=29, 1d20+15=28, 1d20+15=27) 1st fails by 2, that's a Bruise (and -1 on all future Toughness saves) 2nd fails by 1 (2 due to Bruise), that's another Bruise (and another -1 on all future Toughness saves) 3rd fails by 2 (4 due to Bruise x2), that's another Bruise (and another -1 on all future Toughness saves) 4th fails by 3 (6 due to Bruise x3), that's another Bruise (and -1 on all future Toughness saves) + Stunned for one round Concentration check to maintain Force Field (DC 10 + power rank of 11 = 21) (1d20+5=25) Concentration check to maintain Flight (DC 10 + power rank of 7 = 17) (1d20+5=14) Concentration check to maintain Flight (DC 10 + power rank of 7 = 17); HP re-roll (1d20+5=13) +10 = 23 = passes End result: 4 Bruises, Stunned for a round, but his Force Field & Flight are still up, so he's still glowing & hanging 30 feet in the air. 5 HP (1 Base + Luck 4 + 1 from setback -1 from Flight Concentration check reroll). Could've been a lot worse!

Visiting family this weekend, Sat morning-Sun afternoon. 'Net access will probably be sporadic.

There's a new adventure pack coming out soon, so this week, the two existing adventure packs (Serpent Lantern and Demonflame) are 80% off. /me wishes he'd know about this before buying them, two weeks ago, at full price.

"No, no, things are getting under control here," he coughed out. "The surge took out several primary systems, but the secondaries and tertiaries are kicking in, and-" He dropped the emptied fire extinguisher, "portals?" He turned to whatever smoking things were off camera, then back to the monitor, "what portals? What has- wait..." He looked down, and his jaw dropped, "that time, that date... it- I had just gone to bed, and..." His voice trailed off as he looked off camera again. "What happened here?" he muttered, barely audible to the team.

Archeville paused in mid-air, scanning the golems for signs of trickery, but finding none. He reached into one of his labcoat pockets and retrieved his Interceptor's comm. He whispered clipped instructions, "Fulcrum, suggest picking up our guides and carrying them to their destination, fast. Will follow shortly." The Doktor fully decloaked, but remained some 30 feet in the air above the circle of armored figures. Puffing up with all the authoritative air he could, he pointed to the one that seemed to direct them, "Bericht über den derzeitigen Stand, jetzt."