Ari

"That's a shame, talking with mine's always helpful" Subito commented, weighing the book carefully, with no little awe. "Wow, miss Stone! This is amazing! When did you learn how to do this?" e asked eagerly, flipping experimentally through some pages to marvel at the exact copy of the printed words he had seen only a few minutes ago. Closing the illusory thing with a satisfying 'snap', he tucked it under his arm and extended a hand towards Young Britannia "I'm called El Heraldo, pleased to meet you Britannia!" shaking her gloved hand vigorously he glanced at the phone, a vague inkling something was off with what he had heard from Ms. Hart sinking into his brain... Shaking it off, he made what plans needed making with his new comrade, and took his leave, thanking her profusely for her aid in this case. The next day he barged with all speed through the front doors of the library, the magical copy of the book tucked securely under his arm, humming the 'Florentiener March' as he loped to the front desk. Putting the book in the book depository, he listened to it clang its way down the chute, murmuring to himself "That is AMAZING work, Miss Stone." He set off with all speed for the agreed meeting place, filled with excitement for what was to happen!

GM At the incredible speeds the three heroes traveled at, they sped unharmed through the first few dozen hallways, the corrosive power of the Doom Coil itself causing their passage to be filled with the gnawing, acidic hiss of the raw entropy trying to destroy everything around it, even the powerful field that Supercape had bound around the duo. The further they went into the strange facility, the more obvious it became that the place had been somehow warped, twisted from its original dimensions to form a maze of wandering passageways which seemed to change their walls, floors and ceilings at whim. The few windows they happened across showed the distant but recognizable forms of the Lor fleet blocking out hundreds of stars with their neat spherical formation. The crisp light that filtered through didn't do much to give the place any cheer. At last they arrived at the dusty(a departure from most of the complex, which had been almost unhealthily sterile) portal leading into the central chamber of the station, a mass of interlocking doors that ensured that nothing unwanted could easily get out. Or in.

GM A veritable waterfall of obscenities in several different languages followed close on the heels of "the most annoying sound in the world", arguing quite strongly for its title, as did the rapid succession of violent pictures, mostly of things being thrown into spike pits. After several seconds the furious swearing gradually ceased, and Weissnacht's mental voice raged over the bond between minds <STAY RIGHT THERE! Stay right there, I'll send an electric shock through that floor like every drop of your blood is-> he suddenly got a lot more hesitant <Will he even have blood? I'll have to vivisect the thing once this is over...> the flood of mental imagery was now mostly centered on circuit boards, with a brief flicker of many gleaming blue eyes. His actual voice, much calmer and stronger over the intercom, announced to the quite relaxed visitors, some of whom had wandered out into the hall to congratulate the heroes; with a slight buzzing tone in the background, the accented inventor declared grandly "Pilgrims to the technology expo! I will have you know that momentarily, we shall be cut off entirely from the outside world. And YES, I DID THINK OF THE FOUNDATIONS TOO, I am NOT AN IDIOT!" he briefly ranted, the electronic smoothing of his voice failing to disguise his real irritation. After mastering himself he went on "If anyone here wishes to see the outside world again, by all means, ask! Just come on up to the roof, and we'll talk terms. Of course," he added casually "I will have to speak with whoever comes to demand your release as well, and your requests and what I'll have to to in order to retain my bargaining position might..run at cross-purposes. Weissnacht out." And with a click, even the noise of the wind above the skyscraper cut out. It seemed he had nothing more to say to those within.

The powerful hearing of El Heraldo was still possessed by his civilian persona. And Subito could hear the gnawing of rats far below. Because of that, he placed a lot of faith in his being correct when nothing amiss could be heard over the line, and was about to direct a barrage of questions at the unfortunate librarian, though he managed to silence himself before the first syllable left his mouth at Agnes' raised finger. Listening intently he quickly arraived at the(to him) obvious conclusion: evidently Ms. Hart had simply gone to some party, and her dissappearance's suspicious circumstances had been quite accidental. he realxed as the short conversation drew to an end, watching with interest as Agnes commanded her forces, no little admiration mingling with his curiosity to see such movements. He frowned rather darkly at the joke about 'an important meeting' and when she mentioned knocking first. Such subjects were quite out of bounds for him, but he understood the implication nonetheless. Her apology lightened his mood considerably though "No problem,thanks for clearing that up so fast, I'll make sure to reccomend you in case the Blue Dame asks me about a repalcement, should I prove unworthy." he looked puzzled at the latter part of her statement "Got to? How? Like with some kind of memory thing? Also, how will giving the book back help us? Don't we need it to figure otu what out Spirits want?" he leaned against one of the chairs, looking at Agnes with considerable confusion.

Could. But to be frank having Replicator versions of the heroes strikes me as a little beyond Green's repertoire at the moment. I think we should save that for another thread. Perhaps a 'thread-planning' thread once the team is actually gathered and has gotten around to working together. It'd totally be a sensation!

GM The reaction of the two antagonists to Subito's remonstrations was..not quite as severe as he might have wished. With sulking glares directed at first him then each other, they complied with little grace "M'sorry" "Me too. I shouldn't have bro-" the sandy-haired telekinetc stopped mid-word and with a shrug of their shoulders they went along their way, which incidentally looked to be the favored hangout of Claremonters, the Bayview mall. The small cluster of other students quickly scattered, some snickering to each other, comparing the bulky junior's efforts to those of the upperclassmen famed for their ability to shut people down with a quirked brow. The rest just seemed glad a crisis had been averted.

And now Subito will use his awesome powers of Intimidation to try and get the two students to stop being snippy. 27. ...Okay. Will check from the two, using the Kid Zeus oddball for this, which has a +8 Will save. 25, 25. So, they are cowed, but not by much.

Subito wasn't the sort to be much less than eagerly enthused about whatever he did, and so it was with a leap and a bound that the stocky teen crossed the open portal, landing with a cheery thud on the pavement that slightly widened a tear in his shoe. With a muffled "Oh, come on" he glanced at the damage, shrugged it off with a "Eh, I can fix it later" and took off rapidly down the street, humming a marching song the Blue Dame was teaching him dating back to the 1600s. He was in high spirirts, not least because he fully intended to go and spend the day with his cousin, who had perked up surprisingly after the recent crisis of the Proteus incident. he had to admit, from what he'd heard over the phone it was a pleasant change from his usually dour kinsman. It was just about when he had gotten to the part where they went fishing in the Sunset Lake in Liberty Park when the argument started beside him. Changing course with a spin of his heel Subito walked up to the two antagonists, took them easily by the shoulders, and placed them next to each other several feet from where they had been staring each other down. Looking at them both he demanded flatly "Guys, you're not gonna change either of your minds after yelling at each other, and if you keep at this you're going to get us all in trouble, so apologize, calm down, and QUIT IT.You want Summers to have to answer any more weird questions?"

"I have a very simple plan" answered Wave-Eye as he otherwise ran silent through the darkening water "I will find the biggest, oldest fish on this coast and ask them if they've heard anything about someone sending squid against humans, or if some Deep One raiding party has worked up the nerve to slink up from their holes." Speeding up his descent into the gloom he continued airily "Should they be ignorant of what is happening, I will simply keep asking around, perhaps I will meet some wandering water sprite who knows what's going on beyond their own tail. If I can't find any clues among THOSE flighty things, I'll..." he sounded a lot less confident "...Ask the Atlanteans for help. They are quite wise, I do not doubt they will be able to help somehow." He didn't sound too pleased with the idea of meeting them though, and became rather more subdued as the darkness of the deep closed around the pair, Wave-Eye following the distant thrums and thuds of some massive sea-beast, perhaps one who knew something about the recurring tragedy of the bridge. Meanwhile, the fact that someone knew his name and had carved it into a human's skull was starting to deeply worry him.

Works for me, though it ought to have some twist to make it stand out from the other giant robots, like it carrying a really powerful force-field that needs to be taken down first to damage it, or maybe it phases in and out of the normal plane of existence?

DC25 Sense Motive check: 14. +2 hearing bonus makes it 16, which still fails. Darn. DC10 Knowledge(Current Events) roll: 27. IC!! DC20 Gather Information roll: 18. Blegh.

If we have need of your GMing powers, I for one won't hesitate to ask you.

That might work Cubist, but as previously mentioned by the others the team is mostly aiming to fight science-based and tech-using foes, not magical and mystical threats. That aside, such a being might work best later on, perhaps with a cosmic entity that appears before them and claims to have gathered them for such-and-such a purpose. Are they telling the truth? Only one way to find out... Using the Communion as a formal opponent to the group strikes me as a little gun-jumping. While VERY powerful, VERY scary and VERY much "**** just got real" material, bringing them out at the start would kind of diminish later threats, wouldn't it? Admittedly, the Lab faced the Legion mind-virus last year, which i dare say would make an attack by the Foundry no less fearsome, but still. I'd prefer to build up to that level of notoriety and threat, instead of having such an opponent serving their first challenge as a group. Like I said in the Team Discussion thread, I'd prefer a more Earth-bound introductory villain. Nothing like the Sinister Science Squad to my mind(those seem more like foes the Lab would deal with), but at least less..vast in scope than the all-consuming horror beyond the stars.

May you see this day happily many times more! :toot:

"Thanks Miss Stone! Coffee'd be good" said Subito as he followed Agnes deflty through the studio, dodging the few obstacles mainly by being two feet behind his guide "Don't really have much preference for style or taste, so don't worry about that" he added, which was followed by a mental deluge of worry Oh no! What if she gets me some crazy-expensive kind of drink, something I'll never be able to pay for! he thought in horror, a weighty hand he checked his wallet by touch, and took some solace in potentially being able to pay for some of anything $20 or more I Wonder if there's such a thing as a $20 coffee he pondered as they quickly arrived at Agnes' office. "Hmmm..not really, sad to say. Lemme ask my patron something, just a sec" Bowing his head and closing his eyes, he sent out a message to the Blue Dame of Puerto Rico, a call asking something he was deeply worried about: Oh Blue Dame, was Ms. Hart kidnapped because of some secret she had found about the Serpent Empire? With grim clarity the powerful tones of his mistress answered No. She was stolen to discover what you or the bearer of Britain's Justice knew. I fear they will not believe what she tells them. Looking up Subito said bluntly "We really need to find Ms. Hart soon. 'Parently whoever kidnapped her thinks we know something, and is gonna try and find out what it is through her" he critically inspected the bit of the book mentioning the watery cult.

Basically, there's a noticeably tougher area of the basement on its southern end, opposite where the group entered. It was too tough to remove affordably and so was left to support the bank. That and one of the rooms is circular and has a pit in it for some reason.

Yes.

Succeeds and to spare. Weissnacht isn't paying much attention to what's going on inside the skyscraper. Nor does he seem to view Ironclad et al as a very worrisome threat, which means he either has things much more in hand than it looks, or else he's staggeringly overconfidant.

GM With a scream of overloading curcuits, groans of bending metal, and a hiss as some strange black, viscous fluid splattered from the robot's body, Ironclad's wrist blast sent the thing flailing to the ground, its manic efforts abruptly stilled with an explosion that sent bits of it sailing past and around the three heroes, it's comrade weakly looking up at its obliterated comrade only long enough to gather what had happened. Far off the roboticist blithely said "Quite right Ironclad, I'm fairly sure Blackstone doesn't have any killer robot teaching programs either. You wouldn't happen to know the time, would you?" he asked abruptly, while meanwhile the Penitent received, possibly by accident, a lengthy internal diatribe about how hard it was to parse satellite signals in a bustling metropolis like Freedom. It's simply IMPOSSIBLE to get the right stations on the first try he thought in frustration.

Hits, DC27 TOU check: 22, fails and thus is turned into a molten puddle Combat over! Now for the other matters. All HPs restored.

Hits, DC27 TOU check: 18, as it fails it now explodes spectacularly

"She mostly does violin pieces, stuff by guys like Mozart, she really likes Baroque composers" explained Subito, not bothering to hide his broad grin when Janis declared her musical fealty "Metal huh? Not really my thing, 'Fraid to say. Galanta and Rodrigo are more into hard music like that." He briefly considered removing his hand from hers, but decided against it. No harm in it he told himself, looking ahead through the slowly dispersing crowd of the mall as the four students proceeded. To Morgan and Victoria he called over as he and Janis took their separate route "Later guys! Don't forget, Spacers has a globe of the world on its roof"

I'm still up for running that 'invisible man robber' incident, if you're interested.

Ah, I see. My mistake, I just assumed the thing was magic.

Because you didn't have the GUTS to kill that sneakbot, VideoGeek! :argh: