Fox

"Oh! Well, that's convenient," said Masque, following Veronica's lead and air-climbing her way into freer space. She certainly wouldn't miss dodging drones; they weren't hard to predict, but they'd been making her claustrophobic. Briefly, she wondered if she could learn that trick - who didn't dream of flying? For now she peered around, following the others' lead. "Maybe we'd best catch up with Ouroboros. If, um, we know where he went, exactly. Thirteen hours until we lose our brother to the Goblin King, and all, right? And I bet a lot less before one of those eyes notices that some of the drones are floating around."

"Ooh, hey, thanks, that'll - whoop!" Masque slid to the side, using her weapon as counter-balance to avoid the clone's attack. Her face followed the fist as it shot past where her head had been, and when she turned back he was staring down the demon mask. "No. No. I was going to ambush you." She let herself fall further back, pushing her dodge into a sidestep that brought the chain, and the chain brought the ball, and the ball spun around her body to slam into the clone's stomach. "You need to sleep now, please. The other me is hearing some really bad things and I'd like to go help her and Veronica deal with that. Are you okay, Lynx?" The 'other me' was, indeed, hearing some bad things - and with what was probably a grateful look at Veronica, she steeled her nerves and blinked on toward the exhibit. Screaming was probably bad - leaping before she looked was probably bad, too, but if she'd learned anything in her brief career it was that if she had to die, at least she'd live to remember it.

Huzzah! The other Masque will teleport on to the exhibit - all the way in, if she has the movement.

Bonking the one attacking her! Melee Attack Roll vs. Wheel-in-Shadows (Power Attack -3/+3): 1d20+15-3 26 Bonk! DC23 Toughness, as before.

Masque will delay her turn to do a combined attack with Arcana.

Reflex Save, DC11: 1d20+9 24 Spry!

A moment late, since I'd missed the daze, but Masque will use Luck Control to spend a hero point and clear White Lioness' Daze so that she can act this round.

That didn't sound good. Neither of those sounded good. Masque physically waffled back and forth between her friends and the commotion before quietly swearing; if she couldn't decide properly, then she'd just have to cheat. The white-cloaked heroine shimmered back into being as she stepped in two directions at once: one Masque stepped forward, toward the melee, while the other turned toward the long hallway; each had barely the time to put a foot down before they disappeared in a blink of light, one reappearing near the obscured melee and the other vanishing down the hallway toward the exhibit. It cost her time - and both of her winced at the anxious feedback loop that thought caused - but costing time was better than costing her friends or finding herself without better backup than...well. Than herself. "I'd just made such a cool exit, too," the remaining Masque insisted, metal ball thunking back down against the ground as she stood at the edge of the darkness as if daring it to reveal its secrets. "I'm checking on the exhibit, it sounds bad. I'm also here, though - anybody, um. Know where I can aim?"

In her indecision, Masque duplicates! This eats her standard action for the turn, and ties up her power array, so she's visible again. Masque 1 stays to fight, though she can't do much more than sit on the edge of the darkness for want of a target. I'm assuming it's not strictly an illusion, so her super-senses don't counter it? Masque 2 teleports off down the hallway, moving ~300' toward the exhibit.

Alright, first our reflex save against the area attack: Reflex Save vs. Area Effect, DC25: 1d20+9 24 So close! I'm....not super keen on throwing a DC30 toughness save at her piddly little +7, and other folks are rolling okay (or rerolling for themselves with their own resources) so let's spend a Hero Point and reroll! Reflex Save REROLL vs. Area Effect, DC25: 1d20+9 19 Rolled a 10; reroll rules put that at 20, for an effective save of 29. Thank goodness. Evasion no-sells the attack.

"What? No! Rude," Masque challeneged, turning her demon-grinning mask on the last clone nearby. "You get to take a nap." She stepped forward, the metal ball-and-chain whipping out faster than something its weight should have wielded by someone with her frame, catching the clone squarely on the side of the head. It was a good noise, a satisfying noise, and best of all not a lethal noise, which meant she wasn't entirely awful at this whole fighting-evil thing. Plus it gave her a chance to take stock of the others, which was... She frowned, the mask returning to its default shape as she turned to look around her. "Well! I think these two guys have learned a lot of important lessons today," she said. She grabbed the edge of her cloak with one hand, pulling it up and around herself; where the cloak passed, nothing was left behind until it, too, vanished into thin air. "I think my lesson is going to be that you cannot hit what you cannot see."

Masque Masque kept her footing against the power of the roar, but that was more instinct than planning - she'd gathered her robe about herself to slim her profile and endured only the gross indignity of monster spittle. The gross, gross indignity. She put her hands together, drawing together a large ball of wavering, pearlescent fire; this she lobbed overhand at the creature, streaking under its own power like a firework. It was an attack more in retribution than calculated combat, and it showed, running wide...but hopefully it would at least be a distraction. "This thing's tough," she shouted, as if that wasn't entirely obvious with the creature throwing trees and - worryingly - already looking like it could focus its eyes again. "I think Lioness and Zenith had it right, though! Anybody want to team up?"

Well, time for some good old-fashioned damage, maybe. Masque'll try to blast it. Ranged Attack Roll vs. Krampus (Blast; Power Attack -5/+5): 1d20+12-5 11 ...haha....or, you know. Probably not. In the extremely unlikely event that lands, it's a DC28 Toughness save.

Hey folks! Welcome to 2019! We're putting some changes through to start that new year off right - largely things we've been discussing for a while now, but hadn't formalized or brought to consensus. They are as follows: Effective January 2019, the Posting Award break points for posts will be 1/10/25/50/100 instead of 1/15/25/50/100 (you now have to make only 10 posts for a character to hit 2pp, rather than 15 posts). That 1->15->25 jump was always very awkward, and we're glad to have it sorted out properly; this change will apply to posts made in January, and all posts thereafter. The House Rules on Character Advancement & Awards have been updated accordingly. Effective immediately, we are retiring the 'Promotion' use for Veteran Rewards, which previously let you boost a character's PL and roll points over. This was terrible for math and auditing, was rarely used, and with the increase in character slots is just not worthwhile. Any awards already tied up in a promotion have been refunded; promoted characters will be allowed to keep their 'free' rollover points, as we aren't interested in penalizing anyone for a rules change. This change has been reflected in the House Rules as well as both the Active and Inactive Reward Trackers. We have formalized a rule that was informally already in use: if you have a need or desire to shuffle your characters between available character slots, you may do so (by request) so long as the character is moving to a slot big enough to hold them (a character originally built PL10/150PP can occupy a PL10/150PP slot or a PL12/180PP slot, but not a PL7/105PP slot, for instance). A character so moved retains any and all PP earned. We don't expect this to be used much, aside from moving PL10s out of Veteran Reward slots and into a more fitting, freed-up home, but it's a nice way to capitalize on the Titanium status freeing up slots for new concepts and new characters if you've been building below the theoretical maximum allowance. This has been made explicit in the House Rules on Character Advancement and Awards. If for whatever reason you want to promote a character (e.g., they were built PL7/105PP and you'd like them to be PL10/150PP, and you have a free PL10/150PP slot), you may still retire the old sheet and submit a new one, built to the new slot's caps and budget, without rolling over any PP earned. This has been clarified in the Character Submission guide. We have updated our House Rules to clarify that the Origin Story prompt is always an active vignette, and always counts as a vignette, including the relevant Power Point awards, available once per character. This was already the case, but was easily lost as a lone news forum announcement instead of being formalized in our rewards manual. An oversight on our part, and hopefully we'll see more of those wonderful stories now that it's more visible.

Welp! Let's do something about the action economy and try to hit that last Wheel, closing distance as necessary. Melee Attack Roll vs. Wheel-in-Shadows (Power Attack -5/+5): 1d20+15-5 19 DC25 Toughness this time, with the full power attack. She will then switch to the Concealment slot of her array, and go invisible to visual and auditory senses in the hopes of dropping a surprise attack next round, or covering for someone. That...makes the others bigger targets, but that's what Luck Control is for! Hopefully. Stay strong!

Masque drew in on herself, watching the fight with growing concern. One-on-one she could probably take these, and she could even that out to two-on-two, but this many.... She concentrated, getting as good a look at their enemies as she could before reaching out to rest a hand on her friends. "If this doesn't work I can probably go invisible and run off with the helmet," she said, magic flowing out of her and the mask alike, "but I don't want to split us up if we can help it. It's most of what I've got, too, so, you know. Don't expect any fireballs or anything unless we want to break ranks." The students were gone and their side of the barrier was full of fangs and claws, a set of human-sized defense drones standing around in search of intruders. The real intruders. "It's just an illusion, like a costume, and it's...probably sort of fragile. But let's see how simple a guard dog they are."

Alright. I'm assuming the drones are roughly person-sized, give or take, without a description to tell me otherwise. Masque will stunt off her magic array's Morph power: Morph 10 (single form [drone, 1pp/rank], Extras: Affects Others) [20/20pp] That's something disgusting like a +50 disguise check for everyone. Let me know if you have any objections, and I'll get an IC post up.

Will Save vs. Sorcerer, DC18: 1d20+7 12 ....oh dear. No sense letting those HP go to waste; Masque will reroll that, which she can't fail, but for the fun of it: Will Save REROLL vs. Sorcerer, DC18: 1d20+7 21 Masque is at 4 HP.

Reflex Save vs. Emotion Control, DC25: 1d20+9 27 A holiday miracle. Masque doesn't afraid of nobody!

"Nope!" Masque turned her head to watch the clones fly by, and then disappeared in a flash of light. She reappeared in their path, further down the corridor, where a heavy metal ball on a chain dropped down out of her sleeve and was swung in a whistling arc straight into an oncoming villain's chin. "You really ought to be nicer when nice offers are made," she said from behind mask of a demon, wide-eyed and grinning with sharp teeth jutting out past its lips. The ball thudded back into the ground, loose chain winding around her hand as she readied it for another swing. "Nobody's getting any artifacts today. Go home to mom."

Masque's going to go ahead and teleport back past the fleeing Wheels, and will try to slug one with a magic weapon. Melee Attack Roll vs. Wheel-in-Shadows (Power Attack -3/+3): 1d20+15-3 20 Woof, glad I didn't go for the full power attack. Assuming that hits, it's a DC23 toughness save vs. blunt damage.

Masque had managed to blink her way up onto the roof of her building, protected against the cold by not much more than flannel and a fluffy robe - she now found herself standing as close to the edge as she dared, light gathered itself into her outstretched hand. She hadn't known what this thing was, but the mask knew, and the mask was not too excited about the prospect of dealing with it on its own terms, on its own night. The mask didn't get a lot of say in the matter. It rarely did. She flung her arm forward, a point like a tiny star driving up in a straight line to the creature's face...where it went off like a magical flash grenade, momentarily blinding to look upon. "Don't let it put you in the basket!" she shouted, loud as she could, for all the good it might do her on a snowy night. "Don't let it put anyone in the basket!"

Masque'll go ahead and try to dazzle the big guy before he does anything they'll all regret. Ranged Attack Roll vs. Krampus: 1d20+12 22 Should be a DC18 Reflex save vs. blindness.

Masque Let's Fall in Like (1) Shadow of the Mummy (2) Through the Mirrored Glass and Back Again (1) Ref point to Wraith, please.

"If you want people to believe that you don't want anyone coming to harm, you probably shouldn't dress like evil sorcerers," Masque pointed out, cocking her head at the group. "Nobody's going to believe you aren't here to, I don't know, carve out someone's heart and use it to summon a demon. Look at you. Do your moms know you dress like that?" She waved a hand in front of her face, mask while unseen to a blank white surface scrawled in simple black ink to form an exaggerated, shocked expression. "Did your moms dress you like that?" The hand came back down, and now the mask was a cheeky grin. A little braver than she felt, but she wasn't alone - and if they were looking at her, and at Veronica, they weren't looking...wherever Kam had gone. That was a fair trade. "That's terrible, you should get better moms. Moms who don't encourage evil magic."