Avenger Assembled

Thanks to some surprisingly successful smooth talking, Eddie was able to muscle his way into the show despite what he was giving away. He heard a few mutterings as he went, but there were always haters around to interfere with a player's groove. Once inside the cafe where the show was taking place, he was ushered quickly to the seats set aside near the stage for the various radio contest winners. Madman Finale hadn't had a very good run on their last visit to Freedom City, and it looked like they'd had tickets given away by several other radio stations around Freedom City.

"Don't worry, Eddie, there's no country music here. I'm not a monster," Mr. Archer joked. "Just stay calm and stay collected during this, as long as you can." He pressed a few buttons as the simulation changed around Eddie and he found himself in the middle of a dense, lovely forest. It was a fairly idyllic, pastoral scene, and between that and the soothing music on his iPod he was actually feeling fairly relaxed until he looked down and saw the ant crawling on his leg. First one, then two, then ten, then a thousand ants were crawling over his tender flesh, their little legs carrying them up inside his clothes and up over his body. He held out as long as he could against the insect horde, which wasn't actually hurting him, but when the hordes of spiders joined the ants it was too much for anyone with a mammalian central nervous system to resist. He felt his powers drop away as his mind was pulled sharply away from music by the spider crawling up inside his ear buds, and just before he'd have hit the ground the simulation, and simulated bugs faded away. "Not bad, Eddie, not bad!" called Mr. Archer. "I know that one's pretty tough; you need a minute?"

At Doctor Archeville's words there was a distant boom, barely audible through the bulk of the mountain itself. The Archeville gave a terrible hiss at that, limbs flying quickly over the computer screens before him. "Ah. It seems the Ubersoldaten have been deployed against the outlying perimeters after all. I will need to employ the dimensional shell, which will unfortunately render it impossible for either of you to leave once it is in place. You must go quickly now. If you do insist on dimensional travel, by all means, make use of Laboratory Alpha three levels down. I shall hold off closing the shell until you leave...so I encourage you to leave quickly. And Viktor?" Dr. Archeville was conscious of the fact that his doppleganger was actually looking at him. "As you pass through the gateway between worlds...don't look."

Just a quick double-check: Ace is trying to call the office of the director of AEGIS, right? Luke Bonham died in the Terminus Invasion.

Is she maintaining the effect, Heritage, or was it just a momentary shift in the middle of the conversation?

Ray Trask gave Grimalkin a startled look. "My God, Sabra!?" He took a step towards her, reaching out with a shocked look of false recognition on his face, before his sister stopped him. "It's not her, honey. You said so yourself, remember?" They took the blanket gratefully, nodding their thanks to Grimalkin, before Rachel Trask turned back to the Scarab. From the respect they were showing her, evidently the legacy of Heru-Ra was known on their world too. "So what happens now?

Avenger is taking 20 on his Notice check, for a total of 28. He'll only use the rapid Search if necessary, given his concern for his own privacy.

One advantage to not breathing was that respiration wasn't a necessity of speech. "Hey!" Avenger yelled, for once his fake, gravely voice actually sounding natural. He sounded like someone yelling through a thick cloud of smoke would actually sound. "Hey, uh, the superheroes are here? Is there anyone here who needs help? Yell real loud if you can, and I'll try and find you!" He wandered a little further into the house, mindful of the ground beneath his feet.

Question, Shaen: Is any of our emotional state (as it influences our perception) being carried through the merger? (i.e.; is anyone likely to say "Oh hey, Avenger sure is interesting in sniffing blood out. And who knew he could see in the dark?")

I'll get on that coding right away, chief. (If it helps, it's looking likely she won't be around that long... :twisted: )

OK, I like the background a lot. This seems like this is going to be a fun character to play/interact with. Some concerns: He breaks caps with his Enhanced Strength: doing +10 damage breaks our house rules on tradeoff at PL 6, especially with any additional ranks increasing his damage. Maybe if you dropped it down to Enhanced Strength 18 and gave him some Super-Strength in there? He has too many points in drawbacks; PL 6 characters are linked to six drawback points. Other than that, your numbers are looking OK...

Hi all, We don't have any restrictions on things like high level Enviromental Control, do we? i.e. a character with Cold Control 18 [who could potentially freeze not only Freedom City, but the entire Atlantic coast of the United States] could fit in OK as long as they didn't actually go about freezing the continent? (Potentially, that could even make for an interesting story seed!)

Hey Heritage, did you actually want to start a thread of this nature? (i.e. Gossamer comes in for the job interview/campus tour?)

I need four Concentration checks from you, mah good man: DC 5 DC 10 DC 15 and DC 20

Dr. Darkness waved his arms at Eddie a few times, his posture settling out of his fighting stance. When the wrestler stopped fighting, the simulation faded away, to be replaced by a nodding Mr. Archer. "That was good strategy, Eddie. I like the way you combined both combat and non-combat tactics, and thought on your feet." He smiled at his student-to-be, obviously pleased with his performance. He made a few notes on the clipboard he was carrying, then said, "All right, I think what we're going to try next is exploring your ability to concentrate. Just to confirm what's in your file, you don't have any phobias, do you?"

Gimmie a Bluff check, Mr. Smooth Talker. :)

Nice Toughness roll, quote! You passed by one. And yeah, Eddie's going to have a good chance to show off his jazz form here. A good way for his teachers to learn about his capabilities! See, there are advantages to nerfing Improved Pin; otherwise Darkness coulda given you a whuppin' on his turn. :D

"Ah, that one." The Archeville made a small, hard to decipher noise. "That was many years ago, but I do remember it well. It was, oh, in the late 80s, when I was a young man. Roman had discovered how to tap into an extra-dimensional source of energy, one that I believe was connected to the very nature of the multiverse itself. He might have been caught had he tapped the source of entropy, or of creation, but who would think to watch the very stuff between universes? I believe he drew on that self-same energy to power the suit he wore in his final great battle with the Gladiator." Archeville did something to a few buttons, summoning up an image of August Roman in a powerful-looking battlesuit. "But Roman's work took him too far, and though he overpowered the Gladiator, he was unable to control his suit's technology. The Gladiator flew him into orbit, and together they vanished in a great flash of light, no doubt disintegrated by the radiation of that other dimension. It was in the skies over Freedom City itself, in fact, where they perished together." Archeville made that noise again. "Viktor, I would encourage you to avoid dimensional research. It can be..." There was a definite slithering noise. "Problematic." "The Lor are our jailers. Arachnos' jailers, anyway," the Archeville added to Dark Star with a weak, wet noise that might have been a laugh. "He expands into other dimensions because the Lor Republic keeps him within our star system, just as the Grue on the other side do the same. Helping us might bring the Grue and Lor into contact with each other, and they would far rather let us suffer than risk open war with each other. As for a weak point, well...you will find Arachnos himself in Freedom City, along with the place where Gladiator and Roman became no more."

Best new superhero ever!

Looks like you got there ahead of me. All right, I think we're filled up!

"I'm sure no one will be watching," said Mark with careless ease. "It's a college on a concert night, everyone's going to be looking down, not up." At Geckoman's warning, Mark braced himself at just the right moment before acceleration, whooping like he was on the back of the world's most spectacular roller coaster. "Wahoo! I heard this thing was fast, but this is unbelieveable! This is great!" He kept a close eye on the others, though, making sure they were coming through okay.

"A device procured by Odysseus in his long travels, preserved there in his tower," replied The Archeville with contempt for the former hero in his voice. "It gives him some illusion of security against his true master, and gives him the power to have Medea as the mother of his children again, as once she was three thousand years ago." It shook the limb that seemed less and less likely to be its head. "The Farsiders have resisted his attacks most manfully, but they cannot stand against a world nearly united. Eventually I think it is likely that they will be rooted out from their tunnels and their civilization broken as were the Avians before them. As for extra-terrestrials...well, they were among the first to go. For the government of Arachnos, there is one humanity now, Viktor, and one man guiding its destiny. That is why he must be stopped." He coughed, a sudden, shockingly wet sound. "Your...your pardon, Viktor and friend, but my own condition makes it difficult for me to do more now than guard my own fortress."

When Scarab and the others appeared at Transport Central, Avenger was waiting for them. "Scarab. Can you reach Dr. Archeville or Dark Star? Am unable to contact them?" The sight of the grimly menacing vigilante didn't at all thrill Ray and Rachel, who clung to each other all the more tightly, and Avenger headed in the opposite direction, keeping ahead of the others as they headed back to the control center. "Concerned about further retaliation. If we were targeted."

Before I go on, lemme say that I forgot to give you an HP for letting Marionette pass her Will save! My bad. Second: Pulling the curtain back a little, Marionette created a sight and sound illusion of herself on the couch while she limped away and hid. (Rachel is on the paramedic's gurney; she was unaffected by this.) She got the policemen too, barely, and was able to maintain the illusion until the policemen with the illusory Marionette had gotten out of the area of her effect. That's what happened, y'all.

Like I said, I'm on-board with this strange journey.