Ari

If Granspearzx is agreeable, how about KoS is looking into rumors of some kind of super-soldier who's been wandering the area between the Fens and Greenbank, and gets ambushed there by Dr. Green's mooks before being saved by Crusader.

El Heraldo stared at the floating man, distantly wondering if he should start flying away as fast as he could, though the threat the man posed was still abstract enough for him to hold his ground steadily. "Um...really? Oh." was all he could think to say as he wracked his brain for something they could discuss peacefully "Er..." Ask about his costume, where he got it and such, everyone likes talking about things like that intoned the Blue Dame Perfect! You're a lifesaver O Dame! he mentally agreed, smiling unconsciously at the sudden(and quite unexpected idea) Yes she said "So, tell me Strongarm, where did you get that costume of yours? I get mine from this Banner" he volunteered, flapping the flag it bore for emphasis.

A sudden thought crossed his mind, and El Heraldo asked curiously "I ask your pardon, but if you had so little to do with the assembly and casting of the replica, why were you so concerned with its placement? From what I have heard you requested it be hung above the entrance to the Aquarium, is this the case? And if you don't have much personal knowledge about the thing, that is no bar to us, could you tell us any company names?" he asked, realizing the man in front of him seemed to have had had surpassing little to do with the reason they'd come there.

If the King of Suits could be of any help, I volunteer him for this. He could totally gather clues and figure out what they reveal.

Arriving at the tail of Cerys' question with an extra bowl in each hand, Subito handed one to Morgan and dug solidly into the other, answering "Well, closest place's the Sloane Library, which I think these guys" he nodded to Morgan and John "will agree is the most important part of the place after the simulator, gym and your dorm." Eating leisurely he continued "If you want we can guide you to every little nook and cranny, or just a more general tour so you know where the important stuff is, and leave the eccentric bits for later?"

GM At the carefully-modulated growl, Martin almost winced. "Well sir, I noticed something odd about the time we left Segesta. You seemed a little more...irritable I guess. You didn't show the same concern you usually do for others or, a couple of times I even thought you were simply going to steal what we needed" he combed his shaggy head with his immaculate fingers looking sheepishly at Jay "I know this sounds silly Mr. Xavier, what with all those times you've been telling me I shouldn't assume something's human 'just because some bipedal primates do it', but you weren't acting like yourself. Usually you're so incredibly careful about everything that these last few weeks it was like if you were eating several pounds of candy behind my back" a short silence followed this, with Martin looking awkwardly looking out the window at the distant rumble and bustle of ancient Syracusae. At length he offered "But it seems you're at least partially back to normal, I'm sure it's just a case of the Channeler screwing with bodily chemistry because of the time-travel, I've already fixed a slew of bugs I found in the thing" he smiled hopefully at Jay.

"if this human speaks a tongue you do not know, bring me to him." said the hulking triton with gurgling authority "I can understand the speech of all, and speak all tongues in turn. This strange dialect will be no barrier for me." he leaned his bulk against the wall, waitng for the captain's response while he mulled over the story the man had just told them. It certainly fit with what he had heard about such curses. Of course, he hadn't ever been trapped by one himself until now, but the legends that had filtered down to the murky depths about the binding power of sriens left a deep impression on the wandering armies of the marine gods, and few of Wave-Eye's comrades had dared to make their way to surface for many years after hearing the tales, fearing to fall under the spell and be devoured without being able to fight. The idea of 'going down fighting' was something universally desired by all tritons, who knew that their lacking of true immortality meant a widely-remembered death might be their only chance to make any real impact in the aquatic world.

GM The bound woman glared sullenly at Silhouette, but seemed sufficiently cowed by the reminder of who she was talking to subside a little. Blwoing a few loose strands of hair out of her face she answered the King's question guardedly, looking at Carrie all the while "I don't think i could get you past those doors" she admitted "I don't have the ability to use the power of Apep on my own yet. Yes" she added, looking once at Marceau "I and those others worship the great serpent of darkness called Apep. His power is slowly growing here thanks to our prayers, and that pit communicates this room to his realm of eternal darkness and silence." She slowly got intoa sitting position, hampered by the bands of metal surrounding her limbs and torso "And yes, we are the ones who took those three a little while ago. They were trying to dissuade some of us from following the god, and we have taken them here that they may understand what we serve" she shrugged "If you want to reach them, I guess we could exchange hostages" she rattled the coils for emphasis on the sloping floor. A sharp jolting of the surrounding room nearly sent her onto her side again, and with difficulty she painfully retained her balance "Better do it soon" she muttered to the two heroes "I think the high priests are calling up one of Apep's children."

Taking ten on a Diplomacy check for a result of 20. Bystander is Unfriendly, so that changes to Indifferent.

"I am the King of Suits, and this is Silhouette. We sent ourselves, madam" King of Suits explained patiently, speaking gently to try and relax her suspicions. "I suspect your...group is responisble for the kidnapping of three people recently, and have come to investigate." he sat down on the slightly vibrating ground and smiled at her "I, and I believe my associate" he nodded slightly to the black-clad vigilante "mean no harm to you and yours, we simply wish you to release your captives and will rescue them from you by whatever means we must if you do not set them free. Of course it doesn't have to come to that," he concluded warmly "but there is a rather large problem still, what with the worshiping of snakes and having a ceremony in front of a gaping pit in the floor. Mind explaining that?" he asked brightly.

El Heraldo The Kids Aren't Alright (also GMing) Shark Week: Flying Sharks? Shark Week: Ghost Sharks! Slave to Time The Serpent and the Devil Two's Company, Four's a Party (also GMing) Venture into the Forest (also GMing) Y Dderwen King of Suits Crikey! ...For Services Rendered (also GMing) The Snake-Charmers (also GMing) The Sins we all Share Vanguard #1: Kings and Shields (also GMing) Wave-Eye First and Final Voyage under the Bridge GM Please give all GMing-accrued points to King of Suits. ...For Services Rendered (also IC as KoS) Quick to Err Seal of Sedna The Kids Aren't Alright (also IC as Heraldo) The Snake-Charmers (also IC as KoS) Two's Company, Four's a Party (also IC as Heraldo) Vanguard #1: Kings and Shields (also ICC as KoS) Vanguard #1: The Inevitable, The Inexorable... Venture into the Forest (also IC as Heraldo)

GM With a grinding crash, the doors of the tunnels slammed shut after the fleeing cultists, the noise followed by a soft whispering like something dragged along the ground. A black light shone through the doors, and even the noise of the many feet slapping the hard floors ceased. The trembling gentled ever so mildly. The cultist the King of Suits had managed to capture was a tall and well-built middle-aged white woman with shoulder-length black hair, a rather broad face and nose, coldly suspicious eyes and mirthless set to her lips. She looked from Silhouette to the King of Suits a few times before asking sharply "Who sent you? Why are you here?" in a harsh voice.

All Cult Bystanders(except for the one Snared) escape through the tunnels, close the doors and lock them with a mystical seal even Silhouette can't get around. 1HP awarded for the setback.

Seeing the cultists making their escape, Marceau leaped out of hiding, landing neatly in a run on the curving shelf beneath the tunnel mouth, muttering to himself as he grabbed a pair of bolas from his utility belt, swinging them as he ran. As he got within range of the surging crowd however he stopped, glanced at the cord and weight, placed it back in its loop and instead slung a card almost carelessly from a pack on his belt. As it flew, the thing rearranged itself into a cylindrical mass of metal coils, which wound about one of the cultists, immobilizing them and bringing them bodily to the ground several yards from the door they were trying to reach at full speed. He grumbled in exasperation as he jogged over to his new captive "At least we have someone to get straight answers out of now, not much chance they'll talk without persuasion though, is there?" he asked Silhouette ruefully.

GM To nobody's great surprise, the crowd of cultists promptly began to do so, surging into the tunnels in a howling, desperate a mass of humanity. They managed to retain sufficient order to rush into the well-wrought metal and brick tunnels without crushing each other however, and from the way they seemed to make unconscious lines this was something they had been taught with great care and repetition. The trembling was growing slowly stronger, rattling the staves that had been thrown from the grasps of the priests(or whatever they were) as Silhouette defeated them, and sending them down through the hole into the pit, even shaking the senseless bodies slowly towards the mouth. The lamps were swaying now, wreaking the usual kind of havoc on the shadows that moving light sources usually do.

El Heraldo A Very Claremont Excursion (also GMing) Slave to Time The Kids Aren't All Right (also GMing) Two's Company, Four's a Party (also GMing) Venture into the Forest (also GMing) Y Dderwen King of Suits ...For Services Rendered The Snake-Charmers (also GMing) Wave-Eye First and Final Voyage Under the Bridge GM All GM post points to King of Suits please. A Very Claremont Excursion (also IC as Heraldo) The Kids Aren't All Right (also IC as Heraldo) Seal of Sedna The Snake-Charmers (also IC as KoS) The Closed Circle! Two's Company, Four's a Party (also IC as Heraldo) Venture into the Forest (also IC as Heraldo)

GM The packed robots stood shoulder to shoulder, looking even more boxlike than they truly were in the dim, flickering lights of the hallway. Thankfully, they didn't fill the room the two had come looking for in the first place, and without incident the two young heroes gently touched down before a what could only be the mainframe. From what could be seen of it under the dust and old grime that covered most of the room. It was huge,(at least twice as tall as the two teens standing on each other's heads, and ten of them could have lain from end to end and not reached longer than it), it was covered with blinking lights, it had a massive control panel built into its side with a large and dusty manual lying on a small pedestal next to the panel like an angry, musty god.

Skull Face's ranting was childish, perhaps, but his words still stung, knowing that he was responsible for this as much as the disembodied soul below. So it was almost lackadaisically that he slowly gathered himself back to consciousness, and moved to evade the attacks of the his enemy's minions. This wokred quite well in his favor however, as the movements of the triton were so sluggish in appearance that the dead warriors mostly managed to either overreach or fall short of their target as he weaved and rolled around their strikes. The blows that did meet his hide slid off, partially from the motion and partially from its continued(if diminished) durability. Shaking his head, Wave-Eye blinked as the world began to regain its more usual apsect(as much as a graveyard at the bottom of the ocean was usual for the planet, that is. Seeing how his foes were arranged against him, he realized that this presented a golden opportunity to at least slightly harm his tightly-clustered foes. Shooting upward 40 feet, he put the Conch to his lips and blew a powerful roaring blast through it, a torrent of red-laced water erupting from it to encompass the dead creatures that had arisen against him, the threads slicing and pummeling as they surged through the crowd of soldiers. Would that this had never been Nochehuatl thought wretchedly As sure as the sun rises, I am fighting at least a few of my half-brother's soldiers.

....Yeah, this trap is working out awesomely for Skull Face. Also, he's Injured twice, from the gun and all. Thankfully, two hits, 2HP, so if I fail I can just try again. TOU saves: 23, 8. Amazing. Spending a HP to reroll the second save: 23, what? Whatever, I can do things now. Move Action upwards 40ft, and using the Area Damage power of the Conch to go ahead and Attack the Skeletons in a cone 1200ft. wide. DC27 TOU check for...I think all the skeletons? DC21 if they succeed the DC22 REF save, obviously. EDIT: Realized I need to roll for it because of being Targeted, so the Attack roll: 10. Is bad, but whatev's.

"Okay then, I'll go with that" El Heraldo said softly, rolling his eyes at the "sounds like my mum" bit. He shrugged(a gesture wasted when he was behind her) "Very well. If they have the ability to dispatch objects into the past, they might turn considerable force upon us as well." and with that he followed Young Britannia in dour silence. Which matched his muck-spattered boots and pants quite well. ------------------- "With your will Agnes, I will bring that man to the ground with my shoulder" El Heraldo murmured, floating a little into the air"Unless you wish to deal with him yourself, in which case I shall take care of the rest of those."

The attack of the skeletons did a great deal to diminish Wave-Eye's gun-jumping bravado. The metal blades and heavy edges of their ancient weapons slammed into his hide, and though he turned two of the attacks that landed on him(evading most of the attacks through simple agility), one of the spears tore through his tough scaled skin, rippin a jagged gash over his left flank. With a cry of anguish, the riton clutched his side just in time for the spear butt to slam into his head, the impact knocking him partially unconscious, and only barely aware of the world. The band of undead warriors surrounding him were still very real to his dulled eyes all the same.

Alright, Wave-Eye's turn, he's going to kick so much butt when he stops being Dazed! Which is not now, so blegh.

GM The heroes went their separate ways, the potential kidnapping averted, the villain captured and on his way to Blackstone for imprisonment, and hopefully persuasion to give up whatever lunatic ideology he held. AEGIS and ASTRO Labs didn't get much from the robots(a rather primitive design compared to some of Doc Otaku's work), and only their oddly emotional AI presented much of interest. The expo enjoyed a surge of popularity from the attack, especially from the medical tech presented. THe show-runners were so pleased they managed to secure a deal with most of their exhibitors to return next year. Weissnacht(or Hamilcar Kramer, as he declared himself to be) was surprisingly subdued upon his incarceration, quietly polite and agreeable to his captors, and making sure to do as they instructed as he was interred into the available cell. Only when he was alone, when the footsteps of the guards were receding and the prisoner opposite him(a woman who had tried to send everyone on her street to a Hell dimension) stopped asking questions about what he had done and retired, did he let himself punch the cold wall of his cell with enough force to leave the imprint of his knuckles. "Failed. I hope that girl knows what she's doing, or we'll all end up in here" he muttered grimly to himself, sinking onto his cot and glaring at the ceiling, arms behind his head as he prepared for the long wait... END

TOU saves : 9, 23, 12. Re-rolling the first one. 24. So that's a Daze, a Bruise and another Injury. Damn. Wave-Eye needs some Impervious... Will Save: http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/3495350/12. And he's Demoralized too. This shows why heroes so seldom work alone.

GM Weissnacht turned out to be rather handsome(besides the bruise from the Penitent's attack) and impressively-built man of mixed Persian and German descent, head mostly shaved to accommodate the helmet's internal sensor array, which worked by attaching wires to one's head. Downstairs the visitors and exhibitors had begun to worry as the battle raged on the rooftop, sending thuds and rattles and groans to filter down, but by the time the three heroes had captured Wiessnacht and came down, they erupted into cheers of joy, the rep. of Ajax having quickly worked with the man representing Samara to program the carebots to clap and cheer along with the humans. However, they were barricaded from the adoring civilians by a small tide of reporters, cameramen and sound technicians who had come to cover the event, and who surged towards the trio with the usual endless barrage of questions: "Carl of WNTW, Channel 3. Ms. Ironclad! Did Weissnacht have anything to do with Dawes Tech...?" "Are you a demon sir? Do you have anything to do with Hellon...?" "Excuse me! Are you from outer space? What are you called? What...?" "Hey! What circle are you from?" "Have you heard from Dark Star...?" "Who was he working for? Was he working with Omega?" And on it went. At last, however, their questions were at least slightly satisfied, the police arrived shortly with a small AEGIS detachment who secured Weissnacht and took him into an armored car. Just as he was being dragged in, Weissnacht awoke partially from his unconscious state. Shaking his head furiously he turned his dark eyes on the three dim figures wavering familiarly before him, and gathering himself he yelled out "I'm not...Swedished Mr. Craget! You haven't felt the last scene of me! The metals will not prevail against me this time...I hate...starry demons..." his head sank back on his breast, and with a rattle and clang he was locked inside. The officers thanked the heroes profusely, as did the even organizers, who had managed to spin the publicity for a contrast between their technology and Weissnacht's, already gathering dozens more to the expo. The distant silhouettes of the Freedom Leaguers waved to the trio below, and shot off for other duties, the helicopters trundling away swiftly through the sky.