trollthumper

The cloud of steam froze, swirling and twisting over the burning house's lawn. One eye remained locked on the wounded Artificer, its fury fixed... but the other shifted towards Sea Devil. The twisting corpus brought the full gaze of this eye upon the Deep One, the head nearly splitting in half to maintain its focus between its two targets. The eye locked on Sea Devil seemed to soften for a second... before the tide of steam fell upon her. As Nick Cimitiere focused his will to keep Artificer on this side of the grave, he turned one eye towards the assault. The steam did not enter Sea Devil's armor; it couldn't seem to find a crack in the design. But from inside, Sea Devil felt like she was burning. Not from the steam of an underwater caldera, but from under an unclouded sun on scorched earth. Her skin was cracking. Her gills were sandpaper. The earth turned to baked clay beneath her feet, then to grinding stone She didn't know where she was. The pressure was thin, the sounds piercing yet distant. It took her a while to pierce together the words she was hearing. "If you want back in the tank, you'll talk. Where are the others?"

All right, Aquaria is trying to call the steam ghost inside of her. And... she succeeds. I'm going to need a Will save for Aquaria as she is beset by both visions and psychic damage from the surface level possession. Nick, meanwhile, takes the turn to heal Artificer. Artificer can make an instant recovery check with a +12 bonus.

The Atlantean hero fell to the ground, scalded and singed. The apparition looked down on him, with a flicker all too familiar to Sea Devil - the delight of a long quarry brought to a swift and terrible end. But, just as soon as she saw the light, it faded. The expression in the phantom's eyes grew hollow, longing. There was no determination or jubilation in its body language. There was simply a sense of surrender, the inevitable of carrying on because there is nothing else that can be done. Its steam coalesced into boiling claws, slowly descending towards the prone Artificer...

Yes, let us move forward. I apologize for the long delay. The Steam Monster was last to go, Artificer is down, so Aquaria is up next. I will get an IC post in to describe things.

@Dr Archeville Just posting a reminder, in case things have eased up.

There was a moment of recognition in the eyes of the behemoth, the remembrance of childhood prayer, almost... until the blast struck its form, causing rents in the steam. Nick was happy to have the distraction, focusing his will on keeping the female artist alive. Her burns began to heal up, new skin forming over scalded flesh. It would still take some time... Which he didn't seem to have. The entity roared, all sentiment gone, as if trying to buck at invisible chains. Gouts of boiling water fell from the air. Nick grabbed the artists and hauled them as far as he could - maybe I should have tried football instead of just smoking behind the school - getting out of the way of the brunt of the onslaught, his jacket deflecting the rest. "Who did this to you?" he asked, hoping it might cut through the madness. But he had his doubts.

This one was my bad. The Steam Monster just fails its Toughness save and is now Bruised x2. Nick will use his Healing power on the first of the wounded to keep them from dying of being parboiled. The Steam Monster, on the other hand, decides to be a dick and uses his Damage 10 (Targeted Area Shapeable) to try and hit everyone who has directly attacked him - which means Nick, Artificer, and Sea Devil, but not the artists. As an Area attack, that means DC23 Reflex to avoid/reduce, DC28 Toughness if it hits in full. Nick rolls a 27 on his Reflex save, then a 26 on his Toughness save. Which is good.

All right. The Steam Monster fails the Reflex save by 2, then makes its Toughness save. Sea Devil is up next.

The cry of Deep One prayer, paired with the golden sigil, seemed to draw the attention of the many faces. Their eyes fell onto Sea Devil; some faces drew forward towards their brethren, whereas others recoiled. The phantasm seemed to be fighting against itself... and as it did, the people in its grasp were still caught in the boiling mist, their flesh burning. I wish we had time for a breakthrough... but we don't. Nick reached into the soil. He really didn't want to think on how easily the ectoplasmic hands surged from the earth - nor why they smelled so strongly of dead fish - but as they rose, mist met mist. The steam of the phantom was too yielding for his hands, but mortal flesh found fast purchase. He tried to pull gently, thinking of all the way this could go wrong... but he breathed a sigh of relief as the two were tugged back towards the firmament. They were still burned, and still seemed to be twitching in some sort of bizzare rapture, but he could handle the former. And, hopefully, the latter. Unfortunately, dragging away the artists seemed to have the same effect on the creature as yanking a teddy bear away from a toddler. Its eyes focused as one... and as they fell on Artificer, they surged forward in a steaming coil, their wrath so great that they struck near enough that he could feel the scorching heat without actually getting scorched. But the whispers around him began to turn to screams. "Did you know? Did you know? When they came, did you lead them?"

All right, Nick's going to try to get the two people out of the grip of the Steam Monster via his Area Telekinesis effect... which will be interesting, as they are effectively already Grappled by the monster. So, tug of war it is. Nick's TK has a Reflex DC22 for its Grapple, and the Steam Monster rolls a 17. That means the hostages are Grappled. The Steam Monster, however, goes Insubstantial and unleashes its steamy might upon Artificer. Or it would, if it hadn't critically failed. It's not exactly in a good mindspace right now. Artificer is up next.

I should at least get a response in to that... The Steam Monster rolls a 23 to resist, so it is Bruised. I will hold off on further actions until @Dr Archeville gets an IC post in.

All right, we're entering Initiative. From the Steam Monster, we will be using a modified version of my Particle Man build at PL13. We've also got two hostages effectively Grappled by it who are taking Damage each turn due to being in the midst of steam heat. So they're going to need help. Nick goes on 10. Steam Monster goes on 4.

"I think that's the general motif," Nick said. "But it's more of an art gallery. Postapocalyptic carnival chic." The second the words left Nick's mouth, he regretted them. It made it sound like an encroaching artifice, the kind of terminal hipsterism he was always afraid he was going to swandive into. The proprietors seemed earnest enough in their actual vision, and were definitely earnest enough to actually try to make a life in Bombay Beach, rather than make it an eternal three-day weekend. But it seemed to portend what might come to the place, make it another hipster magnet like so many desert climes in Southern California. Then again, if it could pull the city out of decay without turning into dust-colored cotton candy... But this wasn't the time for meditation. All this came in a blur of thought as Nick was distracted by the rising steam, the fruits of Sea Devil's efforts to control the blaze. But as she did, that keening in her head rose... and Nick and Artificer could feel the waves, the roiling of deep surf meeting an underwater caldera... Sea Devil felt a rude shock as the water was wrested from her grip. The steam and the wet formed a dance, surging into the house... and erupting through the roof, like a geyser. The steam emerged in tendrils, like the dances she had seen in grand liturgy around the mouths of glowing magma tubes, festivals of devotion to the blood and will of Mother Hydra. Like her brethren, she watched as two dancers emerged from the roof, wrapped in the tendrils of thick steam, reenacting this dance. But the flesh of the dancers beneath never filled the air with the sickly scent of parboiling flesh... The steam grew thicker, taking on a weight thinner than fog but thick enough to grasp. Faces roiled in the mists, a tide of piscine eyes and sharp teeth. A single voice emerged from many mouths, singing the same chant in Lemurian. "Crack the stone... call the sea... sweep me back..."

Nick kept his ears open in response to Artificer's question. When you were attuned to the flow of death, you got very used to picking up on the Doppler shift of sirens, in order to figure out whether they were getting closer or further. These ones were getting further. "They're not coming here," he said. "Whatever's going down, it seems to be reaching a fever pitch already. Let's go." Nick was eager to bolt for his car, if only to arrive in style, but this was not the time for style. If he needed to catch a flight on Air Atlantis, he would. Sea Devil, already in flight, could see the source of distress clearly. A small building, flames licking the roof. The sound of shrill police sirens was soon joined by the loud honking of fire trucks. She landed outside, taking a closer look at the house. It was a one-story house in colors of midnight blue and seafoam green, with a sign in large gilded letters that had yet to be consumed by flames: HOUSE OF DOORS AND MIRRORS. Windows were apparently not a part of the equation, as each one was covered in black with thin scrapes. A garage abutted the house, its doors sealed shut. And echoing through the house at some ferocity that it was hard to place the source, all Sea Devil could feel was a long, low keening...

As Aquaria ascended to the skies above the house, the stillness of the salt air hung around her. Up here, the desert was tranquil, save for the light night winds. She could still smell the salt rime clinging in the air, but in between the notes of filth from the polluted sea below. Even the smell of dead fish was not the great reward of a whalefall, but the noxious hint of a poisoned feast. A desecration that teased with notes of false promise, like a glass of water held on the other side of the prison bars. The rasp was so distant, she mistook it for the breeze. But soon, it was undeniable - a death rattle, like a corpse in reverse, slowly rearing back to life. Distant, and not growing louder, but definitely growing clearer... Inside the house, Nick Cimitiere and Artificer heard something different - the distant sound of police sirens. "Here I thought this place would be desolate..."