Ari

Okay, sorry for the delay, folks, a house is a hard thing to keep clean and operational it turns out. @Sylinator How about we do the one about preaching first. It will be a short affair where H-H can establish herself and the major conflict in her stay at Freedom City(a basic disagreement with her values and those of the barbaric Eastern Americans). Brayger Blue building new transformation gizmos sounds fantastic to me, and The General having non-sapient kids is very, deeply alien. @Avenger Assembled I can easily do something for Citizen in the Emeralds, and I do like the idea of someone feeling a little sour about Soviet occupation of German territory, but Hammer of Justice and Bedlam is something I don't feel I can really make work to your satisfaction. Watchdog/Pulse antics, however, that sounds splendid. @Exaccus Dreadnought I am unsure about, but Facsimile and Moon-Moth I can do easily. @Cubismo I would be happy to do a solo thread where Replica confronts her creator's killer. Any more specifications? @Letty We had Sixiang dealing with her secret ID, possibly with another hero involved?

The Pitch Most everyone has plans. Specifically, for their PCs. Something they do, someone they meet, somewhere they go, something they lose or win. But sooner or later everyone comes up against the great enemy, Time. There is not enough, it's too early or late for the plan to work and by the time it will you have other things to do. Most everyone just doesn't take that plunge, for sensible reasons, wishing things could be otherwise. Well, wish no more. I will make your dreams reality. I promise 100% Event. No fluff, no drag, nothing of the sort. After thoroughly re-evaluating all the problems people have had with my threads, I've identified the key failings and worked to get over them. Which, I only now realize, helped make my existing threads grind to a halt. But that's in the past, your time is now, together we can make wonders! The Specifics Set down what you'd like your PC to do, the circumstances under which this event should happen(please be as specific as you can) the suggested tone and how many other PCs you're fine sharing the thread with. You will be paired up(unless the request is for a solo outing) with people who have similar goals and tonal preferences. The resulting thread will be, regrettably, relatively short. But it will start and end conclusively. While as a Guide I have considerable leeway in using universe-canon elements like NPCs, locations and signature items I must insist that you ask the other Guides and Refs about any requested use of or change to canon setting elements. The Max My limit will be 5 applicants at a time. Now serving 4/5

Electra, angrydurf, thank you for being you. Nobody else could possibly fulfill your roles as well as you have. I hope you see many more of these days and are always be happy to see them.

Mechanically everything looks alright. aside from some notation this looks ready for prime-time. The parenthetical numbers in Combat you don't need, that's already settled in the point totals at the top of the Combat section. And you need to list the ranks of the Mind Control and Paralyze powers.

Mechanically everything looks alright. aside from some notation this looks ready for prime-time.

This is mainly Ecalsneerg and I's thing, but I feel a few extra eyes can't hurt. Aiam addendum: This is what I sent as an initial suggestion to Ecal, none of this is his work, all blame falls on my shoulders. Basic overview: The Pact was created in the First Century CE by Simon Magus, that era's Master Mage. Before the Pact the gods walked freely on Earth and all too often victimized or manipulated mortals. Simon Magus ensured that divine and infernal forces would need human permission to enter the Earth's dimensions, changing the fundamental structure of the Omniverse to do it. Attempting to break through the metaphysical barrier would destroy the would-be invader and, if they held the monumental power of a god, the mortal world itself. Ever since then the Pact has protected the Earth and its inhabitants from unasked-for intrusion by outside powers. The gods have no desire to lose their followers and they have an inventive to protect the Earth from other forces. Even the ill-intentioned ones, like Baron Kriminel, Loki or Hades need mortal permission to do real harm. In game terms, it limits outsiders to roughly PL15 at maximum and requires very specific circumstances for PLX characters from other dimensions to appear in threads. Who it applies to: Gods, demons, their otherworldly servants, spirits, the Djinn and the Fairy Folk all rely on human say-so to be physically present in the mortal world. In game terms, any kind of other dimension whose inhabitants have a Magic, Divine or Infernal main theme and power descriptor is affected by the Pact. How to get around it: Gods that use spiritual possession, like the Loa of Voodoo, can simply transfer their power to a willing mortal recipient. Certain artifacts, like the Ankh of Horus, can be used as conduits of otherworldly might that bring not just the power of the entity but their consciousness as well. Mortal supplicants can perform rituals or make prayers that, if explicitly enabling the named being to enter their world, opens the way for that specific being or group of beings. Portals, dimensional conjunctions and explosions of energy that tear down the barrier between worlds are also known exceptions. But these are rare, often dangerous, hard to replicate and even if successful can have adverse side-effects. The beings can choose to leave most of their power in their home dimension. This both poses no risk when colliding with the Pact's barrier and makes the resulting intruder easier to negotiate with or defend against. A recent example is Sekhmet the Lady of Slaughter. Finally, the children of otherworldly beings pose a unique challenge to the Pact: they have access to great power, and some can even become gods themselves, but are usually mortals or else very like them. Most often these children remain either on Earth or in their non-human parent's home dimension. In game terms, you can't be a god, but you can have their powers, their attitude and be related to them. The Pact on other worlds: Some Earths never had a Simon Magus, the conditions under which the Pact was created, or it was undone by another Master Mage or a corrupted Dark Lord who wished to commune more easily with their otherworldly allies. In these cases a god can manifest physically and at full power. But if they wish to travel to an Earth that is protected by the Pact, then they must gain permission to do so. In game terms, you can play otherworldly-focused characters from other universes, but the rules of the Pact still apply so long as you're in Earth-Prime.

Maryellen keeps looking at the security feeds (not a physical thing, just what her brain implants let her see, and Scion recognizes the pattern from before), and she's clearly grasping for something to try and keep Scion here a little longer..

GM "Then there is no need for preliminaries." Lady Tarot steepled her bejeweled fingers "You've been to the Our Lady of Mercy mission and found what shouldn't have happened. In fact, it hasn't." Her tone very strongly implied she wasn't intending to answer any questions as to how she could possibly know that. "Someone or something has taken the timeline where the mission shut down and transplanted ours with that. I would like to hire you and your..." she quirked a pierced eyebrow at Jay "Personal demon assistant!" "...that. I would like to offer you and your personal demon assistant the job of sorting this out. I am prepared to offer a substantial sum of money. I see from this reading that you have enormous financial obstacles between yourself and your Star. My organization has resources of significantly greater enormity at its, and my, disposal. I am a woman of my word, Witchblood, and have a vested interest in the restoration of my world to its proper shape. But I lack the power to do this myself." Lady Tarot got to her feet with a rustle of her lock black skirt. She padded around the desk, stopping before Jessica, her dark, gold-ring eyes staring down at her. "Will you accept?" She offered her hand.

See Spoilers above! Lady Tarot goes for a Bluff check: 29. You can make it, Crimson! Though sadly in this case, Attractive does NOT apply.

Crimson, a Knowledge(Arcane Lore) check of DC15 will get Witchblood a handle on what Lady Tarot is doing with these cards.

The Hidden People In the water, the woods, beneath the earth and through the sky, monsters have passed unseen for eons. Every corner of the planet Earth has its share of mysterious beasts, shadowy things half-glimpsed beyond the firelight, something that someone saw glide beneath their boat or through the night sky. Some became immortalized, like the dragons or shapeshifters, others became lost to time or revealed as frauds. By the 21st century there was hardly an inch of the planet's surface that might still hide fantastical creatures, and most of them either become superheroes or fight them on the evening news. But in the rocky, mountainous, half-wild gorge of the Columbia River, an army of monsters has survived. These are the Cryptid Clans. The Beast People are humanoids with some other animal's quality or affinity, most are leftover experiments of the Preservers. The Changed Ones were normal people, until someone or something irrevocably transformed them. The Forsaken are creatures of myth and legend from the days before the Pact barred divine realms. The Unhumans are an open-minded tributary of humanity whose genes are magically destabilized, creating creatures whose every member is totally unique. The Visitors are beings from other worlds, even other realities, who have found a new home on Earth but don't wish to join human society. A Brief History of Tribes The Cryptid Clans were originally a loose confederation of people who survived the Great Cataclysm that destroyed the continents of Atlantis and Lemuria. North America, while its own scars from the war took millennia to heal, was rich in food and water and places to hide, especially near the mountain ranges. What is now called the Atlas Range of Washington and Oregon quickly became home to many kinds of creatures who either hadn't been on either side or had no place in the understandably-fearful human communities. Around 15,000 years ago humans of the Chinook nation settled in the Columbia River valley, including the river delta claimed by the Cryptids. Despite initial clashes the humans and inhumans found common ground and developed a guarded yet respectful relationship, a few even having children with each other. Thanks to the humans the Cryptids grew out of their fear and mistrust of the strange new world the mortals had inherited. In 1809, when the Charles Hogarth Stanley and Steven Rüber Malory-headed expedition to map the interior reached the Columbia River mouth, there was a sharp turning point. A day after the expedition turned back home, leaving in its wake Fort Emerald as a supply and defense center for future American settlers, Stanley was horribly murdered. The expedition had been guests of the local Chinook people who demanded, were given and executed the guilty party. But the Cryptids had seen enough, both from latent divination talents and simple pattern-recognition: this was the end of them, countless more Americans would be coming. If found they would be exploited and killed. To escape that fate the Clans decided to recede into legend, becoming ghosts and rumors at the edge of human civilization. The biggest change in recent history was the crash-landing of several Grue xeno-pods from laboratory ships forced to jettison their cargo while in Earth's atmosphere, coincidentally directly above the Atlas Range. The paranoia of 1950's America meant the few real sightings and close encounters with the experiments, mutated local life and prisoners in the pods led to a thankfully short-lived hysteria about alien invasion and dozens of "cryptid hunts" into the wilderness around the Emerald Cities. By the time the Clans had absorbed the new members they had acquired their longest-lived and most powerful enemy: a secret organization dedicated to fighting alien subversion in the aftermath of the Grue "secret" invasion earlier that decade, the tenacious and unyielding Majestic-20. The Cryptid Clans have struggled to survive in the midst of unchecked human expansion, becoming one of the many peoples severely harmed by ocean depopulation, deforestation and industrial pollution. They are adaptable and powerful but they need to find a new path in an unpredictable world. The Clans Traditionally there are only five Clans recognized as wholly independent bodies, the oldest and with the most rules are: River: The River Clan lives in the Columbia and its local tributaries, the Red and Bronze rivers. Its members are mostly amphibious sorts who can't handle the rigors of the Sea Clan, or who have some close tie to the rivers or Lake Valleé. In general the River Clan works as go-betweens or discreet messengers for the other Clans, moving through the waterways, sewers, water pipes and flooded sections of the Undercity with speed and discretion. Their members have a deserved reputation as the most subtle and tactically-minded of the Clans, able to go almost anywhere without being seen. Their leader is Otter, an ancient Changed One shapeshifter, whose days of irresponsible hell-raising are over but not forgotten. Their home is the drowned mining town of Astoria at the bottom of Lake Valleé. Some of them have started journeying further upriver to help carve paths for the yearly-depleting salmon runs. While the Rock Clan is ubiquitous the River Clan is privy to many secrets even they aren't aware of including the true source of the Changed Ones called Monsters, the finer ebbs and flows of power within the Chamber, the Shadow Academy hidden within the Elysian Academy and countless smaller but no less obscure facts. Otter has a habit of sitting on this information until he can use it to make himself look good, which severely undercuts his real skill as a spymaster. Rock: The Rock Clan has tunnels running everywhere under, through and around the Emerald Cities. The Rock Clan makes up the principle merchant and industrial class, their generally sedentary society and large numbers(easily the largest of the Clans) placing them ideally for making the house other Clans do business in. While the richest of the Clans in goods and technology, the Rock Clan's real wealth lies in its skilled and solid people. They can be found in the territory of almost any other Clan helping to make or repair almost anything, not to mention in the abandoned mines in Mt. Stanley. Their leader is Finnegal the Dwarf, despite his name an Unhuman who resembles a brawny 3-foot high hair-covered humanoid. His power to mold stone and earth and translate vibrations from miles distant has guided the Rock Clan safely through many dangers. Many of the Rock Clan's most recent members are exiles from the Kingdom of the Chasm in Sub-Terra, or those who fear its master, the Igneous Lord Quake. Their home is in the abandoned Undercity beneath Upper Emerald on the southern shore. Sea: The Sea Clan has the widest range of the Cryptids, travelling both along the coast and to other shores. They deal with outsiders almost as much as the Wood Clan, coming before the Pacific strongholds of peoples as varied as the Atlanteans, Umiquan and Deep Ones, not to mention handling the roving bands of triton mercenaries and even occasionally assisting human sailors crossing the Columbia Bar or in other perils. By tradition the Sea Clan serves as the spiritual leaders and otherworldly intercessors of the Clans, dealing with mysteries and monsters the others are ill-equipped to handle. The leader of the Sea Clan is Merr-Ell, a Piscean Lor Visitor and aged matriarch of a sprawling adopted family, the only one who remembers her old home. The Sea Clan is especially unusual in its conflict-free populations of Atlanteans and Deep Ones. This is partly because the Sea Clan has been speaking ever louder about the need to stop humanity's destruction of the Earth's ecosystems, especially the eradication of vital sea life both Lemurians and Atlanteans need to survive. Encouraged by Atlantis' success gaining diplomatic status, Merr-Ell is attempting to rally the sea-peoples of the Pacific to speak with a united voice. Sky: The Sky Clan darts through the air above the Columbia river mouth, an airborne kingdom with its throne on Mt. Stanley. It has changed the most in recent years, with the ascension of the new Clan chief Vohl-Turr, the Black Vulture. While long-dominated by a majority of Avian Beast People, it was only in the last few centuries that the winged race began to prey on outsiders, especially humans. The Sky Clan has been the sentinels of the Atlas Range for thousands of years, scouting the world and reporting on its changes. But since the Black Vulture killed and ate his predecessor in accordance with custom the Sky Clan has become warlike and vicious, preaching the inferiority of non-flying life and how Avians are the rightful rulers of the Earth. Now the Clan is considered outcast and anathema, the other Hidden People searching for a swift and discreet way to end this colossal risk to their own secrecy, thwarted by the speed and airborne nature of their foe. Some of the Sky Clan's members, especially the non-Avian minority, are doing what they can to subvert and defeat the far-stronger leadership. Wood: The Wood Clan patrols the forests on either side of the Columbia, protecting humans and their home. These are the "best-known" of the Cryptids, the shadows in the forest and the faces at the window, the shapeless monsters and saviors of countless stories dating from long before European arrival. Like the Sea Clan the Wood Clan contains some of the best fighters in the Clans. However, their(from Cryptid perspective) constant interaction with humans has changed their tactics radically. The Wood Clan has been slowly revealing its existence to humans in order to better help the weak and vulnerable in the Emeralds. While the Rock Clan keeps themselves hidden from the homeless population they share the Undercity with, but the Wood Clan actively protects them from the cities' criminals and police. Some people are even raised in the Wood Clan and slowly integrated into human society. However, they also have some of the most dangerous and violent Cryptids, even the targeted hate of the Sky Clan doesn't match the bloodthirst of Wood Clan's worst monsters. Despite the dangers posed by each party to the other, loudest voices for revealing themselves to the world come from the Wood Clan. This is not encouraged by its leader, the Forsaken immortal Brolan the Satyr, whose murky past is apparently full of regrets involving humanity and much of his life spent atoning for them. Their home is nowhere, the nomadic Clan having no permanent settlements to reduce chances of accidental encounters. More recently two new groups have become established, largely outsiders even to the other Clans: Fire: The Fire Clan has carved homes into the volcanic interiors of Mt. Forge and Mt. Stanley. Metal: The Metal Clan is the only one to live entirely within the Emeralds, a parallel secret society to the humans. The Culture The Current Problems

OOC thread for this thread. Jessica Witchblood, Sea Devil and Mag-Might deal with some snakey folks. @Avenger Assembled @Crimson Beguiler

GM April 1st, 2018, 12.01 AM In the ruins of Tharask, Lemurian City of Hope, the Night Sea of Sub-Terra Tharask had been empty for centuries long before the Great Cataclysm destroyed Lemuria and her human twin. But in its highest tower, in the heart of the Drowned Citadel, the voices of serpents resounded. The robes glimmered in the emerald light of the torches, a light reflected dully in the golden eyes of the procession being described around the bloodied circle. Thin, hissing voices rose and fell in song as scaled arms tipped by claws brandished wreathes of bone and weapons of obsidian glass. As the serpent people sang, the light of the torches changed, first to a healthy, ruddy orange, then deeper and deeper into a sickly, nauseating red. The golden eyes were eclipsed as slitted pupils expanded to draw in more light, the sibilant voices grew louder and faster, a savage tempo building as the eldritch forces at work began to work their will on the world. Suddenly, with a blinding flash and a peal like thunder, the thin fabric of the world was torn away, flinging a being from another world into the circle! <"It works, it works!"> they cried jubilantly, dancing with glee as their leader, resplendent in a crown and robes adorned with sea dragon fangs, swept into view of the new arrival. He pointed a staff topped with a gilded skull at them. <"Demon of the void,"> he began, before pausing, eyes squinting dubiously. Something was...strange about this demon. They were more human-looking than most, for starters. <"What infernal realm do you hail from, creature? As thine summoner, I do command thee to answer, and answer only with the truth as it pertains to the spirit of my question!"> -------------------------------------------------------------------- Aquaria had made a stunning discovery during the transfer of Deep One relics to the Freedom City museum. A stone tablet imbued with protective power held an intricate map carved long before the stone was enchanted. It showed the way to an ancient city built as a refuge by the Serpents in the early days of their forgotten empire. Tharask had been a glimmering pearlescent jewel in the crown of the Serpent Empire, a place where song and art were the greatest skills that could be cultivated, shimmering spires reached to the cavern roof and its artificial Sun shone day and night, spreading heat and life eternal. Then the War had swept into Sub-Terra and by Atlantean magic the false Sun seared the city until was bleached bone white, all life burned from its streets and towers. The walls of the cavern had broken, letting in the surrounding underworld sea to cover everything in icy darkness. But the wonders remained and the legends grew. More importantly Tharask was directly(relatively, Sub-Terra made such things hard to pin down) beneath the waters of the Great Bay. So here she was, floating in a giant flooded cave surrounded by the spear-head tips of pallid, crumbling buildings that smelled like death. With the unmistakable lights and sounds of a Serpent ritual drawing her closer to reptilian shadows and hissing voices.

GM "I'm glad you're so understandin', Killian. Frank, Torres, keep an eye on the place. Cops get too close...well, you know what to do. If it's masks, you ain't seen nothin' until your lawyer gets here. Now, if you ladies will kindly follow me." Carson led the quartet out through the back, into a sleek gray car with severely tinted windows, the mustachioed man courteously helping the women inside. Jay wiped away the tint from hers like a child wiping fog from a window, luxuriating in the pristine leather seats. Martin drove while Carson sat in back, passing the sedate drive with idle chatter. Apparently he was some kind of mid-level functionary in some unnamed organization, having taken an entry-level job in the group years before to help support his startlingly large family. He and Martin had been adopting war orphans since they met fifteen years before, both having lost their own parents and being second-generation immigrants from an Italian community in the Balkans. With the help of the organization close to a hundred had grown up and become American citizens in their own right. He was animatedly discussing the newest arrivals, digging up photos from his wallet, when Martin curtly announced "We're here." "Here" turned out to mean a nondescript Southside office block housing several law offices and bank branches. Again Carson helped them through the car door, Jay tricking him into pulling her out by the leg, and again through a back door and then up a flight of stairs. Down the dingy hallway was a faded sign on a worn-out door. On either side was a burly man, each with burn scar on the right side of his neck. The sign on the door said 'Tarot'. On seeing it, Jay's grin deepened. She glanced sidelong at Jessica, like someone at a movie theatre watching their friend's reaction just before their favorite character dies. Carson nodded to the men flanking the door and gave it a sharp rap with his knuckles, calling out "Hey, boss? It's C and M. Got guests, they wanna help with the mission problem. The door swung open to reveal a middle-aged woman behind a study mahogany desk, curly black hair framing a narrow, dusky face, her eyes closed and hands spread over a broad array of cards. Besides her, two extra chairs, the desk and a trashcan, the room was empty. "Killian, isn't it? And....Jay?" The woman asked mildly "Would you come in? C, M, wait outside. Thank you for finding the solution to my little problem. They will be safe for the rest of their lives." The door was shut behind the pair as they were gently shoved into the office. Her eyes opened, like liquid rings of gold in a black void "Please, take a seat. Lady Tarot is at your disposal."

Shortest one there is Carson, at 6'5". It's entirely possible whoever their boss is sent out his largest and most loom-y operatives for some reason but the possible whys are unclear.

That works! Tiff's too. Entangled and all, -2 to Defence and not much to start with. Resolving the two attacks: Spider's first, DC22, 10. Staggered and Dazed, +1 Bruise. Salvo's DC19: 9. Two 1's in a row? Huh. Anyway, two Staggered's means Unconscious! Dr, Saunders is defeated! Mark down 12,000XP. We are out of rounds. Now, you have a hole into a nothing full of things coming to eat you, an unconscious caveman and an unconscious giant monster. What's the plan?

Murk is still out of it.

GM "Aw, shucks!" Jay snapped her fingers, a pouting look on her face "I knew I was forgetting something! Evil, evil, evil..." she followed Jessica deeper into the mission building, musing deeply with intently-furrowed brows. The knot of men in the main room softened notably as Jessica approached. Faint, unconscious smiles spreading across their faces as they came to meet her, trying to inconspicuously jockey for position. A taller one with a scar across his neck spoke up first "See, doll, you got me all wrong! We're, you know, trying to get this place started up again, get it back on its feet after the...you know, the incident." His smile faltered and he glanced for guidance to the sour-faced mustachioed one, who cut in expertly "'Scuse Martin, he's the kinda lunk who starts talkin' about murders and thieveries when a nice gal like you just wants a li'l fun." He grinned crookedly "Tell you what, our captain needs a fresh set of eyes on this little mix-up, why don't we take you over to meet him? I'm Carson, what'll we give the doorman, missy?" "Can I come too?" Jay shoved in front of Jessica, grin set and eyes fluttering 60 times a minute "I am an immortal being who-!" the rest was lost in a yelp as "Martin" gently pulled her out of sight. Carson nodded distractedly "Yeah sure, you're girlfriend can come too."

Now she gets a closer look at them, these guys don't look like police, not even the shabby, shady kind of police officers the other ones don't like to be seen with. She's almost certain one of these guys was at her next-door neighbor's last week getting all loom-y and enunciative over something. And yeah, that works, they're pretty distracted. Jay is taking notes.

Your choices how to handle this, try to disarm Liu, try to convince him you aren't with the Dragon, pretend to acquiesce, try to dispel the plane somehow.

GM Sha'ir's deepened understanding translated into a new perspective for comprehending the unseen. Before his eyes, the entire plane melted away into inchoate vapor, and the cloud took on an unsettlingly scaled, muscular and...contracting aspect. The passengers and crew were real, including Captain Liu standing dumbfounded in front of Anne, but the plane was about as real as a focus-tested love story and the seemingly-ephemeral mist was hiding something significantly more threatening than even some metaphysical hole into Hell screaming in anguish. "How the Hell did you do that?!" Liu said, eyes wide and staring "You just...that amulet was made of solid jade! Nobody could-" suddenly, comprehension dawned and he began to back away. "No, no! You're one of his. You're from the Dragon, he brought you here to help him escape!" Darting nimbly aside, Liu seized a flare gun from the wall- -and for one brief, stomach-twisting second the entire plane shifted to reveal a much more archaic, traditional ancient Mandarin design, like some great flying boat, the flare gun turning to a flaming sword in Liu's hand as he rounded on Levity, his own square face as set and fierce as her own. Then, with all the grace of a snapping elastic band, the thing jerked back into a commercial airliner, and the burning blade into a signalling gun, the passengers nearby hurriedly trying to get away from the Captain as he threatened Anne. "Depart, traitor!" he snarled, finger edging to the trigger "We'll get out of your trap and back to the land of the living, even if we have to send you to face your master ahead of schedule!"

GM It was a relief to not have to traverse the entire length of the treasury on foot, so much so it was almost unnoticeable that all the varied wealth had simply disappeared, replaced with giant mouldering heaps of corpses. With the forcefields still in place there was nothing to be done about that anyway, and so the pair made their way out, up and out again, back into the dizzying maze they had left all too short a time ago. It was a bit of a letdown to discover they could just levitate above the walls of the maze, and that all along it had just been a loop with two doors at either side of a revolving plate. The trick all along had been to keep to the edge, not to find the center. The letdowns, thankfully, stopped once they went through a door that vaguely resembled the Hell portal they had come in by. On the other side were their own unconscious bodies and a circle of Atlanteans fussing over them with odd-shaped apparati, muttering to each other in a jargon the Speaker helpfully translated. "It would appear we have been insensible for several hours, Sri Lockwood," Dol-Druth mumbled "er...they have been doing all they can, but our...essences? That is fading, somehow, and they are in a panic because if we cannot be revived here there is no place near enough to save us." He screwed up his great dome-like Moon of a face "Do...you people really believe this...nonsense?"

DC15 Sense Motive check, and a Spot roll too, while we're at it.

GM A short time later "Yes...yes, this is it." Maryellen Musk frowned at the container in her hands, easing back into her invisible chair to let the electron field ease her chronically-sore backbone. It was always fun to see how the thaicuns tried to sell their personas in their decor, and Maryellen was no slouch in the sales department. The whole place was one giant starfield, a rich and well-embroidered tapestry of the Milky Way as seen from any conceivable point on Earth. Holographic projection created the illusion of hanging amidst a great sea of winking lights, against a black velvet backdrop of soaring gas clouds and swathed ultimately in the all-encompassing blackness of space. And from Maryellen's shimmering desk-globe were launching tiny craft, barely to be seen, but there and defiant of the infinite night that menaced them, emblems of the spacefaring vessels MusOvell had been launching for well over twenty years, from exploratory craft searching for exploitable minerals to sleeper ships heading for nearby star systems. Maryellen had been the 100th person on the Moon to break ground for the first extraterrestrial palladium mine just five years ago. By comparison with this epic scenery, the dumpy little woman in the grey bathrobe and sweatpants with bags under her eyes and a faint aroma of body odor was a powerful letdown. To the public Maryellen Musk was 7 feet and 200 pounds of athletic, perfectly-clothed muscle and miles of silky black hair. "Well, your story checks out, and this is definitely the Holy...the target. But I just have one question: why would a car AI ever have a flag to trip to assure someone they aren't gay? Though...come to think of it Marceau never has been that close with his wife. Poor doll. Anyway," she tossed the container aside carelessly and folded her hands on her stomach "You're sure you got away without being identified?"

@Tiff Sorry, but you forgot to actually put down your Attack.