Avenger Assembled

The attack worked, leaving the demonic vampire sizzling at the edges, as if Sparkler had taken his image and held it over an open flame. Cursing loudly in languages Raina didn't speak but sounded truly gutter, he made a gesture at the sky. "I do not need to see you to strike at you!" he declared as a bolt of eldritch lightning came crashing down from the sky and struck his tomb! The lightning missed both Sparkler and Frost, but the brilliant blue glare and thundering noise was powerful enough to send them both reeling! Frost seemed hit particularly badly and began cursing loudly in Russian. Heinrich himself flew upward on a sudden gust of wind, his flight made awkward by the way he was still trying to bat out the smoking patches on his seared jacket.

Heinrich: drops an area effect on everybody That's a DC 20 Reflex Save to avoid the effect, then a DC 20 Reflex save to avoid being blinded! https://orokos.com/roll/883046 Then he flies into the air. Comrade Frost: Frost fails the first save https://orokos.com/roll/883046 and the second! https://orokos.com/roll/883047 He flies up after Henrich, blind for one round. You're up as soon as I post IC.

That hits him! It exceeds his Defense by 3, so it adds 2 to the damage Tou vs 26: 24 He's injured!

Okay! Sparkler: 22 Heinrich: 20 Comrade Frost: 11

"Well," said Frost companionably, "not I precisely, as have limited internal circulation even of magical fluids." He set down the hammer and said, "If you really want to go through door, be my guest, but you probably do not want to be in close quarters with Heinrich, he is real nasty type." He had made good progress on the marble wall, which was crackling and crumbling with obvious eldritch magic inside. "Was going to use hammer later but thought, now was good," he said, slapping the dent he'd made in the wall like a car dealer emphasizing just how much storage it carried. At that moment, the sound of movement came from inside the crypt. There was a faint, audible grinding noise, as if a large mass of stone had been moved, and then the slow, distinct sound of scratching, dragging footsteps. Frost raised his finger to Raina and stepped to one side of the door, out of the way of the being inside who was just emerging with an ominous creak of the heavy door. Heinrich looked - well, he looked actually quite a bit like Bela Lugosi's Dracula, down to the widow's peak and dark, old-fashioned clothes, though the faint smell of sulfur and pentagram tiepin he wore bespoke a more sinister intent. Still, when he looked at Raina he smiled. He extended his hand in a beckoning gesture and said in a slow, accented voice, "Hello, childe. Did you come here looking for-" And then Frost stepped out from behind the corner and hit him in the knee with a sledgehammer. "Got you you beer-drinking Bavarian son of a bitch!" Heinrich yelled and clutched his leg, and didn't sound like an old-world aristocrat anymore. "Agh! You verdammt old schweinhund! The Devil will piss out your bones!" He gestured at Raina as he hobbled around and away from Frost. "What is this, your little Liebhaberin?"

Aquaria is going to try and take 20 on that Arcane Lore check, if she has thetime

Aquaria flexed her muscles, strength rippling beneath her tattooed skin. Her voice was fathoms-deep, echoing in a chest and throat bigger than any man's. "I can listen for their spell and find where they went. But it will take time. If you can find them faster, you should." Then she knelt and began humming, a low, deep throb, and seemed to turn her attention somewhere else.

Oh yeah, you would have gotten a shot of obscure herbal poison in the face that would have given you what would have appeared to be a severe allergic reaction. You'd have died even under the ministration of normal EMTs, who'd have written it off as a freak accident

Well that's a good roll, so you make it! You successfully deactivate the really quite nasty trap. Give me an Arcane Lore check to figure out what it is!

The ooc

"Door is trapped," said Frost evenly as he readied another swing. "Tomb of bad man is fine, rest of perfectly nice people, not so good." He stopped for a moment and leaned on the hammer, then pointed, "That fellow right there, with the angel statue? Was horrified when I told him Nazi lay next to him, assured me that he would be quiescent tonight. But he and other haunts, will be irritated if their tomb is wrecked." He picked up the hammer and swung again. "Man inside will be _very_ irritated!" he added cheerfully.

"Yeah," said Riley, more nervous than if Raina had thrown a fireball at him. "She was a little surprised when she saw me with the mask off, but she's twenty-seven, I'm twenty, it's not that weird. Tall blonde girl, though, so probably up to something." He smirked as he looked down at Raina, then admitted. "Still haven't shown her my place."

"It's - it's just one woman. And it's mostly just for work.. Do you know, uh," he looked around the club and said "Black Mask? Her family's been down there a really long time. There are only about half a dozen people down there without any powers and..." His voice trailed off as he rubbed the back of his head. "It's nice. City girl though."

Kiva smiled and looked at them both with deep, dark eyes. "Your updated biometric data has now been stored in my system, so badges will not be necessary for this visit. You should secure badges if you're going to visit any levels higher than the testing center so that our human security staff will be able to assist you." When Danica scuttled off, she didn't seem to mind, but kept looking at Ryder. If he was so interested, the badges were produced for them via a 3-D printer on Kiva's desk with his faces and names next to a personalized shape that might have been a QR code's distant descendant. Ryder's vaguely resembled an abstract beetle. "Is there anything else I can help you with today?"

"Oh, whew," said Frost out loud, wiping his forehead in a gesture of relief. "Your pardon. Have been ruined by years of secret-keeping and moral ambiguity, you know how it is." The name on the tomb read "Henry Smith: 1920-2015. Beloved Husband, Family Man. "Well-Done, Thou Good and Faithful Servant" "Do not mind epitaph," said Frost as he picked up his sledgehammer. "Is all lies, most are in my experience. Was minor figure in Thule Society during war," he admitted, "is how he ran under radar for too long." As he spoke, ice seemed to spread crackling over his skin and clothes, producing a pained expression on his face but no other signs of distress. "Here we go!" And then he brought the sledgehammer against the marble of the tomb wall with a loud crack!

"Oh, well..." said Frost, scratching the back of his head and assuming the expression of a man thinking it over. "Back in old days of Second World War, there was a Nazi fellow who indulged in necromancy and various black arts. After the war, he surrendered himself to the good auspices of America and taught the black arts to American intelligence so they could fight diabolical forces of Red Menace. He and I have fought, oh, quite a few times." He tapped the side of the mausoleum and said, "Some time ago he used infernal magics to transform himself into undead so that he might never pay debts to demons, to raise upon the anniversary of his Fuhrer's death. That was last year, and I have spent time finding tomb since. Tonight is anniversary night when he wakes again, but this time, he has hot time with us, before he has hot time down below."

It didn't take her long to spot the waving figure below, especially when she caught a glimpse of the magic that radiated from the walking dimensional rupture. When she landed, Frost was all smiles, dressed in an all-white suit that somehow was only a little dirty from leaning against a fairly large mausoleum. In the dark, his eyes glowed a distinct shade of red. "Hello, Sparkler," he said warmly, though the air around him was distinctly chilly. In the dark, it was hard to tell if the patch of grass he was standing on was alive. "And Comrade Monkey! Quite a pair, eh?" He was leaning on what Raina at first took to be a magical staff, but then realized was a mundane-looking sledgehammer. "Apologies for short notice in call but my friend Ace Danger was called out of country on business. Glad you could make it."

"The Lantern Hill Cemetery, the one with wrought iron fence and the historical marker. Do not worry about Lantern Jack, is no longer an issue. I would give you directions but I am sure you have GPS on telephone. Is 21st century, yes?" He clucked his teeth and added, "You should likely come with invisibility as well, it will prevent troublesome questions."

There was a dead silence and then a sudden burst of laughter, quickly silenced. "That is...delightful. No, no, you are not even one-quarter my age, would be inappropriate," he said blandly. "Is just normal destruction of very bad monster. Cannot do myself as fellow is protected against ice magic, and if I try to use magical artifacts we might attract attention or even destroy lovely historical American cemetery."

"How delightful! I need professional fire magic services for course of evening. Could offer rates competitive with South African mercenary agencies - ach!" There was a distinct silence for several seconds before he said, "Beg pardon, tripped on shovel. In any event, what do you say? Is all perfectly legal even under American law, and can guarantee possibility of future employment."

April 2021 Lantern Hill Cemetery Late evening Raina had saved Comrade Frost's number on her phone at Talya's suggestion but that didn't mean she got a lot of calls from him. "Hello!" came the cheerful, oddly-accented voice when she picked up. "Is this fire witch? This is Dimitri Peshkov! Tell me are you free this evening?" Dimitri peered around the side of the crypt as he looked around for the groundskeeper, nodding in satisfaction when he saw the man had gotten off-shift. Things were so much easier now that the graveyard had decided to hire a company rather than actually pay a man to live on-site.

Sea Devil opened her eyes and croaked. "Real power was used here. I can hear it." She hopped upright and said "Not the magic of Surfacers. The power of Those Below. But not Deep Ones," she added firmly. "Things would be different if it had been Deep Ones." Much worse. She shook off that thought and added, "It is the mark of the Shark-Things. Either the Atlantean ones," she had been on the surface long enough not to spit though it was sorely tempting, "Or the ones made by the Man-Shark. Megala-his name is hard to say. Megalodon." She closed her eyes and remembered. "We know him." She croaked again and added, "I can follow their spell. But it will take time. Can any of you do it faster? The Shark-Things would not have done this just to eat him, but..." She hesitated, then said, "We need to hurry."

Her face hidden behind her helmet, it suddenly occurred to Watchdog to curse herself for letting Judy with the panic button see herself home. "ID," she said flatly, and didn't put her stun spray down until she saw it. The problem with ranged fighters is that most of them didn't like it very much if you got right in their face and hit them hard. The guy was bigger than her, and armored, but she was armored too, and they tended to assume she was going to start with the acrobatic flips and kicks instead of opening with a laser bolt to the kneecap. "And if your ID is "I'm the Patriotrcher", you'd better step aside now."

I'll take the 20, it's as good as she's likely to get! Anything with Theo/Philo?

Once inside the closet, Aquaria barely hesitated before wriggling out of her armor, leaving it splayed open wet just outside the door. There was only so much space inside, after all. Neither fish nor frog nor Surface-woman but all three just the same, she squatted, long legs tucked beneath her so they extended past her head, in the midst of the closet and closed her great black and gold eyes. "I will listen. You may look. You will not disturb me." And then she made a noise low in her throat, a deep throb of thick sacs that echoed in the small room, and then she did it again. The noise wasn't loud as such but they could feel the power of the infrasonic bass as it vibrated through the walls and through them all.