Electra
-
Posts
11,284 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Electra
-
"The place I'll be asking you to work is out beyond the settlements," Stesha told her, taking a sip of her tea. Amaryllis blew a raspberry at Willow and reached up to grab the fingers tousling her wispy green hair. "The air quality deteriorates significantly beyond the ring of developed land I've already created. Most of what was Freedom City is going to be very difficult to reclaim, so I'm focusing efforts to the south and west, where things aren't as badly off. Do you want me to take her back so you can drink?" she offered with a smile. "She's a bit of a handful."
-
Miss Americana paced Willow as the seemingly-mad plant controller flew down towards the earth, drawing up a hundred feet above the city. Her eyes narrowed as she listened to the attempt at resistance, followed by the Gorgon's unmistakable commands. "I'm sorry, Willow," she called, "but we can't let you do this. I'm almost certain you wouldn't want us to let you." Taking aim, she extended a hand, her red, white and blue lasers shooting out with pinpoint accuracy. They struck Willow straight in the chest... and dissolved, doing no damage whatsoever. Miss A raised a perfectly sculpted brow. "This... could be a problem," she said to no one in particular.
-
Okay, no more Miss Nice Americana. Willow's got to go down. Using a normal Blast, but the roll sucks! Spending an HP for a reroll. 1d20+14=26 DC 29 toughness save if it hits
-
Erin ran a hand over her sticky hair before turning away towards the group, crossing her arms in a gesture that could only be interpreted as defensive. "Yeah," she told Mark, "I think we're done here. Not much else we're going to be able to do right now." For once, saving the day wasn't their responsibility, and they'd done all they could to save this part of the city. "May as well be back at the Manor in case another call comes in. And I need a shower and change of clothes." She headed for the cruiser, pausing at the trunk to pull out a plastic sheet for the seat. Even distracted and defensive, she respected a really nice car.
-
Miss Americana was waiting for Murdock outside, doing something on her tablet to pass the time. She looked up as he came out and gave him a sympathetic smile, apparently guessing that things hadn't gone too well during the short visit. "You tried," she assured him, "and that definitely counts. Maybe he'll think later about what you said and it'll help him. Meanwhile," she continued, "I can get you set up with some funds to take care of that cat. Let's get going."
-
Koshiro, his hair slicked down into his face by the sudden downpour, was the first to step forward to take a look at the dead automaton. He was glad the fight had ended fast; his creations weren't worth a damn bit of good in the heavy rain. He leaned over and examined the sparking, stuttering stump of the neck, then gave Sharl a look that couldn't help but be a little impressed. "Nice shot," he said. "How'd you know he was a robot?"
-
Erin wasn't quite as sneaky as Trevor, but really, who was? Ducking her head to hide the smile at the show Mark was putting on, she slipped out after Trevor, making her way silently up the stairs while most peoples' backs were turned. And even if someone did notice, there wasn't much to see in a lone young woman walking up towards the sleeping room floors in a somewhat-crowded ski chalet. At least, that was what she hoped! Surely nobody here would look at any of them and think superheroes.
-
Erin shrugged, looking just a little uncomfortable. "It's not much of a favor," she told him. "I have to find some good people for the job, and you're one of them. Anyway, everybody should be able to make a living doing something they're good at. I'll drop a line to Dragonfly and you send in your resume. Training starts November first, so make sure to get on it right away. You good to get home and everything?" she asked him. Erin was taking her truck more places these days, it sat parked by the restaurant, looking shiny and clean.
-
Miss Americana stayed quiet and let Melvin report his deeds, keeping one hand reassuringly on his shoulder. "Mrs. Thackery," Miss Americana said smoothly and soothingly when the recitation was finished, "it's obvious that Melvin has high, very possibly metahuman intelligence. He's not being challenged at school, and that is probably contributing to his misbehavior. We'd like to talk with you about moving him to a special school, one more geared towards students with his aptitudes. He has a great deal of potential, and we'd like to help you channel that productively."
-
"Mmm, about a five mile trip, as the crow flies," Erin replied evasively, brushing off the cuffs of her uniform. "I made a quick trip to Ocean Heights, misjudged the landing, and hit one of those cotton candy stands. Might be a good place to toss some of those coins, come to think of it." When he only continued to look at her, she rolled her shoulders in an uncomfortable shrug. "It was a sucker punch. I was still trying to get him to stand down, but I wasn't going to let him hit Cannonade. No harm done, and I even made it back for the end of the fight." She spread her arms to show off that, though her uniform was a bit of a mess, she herself was undamaged.
-
Wander picked up on the subtle cue from Midnight, but looked reluctant to respond to it for just a moment. "It'll be nice for the folks who have injuries or damage from this whole Gorgon mess," she pointed out. "We've had so many goddamned disasters this summer, there's probably not a lot of rebuilding funds left to tap." She tossed the coin she'd been examining back into the chest, then squared her shoulders and turned to follow Midnight to the car. As she went, she picked a few splinters out of her hair, but the cotton candy was a lost cause.
-
"Go ahead," Stesha told her expansively. "I'd prefer not to see photos of this place in wide distribution, simply because part of what protects Sanctuary is that it's not widely known about. But you can feel free to take pictures of the scenery as much as you like. Just ask before taking photos of the humans and any individual bees, same as with any photography." She looked over the embankment, shook her head a little. "Whatever you can do, whatever you want to do, I appreciate it very much. There are just so many places that need attention, and this is one of the biggest and most involved jobs."
-
It only took a moment for Wander to have her breath and composure back, though she looked a bit put out about the fact that Donar was so quickly out of reach. She picked up her bat, collapsed and sheathed it, and walked over to have a look at the pot Edge and Cannonade were examining. "It's probably not real," she opined. "One of those, whatchee called, hubris things, where they try and get you to spend it so you get in trouble." Up close, Wander smelled like wet candy, which was the substance she appeared to be caked with as well. She reached a hand into the pot for one of its coins, ready to jerk her hand away if it tried to bite her or revealed any other malicious traits.
-
"There was a war," Stesha explained, her own face tightening as she looked over the wreckage. The air quality was noticeably different here as well, murky and hazy, unpleasant to breathe while not actively promoting coughing spasms yet. "We think it was about a hundred years ago, which is why there's so much less rubble than you might expect. They didn't have nuclear arsenals, but they had advanced weapons. We think the Grue may have been involved in giving it to them, but by the time the war was over, there was little of value left. The whole world is like this, or even worse. Here, we've almost arrived." The giant bee touched down on the edge of the river, in what would've once been the Lindroos Bridge between City Center and Kingston. Now it was nothing but an earthen embankment connecting two peninsulas of ruins, with disgusting water lapping up against the dirt. Fleur thanked the bee with a few quiet words while Gwen took in the scene, then waited for it to fly off. "Gaian Knight put up the embankment earlier this week," she told Gwen. "It needs to be shored up with deep roots all along its length so it can't be washed away, then surrounded by water plants to help the cleaning process. Do you see what we're trying to do?"
-
"Beelizabeth's an excellent flier, just hang onto the fuzz." Fleur demonstrated, grabbing hold of a few tufts of yellow bee fuzz as the giant insect lifted off and headed north. "All those plants sound like excellent choices. I have some more seeds here, pretty much any varietal you might need, but it sounds like you've already done your homework," she told Gwen approvingly. They flew over the forest, which didn't thin the way normal forests would, but ended abruptly on the edge of a cliff that overlooked... ruination. If Gwen looked very hard, she could pick out what might be the outliine of Freedom City below, but there were no real landmarks, no intact buildings, just rubble and ponds of noxious-looking sludge and burnt out hulls that might once have been homes and businesses. Behind them to the southeast was the South River, sluggish and dark near the Centery Narrows, then lightening to something far healthier looking east of a giant plant-studded embankment and through a grove of aquatic plants . The plants were the only healthy living thing in this entire area so far. "There's the South River Dam," Fleur pointed out. "It's doing a good job of keeping the polluted bay water out, even cleaning it up somewhat. There's another embankment of silt and plants on the western edge of Sanctuary, cleaning the source waters, and between them the water is drinkable. Eventually we want to create a sort of Everglades-like swamp in Centery Narrows, keep the oceanic pollution in check all the way out, but there's no time right now." As they continued north, the Wading River came into view. It was in considerably worse shape than its smaller cousin. Its broad mouth, made even broader by the fact that much of Kingston seemed to be entirely absent, allowed polluted ocean water to flow freely into the river water, sending dark and oily streamers up through the waterway. "This is what we need to control right now."
-
"There is," Fleur agreed, "or rather, there are. When the Freedom City bridges fell, they created partial dams, which we were able to expand upon as needed. The South River had a lucky confluence of sand and silt at the Pramas dam, one that kept out a lot of the pollution from the bay and partially filtered the water. Gaian Knight and I expanded on that with additional sand and plants, so it provides the potable water for the south part of Sanctuary. The Wading River... well, I'll show you. Beelizabeth, could we get a ride, please?" The giant bee obligingly descended to the ground, waiting for the women to hop aboard. A large vine rose from the earth and wrapped around Fleur's middle, lifting her and depositing her squarely on the bee's fuzzy back, just behind the head. The vine then formed itself into a spiral like a playground ladder, inviting Gwen to board as well.
-
"You and me both," Erin said with a sigh. "I mean, you know what you're getting into, sort of, when you decide to live in Freedom City. It's the biggest city for superheroes and supervillains and cosmic disasters in the world. But even when you account for that, this summer was a hell of a mess. And the fall hasn't been much better. Honestly, after going to school at Claremont, I love the idea of dressing in a security uniform and guarding one building, and I'm glad I didn't get on the Freedom League." There was a trace of defiance in her voice that tended to belie the words, but who was counting? "Getting paid well to stop street-level crime sounds pretty good."
-
The impetuous god was obviously reeling from the combined attack of so many determined superheroes. Suddenly from outside the park came a whirring noise, like running feet on wet pavement, but much faster. In an instant, Wander was back in the park, covered in wet cotton candy and wood splinters, and with blood in her eye. Barely stopping to pick up her bat where it had fallen, she plowed into the god full force, clotheslining him and then skidding away on the wet earth. Amazingly, even after that he was still standing, but she reversed her stance, ran back, and finished the fight with one more bat to the head. "Should've gone home," she admonished Donar, before dropping her bat again and putting her hands on her knees to recover from the run across the bay.
-
Okay, here we go. Erin arrives at the top of the round, spends her move action to pick up her bat. All out charging power attack versus Donar. 1d20+7=20 That should hit, and the power attack adds +5 to damage. Having been informed that this will not quite put him down, I'll invoke my "I don't want anyone to know I lost 5 PL" complication and use the HP to surge. Same attack. 1d20+7=26 Enhanced crit from the bat plus power attack means +10 to damage.
-
"Well yeah, it's not like a charity thing, or like she'd hire you just on my say-so," Erin agreed with a shrug, attacking her own food as well. She knew the importance of gettng a job on one's own merits. "But I've seen what you can do, and she'll see what you can do, and hell, anybody would want that on their security team. I figure there was a reason the League got you busing tables to start with, to let you get used to living on earth and doing something totally non-violent for a living, but your talents are being wasted at Champions. You'll do a lot better with us." Satisfied, she bit into her cheeseburger.
-
"You get a solid hourly wage, probably a lot better than what you get bussing tables," Erin began. "A benefits package with health insurance, retirement stuff, paid vacation, all that. Forty hours a week, paid overtime and training. Guaranteed one whole weekend off per month, two days off per week. You and I will probably be the only metahumans on staff, and you'd need to make sure to use your knight thing whenever you did hero stuff." She picked up a french fry off her plate. "Dragonfly will probably want you to help with testing some Terminus-energy-proof tech. Partially in case it's needed in an invasion, but mostly so that her sensitive experiments don't get messed up if you or anyone else with that energy signature gets too close." She dipped her fry in ketchup, ate it. "What do you think?"
-
"That's good, I'd wondered where he would go after Claremont. I'm glad he's in a program that will help him." Erin pursed her lips, feeling of two minds about that bit of news. "But if you're busy with this project, then the thing I wanted to ask you about may be nothing anyway. See, I've been hired on as the head of security for Dragonfly's new company. She's got a nice facility, opening up in a couple of weeks now, and she gave me some authority over hiring my team. I wanted to see if you're interested in a job. You'd have to do up an application and an interview with her and stuff, but I know you're trustworthy and someone I'd want at my back in a fight. I wasn't sure if you were looking for something new."
-
"Yes," Miss A told him, "I can arrange communications for all of us that will rely solely on radio transmissions." Her slight smile, beautiful even though she was substantially worse for wear after the soda pop attack, revealed nothing about where she was keeping her comm gear. "Caradoc also has the equipment to be included in the private channel, which is convenient." "As for Melvin," she continued, looking towards the boy, "I think he'll be an excellent candidate for the Nicholson School. ArcheTech has strong relations with the school already, so I think we should be able to streamline his admission. They have the facilities and know-how to cope with an eight year old robotics engineer without stifling his creativity, and if the father is a problem, security can handle him. It's just a matter of getting the mother to agree. Like you said, that will be the hard part. But if we need to, we can put pressure on the principal here. Sooner or later, it's going to come down to a choice between getting her son help or seeing him put in detention. We'd like to stave that off."
-
"No, it isn't," Erin agreed, "though I did kind of want to talk with you about it. And also to thank you." She picked up one of her cheese sticks and swirled it in marinara sauce, but her eyes were on him. "When you took me on the holographic tour of the Terminus, told me what we'd be facing, it was hard on both of us, but I think it was worse for you. It's hell to have to go back to a place you barely got away from and can't forget." She spoke with the certainty of experience there. "But the advice you gave me, and the warnings, and the mental prep, all of it helped. I'm not sure things would've turned out the way they had if not for you. So thanks."
-
Erin thought about that for a moment. "I guess I hadn't really considered that so much," she admitted. "I mean, we came back here and the Freedom League didn't even believe us, so it didn't seem like it could be as big a thing as it felt like." She blew out a breath. "But you're right. Even a setback is good, even getting rid of Omega and his henchman for a year, even for a month, that's time where they aren't hurting anybody else. And we stopped his plan to destroy all of reality. We did what we had to, what we were meant to. And next time it'll be up to someone else." For a moment, she looked very sad, even lost, but the waitress came up with their food and she pushed all that aside.