Gizmo
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The bizarre father-son subtext of the scene didn't seem to bother Set on bit, given her own unusual upbringing, but that didn't mean she didn't find plenty of other elements objectionable. "I do not believe I am comfortable with you attributing honorifics to any part of my form, Frost, least of all my fluids," she muttered, though with a wave of her hand the godling followed his suggestion and darkened the clouds over the park until they clearly threatened renewed showers. After taking a moment to snap her fingers to instantly dry out her own clothing she glowered at Jack. "Magnanimous indeed, yet I find myself still ill deposed toward your charms, curiously." From her expression there was every chance the godling might have taken the opportunity to demonstrate her annoyance more physically had Huang not still been feeding, that fact fortunately giving her pause enough to forego her less forgiving instincts and instead let ill-concealed self-reproach surface instead. "...he be recovering, then? Truly I did not think my... diminished power would elicit such a reaction."
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"Oh, did I accidentally walk through something?" Kimber asked, looking down at her feet in consternation. "It usually takes longer for people to notice! Oh well." The colour leeched out of her skin and hair first, then her clothes until she was rendered entirely in a palate of blue shades from deep cerulean to pale periwinkle. She lifted off od the ground by a few inches as those blues became noticeably translucent, bobbing up and down slightly as she gave their guests a small shrug and smile. "I like to think I'm pretty normal, just a little more, y'know, dead than most folks you'd meet! Flying is a lot easier than pretending to walk, though, so unless this is freaking you out...?" Leaning into Jessie's fingers, Avro let out a brassy, trumpet-like yowl. "Oh, right, Avro's not really a cat, either!" She rotated easily in the air until she was hanging almost upside down and fiddled with the charm on his collar. The tabby fur was replaced with soft quills and a segmented, scorpion tail, while his face became noticeably more simian than feline. Looking inordinately pleased with himself, he continued to butt his head into the blonde's hand.
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In case it wasn't obvious, feel free to get in any reaction posts you'd like! We'll jumping back into initiative shortly to wrap up the fight.
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That'll be a DC 20 Reflex Save for everyone on the bluff to avoid being knocked prone and a DC 15 Reflex Save for everybody else.
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The uniformed ghoul laughed uproariously again at Dimitri's dry rebuttal, slapping the table and nodding enthusiastically as the tea set rattled from the impact. "Haw! No illusions have you, eh? Good! Good!" The disheveled creature's beard shrank and blanched to snow white until it was a rakishly neat goatee, the rest of his features reshaping until a grinning double of Comrade Frost himself sat across from him, chest wound still leaking messily. He leaned forward conspiratorially, glancing back and forth in the void as though on the lookout for eavesdroppers. "Many roles to choose from! The blade decides if it is truly dagger or shield or plow, Dimitri, no matter what others believe." The doppelganger's eyes blazed with the same blinding white light that surrounded them. "Hone her edge." * * * Looming over Siobhan the warrior woman met the witch's eyes with unblinking intensity throughout her entire tirade. When she'd finished her accuser squared her shoulders, seemingly to impossibly get even larger before giving one curt nod of approval. "The fires of fury burn in you after all, little sister!" she boomed, her form rippling as she diminished in size until she was on par with Equinox, looking like a mirror image of the professor, albeit one who spent more time swinging a two-handed cudgel than a wand. The black and silver surfaces of her armor rotated to become crescent moons as she clapped Siobhan on both shoulders. "Strength, true strength, is growth. Rage against the entropy, sister. Become more, always." Familiar features were washed out by the glow pouring from her eyes as she intoned, "Nurture her rise." * * * The young man already looked less hollow as he gave Eric a small smile and offered the guitar to him with outstretched skeletal hands. "About time," he judged, voice growing stronger as his face filled in with colour and life until the necromancer was looking at himself sitting on the gravestone wearing a friendly smirk. "Work-life balance, that's all I ask," he continued, giving Cimitiere a light punch in the shoulder with his bony fingers. "Death is only the end if there's nobody around to remember those who've passed. When someone remembers it's a story. When someone else listens it's a song." Hopping off of the grave marker the double stretched from head to toe, raising his hands over his head. "But look who I'm telling, right?" He turned to look right at Eric, pinprick eyes swelling with white light. "Inspire her anthem." * * * Shrieking in its alien language the Kinigosi trashed weakly in Tarva's grip but could do nothing to stop the dagger from plunging deep into its amorphous mass. As the blade sank in the wounded warrior quieted, sharp edges smoothing as its three eyes focused on the shadow priestess' face. With a scraping sound of rust on rust its liquid metallic black bubbled like a candle melting in reverse until it held the monochromatic shape of the daughter of Nihilor. When it spoke Tarva could understand its soft, sad words. <You cannot heal with hurt, marred one,> it insisted, leaning closer despite the weapon held between them. <You cannot redeem with destruction. You must be braver. You must be better.> Raising its arms, the darkly gleaming double wrapped its arms tenderly around Tarva's bleeding shoulders as light washed over them. "Justify her trust." * * * Atop the bluff the towering beacons of light abruptly winked out, plunging the surrounding area in sudden dull twilight. Heroes and beasts alike paused, the battlefield preternaturally silent as they all look upward. Then, with a deafening boom of ruptured vacuum the light returned tenfold in an explosion of power that washed over them all with force enough to cloaks and coats backward, snow and dirt flung violently outward.
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Winifred seemed fascinated at the retractable nature of Huang's fangs right up until the moment he directed a bit of flirtation her way. Wrinkling her nose the time-displaced teenager shot the dhampir an annoyed look. "Ugh. Continue to play your card poorly, sir, and you'll be fortunate to only receive a slap from my more genteel form," she warned cooly, smoothing the folds of her coat again out of self-consciousness. She very deliberately made sure to keep Raina and the slight fellow who she gathered was courting her roommate between herself and Huang before turning her attention to the instructor. The to-the-point manner in which she responded to Riley certainly recommended her to Winifred, if nothing else. She actually did have several questions but kept them to herself, worried about asking something that would have been obvious to the others.
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"Unfair, those bobbleheads be of the finest craftsmanship," Set objected, not even attempting to conceal a groan when Dimitri appeared on the scene. The old buzzard was high on the list of people she would rather not see her on what had started off as such a promising day before taking a poor turn. The comparison to an Olympian had her bristling with genuine outrage, however, any attempt to get on Jack's good side forgotten as she scowled. "How dare you? I know not how you habitually find your sustenance but there was no transaction occurring here. I was seducing not soliciting and I'll thank you not to disparage my character to the contrary!" Any irony to the last statement was evidently lost on the godling as she very deliberately turned her head to ignore the older vampire and see how Huang was faring.
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"Hnnh." Trevor let out a deep, guttural grunt from deep in his chest, folding his arms across his chest in a much put-upon display. He wasn't much of an actor compared to Nina's effusive display but given the delicate theme of the cover story she'd concocted he expected he could get away with playing the reticent sibling. Grumbling a bit he nodded tersely to the Russian guard and made a similar if more reluctant gesture of apology. "Wrong turn. Got confused." He kept his voice even deeper than his natural resonant baritone, gruffness covering for the absence of any obvious similarity to his 'sister's' accent. Even as he did he let his eyes flick from one guard to another behind his borrowed mask, plotting out his plan of attack if the ruse fell flat.
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"Ah, over here," Set called from a nearby tree she was using to prop up the better part of Huang's weight. The pair were both drenched by rainwater, the modesty of the godling's white cotton outfit more affected of the two while the dhampir's coat hung heavy and gave him an almost comically bereft appearance. Set had taken advantage of the dark haired youth throwing an arm around her shoulders with a faux yawn to support him and keep him from wandering off anywhere. She offered Jack a wan smile and a small wave. "Hail! A pleasure to meet you? I... attempted to follow your instructions for proper care but an age has passed since I last made brought forth a rain of blood and I seem to have quite lost the knack, apologies..." The weak attempt at a smile faltered, the young woman obviously miserable about the entire situation.
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Weariness was writ large across Winifred's face as Robin offered her assurances, looking like she might collapse from exhaustion at any moment. "I... mhn." She looked away from the other girl's eyes and pulled her knees toward her chest, obviously not ready to discuss that particular discussion in any more detail. She looked back up when Raina began to address her, prepared to politely suffer through another bout of well-meaning positivity only for her eyes to slowly widen when the spellcaster indelicately dropped a reference to just what scale of time had passed. The alchemist's breathing sped up noticeably and she looked around the bus again with new horror before tucking her face between her knees. "...I believe I am about to be ill," she managed to croak miserably.
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"Uh huh!" Kimber confirmed for Indira's benefit as she led the way. "Although a castle on top of a skyscraper is a little bit lair-ish, really. That's fair." Avro licked his lips as he followed along, contented with leftover lobster juices and turning his attention to the visitor who seemed more likely to lavish attention upon him, butting his head into Jessie's ankles and making oddly brassy yowling sounds. "Oh sure, Eve's the best!" the chipper brunette continued, gesturing emphatically to emphasize her point. "We all went to school together for a while and stayed friends! Do you need anything special for food? We've got plenty of meat in the freezer for, um, reasons but I've really, really been wanting to try out this waffle recipe and the kitchen here has one of those great waffle iron things that you flip around and everything!"
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Winifred made a show of checking the relative size of her right hand and - finding it maintaining its correct proportions - gave the Scot a thin smile and drying replied, "I believe I'll manage Catherine, but thank you for your concern." She gave Huang an apprising once over as he introduced himself, a little too openly analytical to be polite, before replying, "And you. Winifred, though I've found my reputation has somewhat proceeded me about the Academy so far. I'm curious: your fangs are noticeably smaller than the renderings of vampyr I've studied previously. Is that a result of some infirmity on your part or were those accounts merely exaggerated...?" The arrival of their instructor stopped her from asking any other potentially awkward questions, forcing a startled Winifred to take several calming breaths while the others began moving the desks about. Embarrassed by her obvious difficulty so soon after the assurances she'd given Cathy, she squared her shoulders imperiously and hurried to do her share of the reorganization then silently rejoined the circle of standing students. She kept one eye on Raina, assuming that the witch's existing knowledge of mysticism would offer the proper cues for expected behaviour.
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"She's not wrong, guys," a chipper voice called from overhead a moment before Jack of all Blades dropped dramatically down from the open skylight, somersaulting through the air in a flash of royal blue and silver trim to land gracefully next to Bombshell and her interrogators. Straightening back up to his full height be offered his most charmingly lopsided grin. "And if you can't trust someone who casually works 'bestirred' into conversation, what's the world coming to? Long time no see, Shelly. Still making friends with law enforcement wherever you go, huh?" With a more serious expression he turned to the police officers and raised his gloved hands in a non-threatening manner. "Lovable bantering aside, the real thieves are getting away while we stand around chatting. Can I ask what's actually missing? 'Cause somebody used some pretty heavy magic in here tonight and magic plus museums is never good news. This guy knows what I'm talking about." He pointed to the officer on the left, who looked up blinking from the notes he was talking, surprised to be singled out.
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Jack's shoulder clap was unexpected enough to rock Erik forward slightly but he returned the broader man's smile easily enough, a quiet note of relief in the arch of his eyebrows. "This is nothing, you should see us try to fit everybody in one room at Thanksgiving," he chuckled, with the odd little realization that he was speaking as one family man to another. He took Taylor's offered hand in a loose handshake. "Thanks. It's good to see you guys are... good." Since becoming a father himself he'd begun to better understand the concerns the Farrettis had had about their son's safety and he'd occasionally wondered about their absence from his sphere of interaction after the debacle with Archeville. JJ certainly seemed fine, running around like a tiny bull in a china shop but Erik still tilted his head slightly to one side as he spoke to Taylor, an implied question about the family's continued safety left unspoken. Ellie blinked several times as she tried to reconcile the familiar face with the setting. "Um. Elis. Suuure...? Ah, this is Mara and Yolanda, mi hermano and his wife are over there," she continued a little awkwardly, trying to parse the proper etiquette. "Doct-- Elis is an anesthesiologist at FMC. He's done a few lectures for my program," she explained for Mara's sake, flicking her attention back and forth between the doctor and Yolanda's reaction to her classmate's presence. "I'm a little surprised you recognize me, honestly, given the size of those classes. Plus, uh, I guess you're... in the community? Are we talking about that? Is that a thing we're dealing with?"
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One side of Set's canine-like muzzle curled into an utterly incredulous expression as he followed the path of the meteor backward and upward into the sky, trying to parse the abrupt end to the battle. "What." The whole area was still buzzing with raw magical power and something the godling wanted to call chaos but which felt too bizarrely wholesome in its flavour for that term. That was almost enough to distract him from the growing sense of familiarity the companion to the impossible man in blue and white was stirring. The memories inherited by Set from his previous incarnation were not always particularly reliable but the he was reasonably sure that the Socotran tyrant upon whom he'd sworn vengeance hadn't been a twenty-something woman the last time he'd checked. Pointing an accusatory finger in Monsoon's direction, he repeated, "What." Before she could answer the Heliopolian spun about to deliver a petulant kick to the fallen ankh and shout at the top of his lungs toward the unconscious impostor, "What!"
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Holding the ten gallon hat to his head with one hand, Jack surveyed the town from beside Geckoman atop the beleaguered cyborg. "Alright, so, alien future dino-people are trying to take over the Wild West. That seems like a thing we should probably put the brakes on. Figure the big head thing's a good place to start looking for Steve?" Leaning over the edge of the bizarre 'saddle' he called down to Echo and Wildcat. "This is fine, I lived with a weird techno-cowboy for a couple of years, it's fine. Listen, we're going to get you guys home but I'm not going anywhere until we find our friend, alright? So all jokes and posturing aside, if you two want to lay low in the meantime, that's cool. I'm serious," he insisted, raising a hand before either of them could object reflexively. "I know what it's like to be the guy who just wants to keep the streets a little safer and then get roped into some bizarre movie set weirdness. Yeah? But if you're up for punching some evil space hombres on robo-rexes in the face then you need to follow my lead. If you can't do that you're going to get somebody dead. Probably Gecks. So?"
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"I do not truly think he should be attempting an invisibility charm at the mome-- ah, rather, nay! Nay, tis not a soul in sight, merely Huang, myself and blessed Ra's uncomfortably staring eye, as they say, ah ha! Haaah..." Evidently deserted by her usual charm, Set fully blamed the dhampir's persistent hands, led by otherwise admirable instincts. With one hand holding the phone she was hard pressed to carry the conversation and ward off the amorous advances. "Whomever 'they' be. Aheh. We are presently just aside from the Knoll of Heroes in verdant Liberty Park, to better answer your question. Sir. ...should I have him lie down? Drink water? Drink not water?" Awkward jokes aside, strain was clear in the godling's voice, searching for any indication of the correct thing to do for Jack's befuddled son.
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"Hail, ah, sssir...?" Set began uncertainly, revising the speech she'd been mentally preparing for Phantom on the fly. Who actually talked on their phone anymore, anyway? She should have tried texting. "Pardon the interrupti--ah ha hah... aye, congratulations, tis indeed my rear, now no more," she hissed under her beath to Huang, briefly covering the phone loosely with one hand before turning back with a reflexively forced smile. "Apologies! Again! Do I have the esteemed pleasure of speaking unto Ouroboros' sire? Be not alarmed, however some, ah, blood... stuff... has occurred. He drank something that has not agreed with him. Well. Someone. Agreed too well?" There was another short gasp over the line followed by more hissing. "We could use some assistance, methinks."
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"Oh honey, please cease talking how," Set pleaded with a groan, snatching the phone from Huang easily thanks to what was hopefully only a temporary lack of coordination. If he revealed any more ways in which she was a horrible, corrupting influence the godling thought she might actually be physically ill. She was a little vague on the details of how this sort of 'first time' was supposed to go but this obviously right at all. Eventually some sort of grand gesture of apology was going to be necessary but in the short term she just hoped she hadn't permanently addled his developing dhampir brain. "We can resume our... conversation when you are less easily distracted by your own hands. Merely sit still and endeavor not to fall over, aye?" It said something about the depth of her concern that she moved directly to scrolling through the phone's list of contacts without even hesitating over the opportunity to rifle through the camera roll. Looking for anything promising she jabbed 'Home' with her thumb and raised the phone to her ear, staying out of Huang's immediate reach but keeping a close eye on him. As it began to ring she bit the tip of her thumb apprehensively. The Chosen of Heshem was going to kill her, banish her and kill her again and she didn't truly blame her.
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Jotun Skeleton Toughness Save vs DC 27: 4#1d20+13 24 33 17 21 The second skeleton in line makes its save so the Takedown Attack doesn't continue past it. Go ahead and post IC, Tiff. > 33 - Blue Fox - Uninjured, 5HP [SOUTH] Telekinetic Barrier +13 Toughness [SOUTH + EAST] 25 - Timberwolves - Uninjured x5 [WEST] 25 - Timberwolves - Uninjured x5 [EAST] 23 - Papercut - Bruised x1, 3HP [WEST] 13 - Citizen - Injured x1, 0HP [WEST] 12 - Wraith - Uninjured, -2 Defense, 3HP [SOUTH] 12 - Temperance - Bruised x1, Dazed, 2HP [WEST] 11 - Jotun Skeletons - Uninjured x13 [WEST] 9 - Revenant - Uninjured, 1HP [WEST]
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"You've said 'cool' five times now, Huang," Set pointed out with a long face, trying to get some sense of what the teenage magus was staring at without much luck. "Tis an excellent indication that be not the case. Nay. We need to-- Ammit's teeth, I do not know what we need." The godling groaned, running both hands through her brick red dreadlocks and trying to stay calm enough to reason things through. Clearly the dhampir was having an averse reaction. She could call Sekhmet-- but no, there was every chance that the solar deity's healing powers would only worsen the half-vampire's condition, not to mention the mood She Who Mauls was liable to be in after chasing wild geese around the city for most of the afternoon. No, they needed someone more familiar with the drinking of blood and Huang's condition specifically. Loathe though Set was to admit it, they needed an adult. Already bracing herself for an extremely unpleasant conversation, she stuck out her hand. "Very well. Give me your phone."
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What with the thoroughly humiliating 'remedial' classes foisted upon her in an effort to catch her up with current events and what he classmates would have considered common knowledge, Winifred's course schedule as already a patchwork of exceptions and substitutions. As such she'd jumped at the first opportunity to sign up for an elective guest lecture, regardless of the topic. She'd been exceeding academic expectations since the day she was born and a missed century and a half or not she wasn't going to play the dullard now. Admittedly a lecture on 'magic' seemed a bit... fanciful, but she'd already seen the irrepressible Miss Sanderson break the laws of thermodynamics backward over her knee enough times to admit that there were clearly systems of energy manipulation to which she'd previously not been privy. Arriving at the classroom a precise ten minutes ahead of the scheduled time she found the door closed and the lights still off. She straightened the lines of the long white coat the Academy had provided her with, made of morphic molecules - and hadn't that explanation been enough to make her feel like a lackwit - in deference to her 'condition'. She'd gotten some input into the cut of the coat, at least, and even if some of the other students had commented that it was a bit old fashioned she thought it looked a good sight better than the rest of the clothes she'd been given to choose from. The utility of the khaki trousers over a skirt had been a novelty largely outweighed by the uncomfortably form-fitting design of what she was assured was acceptable modern fashion and the cream coloured blouse was shapeless enough that she thought she might have been as well off wearing a sack. She didn't even know where to begin with the shoes. Peering in the window she debated testing the door to see if it was unlocked. It was difficult to parse what might or might not be considered rude in her new surroundings; many things seemed almost wildly permissive while in other areas she'd been informed her worldviews were offensively if understandably backward. Compressing her lips into a thin line she decided to err on the side of caution and took up a place along the wall, producing a notepad from her stack of books and jotting down the day's observations with immaculate penmanship.
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If it had just been a question of the police rounding up some thieves in the middle of a botched museum robbery, Jack could have left well enough alone, really. The criminals were already caught, based on the radio chatter Vince had been monitoring, and it wasn't like he was going to be much help filling out the paperwork while they were booked in. The description of the woman in black had been more than a little familiar, however. Talya popping back up without warning after staying off his radar for so long he could believe. Talya breaking into a fine arts museum in the middle of the night he could absolutely believe. Talya getting herself caught and arrested by run of the mill security guards? A metamagi swashbuckler had to drawn the line somewhere. Swinging from his grappling line into the open air, royal blue great coat flaring out behind him, Jack landed softly on the rooftop of the building adjacent to the museum and peered over the edge at the gathering police cars. It was quite the turn out but then again Bombshell always had liked an audience. "What did you get into this time...?" he muttered under his breath, firing his grapple line again and moving in for a closer look, sticking to the shadows.
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"Ooh, singing!" a chipper voice called from down the hallway, coming from a brunette woman hurriedly heading their way with a spring in her step. Between Indira's phone call and their arrival Kimber had been fliting about the first floor of the castle, getting it as ready for company as she reasonably could in so little time. Wearing denim overalls with a stripey white and black top and a broad smile, she waved gregariously as the new arrivals. "Yay, new people! I've never heard a Deep One sing in person before!" she gushed, bouncing up and down on her heels as she reached the group, evidently unbothered by the subject matter of the verse. "Your voice is so pretty! Oh, I'm Kimber and this is Avro!" She indicated the tabby cat winding about her ankles, sniffing at Aquaria and Jessie uncertainly. "Come on, let's go to the kitchen! We can make food, with actual food!"
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"O~o~oh my," Set gasped as the euphoric feelings washed outward over her as Huang pressed his lips to her neck, biting her own lower lip to stile a less ladylike noise from escaping. She'd been expecting the bite to be stimulating for the dhampir but the way tension pleasantly drained away from her muscles and let her melt against his furnace-hot form was a welcome surprise indeed. "Mmh. Ra's blessed buttocks, that was-- eh?" Reluctantly she pushed herself up and off of the magus to get a better look at his face as he started laughing oddly. "What do-- Ho, nay, stay with me, little buddy," she coaxed, waving a hand in front of his eyes and watching for some sign of recognition. "Diminished decision making capacity be not sexy." Her playful smirk faltered when he failed to follow her fingers movement, staring off into space with a vacant look on his face. A little light-headedness wouldn't have been out of the ordinary but even if her blood had hit him a little harder than mortal stock would have this was much too strong a reaction. "...Huang? Oh nay. Nay, nay, nay..." Complexion turning ashen the godling rolled off of his lap and crouched next to the dhampir in his rain soaked coat, trying to prop him up as best she could against the half-wall. "Focus on my voice, Huang. Can you do so?"
