Fox

Elizabeth wasn't sure what to think about all this; she absently pulled a large coin out from goodness-knows-where and began rolling it across her fingers. It would periodically disappear, hidden or transferred to her other hand by some sleight or trick, but even she wasn't watching it - twice as quiet as the cards, if only half as good at keeping her hands busy. Curfew sounded not great, but she could probably get around that...or get into trouble later. She'd never been to detention, maybe it would be interesting. The competitions, though, that was something else. Maybe she'd be lucky? She'd been awfully lucky, lately - maybe they'd be great people and good friends, and not miserable jerks.

Elizabeth followed along dutifully, nodding enough to briefly disturb her hair. "I'm not sure I'd mind a snack," she said, though whatever else she was going to say died when she realized she wasn't quite sure what passed for a snack in a school cafeteria. When was the last time she'd...? "Is the food good?" she asked, cocking her head at Abigail. The motion mostly fixed her hair, short as it was. "I don't think I've eaten in a cafeteria since I was really small, so I guess I won't have much to compare it to."

Standard disclaimer first: Post counts are machine-assisted to check our work, but they (and the accompanying edits) are still fundamentally done by people, and people are fallible. If you have reason to believe your counts or edits are incorrect, please reach out ASAP so that we can correct it. If you forgot to post your threads in the main thread or late post counting, but you still want credit for the month's work, reach out to me and we'll see what we can do. Any counts marked with a red note haven't been done yet, probably because of whatever's written in that red note. If the note's relevant to you, get on it! And, lastly, our apologies for barely making it before the end of the month; due to some real-life concerns, we had a last-minute change in the ref assigned to August's post counts. With those out of the way, here we go! Cubismo Replica: 15 posts = 2pp Exaccus Tekton: 11 posts (guest star) Dreadnought: 8 posts + 11 (Tekton guest star) = 19 posts = 2pp Facsimile: 54 posts = 4pp Fox Masque: 0 posts = 0pp + 1 (vignette) = 1pp Wraith: 1 post = 1pp + 2 (vignette) = 3pp Heritage Gossamer: 1 post = 1pp Miracle Girl: 4 posts = 1pp KnightDisciple Cobalt Templar: 3 posts = 1pp + 1 (guide) = 2pp, and is now MAXED! Raven: 0 posts = 0pp + 2 (vignette) = 2pp Nick Chance: 2 posts = 1pp Nightingale: 3 posts = 1pp Arcana: 0 posts = 0pp + 1 (admin) = 1pp olopi Bonfire: 0 posts = 0pp + 2 (vignette) = 2pp Bird of Arms: 0 posts = 0pp + 2 (Bonfire rollover) = 2pp Lady Liberty: 0 posts = 0pp + 2 (vignette) + 1 (ref) = 3pp RocketLord Forever Boy: 2 posts *2 (new player boost!) = 4 posts = 1pp SpicyWaffle Bee-Keeper III: 11 posts + 6 (GM) = 17 posts = 2pp GM: 3 posts *2 = 6 Supercape Rev: 2 posts + 25 (GM) = 27 posts = 3pp Diamondlight: 5 posts + 20 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Rene: 1 post = 1pp Mr Murk: 4 posts + 21 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Snakebite: 3 posts + 22 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Starshot: 5 posts = 1pp Echohead: 3 posts + 22 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Curveball: 0 posts + 25 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Ronin: 0 posts + 25 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Lament: 0 posts + 1 (Rene rollover) + 24 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp Sgt Shark: 0 posts + 5 (Starshot rollover) + 20 (GM) = 25 posts = 3pp GM: 102 posts *2 = 204 Tarrakhash Chromium: 6 posts = 1pp Tiffany Korta Merge Trois: 1 post + 6 (GM) = 7 posts = 1pp Miss Grue: 2 posts = 1pp + 1 (ref) = 2pp Ms Britannia: 1 post = 1pp The Scarab III: 11 posts + 4 (GM) = 15 posts = 2pp The Traveller: 4 posts = 1pp Triakosia: 2 posts = 1pp Zhenschina-voin: 4 posts = 1pp Bee: 0 posts + 1 (Triakosia rollover) = 1 post = 1pp Doctor Thorne: 0 posts + 1 (Triakosia rollover) = 1 post = 1pp Emerald Spider: 0 posts + 1 (GM) = 1 post = 1pp White Lioness: 0 posts + 1 (GM) = 1 post = 1pp GM: 6 posts *2 = 12 Thevshi Tsunami: 3 posts = 1pp + 1 (ref) = 2pp Veronica Danger: 2 posts = 1pp Synapse: 0 posts + 6 (GM) = 6 posts = 1pp Squire Kath'lana: 0 posts + 6 (GM) = 6 posts = 1pp GM: 6 posts *2 = 12

"Running keeps you alive," Alice pointed out. She was openly side-eyeing Chance's phone as she spoke, brow furrowed as she made a couple muted gestures with one hand. Whatever thought she finally landed on, she didn't seem to be sure what to do with it, aside from set her glass down and push it a few inches away from herself. "Getting even's great, and it sends a message, but you can't just run into it, you know? Good revenge takes planning. Planning takes time. Time takes survival." The young thief leaned back on her arms, cocking her head at the group. "Probably not that hard to keep going, even after. Sounds like everyone here has a thing, except you," she corrected, tilting her head a little further toward Lou, "but you're muscle, and really good muscle, and everyone needs muscle. You've just gotta figure out how to land on your feet and not your face."

Elizabeth visibly winced at mention of the invasion, one hand rising up toward her abdomen before she caught it. She forced the hand back into her lap, making a fist and then splaying her fingers back out to relax it. That day had been worth it. Still. Safety was a good thing, but in her experience there was safety and then there was "safety", and she wasn't sure which one the school would be going for - and she had a pit in the bottom of her stomach that told her which one she worried about the most. She came here to have fun, not spend more time in a room with all the sharp edges padded - she'd tasted freedom and didn't want to trade one exile for another. Maybe there would be loopholes? Maybe only one of her would have to obey the rules. She might get away with that.

"Hey there!" Elizabeth flashed a smile, turning to size Abby up as an addition to her list of new friends. "Yeah! A bunch of us showed up around the same time, so when we got a chance to have Danica show us around, it seemed like a great idea." She'd stuck her hand out for a shake, too, but paused to glance at her hand, at Abby's full hands, and at Pan's, before pulling her hand back with a small but non-zero amount of awkwardness. "I'm Elizabeth," she added, sticking the offending hand in her pocket where it could cause no trouble. "But I'm betting you figured that out yourself, since I'm too short to be a 'Jack'."

Indira whipped her head around at the thought, legs shrinking back fast enough to put her into free-fall for the final few inches - and she hit the ground running, tearing back toward the building with a speed born of caution and memories of her own home world. She knew enough to not panic, but she also knew enough to not stay in potentially dangerous territory. "We fall back," she said, with some finality. "The building is the closest we have to safe ground, and we must keep it that way until we understand the threat. We may wish to empty the bottom floors of the building, so that if we must fight, we can stand between the citizens and anything that makes it that far." She hit the wall and kept going, skittering up the side of the building until she had a decent view of at least her side of the field. "It is hopefully not necessary, but if we do not know our prey we cannot take chances. We may well be invading territory, or triggering some similar threat. We do not know if, or how hard, a prey may fight."

APPROVED!

Sun Dragon looks good. For Dio: General Double-check the math on that Strength score; I count it as base 10 + 8 (Growth) + 22 (Enhanced Strength) = 40, not 30. Feats Small typo, while you're in there - "Knowledge(Knowledge(Arcane Lore)" Powers You've bought 6 effective ranks of Super-Senses, rather than 8. The cost looks right, though.

APPROVED!

APPROVED!

"I can do...I mean, a little bit. A little bit of a few things? I'm still figuring a lot of that out, I guess," Elizabeth admitted, frowning at herself. She'd meant to practice more things more, but the ones that were the most entertaining were always the easiest to work with. "That's one of the things I hope to do while I'm here, is figure out exactly how my--" The headmistress had taken the stage, and Elizabeth's eyes turned that way, as most all students' had; she wasn't so enraptured or intimidated as to not notice that bit. If she could figure out how that worked, she'd make a killing on a stage one day - for now, she'd watch, and she'd learn. As the whispers died down, she had just enough time to tilt her head an inch in Astrid's direction. "Maybe later. Showtime!"

Having pulled her finger back immediately, Elizabeth held it to her chest long enough to make sure she'd caused no offense before letting out the held breath, gathering her wits back into the smile and sense of cheer that had sustained her this far. "That's pretty neat, yeah, and makes sense - with the tough thing," she admitted, pondering. "If you're really tough, though, I bet you could fly - Jack's pretty big, he could probably lob you pretty far. Or, I guess, that's not technically flying?" She paused, making a hand motion like the arc of a marginally-controlled trajectory. "More like...falling, but with style. This place has to have a great engineering group or club, maybe they could make you some wings or something. I think I saw that in a cartoon once."

So much site history flavor. So rare. So delicious. Combat With +6 base attack and Attack Focus (Ranged) 4, I'd count +10 Ranged attack, not +4. Feats Since you can't take 10 with Concentration, it doesn't qualify for Skill Mastery. Powers As a minor typo, double-check the spelling on the contents of the Teleport power.

? Larry was a man....I mean, he was a dragon-man.... General Veteran award progress is no longer tracked on sheets, so we should probably do away with that; it's unlikely to be updated when it's tracked, instead, in the Reward Tracker. Combat Just a notation problem here: 8 + 8 = 16pp, not 12pp. The total is correct in the final pp tally, though, so overall sheet math should be unaffected. Double-check the Knockback modifier? With +12/+4 Toughness, Sun Dragon would have a -6/-2 modifier, unless I've misplaced an additional bonus somewhere. Powers I believe you're over-paying for the Flight array. Flight 5 with two Extras is 20pp (4pp/rank); two feats (Dynamic & Alternate Power) is +2pp, for 22pp total. Double-check the Super-Strength's cost, too - 17pp for a flawed Super-Strength, plus two feats, would be 19pp, not 20. Final Tally While the final cost is within budget before the above corrections (180pp), it's currently listed as 188/188, rather than 180/180. ? ....or maybe he was just a dragon.... Combat The Attack line calls out a bonus to a Gale power I can't find elsewhere on the sheet. Saves The -1 Dex penalty applies to Reflex saves, giving a +6, not a +7, after modifiers. Skills The Intimidation skill's final bonus is off - base 11, +5 Charisma, +4 Growth would be a final +20. Powers Please give another pass to the formatting on Dio; it's not entirely clear what powers are and are not part of the Young Dragon container. Permanent is a -1 Flaw for Continuous powers, but Growth is Sustained by default. Sustained -> Permanent is a net +0 (+1 for Duration [Sustained], -1 for Permanent), which would make Growth (+Innate, -Permanent) a 25pp power. Final Tally Even before corrections, above, Dio is over-budget; Sun Dragon bought 30 ranks of Sidekick, for 150pp total, but Dio adds up to 157pp as-written (and, again, before adding on that Growth cost).

Is the true price of crime having to fight Dust Devil, or having to get sand out of just the worst places after? Combat It may or may not come up, but it might be worth noting the Knockback modifier when Dust Devil activates Impervious Toughness (-12, in this case: -10 from the Impervious Toughness, and -2 from half of the remaining 5 non-Impervious Toughness). Skills Double-check the stealth bonus; with Stealth 12 and a +2 Dex, that'd be a final bonus of 14, not 17, unless I missed a bonus somewhere. Powers 'Magic' is a "Very Common" descriptor, per the Descriptor Frequencies we use here (and, for that matter, its use in the book). Magic Awareness, then, would cost 3pp, as noted in the house rule on Awareness. Double-check the powers tally; even before the Awareness correction, the powers as-listed would add up to 62pp, not 58, I believe. This is correct in the final pp Totals, but not in the Powers line.

"Ah, man, jealous." Elizabeth threw her hands up in a shrug, shaking her head. "I can do some stuff, but I can't fly. It always seemed like it'd be pretty great - very freeing. But I guess everyone gets different stuff, if they get anything. Like not being hurt!" She poked a finger at Danica, shaking her head again; so many people with such cool stuff that would have been so useful. "You can do more than a lot of people, getting hurt or not! Plus, 'not getting hurt' sounds like it could be...really useful sometimes."

"That's...a lot of pressure!" Elizabeth laughed, flicking the clearly-stacked hand of cards back face-down into the deck. The deck went into its little box, the box went into her pocket, and that left her hands clasped together as she leaned with her elbows on her knees. "I solemnly swear that if we ever play cards I will only stack the deck sometimes, and only when it's really important, or when it's really funny." She was smiling, a twinkle in her eye that spelled only mischief. "Or when there's a lot of money on the table," she added. "I really make no promises about stacking the deck when the pot's really good, you know?"

Elizabeth wasn't sure what to make of that response, and she wasn't sure how deep she wanted to step into that on her very first day; a new regret at the new school, maybe. Jack had made for a good distraction, at least - saved by the Russian. She tipped the hat at the newcomer, then flipped it away - it dissolved into nothing before it got too far from her person. "Just a question!" she defended, smiling uncomfortably. "If, um, if they have a library you should probably check out a book called Peter Pan, or a movie named Peter Pan? The cartoon one's got some problems but it's mostly still pretty good. You...might find them interesting. And hello!" she greeted, turning properly to address Jack. "Danica here was just talking about the gym, yes! No real hero teams for me, I think, I'm still getting used to things. Wouldn't want to drag anyone else down, you know? But that gym sounds great, I have some exercises I'm supposed to be doing every day."

Elizabeth nodded, though she was side-eyeing Pan as if trying to decide whether or not she should address something. "It is pretty cool. There's so much to do! I look forward to doing...well. All of it!" She smiled, but the smile got buried under the side-eyeing again, and it only took her a couple beats to give up. "So, uh, the Crocodile, and the...Hooked Man. We're talking, you know..." She reached out with one hand, pulling from thin air an enormous hat, cartoonish red with a wide, up-turned brim and long, unnaturally puffy white feather spilling off the side. She plopped it on her head, leaving it cocked a bit to the side in what she hoped was...jaunty? "...'I'll get you for this, if it's the last thing I do!', Hooked Man?"

"Not as much as you'd think," Elizabeth admitted, flexing her hand before returning it to the shuffle. She'd felt more fragile than she'd looked - energy overcoming frailty, maybe. "Once in a while, with my dad or brothers, when they'd let me - or mom, who's got a poker face that always shamed the whole table. I learned mostly for card tricks, that's the part I love." She cocked her head at the shuffle and frowned, piling them back into a single deck in one smooth motion. "Plus," she said, turning her head up to look at Astrid with an impossibly hurt, vulnerable innocence, "when people find out you know card tricks they won't trust you anymore." She was pulling cards off the top of the deck now, face-up; four queens and a two. That was supposed to be four queens and an ace, which was annoying; she tried to not let it show. "I never figured out why they didn't want me dealing."

That admission apparently caught Elizabeth a bit flat-footed; she stumbled for a moment, gazing open-eyed at Pan before shaking her head and skipping to catch up. "Another world! This is all going to take some getting used to." She shrugged, an exaggerated expression complete with hands held helplessly palms-upward. "I'm from...here, I guess?" she said. "I was born overseas, but I've been here for a while, so I guess I'm basically from here."

Elizabeth's eyes scanned across until they met Astrid's, blinking for a moment in surprise. "Hmm...? Oh!" She glanced down at the cards, then back up, popping one card up mid-shuffle so that it arced briefly into view before falling back down into the pile. "Yes, kind of!" she admitted, either ignoring or rolling with the sarcasm. "It's...probably strange, but kind of fun to watch everyone. I'm just really not very good at keeping my hands still when I'm nervous, so I try to carry something to keep them busy. Let me know if it bothers you, and I'll stop." She wasn't even watching the cards anymore, but then, maybe she didn't need to; the shuffling deftly switched to one hand so that she could hold the other out in greeting. "I don't think we've met! Elizabeth Grey, one of the new students. It's a pleasure to meet you!"

Elizabeth had found a powerful tug-of-war between watching the other students and watching whatever presentation they'd been called together to witness - she'd also, unexpectedly, found herself a little cold-footed at the number of people drifting into the auditorium. She wasn't afraid of people, surely, but so many packed into one place was....well, it was different. She held for a moment, then, tugging at the hem of her white blouse - worn over simple pale jeans and a pair of grey sneakers; most of her stuff would be coming this weekend, more compromise from taking the taxi to school day one - before deciding that if she could see as many people as possible, she could watch them and feel more comfortable and watch the presentation. Plus, no way to get used to people like being surrounded by people, right? She carefully maneuvered herself, if not to the back, at least toward the back, finding the middle of a row to drop into. And, finding herself waiting - her least favorite thing - she dug a pack of playing cards out and began to quietly shuffle them between her hands as she looked around the room.

Elizabeth's eyebrows, white as the rest of her hair, shot up at the offer. "Ooh, tour, yes please!" she said, pulling the strap of her bag higher up on her shoulder as she set off after the segway. "And, uhm," she paused, spinning around on her heel to point at Veronica with one hand and at Micah with the other, "fair enough, tidy hair is important. And hello, Micah! I hope you make friends!" Everyone deserved friends. She finished the spin, stumbling forward a little as her bag pulled her a little off-balance; her physical therapist would have chided her for that. No harm done, though; a couple quick steps caught her up, and she was making polite but enthusiastic inquiries into the facilities as the neon arrows dissolved into the void behind her. "A greenhouse! Are we allowed in, or did you have to wander because we can't visit properly?"