Supercape

Rev "We sure could!" said Rev, keenly. "We should meet up and check out Alex's bike! I mean...if that's ok?" she asked, hauling her enthusiasm back with marginal effect. She tried to divert attention as fast as possible from the "Bike" blunder. She didn't like to see Alexa blush or feel uncomfortable. She had no reason to feel that way anyway. Best to pump up her ego a little; and justifiably so. "I bet you can rip apart an engine and put it together before I had the first screw out!" she said, kindly. "I swear you must be the smartest kid on campus. And that makes you my best friend!" "As well as my saviour! Fancy me walking around with some skin for a change!"

Synth [as grunt] Synth coughed. He felt blood in his mouth. Every breath was ragged and jagged, with a lancing pain in his lung. "Schum rescue...." he gurgled as a faint whisper. He was just done. For now. He could only hope that someone would stop these agents of SHADOW. "Help! Help!" he shouted. It wasn't very loud. Certainly more quiet than the gunfire. It was almost certainly going to do nothing but exhaust his shredded lungs. But it made him feel better. If only he was not so weak. He could focus his synthetic cells to try and patch himself up, but it might make him pass out. He needed a little breather, right now. "Where are you taking me?" he asked his captors, not really expecting an answer, and all the time trying to keep conscious and alert. Maybe some small clue or opportunity might present itself...

Rev "You do?" said Rev, feeling like her Birthday and Christmas at once. "What type? How many cc's?" she asked both of them. She took Alexa as somebody who would know her engines at least as well, if not better than she did. She was smart, like real smart. That was impressive. "You gotta show me it!" she said, pressing the matter. She made sure that Alex got the point of the question too. Part of her brain was telling her not to go down this path again, but another part was trying to steer a path of moderation. She loved engines, she loves vehicles. And she couldn't deny it, just make sure it wasn't going to get her killed or thrown out...

GM The bonfire was ablaze, and it was only minutes (surely) until the arrival of Lord Rhodes. And soon, thereafter, the prospect of a dazzling display of fireworks. The normal mumble of rumour and shock buzzed around Dreadnought as he stomped onward. The Norwegian diplomat found himself fending of mad questions for the rest of the evening. Mr Fiddle was there, the tall man guiding Mr. Murke by the arm. "I cannot see the fire, but I can feel its warmth on my face" he said, smiling happily, his eyes still gazing blind and Mr Fiddle elbowed through the crowd with his pupil and greeted Dreadnought. "Well we are here" said the lawyer, scanning the crowd. "And you made a suitable entrance. Ye gods, I could feel that stomp through the very ground. How much to do you weigh?" he asked, a little impertinently. "I can see no sign of the intelligence services. But I suppose that is the point. They are invisible" he sighed. He pointed at a young woman, perhaps twenty five. Pretty, but not noteworthy in that regard, A little short, a little slim, with red curly hair and a sad smile. "And that is Miss Anna Longfield, clearly delighted at the prospect of seeing her husband of thirty years seniority and oafish manner" he said, contemptuously. "You will also note Mister Charles Hood, her uncle, scuttling around her. A noble gesture from an ignoble man. A newspaper editor, so I hear" he said, a touch of scorn in his voice.

Also, running the Xeno's sensors on the planets available (flying to them first!) Super Senses 26 (Analytical Radio Senses [2], Accurate Radio Senses [4], Detect Life [Radio] [3], Detect EM Energy [Radio] [3], Detect Atmosphere [Radio] [2], Radar Sense [1], Extended Radio Senses 5 [-1 per 20 miles] [10], Radio) [26 EP] Please feel free to roll for any notice / search / knowledge scores that might be needed to interpret the results.

Starshot Starshot leaned back in the pilots chair, made of old leather and something fluffy inside. His ship was a mix of high tech convenience and function, with antique class. He had some concerns. The Xeno was fast. The Xeno was comfortable. And The Xeno had the some of the best sensor arrays a ship could buy. But it was, at the end of the day, a Yacht class vessel. Top of the range, sure, but a luxury yacht. This might have gone better if it was armed or if it had stealth capability. But at the least it was sturdy and could out run nearly anything. "All good, Dugga?" he flipped the Con to the alien monkey in the engine room. "All good bossman. Ready to bravely turn around and flee at your command" said Gunmonkey through the intercom, trying to keep a straight face. "Idiot" snapped Starshot and cut the intercom cold. He turned to the dangerous cyborg, ironically (he thought) named Bliss in the equally comfortable copilot chair next to him. She had shown herself able to fly the Xeno. But he had no doubt where here real talents lay; fighting. "I'm going to run a sensor sweep of the area. I'd prefer to be on land or sea than hanging around in space, though..."

Tagged

Synth Synth felt the knife in his spleen, and then in his lung. He coughed blood and sank to his knees. "That all you ghlottt?" he asked, clutching his organs as blood bubbled in his throat. This was bad. He could barely stand. To make matters worse, he could feel something soporific hit his blood system. Poison? Maybe. Hard to tell. He was not a proud man, but getting gutted like a fish by two punks was a bit of a blow. He was out of practice. Unsure. Uncertain. Should have acted sooner. "Where are you taking meghhghgh?" he gurgled. He wasn't dying, not yet. But he was done, and they could see it.

Toughness save vs knife: 1d20+10 16 toughness and Fort Save: 1d20+12 15 Both pretty bad. So it depends really if the narrative can handle Synth basically falling helpless at this juncture?

GM And so the letter was opened. It had a rather flowery style, and looked a hundred years old, written by hand in old ink on old paper but very well preserved; probably due to the whiff of chemicals that laced the paper. Madam, Forgive the strange manner of this delivery and allow me to introduce myself. My name is Ebeneezer Fiddle, of Goodge Street, London. By the time you are reading this I will, bar divine intervention, by long dead and buried, for I have already more years behind me than ahead of me, and the year of my writing is 1858. You may well wonder how I came to write to you, for I do not even know your name. Suffice to say I have access to prophecy and vision of the future through means I will not describe here. I have come to know that strange events of my time have echoes in the future. A man by the name of Randolph Armitage, a master of Eldritch forces, has travelled to the lunar surface by astral projection and activated some terrible force in that place. I do not understand fully what this means, despite sage advice from somebody who knows far better than me on these matters. Whilst I do not know you at all, the same force of precognition that alerted me to these events has also indicated that you have great ability to hold the fractures in time and space and other dimensions in place, nay, perhaps even mend them. It is bold of me to ask you to help, but I fear that if you do not, terrible consequence will occur. Tell no one you need absolutely not, and even then tell only the most trustworthy of men or women, for, as I understand knowledge of what will be will only hasten the fracturing. If you do need advice, then I would consult Mr. Murke, of London, a lawyer. Or, I hope he shall be. In any case, you must make haste to the Lunar Surface. There is another who has been touched by the fracture, and her name, I understand, is Red Moon. With her help, I believe the grave scars on the fabric of reality can be mended. God go with you, Mr. Ebeneezer Fiddle.

The Red Rat Picking through overgrowth and trees slowed her down, but she was agile enough. And she recalled the cross country training as part of her training in Siberian woods. At least it was not so blasted cold. She remembered how the Darwin-X virus had a habit of creating a layer of ghastly thick fur on her body in cold climates. Whatever was here was probably under a ton of fauna. It would take days to search properly, and days was something she did not have, not with the squall of plebs behind her. But fortunately her eyes were not flesh or bone nor anything else! And so she flicked through the various modes, overlaying images in infrared and ultravoilet, throwing out penetrating X-Rays...for surely something was here!

GM "Mr Ebeneezer Fiddle? Why I know the fellow well, Sir! Finest Legal mind in London, nay the Empire, I would hazard. Cant say I have heard of Mr. Murke, however. Sounds a most shady fellow. Haha haha..." he laughed with half mirth. "But of course you are welcome, sir! There is plenty of space in Kew Gardens. I dare say that the greenhouses themselves would not accomodate a man of your exceptional stature, and lamentably this is not the time of year for blooming flora, as I am sure you can appreciate. Nevertheless, I have always found the ice and frost lends a certain festive beauty to the grounds, come, let me show you!" And he was not wrong, for Kew, whilst shed of leaves and green, still had a cold beauty to it, as Mr. Henfeather pointed out, pointing his finger this way, then that, and giving the Latin name for nearly every visible variety of plant, tree, or shrub. And in the distance, a crowd was huddled around a blazing bonfire of considerable proportions, for light and warmth and general good cheer. "Care you, sir, to join the party? I think Miss Anna Long Longfield is there already. No doubt circled by her uncle, Mister Charles Hood. Oh what odious slander that man writes! Quite how the charming Miss Longfield could be related to such an oaf I have no idea!"

GM And so, once the sun had set, at Kew Gardens... The crowd had hardly lessened in volume, although its constituents had changed many times over. How the word had spread of Joe Walker, from Norway, or Liverpool, or both depending on the permutation of gossip and slander! Verily, it seemed that the entire population of London clamoured for a glimpse of the walking giant! Such speedy transit of fame meant that by the time Dreadnought walked into Kew Gardens (a rather long walk, must be said), he was greeted by none other than the curator of the Gardens. "Sir Arthur Henfeather, at your service!" he bowed graciously. Mr Henfeather, with two armed policemen at either side, was a man of short stature and elderly years, who had an extremely big nose and wild grey hair. He seemed an affable man, not too taken with his noble title but not ill disposed towards such status either. For he wore some very ostentatious clothes, golds, silvers, reds, all indicating his official status. "Welcome to Kew Gardens, sir! I am afraid it is shut for private celebrations, but I believe that you intend to..ah...avail yourself of the opportunity to see our splendid grounds and fireworks in any case?" The two policemen shuffled. Armed or not, they had clearly made it quite clear they did not fancy wrestling a man twice their height should Sir Henfeather decide on barring Dreadnought.

GM "A good word? A good word? pfah!" Snowbird lay down, eyes upwards to the ceiling, and sighed. "I guess its Blackstone for me. Probably a slow painful death. Government can't afford to keep me alive. Hell, I can barely afford to keep me alive, and I run guns" she said. "So I think Ill put it 'it was all the fault of that guy who breathed fire' on my gravestone. How do you think that would look?" she asked Spitfire. "As for the Happy Man's buzz, damned if I know how he does it. I guess its NMDA or catecholamine recpetors. Maybe some opiate ones too. But how he delivers it? I don't know. It just goes off in their heads like all their Christmases had come at once. Well, all the good ones, anyway" she added. "But he scares me" she said seriously. "I mean, the hit...more than a few of those and people fall into a dribbling wreck. Never see anything like it. Its the last thing you want to feel, until you feel it, and then you don't want to feel anything else..."

GM Mr. Hood stood his ground, as the crowds thickened and circled. "Ah yes, Lord Rhodes! Quite a gentleman! And marrying my young niece, too!" he explained, A flash of distaste in his manner. Esteemed as Lord Rhodes was, a thirty year age gap was somewhat unpalatable even for Mr. Hood. "I happen to be on my way to the display myself, by...ah...carriage. I would offer you seat, but....ah...." he looked up at the towering man beside him. "Now what, sir, shall I print tomorrow? Your name? How long do you intend to stay in London, and return to....Liverpool was it?" he asked, a slight speckling of suspicion in his voice. After all, Mr. Hood was a most well informed man! "I must instruct the printers, you see! You are quite the story, and we want to do a good piece on you sir! This is your chance for fame!"

GM And so, as the sun set... 'Twas still chilly, yet more so now with the sun dancing red on the horizon. The roads had patches of dirty ice that might slip the unwary. Fortunately, the streets of London had not changed much in a hundred or more years, true, buildings had to much degree, but the basic web of roads was essentially the same. And besides which, as Dreadnought trudged through the streets he acquired a crowd in his wake. "Its the giant from Liverpool!" "Nonsense, Lad, he's a Norwegian troll! That's what I heard!" "Must be a welshman! Must be!" And so on and so forth, wild speculation jumped around him, until, halfway to his destination, a bold old man, rotund of belly, with an enormous beard covering enormous ruddy jowels, stood firm in front of him. "Now then Sir! I am Mister Charles Hood. Editor of the London Oracle. And I do so humbly request, with great urgency and pleadings and so forth, that you do declare for the people of London, via our noble newspaper, that you grace us with your story. And, if I may be impudent, your intentions, sir!"

GM "So be it!" declared Mr. Fiddle. "Now we have..." he consulted his pocket watch "...a few hours until sundown, even at this time of year. And the bonfire will not start till 6.00pm at least. I suggest we set off at sundown, on account of Mr. Murke's sensitivites" he said gravely. "Until then we must consider two things. Firstly, how to reach Kew. It is a distance, I am afraid. I have money to buy what we need, but I worry that a regular carriage will not manage your weight, and I would not inflict a horse to carry you..." he said, pondering the matter. "And Mr. Murke here will need guidance, of course. We do not want him walking into a bonfire" "And how inconginto are we going? More to the point, on this matter we must also consider our attire? In what capacity shall we go?" he studied Dreadnought once more. "I am afraid I cannot conjecture how to disguise you! And perhaps we should not!"

GM "That it indeed an astute plan" agreed Mr. Fiddler, who gave a glance at Mr. Murke. The Blind man considered but a moment and gave a warm nod and smile. "A dangerous one, perhaps, but astute nonetheless" continued Mr. Fiddler, mulling it over. "The intelligence services of her Majesties government are usually intelligent, but not always so. They deal with chaos, and chaos follows them. The nature of their game, I suppose. It adds an unstable element to the board, but then I suppose that is the point" he said, tapping his cane again. "Doctor Armitage is a man of rare self possession and control, it is true. Charming, cunning, elegant. It would take much to rattle him, but we must try. Now, the issue at hand is you, my friend. You are positively gargantuan. Not easy to sneak around, but again, maybe that is the point..." He snapped his fingers. "Aha! Mayhap we have an opportunity. Tonight there is a firework display in Kew Gardens, celebrating the successful return of Lord Rhodes from his African expedition, and his incumbent marriage to Miss Anna Longfield. I believe there might be room for you in the outdoors. Standing room only, though huh huh..." he gave a little chuckle. Few chairs would stand the weight. "And I do believe Doctor Armitage has always had a soft spot for Miss Longfield and will be attending. Mayhap he might try to thwart the marriage?"

GM "Hence" said Mr. Fiddle, with a trace of satisfaction, "our theory that you were both the cause of, and solution to, this lamentable event" Mr Murke gave a warm smile at this. "The Dreadnought, is it? I can see great things for you" he said, softly, with encouragement. "Ah, do not ask for your fortune to be read though, that is the realm of charlatans and hoodwinks. I see the future, but it is a complicated quilt of cobwebs. I could not explain it you other than in the most obscure of terms. And even if I could, I would be a fool to do so" he said. "But take heart at the future. From darkness comes hope" he said, cryptically, his white milk eyes staring right at Dreadnought although unseeing. Mr Fiddle interjected. "But now, we must decide what to do. Wait for the Summoner to move, and deal with the consequences, or take proactive action, a more nefarious and dark road..."

GM On this matter, Mr. Fiddle deferred to Mr. Murke. "I am able to see magic, Mr. Walker" he said, a voice deep and calm. "Not quite as you see things, of course. As you may have noticed, I am quite blind. I have no real concept of how you see" he explained, quite boldly. Mr. Fiddle gave a slightly wan smile as his pupil spoke. "But the arcane, I can see. So I will be more than able to locate the workings of doctor Armitage. However, I am not the most...ah...mobile of sorts. In addition to my blindness I am uncomfortable in sunlight. A skin condition, you see" he added. "Mr. Murke is a man of mixed blessings" sighed Mr. Fiddle. "As for me, I can easily locate the man himself. Armitage. He works in Harley Street and no doubt will have some engagement or another tonight. I can soon enough find out. I am a man of society, after all" "No, that will not be the problem. The problem is what our doctor friend is up to, which Mr. Murke might aide with, and what do we do? He has committed no crime, at least, not one we know of. And frankly I shudder at facing what he might pull from the hole you left in the sky. A vexatious conundrum, you see. Once he commits an act of sorcery powerful enough to convict him, he will have all the power he needs to resist arrest!"

Synth "SHADOW! I knew you would come sooner or later" answered Synth, full of fear now. Not just for himself, either. If SHADOW got their hands on her...he felt a cold clammy feeling ripple through her. "No! Please!" he cried, gripped with dread. He felt the knife in his back and the slow ooze of blood. It stung, but it galvanised him into action. He turned and grabbed the man. "I won't let you take me without a fight!" he muttered, although his confidence was severely shaken.

Tough Save: 1d20+10 11 Sense Motive vs SHADOW: 1d20+8 12 Ouch. Its a bit early to get that stuffed this early, so I will spend that earned HP to reroll toughness: Tough Reroll: 1d10+20 22 passing. Will still be shaken one round. Still, grappling the first agent (with knife): I dont know if they are minions so I will roll to hit: Grapple Agent: 1d20+10 18 If that does hit, the opposed grapple roll is: Grapple roll: 1d20+22 34

GM "On this matter, I am more certain" said Mr Fiddler, frowning deeply. "Mr pupil, Mr Murke, has the eldritch sight, but I know the man in question" he sighed. "He is Professor Randolf Armitage. A physician of fame, power, wealth and influence. He is also a genius. You will appreciate that these qualities alone would make him a dangerous man" He paused, stewing on his reflections. "But thanks to Mr. Murke, we are also aware he is a sorcerer. A man able to summon creatures from beyond. Now without considerable effort, it seems. For the most part, his arcane endeavours are nefarious and worrisome. But if there is enough energy - of whatever sort, we are of the opinion that his power is magnified to terrifying proportions. And you, sir, just fell out of hole in time...."

Synth "I had to make it right" countered Synth. "You can't be agents of AEGIS, or the government. You aren't are you?" he insisted, with growing unease. "Nobody would shoot on the guards. I can't say I like being locked up in Blackstone, but I know they do a tough job. A dangerous job. And, by and large, they do it well..." Officer "Adolf" Gibbons aside... "So the ruse is up! Who are you?"

Initiative: 1d20+16 18