Supercape

Gather Information: 1d20+1 10

Echohead The acquisition of superpowers was a serious business with serious ramifications. And it was the business of AEGIS. Or in this case, Mr. Umberto Velluti. He needed practice, he needed experience, and this was what turned up on his radar, Stepping through the fens in his remarkably cool Impervium weave turtleneck suit, with blaster pistol tucked in its holster, he felt pretty awesome. At last, adventure! heroics! He was terrified, of course. But he tried to steer that fear into excitement. Not easy, and not successful, for he was still riddled with the cognitive architecture of a perpetually bullied weedy short kid. "Er...um...have you heard anything?" he asked random strangers, bubbling and stammering. He didnt really want to read peoples minds. But...it was getting progressively more tempting.

Cool!

Rev "That sounds like a plan to me" replied Rev, scanning the forcefield. "I mean, its as good as any, right? That energy field seems to be made of energy. And its a field! A field of energy!" she said, full of eagerness. She didn't really know what she was talking about, and she didn't pretend to. But she remained eager and positive - and after all, she had clocked what Alex could do. It sounded reasonable to her. Dangerous, but reasonable. Which, in her eyes, was pretty perfect. "How are we going to get the hostages out though? Do we need a van or a bus?" she asked. Of course, she kind of wanted that. Supercharging the school bus and driving it at a thousand miles an hour had always been a little ambition of hers...

GM "I can dig that" said Fields, helping himself to another thick and large cup of coffee. His bladder must have had super powers of its own. "Stalker, eh? Well, I guess those fancy famous types get stalkers every now and again. Watch out, you might get one yourself one day" he grinned, helping himself to yet another cup of his coffee. The smell alone was enough to keep one awake for a day and induce cardiac palpitations. Fields had a tendency to talk too fast, and his hands trembled oh so slightly. "Well, we put out the word on the car. That much we can do. We got a few hits, but nothing too helpful. Might have been heading to his penthouse flat. We sent a few officers down there to invite him to help with our inquiries down here. And if he doesn't bite, then to arrest him so he has to help". "I can give you the address if you want".

GM "Sheesh, that mess?" sighed the pencil thin officer at the desk. He looked like he had swallowed his own body weight in caffeine. Twice over. "Well we ain't got a lot of folks here right now. Spread thin as it is, and half of what we have is at the hospital interviewing the casualties. Not that we got much to go on. Just a load of broken bones and some crazy woman" he sighed. "Marcus Skulll is missing. Assault with a chainsaw, we might get him on. But the lawyers are gonna have a feild day mining this one" he groaned. "So I'm probably your best bet. Sgt Fields. I'm nearly a detective. Got my exam next week!" he said proudly.

GM "Oh yeah, the singer" replied Tweed, embaressed. He fiddled with his bow tie. "Quite an odd fellow. I mean, he made me feel young..." he said wistfully. "A disco man, from the 70s. Yes yes, I know its hard to believe but I do follow something of popular culture. Even if I prefer Jazz" he conceded. "He must have been seventy, but he looked younger. Purple and yellow clothes, gold chains, an Afro. In shape, too. Damn, he was in better shape in his seventies than I was in my twenties. I gave up donuts for a week after I saw him. Well, a few days anyway". He shook himself back to the point. "We had this idea that the mimetic glass would respond to sound. Particularly, song. We wanted something actually in the lab, so we did a quick search online, and came up with this guy, who charged nothing and said it was all very interesting! well, despite his eccentricity he was free, available, and very well recommended on the internet. So we went with him!" "Aaron Treestock was his name. He owns a club, I think..."

Good enough for it all to go swimmingly!

GM And so... With a fond farewell to Pixie, and the time now 02:00 hours, Alex hit the local police department. At this time of night it was just beginning to quieten down, but that didn't mean it was quiet. Even the drunks and drug users were beginning to fall asleep, but crime never slept (it just dozed a little). Police cars and night shifts still pulsed through the city, and the tired and demoralised cops of Freedom City night were living off caffeine and bitterness. It was hard to keep up your morale and dedication at this time of the night for all but a few of the most ludicrously commited policemen, and the odd souls who just plained preferred the night.

GM And so...windmills it was... Holland! Or, more precisely, the stately home of Duke Jaap Duke Jaap Dooyeweerd, a most curious fellow. A recluse at times, of whom most extravagent rumors circulated - despite his elusiveness he seemed to travel the world getting into wild parties, scientific conferences, magnificent opera's, and jolly hunting expeditions. A man of two sides, it seemed. He was also a notable expert on biochemistry and cloning. Not one to share his research, or advertise his expertise, a little digging by Comrade Frost indicated that the Duke, and his father (and indeed Grandfather) had been of interest to the KGB for nearly a hundred years. Nothing concrete, it seemed - but Hitler and Stalin had both been most keep to acquire the families skill and yet nothing had materialised. And it was the Duke whom Doctor Sin had intended to visit. Quite in what manner, that was another issue altogether. A dozen miles outside of Amsterdam, the elegant old stately home was well maintained but resilutely unmodern. The security seemed fairly tight - walls, camera's, gates, and so on, but there were no armed guards (or killer robots, mutant dogs, or clone warriors come to that) - at least ones which could be seen. A tiny speck of fortune had befallen the immortals. Opposite the Duke's home was a most excellent coffee shop serving most excellent coffee and most excellent pastries, and it afforded a most excellent view of the manor.

Ill throw in Echohead at PL 8 if it is a fit. If it needs a super detective, I can use Lord Steam.

Rene "Bah!" muttered Rene at the sight of the various Gods. "You speak for yourselves, most suredly" he said, neither loud nor soft. "Such is your nature, and your nature is such". He turned away in contempt of the Gods, like every God. A blight on the liberty and will of mankind. "But what do I know?, I am but a helpless old man. A fool" he added, contemplating the roof of Parkhurst - until he turned serious eyes back to the Gods assembled. "A fool who would know your agenda..."

GM Iron Works Glass and Gold Codus Immortus: Icy Juice Violence is Golden [43 Posts] Shakedown Head West Rene The Moon Is In Shock (posts to Snakebite) Echohead What Lurks Beneath The Fens Rev The Only Thing I Know For Real Curveball Service Guide point to Mr. Murk GM Posts: First, ensure every non maxed PC has 1 Post / 1 PP Then, bump the following PCs to 25 Posts / 3 PP in thusly order (I am sure it wont get to the end, but just for clarity!) Echohead, Snakebte, Diamondlight, Mr. Murk, Lament, Sgt Shark, Rev, Ronin, Curveball.

GM And thusly it was, That Wadjet and the Lady crept throug the Iron Works. Oh, surely, there were locks (easily disposed of by Wadjet), and bored security guards (easily avoided). The security of the Iron Works was mediocre at this time of night. It might have caught the odd lioterer or vandal, but it was no match for determination, skill, and super-powers. The Iron Works never actually slept; one had to keep the heat on, the fires burning, the metal molten. There were a few night shift persons, but again, they were disinterested, just monitoring the early hours of the morn, watching bad TV and reading trash magazines more than actually paying attention. Easy enough to avoid, but a commotion would alert them. No commotion yet, however. The heat in the centre of the Iron Works was intense and uncomfortable and as they approached through the steel bars amd pipes, past steam and red hot molten metals, it only got worse. Nobody would last long in this heat, and sweating was profuse. And hidden amongst all the higgledy-piggledy bars and pipes, now that one knew what one was looking for, was a ten foot Robot, rotund of girth, looking like it had come from some Victorian Era. Powerful its arms, short its legs, and hissing with steam. And quite (it seemed) dormant.

For reference - although unlikely to come up, the central part of the Iron Works, where Barrelhouse lies, is an intense heat environment (saves every minute).

GM The files where a complete mess. Someone had done a job on them, good and thorough. The level of expertise needed to flip all this data about through the firewalls must have been...exceptional to say the least. Most was lost, beyond anything but divine intervention. But Replica could determine that this was a hack, and that the data had been copied before destruction. She was able to get some bits and pieces of technical data and records. Tweed had made a few AV records which, other than confirming his excitement and involvement in the project where of little importance. A few fragments over the past week where unusual. Particularly, a singer! It seemed like the project had hired a singer; some old black man dressed in outrageous 70s clothes, to croon at the glass, which seemed to respond, melding itself in new and unusual ways to not just the tone, but the timbre of the voice.

So noted; thats enough to get a lot of data!

Looking at the IC post I made, I am a little awkward about a direct cut. If somebody could make one IC post in response Ill do a cut but otherwise it seems just too brutal for my sensitive artistic sensitivities!

GM And so... The lab was a bit of a mess. Such was the nature of Tweed, one might suppose. Coffee cup, donuts, papers all disorganised. Tweed knew his stuff, and his stuff wasn't organisation of office space. "Here we are...well...hmmm...do you want a donut?" he asked, offering a number of slightly stale donuts. "Or coffee?" he added, offering a slightly chipped mug full of slightly cold coffee. The glass was gone. All of it. And there was no glass at all in the lab. No test tube, beaker, or petri dish. All gone. The computers were blank and unresponsive. Powering them up just lead to a blip of corrupted data and the computer shutting itself down soon after.

GM "I'm good, thanks" replied Pixie, breezily. "Like nobody messes with me!" she said, giving a few faux king fu moves to the air. "And if they did, I'd just turn invisible!" She had a think. Not for long, though. Pixie didn't think for all that long on anything. "Look, you are a nice guy and everything, and I want to help you, like you are helping...well, me, I guess. You aren't going to let this mess slip past you, I get that. But I'm not in the habit of giving out my address. My phone, however..." She showed him her mobile, complete with phone number and "ME!" as the contact.

GM Todd, for his part, was to busy wringing his guilty and agitated hands to notice Wadjet's grin (or the wranglings of her mind that had caused it). "In the Iron Works!" he explained. "In the centre, hidden behind more Iron. Heat, you see, nobody goes there. But Barrelhouse is designed to be most heat resistant! Yes, I am quite pleased with my metallurgy!" he said, pride once again seeping into his voice. Such was the way of the genius. "Deactivated, of course. Well, I think its deactitvated, anyway...."

GM "Sure sure..." said Tweed again, not comfortable. Perhaps it was Replica. "Mimetic glass is pretty clever. Not easy to make glass curved without distortions. If it cracks, it would seal over straight away. So handy for engineering and safety, for instance" he said, animated now. "You know how it is with research. Even top secret research. Everybody knows that you are researching something, with all the papers and conferences. They don't know the details, or how far we have got. They could guess, maybe. But I think we had the fine detail locked down..." He pondered. "Its hardly a weapon. Well, it could be used as a weapon, I guess. Exploding glass or spikes of silicon. But really, as far as ASTRO labs go, it would be pretty low down the list of weaponisable developments...I mean, its not an AI paperclip, but its not a hyperdimensional Lens cannon either..."

GM "What is the puzzle? Well...its a puzzle" sighed Pixie. "I can't figure the cube out. I guess that's the point. Dad is bit of a tease" she humphed. "It does strange things every now and again. Like yesterday it reset itself as a wishbone, snapped itself in twain, and reset itself again. Broken Wishbone. I did a google search and..." she shrugged. She hurridly pocketed the cube of infinite puzzles back. "Its dangeous. Probably" she said in hushed tones. "And I'm happy to help, Sherlock. What with me being all clever and stuff like that. And being able to turn invisible!"

DOes anyone want to do a post to that effect or shall I scene cut? (Whilst not very important - if someone could indicate how to travel that would be cool too! I would presume air travel best!)

GM "Did I say Giant Robot? I meant to say Giant Robot. I shouldn't talk about the Giant Robot...I should talk about the Giant Robot instead..." muttered Todd to himself, wringing his hands. "Yes, yes, there is a Giant Robot!" sighed Todd, mourning his situation. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear. I can't get it out of my head. I built a Giant Robot for Emily Eve, the owner of Iron Works. You know, they call her Antique Twist? Because she is twisted. And an antique" he said, angry now. "Ten feet high, cast Iron. Looks like it was built a hundred years ago, but full of modern technology" he said, proud now (his emotional state notably mecurial). "And that's only the prototype. Barrelhouse, his name. She wanted something thirty feet high next time, if not higher!" he explained. "Barrelhouse is but a tool, you see. It can be used wrongly, or rightly. Not intelligent, just a blunt tool" he continued. "But when I heard of that murder, I could only assume it was Barrelhouse. Or more accurately, somebody was using Barrelhouse as a weapon. Oh dear oh dear!"