Supercape

Mr Murk As told by Hubert Bunn, Chef at Club Immortus, London. My name is Hubert Tiberius Bunn, and I am immortal. I didn’t know that at first, of course. No, I trudged through the streets of Manchester in the nineteenth century. Through all the filth and disease and rats and scum and… Wait, sorry, I get carried away. That was in the past. It wasn’t great. Not like you see on the TV. Downton Abbey? Huh, give me a break. Anyway, I started work as a baker was I was, oh, fourteen I guess. Long hours, hard work. Didn’t complain. We had a sort of bond, in those days. Like in the trenches. We just got on and did the work. Sort of a trance, I guess. Hmmm. Well, they were grim days. I was in my fifties, or thereabouts, welcoming in the new century, when people started to get suspicious. Myself included. I looked ten years younger, like a man in my forties. Now, you might look and me today and say, what, I was fifty? If you were being generous. That’s by todays standards. People got old faster back then. No moisturiser. Hard living. You ended up getting weathered. Five years later the gossip and rumour was getting serious. A man of nearly sixty looking like he was forty. What was my secret? Something in the bread? Some sorcerous pact with the devil? I started having to face down the curious and the righteous. The middle aged woman desperate from some secret which I did not have, the scientist wanting to cut me open, and the puritan who wanted to save my soul. Or take it. I was never quite clear which. That’s when Erasmus Murk came into my life. Just after dusk, in winter, he strolls in with his stick, looking every inch the English gentleman. “Erasmus Murk, Esquire, at your service” he says. I was finishing up anyway, so I do my normal doffing of the cap and so on, you know, to please the gentleman. Don’t want no trouble, I says. “That is precisely why I have come” he replies, all serious. “Fear not, I do not come to serve some notice or threaten some litigation or other” he says, all polite like. “As far as I can tell, Mr. Bunn, you are an upstanding citizen. Quite the baker, too, it seems. Why, people talk of your cinnamon fancies as far as London..” Now, my cinnamon fancies are good, Ill grant you. The talk of Manchester, they were. But London, no. Still, I appreciated the sentiment, even if the bold lie did put my teeth against one another. “Why thank you sir. Then, begging your pardon, sir, how can I be of assistance?” That’s when it happened. Like a sheet of dust being blown off him. Gone was the visage, the illusion. The stiff English gentleman went, and the real Erasmus Murk was left behind. The one that ain’t quite right. Ain’t quite human… I was shocked. Anybody in their right mind would be shocked. I had all me old Grandma’s tails of sorcery and witchcraft go through me head. I can’t rightly say I am a pious man, cant’ rightly say I ever was. But I swear I was on me knees praying to Mary and crossing myself. “Ah, dear Sir, you have nothing to fear from me. Or Jesus, for that matter” he said, kindly, offering me his hand. Which was spooky, a blind man knowing exactly where you are. Still, I took it. He has a soothing nature, does Mr. Erasmus Murk. Then he explained it all. Including exactly how old it was. I had to scoop up the shattered remains of my jaw from the floor, so I did. I would never have believed it, not in a thousand years, if I was not seeing it with me own two eyes. Even then, I had to give them a good old rub once or twice. Or more. He helped himself to a cinnamon fancy as I was taking it all in. Said how good it was. Helped himself to another. I think he was just trying to straighten me out. Make what was most assuredly quite unnatural seem normal. “That still don’t explain what you are doing seeing me? Beggin’ your pardon, sir. I mean, It ain’t for the fancies, that’s for sure…” “Oh I don’t know. If I had known how delicious they were I might well have made the trip anyhow” he said, big smile on his face. And a few crumbs too. “But you are quite astute, Mr. Bunn, quite astute. I have come here about your particular condition!” “Condition?” I ask, for I hadn’t quite put tuppence and tuppence together, yet. State of shock, I reckon. “I got some veins in me ankles that are a bit rotten, I suppose. And that tic when I get nervous. But ain’t no condition to speak of. Not even the wart on my ba…” “No no…” he interrupted, clearly not relishing such intimate medical speak. After all, he is a lawyer, is Mr. Murk, not a doctor. At least, as far as I knows. Man who lived that long, you never know what tricks he has up his sleeve. “It is about your other condition. Your unnatural vigour for the man of your age!” he said, enthusiastically. “What?” I ask. Then, the penny dropped. I can’t say it dropped quickly. Now, it was more like a slow tumbling and ungraceful slide down a muddy slope. It was a lot to take in, and a short time to do so, you see. And I wasn’t a learned man, baking aside. Not a man of letters. Couldn’t even read. “You mean I don’t grow old?” I said. Except it was more like a stuttering, jumbled up mess, if truth be told. Like my lips were made of rubber and my tongue stung be a bee. “Precisely!” he replied. Credit to him for making sense of my words. “Well I’ll be damned!” I replied, quite smacked in the gob. “Wait, am I damned? Is my immortal soul in peril?” “Not at all, at least by my determination” replied Mr. Murk. “I am afraid it is not your immortal soul that is in peril, but your immortal body” he continued, rather sadly. “Rumours are spreading, Mr. Bunn. That is how I found you. And those rumours will only grow, like a fungus on a bread. They will not diminish, no matter how emphatic and persuasive you are” He had a point. And I wasn’t a man of words. I wasn’t, as he pointed out, a persuasive man. I give a clip round the earhole. That were my persuasion. “And this is why I have come. To offer sanctuary. For, in my experience, to delay longer would only lead to tragedy. Fear, resentment, envy. Whether by the scalpel of some unscrupulous biologist, or the burning brand of some enthusiastic devout, you would surely come to one end or another. And possibly worse…” he left the thought hanging. As if I needed much persuasion. I took me cap off and was tearing it up with me hands. “Aye, you speak the truth sir. Already, without knowing the fullness of the matter, I have been facing hints of what you speak. And, much as I would love to deny it, I can only see the matter getting the worse”. Oh, I lamented. “What a strange twist of fate then, to be given a gift like this, only to find it a ruinous affair! What am I to do!” “Hide” he said, kindly. “It is the only way, as painful as it might be…” “Easy to say, less easy to do” I replied. “I am a man of modest means, at best. And I have no quaint and useful magicks like you do, Sir…” “Do not fret thus” he said. “This is why I have come, not just with warning, but with solution. Come to London. I have the means, both financial and other, to hide. Not just myself, but you. And I can offer more than sanctuary, but employment, too. Why, a man who makes such magnificent Cinnamon Fancies should never be without employment!” And that is how I came to London. Been here a hundred years now, in Club Immortus. Not as prisoner, but as guest. Oh, it has its anguish, for sure. One is most impeded in terms of relationships, and romance. But I have time! And the twenty first century is a much finer place to live in that the nineteenth, I can say. I spent twenty years in Paris learning to cook, and now I do so here. Learned French, and letters, too. I dare say I cook rather well, what with all the practice. Would you like a Cinnamon Fancy?

Flux Captain Trah Viss, Lor Science officer of the Deep Vision Exploration Vessel. Space. Its big, cold, and unfriendly. You don’t want to be in space without a vac-suit on, I can tell you. Seen it once, and it isn’t something you want to see twice. But its beautiful, too. Even in that cold vastness, you see light. Nebulae, clusters of stars, white dwarfs burning bright in defiance. And even the horror of black holes has a fascination. You ever seen them up close? Well, nobody actually sees black holes. That’s why they are black. But the accumulation rings streaming into them, that’s spectacular. And the gravitational lensing, they way spacetime distorts around them? It is terrifying, but you can’t take your eyes away from the sight, no matter how terrifying. I pretty much run the Deep Vision Exploration Vessel. Sturdy and advanced, it’s one of the Lor’s best, even if it is eight years into running. Sure, newer vessels have better equipment, but the Deep Vision has, well, experience. We have ironed out all its teething problems. No more reliable ship in the fleet. But I guess I would say that, I am its captain! You ever heard of the Terrans? Most have. You should have. Live on the Sol system. On a lovely green planet called Earth. Well, not so green these days. They seem intent on ruining it. Anyway, they helped us with the Communion. There’s a nice little wormhole straight to that system from CoVic station if you fancy a trip. I have had the pleasure of meeting one of the Terrans. Prefssor Quentin Quill. He used to go by the name Supercape, I guess that was an insecurity thing. He never was that comfortable with his powers as he explained to me. Couple of years back, he was on board the Deep Vision. A Terran, you might ask? What’s a Terran doing on board a Lor Science Vessel. Well, I am glad you asked… First, let me get this straight. The Deep Vision has some fine minds on it. But Quill, he was smart. Never met somebody that smart, not even at the Institute for hyperdimensional research. He knew physics like nobody I have ever met before. From that perspective alone, he would be welcome on the Deep Vision. I know I spent several evenings discussing theoretical physics with him, and I woke up every morning the wiser. Same went for several of my crew. And he wasn’t arrogant about it, either. Not like some of the lecturers at the institute I could name (but won’t). I can’t say he was modest about his knowledge either. He simply had an enthusiasm for his field of knowledge. A kind of infectious passion. Oh, well it infected us, anyway. I guess the man on the street isn’t that interested in dimensional lensing in membrane theory. “No-one will ever know everything” he always used to say. And he meant it. He always listened to other scientists too, alert for new ideas and perspectives. I guess we all took that from him, he kept an open mind and encouraged us to do the same. He changed his mind, too, when presented with arguments or evidence that challenged his assumptions. That’s the mark of a real scientist, I think, that kind of non-attachment to the theory. The willingness to discard what you know without a sense of loss, but rather a sense of gaining something. It’s what makes science scientific. Now he may be the finest physicist on Terra, but that doesn’t explain what he was doing on a Lor research Vessel, does it? I know what you are thinking… Well, not literally. I’m not a telepath. Quill is more than a scientist. He has incredible power. He tried to explain it to me. I think I got this right…let me see…. As he explained it, he is a telepath. Well no, that’s not quite right. A psionic. A telekinetic. He can sense the flow of energy through the universe, from radio waves we used to communicate, to cosmic events so tiny one could not even be sure they exist at all. All of that information, flowing through his brain. He explained it took him a long time to be able to filter out all the data. I don’t doubt it. If he wasn’t so smart, I guess it would just end up being like tinnitus…a static fuzz in the head. And he has some telekinetic power too. Fascinating. Wait, that’s what he said all the time. Fascinating. Well, in this case, it was pretty fascinating. You must have heard of aliens and Lor who can move rocks and even mountains with their mind. Telekinesis. Quill was telekinetic too, except, well, it was different. He told me he couldn’t even move a plastic half-cred chip with his head. It wouldn’t budge. We even tested it on him, and he strained and sweated and couldn’t move it a millimetre. This is a guy who can disintegrate asteroids. Then he explains it to us. He can move a few atoms, here and there. Nudge them, shuffle them. Change the sub atomic events, even down to the Quantum level. Didn’t sound very impressive, at first. Then we started to understand. Can you imagine being able to nudge a few atoms around, with absolute precision? I mean, perfect precision? Then imagine doing that when you know more about subatomic physics than you could even imagine knowing. He isn’t a broadsword. He isn’t a sledgehammer. He’s a scalpel. A monofilament ultracarbon scalpel. And when he uses that right, its more powerful than any broadsword or sledgehammer. He can create nuclear reactions. Irradiate the cosmos. And, here is where even I didn’t understand it, he can bend space time. Quantum entanglement. This means that he can travel anywhere in the universe! You start to get it now? Quill travels the universe. I think he even travels beyond the universe. And he knows the Lor republic pretty well. And they know him, too. Pays to have cordial relationships with someone like him. Now you might be starting to ask the same question but for different reasons. Why was he on a Lor research vessel? If he can travel around the universe, that is. He was helping us study an anomaly, that’s why. He actually alerted us to it. A region of deep space that was distorting. Potentially dangerous, but more than that…interesting! He spent, I guess, two weeks on the Deep Vision as we poked and prodded the deep space anomaly. From a safe distance, I might add. Science doesn’t mean danger. Well, normally it doesn’t. We had every sensor pointed that way, and realms of data being chomped up by banks of quantum computers. Quill had his own head, too, which in some ways was better than our own equipment, but he never admitted that. What he didn’t have was our processing power. We worked like a fever. I was dreaming about maths every night, I think. You can’t keep that pace up for too long. I know what did help, though. Tea! You heard of tea? Terran plant. You dry it out, and put it in boiling water. The taste is, ah, unusual. Acquired taste. But Quill forced it all on us, in good spirits, and we humoured him. Despite the taste, it was rather invigorating and refreshing. Early Grey, it was. Strange thing was, after a couple of days of tea, we all started liking it. Damn strange thing, after he left, we all started craving it. I’ve been..ah…acquiring it from earth ever since. For scientific research purposes of course. And a few plants grow in my quarters. Whenever I drink it, or tend to my tea plant, I always think of him. That strange, polite Terran wondering the universe and beyond. Would you like a cup?

GM "What? You expect me to spill all my secrets?" laughed Imprint, still in Mannequin's hand. "I didn't actually know Block Head was a success! Mr Brick bought my failed research, oh it was a partial success, for certain. Self assembling buildings, bar the odd glitch and falling masonry on crushed skulls. I thought it a good idea - I get the money and I get to observe the results in a real environment" she explained. "Then Block Head turned up! Formed from my research. From the very building! What an incredible success! All down to my incredible genius! I, Cassandra Clay, Genius!" she said, proudly. "And as for my clay men...well....you think I am bluffing? What do you think, Mannequin?" she asked with a smug smile directed at Mannequin.

Flux "I see" replied Flux, disappointed. He wondered what CoVic Station was, and if he should visit. "I imagine arranging access to the restricted data would be possible but laborious" he offered. His standing with the Lor was at least fair, and probably much better than that. He imagined he could get it. But on the other hand, it would be a convoluted or even torturous process. Procrastination was one thing, an administrative minefield quite another. "Well then, perhaps if I take a look at the unrestricted data? It might help me piece together what happened to me, and the Quantum Dark Zone..."

Rev Rev gave another blast of her jets and landed by Lawrence and SFX, retracting her arms back to normal position. She looked a bit of a state. Most of her gel skin and peeled or burned off, her t shirt was torn, and she was bleeding from that scratch to her collarbone, a good old red ooze that stained her t shirt. She smiled though. That was the important thing. "Yeah it was a wormhole thing. And then things happened and we he ended up in this thing" she said, breezily. "Twenty thousand light years, huh? That's pretty far, I guess. Going to be a long return journey. Unless we use that worm hole thing..." she offered. "I'm Rev. I got jets and stuff" she added, by way of explanation. "But I can't fly in space. And I would probably try to turn myself inside out I guess. So I guess we are your guests!" Better guests than prisoners! "Who were those kidnappers?"

Doctor Deoxy astutely realises that people have emotions!

GM "Let me go!" squeaked imprint as Mannequins detached arm grasped her firmly. She was still demanding to be let go as the arm crawled back through the duct and back onto Mannequin. She was strong, mighty strong for being an inch tall. But she was still an inch tall and caught in the electromagnetic grip of Mannequin. A sense of dull defeat started creeping into her. "So you got me! Well, hears news for you! I got this building! My clay men have been clambering inside for the last few hours! They can impersonate anybody! I'm going to blow the building and everyone inside if you don't let me and Block Head go!"

Cool As we have a lot of GM Fiat on inflitration and Imprint knowing all about Mannequin, I am awarding a further 2 HP! (Reasons to become clear imminently MUAHAHAHA!) Dr D 0 HP Mannequin 4 HP! Could Doctor D roll sense motive please?

GM "Zyte? Oh man? He's a dick, right?" laughed Zane! "But seriously, he's not that bad. I mean, he is full of himself, sure. Real full of himself. But, and this is the annoying part, he deserves to be. Sure, he promotes himself, talks about how great he is. Too much. Not a modest bone in his body, but he does know his stuff too. Got degrees and stuff, and the proof is he had made a big success of himself" "And he's not without a heart too. I was shooting as a stunt man back when he was getting started as like third camera assistant or something. I ended up with a busted knee but he helped me out afterwards. Ended up being his kind of bodyguard. And he's an ok boss, even if I do have to stop him getting punched in the face every now and again haha!" Zane! laughed full of his big natured heart. "So at the end of the day you can trust him. He might screw things up, but he won't lie....might exageratte a bit..." he winked and laughed again.

GM "Shots, yes! Errr...Chill Pill...just come with me and look handsome...or something. Remember...no speaky no talky, huh? stick to the script!" smiled Zyte, handing Chill Pill a piece of paper. Chillpill looked at the paper. He turned it over. Then turned it back again. "This is blank?" he asked. "Exactly!" said Zyte, smiling enthusiastically. "Stick to the script!" And with that, he dragged chill pill out of the car and got to work. "Want a lift anywhere? I'm happy just...ah...chilling?" said the ever relaxed Zane, putting his sandaled feet up on the car dahsboard and his hands behind his head, with a very relaxed grin on his mouth.

GM And so...at the Docks... ...Mid Morning...Now.... Zane! Drove an expensive car. Very expensive. Zyte was not all idle boasts, he really was good at his job. A bit of research would confirm it. He was an expert in film making and art, and was competent in multiple other fields, from psychology to computers. A genius - by his own declaration and quite reasonably by fact. And he had made a lot of money. And was still making a lot of money. The Docks was a bustle of activity, as usual. Warehouses, sailors, administrators, a few police. And many cordoned off areas - not hard to penetrate, of course, but cordoned off all the same. "So how are you doing this, Bonfire? Whats the plan?" asked Zyte, filming both Bonfire and the increasingly awkward and restless Chillpill, who looked rather bamboozled by the turn of events.

then sure thing! could you ammend your PC We should probably do an opposed DEX roll to see if you can catch Imprint that way. Opposed DEX roll: 1d20+2 8

Lord Steam "Not oft, but on occasion" answered Lord Steam, whose interests did not often stray to mythology and theology. "I am no expert, but snakes sometimes feature as objects of reverence or even wisdom. In the jungles of south America, I believe. But as often, or more often than not, they are symbols of deception or malice". "I have not studied the matter in extent, but I believe a similar pattern of beliefs hold here. Which is to say, I think, that different objects hold different meanings in different cultures. We could draw no conclusion. And what snakes are doing in the ocean I would say I have no idea!" he chuckled. "But let us open this door, and find out! Pardon me, but if you can indeed move handles with your mind, it strikes me as safe than with hand. No surprise electric shocks...or poison darts..."

GM Certain people knew this, and certain people knew that. Most had a story. The difficulty for Bonfire was sifting through which stories were largely false (most) and which had a hint of truth to them (few). And then sewing those truths together. By best estimation, the Mask had a bit of a reputation. Arrived by night (normally night, sometimes the day), as an antique from Egypt, on the black market. Some professor (or doctor, or scientist, or artist) or another from Egypt had brought it over, intent on selling it on the black market. The docks, it seems, was the scene of all the shuffling of monies and clandestine activity. The ship, still docked. The professor, still residing on the ship. And some gang of thugs, intent on proving themselves in the midst of the sudden rise in competition (the Beastly Boys and the Frogleapers seemingly bouncing back), wanting a piece of Eldritch action...

Cool!

Rev "Hey, you must be the master! Or boss! Or something! Anyway, you are wearing a robe and look all mysterious and act all bossy, so that count's for something!" shouted Rev at the robed figure, her attention now distracted. These other mooks go down pretty easy...bar the bleeding scratch marks...she told herself confidently. Lets have a crack at the boss! She launched herself into the air firing her jets to full speed, and pulling some sickening Gs'. She pulled back an elongated arm for a whipping haymaker, but overshot her mark by a figurative mile. "Hey! Hey! That was just a practice run!" she bluffed as she continued to hurtle through the air. Ain't so easy to fly with my arms all long! Need to practice!

Rev is going to go zoom! Move Action: Start Flight Standard Action: Move by Attack Punch on Robes figure Move Action: Continue Flight Unshifted attack so: Move by Punch: 1d20+10 11 oh well!

GM "You shall have a cut! Of IM-AGE!" replied Zyte, snapping both hands into a thumbs up. "You get the AGE, and I get the I'M!" he said, which was nonsense, f course. With the faintest hint of sense, which Zyte could magnify (at least in his own head) to the size of a mountain. "Anyway, enough of legal print and money. Tres tedious. Time to make ART! time to surf the fifth dimension that is PUBLICITY!" he said. "Thats Zyte Guyst, ladies and gentleman. FIVE DIMENSIONAL ARTISTE! Giving you hit after hit after hit, with a capital S!" He hefted his laptop and his camera. Zane stifled a chuckle. "I don't understand any of what you way" mumbled Chill Pill, somewhat dispirited. "Don't worry! You just need to feel it!" said Zyte cheerfully, before redirecting his attention to Bonfire. "So! Skull! Mask! Super rage strength! Thugs! Whats the plan!" he asked or demanded, zooming in on Bonfire with his camera.

Lord Steam "The old and the new" commented Lucien, studying the door which was certainly new compared to the decay around them. He tried not to think about a collapse, and the ocean streaming in condemning him to a watery grave. "What say you to this?" he asked the Speaker, trying to make sense of the glyph. "I daresay it is the way to open the door. Or disintegrate people trying to open the door. One of the two. Possibly both" he speculated, thinking carefully. "Unless you have some clever trick to hand, which I sincerely hope you do, but doubt its likelihood, I suppose we mush push or pull something. Or twist. I can't say I can determine if any course of action is wiser than the other. But doing nothing is surely the worst of all...so perhaps a simple twist first?"

GM "Payment?" replied Zyte, offended. "Why, what use has someone of your incandescent nature for mere money?" he asked, honestly indignant. "It is image, sir! This is the only currency! The only coin! And image is what Zyte can provide!" "A rebrand, perhaps? A nickname! He goes forth, breaking the boundaries of what it means to be a hero! Behold the TRAIL BLAZER? No? Hmmm....He lights up the city with a new, sexy, kind of justice! He is HOT STUFF! Hmmm, still no?" "Suit yourself. I would avoid fire in a name though. Makes people think of facial burns. Not good" he explained. "But forget the name. I can put you up around the world! Internet fame and fortune! A multi-layered laminar media assault! Your name will be on all lips, your image in every head! Can you ask for more?"

GM Whats that? answered Vic. You are the most beautiful woman in the world and everybody should worship you? And you wanted to kill some hell hounds because you are so awesome and can do anything? Did I hear that right? I mean...it's a bit of an ego you got there.... But OK....Vic said, in her head to the spirit, her confidence in the sanity of Jessica rather crumbled. "If you get rid of Hector and his dogs...and I mean get rid of..." said Morgan, smiling broadly, drooling slightly. He stroked his cleaver to emphasise exactly what get rid of meant "then you can have whatever meat you want. And I do mean any. Lemurian sorcerer flesh. The best!" he explained, eyes darkening. He wrote, in rather bad, grubby handwriting, the address of Hector. "Here you go, he runs a car scrapyard thing. Nobody likes him. Nobody will miss him..." he added, by way of encouragement.

Rev "What's going on? Apart from a lot of stuff all around me! Wow! Its like an action movie!" said Rev, turning her head this way and that. "Except we are in it!" she concluded. She shuffled her feet a little, then, with a few hops, jumped into the air on a burst of fuel. "Wheeee!" she screamed in excitement as she hurtled through the air. Some serious Gs! She opened up one hand and ignited a burst of white hot plasma, like a sabre, from it. As she landed, she swung up her long arm and the plasma stream boiling from the tip at one of the mysterious figures. He was good looking. That meant he needed to be punched hard....

Move Action: Jump Standard Action: UNshifted Plasma Jet Attack on #12 Plasma Jet Attack: 1d20+14 24 I guess that hits, and if so Drain 6 Toughness and Damage 6 (Fort 16 / Tough 21) effect.

It would be a squeeze! HOw would mannequin fit through the vent?

GM "Trapped? No, I am no fool" said Imprint, getting to her feet, the sparks fizzing out. She wobbled, but was getting her nerves back into shape, fighting off the jolt. "Between the two of you, I can't fight. Not directly, anyway. But I have more subtle means to fight. More insidious means to trap. Mark my words, this isn't over!" she declared. With a little hop, she was in the air, and speeding through it. Flying like a little blue dart...she did a quick figure of eight and then was off, straight through an air vent grill. The grill was fine enough to prevent even a one inch woman from passing through the gaps, but she smashed through the grill like it was butter, carving a small hole in the grill an inch or two wide...