Avenger Assembled

The second one does hit! Tou vs 40: http://orokos.com/roll/559281 = 28 It's staggered and dazed! There's an Aura at work, but not as damaging as being punched - give me a DC 20 Fort Save vs a drain, and then a DC 25 Tou save. (It is penetrating so it busts the Impervious)

The thing is dazed - it's the Alkahest's turn!

Sorry, Fred thought Woodsman as he reloaded with the tightly compacted alchemist's fire/dioxygen difluoride compound that he and Fred had actually prepared together earlier that month. But Alkahest can take some fire to the face - and the last thing I want is it healthy and ready for round 3 after this fight is over. He fired again as the pair of monsters wrestled on the shores of the lake, and once again the surprisingly nimble golden giant evaded being hit by his shot. But this time it didn't matter - halfway between the Auran and the Alkahest's face, the arrow exploded with a fiery concussion and devastating noise that had Riley burying his face in the sand and covering his ears! When he looked up, the blinding actinide flash was receding, but the sizzling scorch marks it had left on the face of the Auran were obvious. Okay, he thought as he reloaded, let's see what you make of that!

Woodsman shoots the thing again - this time with his bomb arrow! He's out of range - but that's a DC 20 Reflex save vs. DC 25 Damage! http://orokos.com/roll/559272 = 12 Save vs. 25 http://orokos.com/roll/559273 = 16 Bruised and dazed! Hopefully the Alkahest will roll better!

Merlin gave Raina her address. After two years at Claremont, Raina knew Freedom City well enough to know that it was deep in the heart of the Fens, surrounded by the sort of anonymous poverty that acted as an excellent means of insulation. Outside of people like Nighthawk and Woodsman (the former because she was from there, the latter because he followed Robin around), hardly any heroes spent much time there. While Raina was processing that, Merlin had taken the opportunity to pack one of his little backpacks, fastening it on his shoulders and climbing up onto hers. When she looked at him, he gave her a look as if to ask what else he was supposed to do when all this was happening?

The blow hit the Alkahest square in its midsection, a mighty hammerfist blow that knocked the creature backwards and began doing _things_ - yellowish metal secreted itself into every fold and crease of the Alkahest's tough hide, burning away at super-tough flesh even as it began to transform said flesh into more of the golden stuff! As the mass dropped away, the Alkahest's flesh was torn and bleeding, albeit superficially - enough to provoke a soft exhalation from Woodsman. Taking a chance, he fired into the melee, a hissing flare of an arrow that wooshed right past the golden creature's head and disappeared into the water. He didn't say the curse out loud - but he certainly thought it. At least the giant Auran seemed suitably distracted by the bolt, its head turning to follow it, before throwing another punch at Alkahest. This one was cock-eyed, though - and slammed right into the Alkahest's fist!

Okay, new round. Woodsman: 20 Monster: 17 Alkahest: 15 Woodsman shoots the thing, he guesses? Attack vs. Monster: A miss! Okay, the monster is up again and (not being threatened by Woodsman) goes for the Alkahest again! http://orokos.com/roll/558604 = 15 This time a miss! Alkahest is up.

January 2, 2018 Ashton and Grenville The advertisement at the music store had been well-presented enough - musicians wanted for a Holiday Concert at Club G4118. They were paying in both cash and exposure, with promises of out-of-town label agents in the audience. That sort of thing was a little outside of Fred and Matt's scope these days, but the money was nice, as was the opportunity to perform before a crowd that didn't involve anybody they knew. They were a little new to this public performance thing, after all. And so on the evening of January 2, 2018, they were making their way to Club G4118, a private club built into a converted home on the edge of Ashton. They were at the extreme edge of the neighborhood here, so far to one side that on the other side of the street was a vacant lot that itself segued into Wharton State Forest. It was a cold evening, with a light coating of snow on the ground, as they surveyed a neighborhood that looked like light suburban commercial development - a strip mall here, a chain restaurant there, and the looming shape of Club G4118 nearby. It looked to have been an older house before its conversion, perhaps one of the 19th century homes that had stood on this spot when Ashton was technically an independent town. Before consolidation had meant the murder of much of the town's history in the name of progress. From somewhere, distant Christmas music played, probably a tune from one of the stores in the stripmall. But Christmas was over now too - this was the last day of their last Christmas holiday.

His voice low, quiet and almost contemplative, Steve spoke, "I too have protections against psionic interference." Psychics who had so tried tended to flee in terror from what they found inside his skull. He could hardly blame them. "Point me to a foe, and I will strike them down." His hand on his chin, he considered their tactical options after a brief consultation with Talya. "Caradoc is loud, powerful, and bulletproof. I will fly in the front of their building and demand satisfaction. They will know I am a distraction, but they will need to divide their forces even so lest I cut the building down around them. That will provide you what you need to enter the building and do what you must." He looked down at the photos, flushing faintly along his scars. "If they have penetrated Caradoc's secret, they will reveal themselves in exploiting it."

Merlin jumped to his feet and actually shrieked aloud. The warehouse wasn't the worst of it! He'd done his civic duty too and hacked into the warehouse's security system, the better to scout it out for whoever's purposes. He pressed a few buttons on his screen and an image popped up - an image that truthfully looked very much like the interior of most warehouses to Raina. This was a much busier place than most of the warehouses Riley and Robin had described in the Fens, though - there were workers moving back and forth and heavy equipment, and people obviously in the process of moving things. The camera "paged" around for a while, obviously paging between cameras, until it found what looked like the manager's warehouse. There a man dressed all in black was sitting behind the desk - obviously a supervillain in his dark outfit that looked like combat body armor, mask that covered all of his face in a black sheen despite one white patch over one eye, and guns and knives at his belt. Well, there was another reason he was obviously a supervillain. Eric and Rochelle Sanderson, both clad in prison orange, were sitting across the table, chatting with him amiably. There was no sound, but Raina could see the ritual implements on the desk, looking recently gathered. His manner apologetic, Merlin indicated that this feed had been taken just that morning - he'd been spending the day running checks to make sure that everyone in the clip was who was they appeared to be.

Merlin took the mango chunks (after all, the room wasn't on fire) and thanked Raina, wishing that the sweater was the worst problem he had to deal with. Sitting in front of his latest computer, a hefty desktop number with a screen large enough to display a life-sized version of Merlin himself, he told her his tale, gesturing occasionally with a piece of mango for emphasis. Ever since the incident with Mr. Archer, he'd been tracing the components of the cybernetic device that had been used to control Claremont's former gym teacher. The work hadn't been easy; along with certain hackers of his acquaintance, he'd been running against firewall after firewall, obstacle after obstacle. And then suddenly, there'd been a break in the case about Christmas. While he hadn't been able to trace the manufacturer of the components, he had been able to trace where more of them were being stored. An warehouse in the Fens had put photographic records of its holdings online as 'an anti-theft precaution' (really a Dark Web advertisement for barter) - and a piratical friend of Merlin had recognized the components from Merlin's description. Whatever that tech was, right now it was sitting in a warehouse in the worst part of Freedom City - along with other things that Merlin didn't recognize specifically but could tell were super-tech. He demonstrated for Raina by showing her pictures; boxes and boxes worth, of the disassembled components that could be used to make mind-control implants - and a great many other things.

January 2, 2018 On the last day of Raina Sanderson's last day of Christmas vacation at Claremont Academy, she got a text from her monkey. Merlin had been increasingly agitated over the last few days, for reasons that he swore had nothing to do with the monkey-sized Christmas sweater that he'd gotten from the floor Christmas present pool. It couldn't have anything to do with the temperature - Cathy was off on a date, or some sort of mystery, with Phaedra, which had left him master of the room while Raina was outside. The text said FOUND BIG THING. TROUBLE. With only three emojis, all of them from the "Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, See No Evil" series, this was an unusually restrained message. NEED TO SHOW YOU.

January 2, 2018 North Hanover January 2 - the last day of vacation for the students of Claremont Academy. It's a good day to wrap things up, and indeed between one thing and another, all of Phae and Cathy's friends are busy tonight. That's okay, it means more time for them. After duty is finished. Auld Reekie has been one of Scotland's most notorious supervillains since before Cathy was born, and no wonder! With his armored, ornately-carved body, he looks a bit like a steampunk robot - though he claims to be the spirit of a demon of pollution bound inside a golem crafted from cold iron. He's notorious in Scotland for attacking windfarms, recycling centers, and other places and peoples trying to pull Scotland into a green, clean 21st century. And as of last report (via friends in the Vanguard who'd rather talk to a Scottish superheroine than an American team), he's recently arrived in Freedom City from Edinburgh, and is holed up in a warehouse somewhere in North Hanover near the Jameson Airport. He's a notorious criminal (albeit not violent enough to be a major priority for the Freedom League) and bringing him in would be a fine feather in the cap of Frostbyte. The warehouses here are new and clean - though rather dull. As far as Frostbyte and Ardent can tell from their rooftop perch, it's all low steel and brick warehouses from here to the chainlink fence that marks the edges of the airport proper. Luckily it's cold enough and dark enough that nobody seems to be trying to spot them above the brightly glowing yellow streetlights here. And one of them has her own means of finding demons.

Showing a surprising amount of expertise if you knew him at all well, Mark was full of suggestions about his corner of the project - having firmly staked out "G-rated land" as his own. Little Richard wouldn't have had it any other way. "Okay, I can put a maze here," he said, pointing to the cornfield. "Not too hard, just something for the kids to enjoy. If you make it out of bales of straw, it's not too scary for them and you can put in 'windows' so grownups can keep an eye on them." He hmmed. "I'll put stuff inside like scarecrows, jack-o-lanterns, bedsheet ghosts - they'll like that. You don't actually want to scare little kids at Halloween, they'll just start to cry. And at the heart of everything, tables full of pumpkin pies, and cider, and candy!" He patted Richard on the back. "Kids love candy, but luckily I know how to make lots of candy - does anybody coming have any allergies we should know about?"

Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that, Raveled. Your presence here has been a pleasure and you're someone who I have always valued. You're always welcome to return - good luck with wherever you decide to go.

APPROVED

To be returned, when we see MossHeart again!

Despite his size, Caradoc was capable of great stealth - but this was no occasion for that. He landed on the roof amid a roar of engines and with a heavy bang as his feet hit the surface, the better to announce his coming and make sure no one in what was sure to be a jittery house below had been startled by his coming. "I am here," he said aloud, the message transmitted by the radio Miss Americana had planted in his jawline on an Interceptors frequency down below. There seemed no need to say more than that, so without another word he trod heavily to the roof access door, with only a short delay to make it inside. Getting him through Interceptors security (once there was enough of such a thing to matter) had initially been a challenge - after all, Omegadrones shared much DNA and many biometrics. But the system had finally found what was unique in his body and soul, and so after a brief scan he was admitted downstairs to the rest of the building.

That Leviathan spoke with mechanical aid needed some explanation too - but Aquaria was swift to provide that. "I gave him the power of our speech with my armor from the Sea of Stars," she croaked proudly. "It gives me many powers." Getting the attention of the other Deep Ones on her power armor gave Leviathan a little more space to look around, and listen around, there in the depths of Great Bay. There was a lot to see - sort of. The colors down here were oddly muted for a people who seemed to love decoration so much, but even in greyscale Leviathan could see the shapes and patterns across the bodies of most of the Deep Ones - and the ship they'd made their nest. Everywhere was the sound of singing and the beat of drums, a low sonic thrum that his translator was only partially managing. It wasn't overwhelming - but then the Deep Ones were mostly calm. The space armor story involved some sort of trip into deep space and recruitment into some sort of Star Knight Corps - it was hard to follow but Aquaria told it with great, croaking enthusiasm as she and Leviathan walked past young Deep Ones like baby sharks with limbs wrestling with small fish and crabs they were tearing apart, past craftsbeings and others - all the social markings of a mobile hunter-gatherer tribe. Everyone was armed, either with dark daggers bladed like obsidian, those same sharp tridents, or simply with impressive claws and teeth. Mostly hunters, then. There was no sign of anyone eating plant matter, anywhere. "Mate, eh?" Only a few of the Deep Ones were still showing much interest in them now that they had the chief's approval and Aquaria's story had finished. The leader of the ones that were (a small group of younger males and females that were following them around and full of questions) had a voice in Leviathan's ear that sounded like a girl in her late teens. Of all the Deep Ones there, her white belly and grey-green skin seemed to match Aquaria's the most - as did the blue tattoos that stood out starkly on her skin. That, at least, was easy enough to see - like the aquatic beings they were, none of the Deep Ones besides Aquaria were bothering with a stitch of clothing. "Then where are your spawn?" Aquaria was, quite rarely as anyone could tell you, briefly at a loss for words. She stepped back protectively against Leviathan's front torso, falling into 'character' the way she would if he really was her mate. "...some are dead. Some swim the seas. I am not a Surfacer spy, girl. What is your name?" With a deliberate effort, she stepped away from Leviathan. After all, it wasn't like he was going to wrap his arms around her and bellow at the one who had surprised her. "Naia," croaked the younger female after a moment's pause. "So you are our friend. You can see we have little. Why did you come here, then? What do you sing?" Her chief was watching, as were others of the tribe.

Woah! Does she- Riley thought about that for a minute, and shed the grin from his face as best he could. He didn't really like Raina that way, but she was real pretty. Getting his mind on other things was helped by the inescapable fact that Robin was right there and pretty good at telling when he was full of crap. "Yeah." He made a show of 'reconciling' with Robin, slipping his arms around her from behind so he could whisper right in her ear, her thick, dark hair brushing against his face. "You smell good, cutie," he murmured, briefly distracted before whispering, "You go straight up, I'll come 'round the side and cut 'em off. Don't wanna chase 'em into whatever they've got back there..."

Ma'am. Anna repressed a sigh - but smiled anyway. Teaming up with people as herself had been a lot of fun, even if there was maybe a cannibal Aztec god after them. She couldn't really follow most of the Mexican stuff she knew went on in Bedlam these days, just as she supposed a woman of her age in the 1930s wouldn't have known anything about the real action in the Polish and Italian neighborhoods."Catch you on the flipside, girls!" She took Esperanza's hand - and the two of them seemed to vanish out of sight in between Sofia and Alice conversing with each other. They had indeed stopped to pick up a few to-go orders that had been left half-cooling behind the counter - and the sounds of sirens were getting closer!

Midnight opened the door of the waiting room and was almost immediately confronted by the three trespassers from the future. They stared at him, bodies almost eerily still, in a triangular arrangement with the gold in front and the other two behind. Just as Trevor had predicted, he could see them clearly enough through the sensors in his mask, but otherwise they were shadowy blurs at best. Blurs he might have seen and dismissed in the semi-darkness of the waiting room, after a full day and night awake and active. They stood there, frozen, and Trevor realized that there was only one door into the waiting room and he was standing directly in front of it. - Inside the birthing room, Nina either hadn't noticed Erin or didn't care. Her hand clutching Mark's so tight, she was grunting her way through another contraction, looking tired and sweaty after six hours of labor. When she was done, Mark patted her face with a towel. "You're doing great," he told her. "You're doing great, and this is going great." He said with such authority, even having seen Erin there in the room, that it was hard to disbelieve her. "No complications yet," Dr. Hussein was saying, also having accepted the arrival of the superheroine with equanimity, given the circumstances, "I'm going to check your dilation..." For this, the doctor pulled around a privacy screen, partially blocking the view of the two parents in the tub from Erin's eyes.

http://orokos.com/roll/556971 = 22 That hits! Okay, I need a DC 25 Fort save - and then a save for DC 30! Damage after the Drain. It's not PL 15, but that rank of Corrosion is pretty ouchy!

It wasn't that the next little while was dull, really. Down underneath in his shelter underneath the abandoned aluminum hut, Woodsman watched as the Alkahest roared and raged, hurling boulders about and otherwise venting its rage on an invisible foe. His guess that the debris underneath the hut would cover him from its strong senses seemed to be paying off, so he lay perfectly still, breathing slow and level. Insects were crawling on him and dust was in his nostrils, and harsh grit seemed to be working its way into every cut and bruise. He really wished those damn creatures hadn't turned his shirt into gold. He wished for a lot of things. Midnight and Wander would be there soon - depending on where they were in the world, and if they'd even gotten his signal. There were a lot of things wrong with today. But he was a Woodsman and so he lay there, level and still, not moving a muscle. It was at that moment, all of a sudden, that a golden monster erupted out of the flooded bottom of the quarry. Towering a good six feet or more above the height of the rampaging Alkahest and broad as a garage door, it opened a great gobby mouth and gave a great and terrible roar as it came staggering its way out of the water, giant fists raised and ready for battle! This wasn't just bigger than the other monsters, its golden body seemed to hiss and spark with some new and unpromising energies as it threw a mighty blow at the Alkahest!

"Yeah," said Anna. "They told their people it was how the Sun kept rising. But that ain't how it works, not even the magic Sun." She shook her head, seeming to shake off her contemplative mood in an instant. The whining of police sirens told them that they weren't alone for long. At the sound of the approaching cops, Anna's head flicked in the direction of the lights with the unmistakeable look of someone who couldn't seen with the authorities. "Okay, we're hitting the road ASAP - she said, taking Esperanza's hand. "I appreciate all the help you ladies gave us. We should do this again sometime!" she offered, her Jersey accent thickening. "You girls gotta number? Place we can let it all hang out?"