Fox
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Alice will lean on her Skill Mastery to auto-22 a notice check.
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Matt opened his mouth to say something about the tea, but the noise never came out - at some unheard cue, he craned his head around his shoulder to watch a second dog trot up to the group and take a seat at his heel. If his first dog was the essence of guilt, this one was pure nonchalance, an animal with pride to spare and nothing to prove. Matt stared at it for a moment, almost started about two questions, and settled for pinching the bridge of his nose. "She's already back in her room, isn't she. You kept her company, you took her back there, and now you're here to rub my nose in it." The dog didn't speak, but it opened its mouth in canine grin. "....yeah, okay." Matt moved the bridge-pinching up about an inch. "We need to talk later, Fang. For now, uh, no breaking in anywhere for us, I guess? I'm all for the tea idea, though. Maybe she'll like the gesture. Might be at least worth dropping in in ones and twos to make sure she's okay. Or not. I dunno, I'm not your dad, 'parently I can't even keep track of my own dogs."
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Matt looked down at the dog, who did not make eye contact. "Nowhere we can get to without trouble," he said. "Some kinda brig, she probably got special permission to use it. The dogs don't care, because they go through walls, but getting us in would be trickier and probably not worth it if she's doing better now." One of these days he was going to have to make the dogs teach him their going-through-walls trick. He'd never really gotten a hold of that one, or the walking on water - something about being 'too real'. He'd never been sure if that was some kind of insult. "She oughta be back in her room in a while, though. Dunno if you'll make lunch without breaking in, but if we - uh, individually - can catch her when she's better and in a better place, literally, maybe? Or, hell, if you wanna break in, I'm not gonna stop you. Won't be much good for anything but directions, though."
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"She 'needed time alone'," Matt said, flatly - he was glaring daggers at one of his dogs, who could not have possibly looked more guilty - all hunched posture and desperately trying to not make eye contact. "I guess she woke up feeling off, and decided she'd stay away from everyone for their own good, just in case she lost control or something. I sent some dogs out to see if she was okay earlier, and apparently one of them found her and none of the rest thought to let me know that my friend had gone and literally locked herself away." No, in fact, the dog could look more guilty. Matt hadn't been part of the earlier conversations - he'd been "busy", which in his case meant skipping class for some inscrutable purpose, though his absence wasn't the kind of thing that worried or impressed anybody who'd known him for more than a handful of weeks. Still, word had gotten around, and once he'd thought to ask a dog directly he figured he wouldn't keep anyone else out of the loop if he could help it. "She's doing okay, though. Or, better, I guess. Maybe drop by at some point and let her know you were worried, if you were worried."
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"I'm a bit surprised you've heard of us," Gaian Knight mused, careful but friendly, dropping his hands into the pockets of his coat. Somewhere behind them, Tiamat issued a low rumbling noise from somewhere deep in her chest, settling back onto her haunches to watch the proceedings like some sort of two-story cat. Tourists or not, he still found himself hoping for the best and concerned about the worst. "Our apologies for the make-shift landing pad, but we weren't expecting your arrival - we haven't gone off-planet much, and we don't have a lot in the way of long-range communications - didn't think we'd caught anyone's eye, really. Kinda surprised our little refuge got much attention at all."
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"I use the metaphors I mean to use," Fang huffed, leaning into the scratching, "but human words are stupid. Howl will age and die as all mortal creatures must, and should. We would not follow him otherwise. For more, you must ask him. But carefully?" One of her eyes reappeared, turned upward to eye the young girl. There was genuine concern buried somewhere in that burning orb, somewhere beneath the constant grief they always gave him. "He worries, though he should not. You have this in common." She closed her eye again, flicking an ear. "They are all pups. They fear and they worry and they cling to others like them. But they grow, and they learn. Your memories are short, because they begin only when you are born. This is human frailty. You will grow old or die young, and your ghost should not be full of regrets." She yawned again, both eyes opening to look out of the cell. "You are not mine, I cannot tell you what to think. But we like you, because you are smart and young and full of skritches. This is enough."
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Fang said nothing for a while, a soft canine comfort against concern and loneliness, but at long last she yawned, slumping down to sprawl across Winifred's lap, and leaving the poor girl to support herself or fall over sideways. "It is normal to be afraid," she observed, wriggling a bit to be more comfortable. "All mortal things know fear. You fear that you will hurt others, and this protects them, and it is good. To a point." Her eyes, those twin circles of burning coal, winked out - one got the impression that she'd closed them. "Do you think that your pack would agree? Your friends. You say that you are dangerous, and they act as if they agree...most of them. Howl knows you cannot kill him, but Howl is not always wise. And still, they do not leave your company. They do not cast you out. Perhaps they are all fools, hm?" She yawned again, a too-red tongue curling in the air. "But perhaps not. You think you are a scorpion, but even fools know better than to keep a scorpion's company."
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Grim's dogs had come around to the desk, looking apologetic. "Nothin', huh?" he asked, kneeling down to rub them behind the ears; they leaned into his touch, but their body language was disappointment none the less. "S'okay. Every time is one closer to getting 'em." "So, uh, how long did all of this take?" he asked, standing back up. His dogs circled his legs, pacing back and forth for want of something to do. "The crime bit, that is. I'm getting the feeling they kinda knew what they were after, but even busting their way through everything in their path it still must've taken them a few minutes to get in and out?"
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"We do sleep. And we dream," confirmed the dog, unabashedly turning its head to give her access to better skritching spots. "Dark dreams, and happy dreams. Dreams of old things. We have bad dreams, sometimes, but the pack usually chases them away. This is why you do not hear our names," it added, turning one red-coal-eye toward her. Its tone was almost...admonishing, like Winifred couldn't do something it thought she ought to. "We have names, but you do not hear them, because you do not hear as the pack does, to know the names and chase the dreams. If you could hear I could tell you my name, but you cannot and so I am called Fang, daughter of Slate and Ember. These are the names that Howl uses when he does not speak like the pack, and so they are good." Fang carefully nosed her head across Winifred's knees, happy to slump there a bit in the middle of the girl's anxious curl. "Howl is not Howl's name either, of course. But like Fang, it is close enough. If you want your dreams chased away, perhaps you need a pack, and to hear them properly."
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Back in the cell the dog seemed unperturbed by tears and implied violence both, ambling Winifred's way without a care in the world. "I am not a 'people'," it casually noted, voice as dark and smoky as the rest, hopping up onto the bench. The hound wasn't giving her much choice in the matter of closeness, but neither did it make any sudden movements or jarring transitions - instead it quietly padded over to her end of the would-be furniture, head low and always watching her. "Also, you cannot harm us. Not really. Howl tells you this, and I do not think you believe him, but it is true." A soft nose landed on her shoulder, the rest of the creature flopping as best it could without losing that purchase. "Skritches," it said, attempting to work its bright, round eyes into something sympathetic.
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"We do not know. We have not explored here much," the dog replied, getting back up onto its feet. It paced a bit, sniffing at the see-through cell well in open curiosity. "Howl has not called me, nor released me to call one closer to him, so I do not believe there is danger yet. Today," it added, thoughtfully but as an absent aside, touching the wall with one careful paw as if testing the unknown material. "Tonight, perhaps, but we will attend to it. We do not expect trouble from that one. It is why it can wait until tonight." Apparently satisfied, the creature brought its foot down and shoved its head clear through the wall, substance dragging back as if it was stepping through a heavy curtain or thick liquid. But, step through it did, casually pulling itself into the cell as if such a thing were perfectly normal. "Perhaps tomorrow night; it is a concern for later. Why are you in a cage? Howl threatens to cage us when we threaten to pee on things owned by bad people, but both are idle threats. Are you not housebroken?"
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There were just eyes, at first: two spots like floating red coals that bobbed into view on the other side of the cell 'window', trailing a smoke so thin it could barely be seen against the opposite wall - a smoke that moved like ink in water. Those grim orbits drew their smoke in a lazy, liquid circle around the television, peering up at it with inscrutable curiosity, before coming back around to rest just outside the cell wall, opposite Fred's position on her bench. This appeared to give the rest of their slowly-flowing form a chance to catch up, gradually filling in the body of a large, sitting dog whose fur wavered weightlessly in a wind no one else could feel. It held there for a moment, watching Fred with an unblinking, lidless gaze, before it thumped its tail against the floor. "Hello!" it said, with the sort of honest and friendly smile only dogs and Cheshire cats could summon. "We could not find you, and so you were lost. But now you are found! This is good."
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"Fair enough," Gaian Knight conceded, a little bit of pride creeping into his voice at the praise. "I'll fix it up a little when we're done here, if it lasts - maybe flatten out the ground underneath, if we aren't worried about the plants down there. With a little more support it ought to hold up without any real wear-and-tear." He pulled a face at the announcement of gifts, and even from the other side of the platform the now-landed Tiamat could be heard making a snorting sound that flattened the grass beneath her great red head. "They...did say that they were bringing gifts to 'facilitate relations'," the earth-mover allowed, brows narrowing over his goggles, "but they seemed a little surprised or excited about it and I really wish that wasn't so open to interpretation. I think, sometimes, I miss having a job where I could take that kind of thing on optimism and faith."
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Grim's dogs made a canid sound uncomfortably like laughter as the office worker backed down and got escorted away, but almost immediately went back to searching the area, sniffing at the ground and doorways as dogs were wont to do. Grim opted for a more human approach, carefully picking his way around the lobby toward the back wall, hoping to get a better perspective on things. And find a perspective he did - as soon as he was behind the reception desk he stopped short, backed up a half-step, and waved Reagent (and, possibly by accident, one of the CSI techs) over. "Well," he said, grabbing a pen out of a nearby mug and using it to gently push back a couple collapsed books; without them in the way, all could see the angular blade of throwing knife embedded in the wood. "I mean, this explains at least some of the cuts and maybe how they've been breaking glass, I guess? Kind of a weird thing to fight with, but who'm I to judge."
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Gaian Knight / Tiamat (maxed) Strange Visitors (2) Dragonfly (maxed) - Wraith - Eclipse - Grim Deep Into That Darkness Peering (3) Gremlin - Split GK's posts between Eclipse and Grim, so that they each get something for the month. Ref point to Eclipse, please.
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"We're pretty sure it's exactly the kind of place for our shenanigans," Grim dryly observed, gesturing at the damage. "We were asked to help take a look. Got badges and everything," he added, flashing his own with carefully-cultivated disinterest. "I mean, you could try to drive us out, I guess. We're here to help, and we wanna help, but I wouldn't blame you. You could, what, set the dogs loose on us?" He waved his badge in the vague direction of the doorway, where three large, smoke-furred hounds had been sniffing at the ground; they brought their heads up like one creature, eyes like round burning coals turning to look at the office worker. "I mean, I brought mine," the young psychopomp drawled, trying to scope out the area as best he could. The dogs, in perfect unison, cocked their heads in canine curiosity. "What did you bring?"
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"Roger. One safe landing platform, coming right up." The man and his rock broke off from the dragon, veering to the side toward the nearest open field...or, at least, the nearest open area that would conveniently put the town between it and the shelter. It was already growing as he arrived, plants gently pushed aside so that stone could flow upward like a living force. Seven great pillars rose a short ways into the air before mushrooming out, the outer six forming a ring while the central piece broadened and flattened to meet them and create the floor of a grand granite hexagon. It was, for the Gaian Knight, somewhat unadorned - he was apparently favoring expediency over embellishments, if it got the spaceship out of the air faster - but the surface of the smooth and seamless stone construction did at least etch a pleasant geometric pattern to help the ship pilots aim for the center. "Ready for landing," he sent over the radio, some of the outer ring scooping up into a low, curving wall in case the thing wasn't obvious enough already...and hopefully to keep any thrust from blowing straight toward town. "Didn't have to crush or uproot any plants, but they might have to go without sun for a little until I can put all this back where I got it. Sorry about that."
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Grim! Notice Check: 1d20+13 23 Grim's Dog, on Notice duty! On the hunt for dog-type things, and neat smells. Notice Check: 1d20+10 20 He'll probably back Woodsman up on that Intimidate, posts allowing, but his dogs are scarier than he is...so instead of them aiding him, for once he'll aid them! Grim: Aid Other (Intimidate), DC10: 1d20+12 15 Aw, barely made it. +2 to their check, at least, for making the DC10. Dogs: Intimidate Check (Aided +2): 1d20+17+2 22 Good lord. That's improbably bad.
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"On our way." Tarrant had been sculpting - a rare moment of peace, brought on largely by his summer-lightened workload at the university - and while his half-finished statuette would probably bake in the sun before he got back, he'd file that under 'small sacrifices'. His sword was ever by his side, still in the large duffel bag he stashed it in while at work - and so was the rest of his gear, thankfully, the geokinetic having been slightly too happy to get his hands full of clay to properly stow it in the castle. He was still pulling his armor on as he flew down from his home-away-from-home, the image of a distance-shrunken man on his platform of rock quickly eclipsed by the several tons of lizard that lazily crawled out of the underside of the largest floating island. It snapped its wings out in a grand curtain of crimson, controlling its fall to pull in next to him. "ETA...as fast as the wind takes us, should be less than a minute. Assuming we'd rather have them grounded than hovering over us, do you want a quick landing platform a bit out?"
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APPROVED!
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An interesting concept! Could be neat to see in play, we haven't had a lot of Anatomic Separation outside of limited cybernetics and the undead. Abilities You've bought 52pp of abilities, here, not 26. Remember that it's 1pp per point of the base ability, not 1pp per point of bonus. Combat With +10 Base Defense and +5 Dodge Focus, this character would have a total Defense bonus of +15, not +16; guessing that's just a typo. With +5 Toughness (+4 Con, +1 Defensive Roll), your Knockback's always going to be -2. Equipment It's worth noting that characters are assumed to have things like cell phones and laptops without having to pay for them, since such items are ubiquitous in modern society. If you want a special version for hero work, though (eg, a phone not tied to your civilian identity), that's fair to buy here. Just pointing it out just in case! Powers M&M 2e doesn't really have 'quirks' - this would be a Flaw, mechanically.
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Let's see, mostly formatting stuff here.... Abilities Please list the ability score bonuses next to each ability score, for ease of reference. It's useful for you and GMs to be able to see the bonus at a glance! Saves Please note the template for formatting the exotic saves and where they get bonuses from. It's really, really useful for when anybody - players and refs alike! - go to do sheet edits. Feats From context I'm guessing that your Attack Specialization applies to Cosmic Blast, but that should be made explicit on the feat itself. Powers Blast 10 is missing its pp cost (trivial for this power, but important for auditing and future edits). General The bottom of your sheet is missing the final pp tally, though I believe it does indeed all add up to 160pp. You should probably note your Unarmed attack in your DC Block - sometimes you've just gotta punch a dude.
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"Well, Holmes," Grim drawled, for all that he did appear to be inspecting the slash marks fairly carefully, "the marks by the door are pretty small, but the desk is pretty messed up. Figure they had a purpose with the desk, or a different weapon, but they weren't out to damage the door frame. Had some other reason to do it, I guess? Glass is interesting, too," he added, gesturing down around his feet. "Weren't afraid to walk all over it, but it's all uneven. Some of it's basically dust now, some of it's just all cracked up after landing." Grim was standing on glass, too, which he either didn't notice or didn't care about - though it probably helped that he'd somehow managed to not so much as nudge or snap a shard in half while doing it. "Guessing a couple different-sized guys went through here, or one guy went through this one spot a lot or carrying something heavy." He gave Raina her due ear, though he briefly pondered if watching her talk to Merlin was what he and his dogs looked like sometimes. "Gives us a good place to go next, I guess. Dogs caught a scent here, but nothing they can identify or follow. We'll remember it - maybe they can pick it up again, if this is all connected up somehow."
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Bah, can't believe I missed the ability score. Did a touch of rebalancing to fit the budget: Traded out 2pp of Wis for 2pp of Int. Dropped Power Attack from feats to free 1pp. Fed 1pp to Saves to get Will back up to +12. Dropped two ranks of Perform and one rank of Sense Motive to boost Concentration, Notice, and Sense Motive up to compensate for the Wis loss. Good thought on the Flight; it isn't like it's supposed to be a helicarrier, and he can stunt a massive Move Object if he ever really needs to. I've dropped it for a Portal power to let non-GK, non-fliers up there if need be. Selective's weird on Portal, but I went with the extra rather than the feat regardless. Burrowing's weird with Affects Others. Explicitly, the +1 version lets you bring others with you at your pace while you burrow (the +0 just gives other people the power to burrow!) - I've noted in the power that I'm using the +1 version, not the +0 version. You're absolutely correct that he can't take anyone too deep - or with too little air supply in the tunnel or 'bubble' - without incurring potential negative consequences. Less of an issue than with Swimming, thankfully. Same deal with Area on Burrowing - the Burst Area lets you create a bigger tunnel. The Move Object is indeed strictly moving earthen objects. The first revision of his 250pp build had a second, lower-ranked power that better-represented grabbing things with earth arms (Move Object, -Perception, -Limit, +Damaging just to eat the pp); I'm fairly tempted to put it back into place if I can skim the pp from somewhere. Steal a little bit from less-used skills, maybe. Tremmorsense is 2pp because it's 1pp for the additional sense within the Tactile sense type, and 1pp for Ranged on that new sense, as noted by our house rules. If we want to eliminate the 1pp surcharge on new base senses, we should probably update that house rule to match. EDIT: On review I have indeed put the less-limited Move Object back in there; I ate 4 skills points (2 each of Knowledge (Arcane Lore) and Climb - GK's getting lazy with all the flying!) to free up the pp to do so.
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