Ari

Shofet asked me to make a second Notice check on account of Wave-Eye's connection to the Gods, so hear t'is: 10. Bah.

The place is such a confused jumble of haphazardly-arranged crates and random bits of piled hardware supplies it's all but impossible to find anything among them. They cover whatever might be found quite well.

The place doesn't seem to have much out of the ordinary, mostly hardware supplies, lumber and various things used in home improvement and repair. The only thing out of place is a selection of snake and sun-themed jewelry; mostly pendants, necklaces and bracelets made of gold studded with black gems. The room the crates were sent into seems inaccessible from the interior of the store by any route other than the conveyer belt. A locked door appears to lead into it, although it's surprisingly rusty and has a chock placed under it.

Let's see how that turns out! Weissnacht's DC32 TOU save: 17. He's down! Round 4. Corporal Cosmos: Unharmed, 1HP Weissnacht: Unconscious Weissbots(x10): Unharmed Ironclad: Bruise(x1), 5HP The Penitent: Bruise(x2), Injured(x1), 1HP Your turn VG. EDIT: Aaand forgot to actually ADD the HPs, drat.

GM The armored Austrian stared at the energy construct falling short for the third time that battle. "Good Lord, what is WRONG with you today?" he demanded in bafflement, stepping a little closer to examine the thing before it winked out of existence "Is that some kind of cut-rate space-armor thing? Pretty sure Star Knight never misses like that" he added with a hint of a sneer behind the electronic masking of his voice. He glared at the three heroes, especially at Ironclad for ruining his ruse, and suddenly realized something "Wait..why am I fighting you alone? That's crazy!" tapping a panel on an uncovered portion of his suit, an electronic pulse could be felt, the purpose of which was revealed when ten of the hulking robots spilled out from the ventilation mouths on the roof, single eyes narrowing as they took their targets, but at the moment they were in a bit of a jumble, some of them having trouble keeping their limbs out of each other's way. "Much better!" exclaimed Weissnacht, who spun on his heel, took aim at the floating Corporal, and fired a nearly invisible blast of power that warped the air as it struck..the forcefield several feet from the cosmic champion. In the brief silence that followed, the roboticist looked in confusion at his suit, muttering "Did I cross that power source while getting the cells to fit? No, maybe...." he peered at the electric blue sheathe that lay under his armor, eyes narrowed as he searched for the problem. One of the slits was still on each hero, however.

Weiss figures that fighting personally is a little of a waste and calls a bunch(x10) of Weissbots to the fray as a Free action. HP granted to all for the trouble. Their initiative roll: 14, so right after Weissnacht, just before Ironclad. Weiss shoots at Corp, for kicks. Attack roll: 17. A miss, incredible.

The bulky triton swam through the waters under the Darwin with eerie grace, his eyes peeled and his ears pricked for the least sign or sound of trouble. He was increasingly baffled as the minutes passed by, and no sign of danger presented itself, until at last after sifting through a likely patch of sand he gave up his search, and appeared with hissing gurgle next to the Alice. "Nothing" he said shortly, shaking the water out of his hair with a vicious toss of head "I suspect we will have better luck within your vessel. Lead on human, I have little hope I will be a comforting sight to your people aboard there" he said a little gruffly to Lord Steam. He sat down on the hull of the submarine, watching the deck of the ship for signs of the crew, saying flatly to the nearby Bloduwedd "Hail"

Bowing with a flourish to Todd Hayden, the patriotic powerhouse shook the man's hand firmly. "Mr. Hayden, it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I and my comrades" he holstered the Banner of Victory so he could gesture to the other heroes "have come to ask your help in finding out how some kind of magical spirit was bound to a replica of the Megalodon you had displayed at the Freedom Aquarium" he explained to the best of his understanding what had happened to the replica, apologizing profusely for his failure to keep the thing from being damaged by the fall "...and for that, as well as your pardon, I ask your assistance in finding out who was responsible for thus endangering visitors to the Aquarium. Will you help?" he asked hopefully.

"Feh, your race was only ever good for chewing your way through battle-ranks" muttered Wave-Eye scornfully, and with a flick of his tail he shot downward, calling over his shoulder "Don't let your brains fall out, you might eat them in your haste to fill your bellies!" he swam deeper intot he depths, muttering to himself for several minutes about the uselessness of sharks. At last he stopped, sighed gloomily and spoke to Skull-Face "I am..sorry. I just can't STAND those beasts. Who next, the kraken?" he was only a little more confident the massive sea monster would be more knowledgeable than the sharks, but he wanted to put off the boneyard as long as he could.

"That's something else" Subito agreed, and turned to her with much more confidence he wouldn't make a similar mistake to last time. "I don't get much chance to fly just for its own sake(my flight instructor says I need to work on my landings a lot more), it's incredible when I do get the chance." He paused to smell one of the flowering dogwood trees lining the garden, the fragrance bringing his family sharply into his mind. Mom'll be planting most of her garden by now he thought hope she can wrangle Rodrigo into helping out his cousin wasn't much for plants, which coupled with the boy's fear of poisonous insects made him a poor gardener. Aloud to Agnes he said, in answer to her suggestion "I really would! I'd love to talk about how you deal with conflict in your spirit's past, what you DO with the knowledge of the past you're given, stuff like that." He stopped, struck by a sudden realization "By the way..did anyone teach you Ms. Stone?" He leaned his back against the tree, his head resting on one of the the low-hanging branches "Or did ya have to learn it all on your own?"

"Don't worry, I'm no friend of theirs either" Wave-Eye drily assured his traveling companion. For this, he would need very different body language and ways of making himself understood compared to his interactions with more..intelligent life. Approaching to within ten meters of the slowly-moving killing machines, he spoke in his best shark, carefully keeping his jaws as taut as he could to get the sounds out right, his head raised a little higher than normal to give himself a 'higher' vantage point. "Hail, O ever-hungry ones" he grated "I search for a slayer of humans, one who enslaved a giant squid to their purposes, have you heard of any such beings in these last few years?" He kept Skull-Face close in case the meeting became violent, for whatever reason the sharks could think up.

Subito accepted the offered food more than a little uncomfortably, saying "Thanks but I'm really sorry I helped drag up bad memories Ms. Stone. I didn't think of that part." He ate the food with some relish all the same, a gloom over the act that he fervently wished he hadn't been partially responsible for. After quickly devouring the Earth delicacy, he silently cast about for a new conversational topic, which he inadequately disguised as observing some of the statues nearby. He didn't want to ask any further into Agnes' experience as a spirit-bearer, and he couldn't think of any safe course for the conversation to take. At last, the decided upon the easiest thing he could think of to talk about "So...what's it like, being a real superheroine?" he asked curiously, squinting slightly against the reflected light of the sun being cast on his face just above his eyes.

That works out great! Spitfire sees a dim, dusty room filled with bits of broken cement slabs, in the center of the floor is a round hole rimmed by a metal guardrail. A ladder can be seen on the other side of the room.

"Alright, let's get to it!" exclaimed Marceau heartily, drawing out two padded metal gauntlets attached by narrow white tubes to a pair of bicep-length cylinders marked unambiguously "DANGER: do not ingest contents" in yellow letters. Positioning himself in front of the door, he tensed, swung back both fists and slammed them into the door, pulling on the long triggers running along the palms and forcing the padded hammers froward, with enough force to send the door almost off its hinges, and certainly out of the latches locking it. The echoes thundered around the cramped confines of the basement. Stepping backwards and shaking his head, the King of Suits blinked at the opened way, looked at his gauntlets, and grinned broadly. To Voltage he said "These work better than I had hoped! I'll have to figure out a way to dampen the noise though" he added, rubbing his ears ruefully.

Will save: 14. Blegh.

Alrighty then, Round Three begins. Corporal Cosmos: Unharmed, 1HP Weissnacht: Unharmed Ironclad: Bruise(x1), Dazed The Penitent: Bruise(x2), Injured(x1) Take it away VG.

GM "Of course not!" exclaimed Weissnacht hotly, turning away from his bloodied foeman to confront the gadget genius "Whyever would I do such a thing? That's just a bomb meant to destroy this building and kill everyone, not some teleportation device! And now let us consider other things" he continued, the armor sliding back from his left hand as he pointed it at Ironclad "Such as the durability of that suit's armor, for instance!" With a noise like a thunderclap, a colorless ray slammed into the scientist. "I'll be with you in a minute, just stay right there" he called over his shoulder to the Penitent "I just need to get rid of these guys and I'll get back to turning you into a smear on the floor"

Welp, Weiss's turn again. This time he's going to try and distract he two heroes from the pressing matter of the teleportation "bomb" by shooting at Ironclad. Blast Attack roll: 21. Hits, DC30 TOU check, non-lethal damage.

GM Glow: With a roar that was nearly deafening in the narrow confines of the base corridor, the two robots fired. Their salvos seemed to be actual artillery shells, which carried both a kinetic punch that breached the shield, and also an explosive charge that could be felt even through the shield. Thankfully, they didn't do as much damage as they might have, leaving dark bruises on her arms and torso rather than gashes and horrible wounds, but it was painful nonetheless. Lucy and Frank were both speechless with fear, staring at their protector desperately, Frank looking misserably at his own shield. Arcturus: "i could do that, but..." Waker shook his head "I've dug myself in a little deep. As you might imagine, I was trying to make the prince my disciple for quite some time now, his heritage would do a great deal to help my case at the Chamber." The magician rolled his eyes "But he is a prince, after all, and is used to being master of his own mind. it got to the point where i was teaching him ways to power just to keep him around, and now I fear I've made a monster that I dare not cross." he frowned, stroking his large beard, staring alternately at the ceiling, the racks of books, and the rune-master in front of himself "But...if I could introduce you as some kind of tutor, I'm sure i could convince him to follow you, perhaps you could even take him to meet his father's army on the coast!" he seemed a lot more excited now, barely whispering at all.

That answer was whooly unexpected, and it gave the young paragon some serious food for thought, which together with the hot dog made him extremely quiet, and deepened his habitual frown considerably as he chewed over the implications of what Agnes had said. Two people's memories at once... he thought wonderingly, glancing at the statue of Lady Liberty visible from where they stood The Blue Dame said crisply If you could be bothered to listen and study, you would gain much the same benefit Subito rolled his eyes at that Yeah, but there's knowing about 'n knowing of. You're an incredible being, O Blue Dame, but your gifts to me don't lemme know what it was like to feel the conquest of the people that were your very being, you can only tell me stuff That is only because you do not listen. If you did, I could allow my memories to mingle with yours, but as it is I doubt your wits could bear it. After finishing his hot dog, seemibngly out of nowhere Subito asked Agnes, "Say, Ms. Stone, does your spirit ever let you remember their memories?" Realizing what she had said earlier he added "Yeah, you did say they weren't much of a conversationalist, but still." He looked at her with great curiosity, there hadn't exactly been many people to talk to like this at Claremont, and he was quite thankful for the chance to 'talk shop', as it were.

Stalking silently after the unaware elctrician, Marceau ducked into a doorframe when Stephen halted at the entrance to his own apartment. Watching with great care, he watched as the man unlocked his door and went inside, a quiet sigh escaping his lips as the noise of the lock being turned clicked through the hallway. Waiting for exactly eleven seconds, he strode noiselessly up to the door, pulled out a tiny flashlight(which had taken many painstaking hours to make), and squinted into the lock. Mumuring to himself, he began the quick, quiet work of opening the thing, ears straining into the dark hall for any approaching footfalls, and mindful of any noise on the other side of the door. At last, with a soft noise of metal, the tumblers were eased into place and the handle turned ever so slightly. Marceau held his breath and all but crept into the apartment.

One thing: how Crusader and King of Suits find Dr. Green? Good ol' detective work, a vision from the future, a signal fired by Voltage?

Alright, DC15 Disable Device check for KoS to get through the locked door without having to bust it off its hinges: 25. W00t.

GM Weissnacht rolled his eyes(an action wasted, as his ocular ports couldn't replicate such a motion), saying dily through his voice synthesizer "Buddy, don't talk big if you can't even judge distance properly." He had stepped back a few inches in sheer surprise when he had seen the incoming clamp, but he saw no need to make his foe aware fo that. Spinning on a metal-shod heel, he resumed his earlier walk towards the dazed Penitent. Looking his horned enemy over for a few seconds, he snickered, drew back a suddenly much spikier arm, and slammed it into the side of Bram's head, using the momentum of a slight turn to the right to add weight to his already powerful attack. He scowled when he realized his enemy was simply cut and lightly concussed, and muttering obscenities prepared for another try. he had absolutely every intention of beating his insulter to death, which would have a profound effect on negotiations with the outside world(and maybe the other heroes too he thought).

Yeah, I'll use the Animal Empathy feat(because how often exactly DOES it get used, really?), substituting Wave-Eye's Handle Animal bonus for Diplomacy. Handle Animal roll: 13. Grllphsurlmuiooorgh... Hm. On the one hand I could burn a HP and reroll, but with two other leads(one of which is a kraken), I see no reason to do that at present.