Ari

Late thread counts for June 2017 I have no excuse. Please give all GM-earned points to Salmon. Speaker Here Comes the General 2 IC posts Red Moon Blood Runs Cold 2 IC posts Salmon Everything Is Illegal Here 1 IC post Freedom Needs Green 1 IC post Hyperslice Calculating the Abyss 1 post GM 3+2+1+1=7 A Waste of Water 3 GM posts Do It Again 2 GM posts The Death Song 1 GM post Underworld Hit 1 GM post

Dol-Druth's harsh, deep voice whispered "Our thoughts, two streams that meet an ocean..." There was a tug. And Elias opened his eyes on a snowy wasteland. The hunt had been long and grueling, all but he and two others had perished at the blades and fangs of the great ice worm, there was only one more lance left on his back and a fresh storm would be on them in days. With a grunt he got to his feet, feeling the well-worn wormfur cushioning and insulting the thick pelts encompassing his tall, strong body. But even through them, Rae's icy breath cut like blades. Elias bent his head and groped at his belt for the snow mask, knowing time would not wait. After bearing three children with Den-Sof he could feel how much thicker and heavier he had grown. Days would pass before they could even get the worm back to the underhalls. The bone mask slid over his eyes, for just a moment shutting out the bleak, windblown wasteland. "El!" Elias jerked his eyes open, the blare of the club roaring back into his ears. Across the tiny table, a woman with golden eyes and small birdlike wings...Zante frowned at him, the shimmering flares of light illuminating her stark nurse's uniform. The flares revealed the club in spurts, glimpses of the raging party thrashing and screaming around them, drowning out the light-synth waves that stabbed the brain with pure exhilaration. "You've been lapsing in and out all night. I need to take you home, Ar. Bor-Scroo doesn't joke about a patient's wellbeing." She got up and slipped around the table, reaching for his arm... "Elias!" Dol-Druth's massive, fleshy hand grabbed Elias' shoulder, and the world shattered, spiraling away into a maelstrom of senses. It was like standing on an island surrounded by waterfalls. The Speaker was shaking, sweat beading on his bald, corpse-white skin as he panted, red tongue almost lolling out of his mouth from exertion. "I am so sorry. It...I had forgotten." He gulped "I forgot how I was lost my first time. Are you alright? You know who you are?"

@olopi Sorry but bumping this a bit. Would you roll, please?

So as briefly explained in Chat that was a miscommunication on my part, like the spars. The anti-matter villain Negator has a very distinctive sound when he flies, since he's propelling himself via anti-matter collisions. Citizen is familiar enough with this to recognize instantly that there's more than one Negator incoming via the very not up to code sewer tunnel. Three, maybe four of him.

Hyperslice, being a living conduit of hyperspace, is ideal for exploring the cosmos.

Exits to the north and south, or follow Edison up the vines out the roof.

14 Not much faster.

Reroll, yeah.

Somehow the magnetic field is not weakened but the Bluff works out fine. So you have somebody there in the stall with you and for purposes this does not count as being grappled.

GM "Well that does it." Barging into the stall, Wolf picked up Roland by the neck with one hand, a knee with the other and began to furiously shake him up and down. "This would never happen if you people spent a fiftieth of your military budget on your food supply! Honestly! Fruit and vegetables could be a universal right in a country this wealthy, but no! You cram yourselves full of bread and meats and other materials never meant for human consumption! This foolery will ruin you all!" "You alright in there?" Fox called from outside "Yes! Fine! Just an unexpected complication, ignore any sounds you may hear, it's all fine, nothing is ruined!"

Actually that works good. Citizen is familiar enough with the noise antimatter interacting with matter makes to recognize a cacophony of that noise racing towards them through the sewer tunnel.

How about this: A colossal exodus fleet leaving that arm because of some other, bigger threat that something vastly more organized than the Big Three blocs couldn't defeat. They're collected enough for their offers to take people with them to be worth taking seriously, but so huge that even fringe elements are enough to be a serious challenge to the weakened and war-weary local powers.

@Exaccus Okay, that would be the 2PP per rank version, with the Limited Flaw it would be 1PP per rank, so just 10PP, with the added jury-rigging it would be a DC15 check. Adding Nullification Field for absolute zero additional points. Tacking on anything else?

So a Flawed Nullify Technology Limited to Edison tech? Okay. What rank?

@Exaccus I grant you another HP to try that again. Also what are you trying to make, figure that first.

GM For a second, Mars looked at Peri and his happy face...slipped. Just a little. For less than a second. But it was gone just long enough. "Oh, you're no fun!" the grin blazed again all over his face as Mars waved a dismissive hand and turned back to the rerun of some 80's cartoon playing on the hospital, robots combining in jerky two-dimensional intersections of ink. "City government doesn't want heroes operating in the city, not freelancers like you, anyway. By all means, keep on keeping on, just don't expect any thanks, recognition or reward if they have anything to say about it." Mars grabbed a bottle of scotch off a side table and took a long drink, throat working manfully under his trim red beard. Slamming it back onto the table with a sigh of satisfaction, he went on "Nobody on that stage or any of our underlings had any idea we had a metahuman thief in this county, but I do know she's not going to stay in this county, and she's not going to Blackstone, which is what Mayor Talbot is telling the Fourth Estate." His green eyes glittered as the combined robot came under a savage attack of such ferocity the swiping claws seemed not to move at all. "Our dear Amanda is going to a little black site offshore, hidden under the North Jetty of the Bar." Everyone there knew about the Bar. The deadly shoals on which over a thousand ships had broken and sunk at the mouth of the Columbia. Bar pilots and now a complex autopilot system had managed to tame it, though entry to Malory Bay in the winter was still perilous. Nobody would go near there, even efforts to salvage wrecks only took place in the summer at low tide. "I'd seriously advise not trying to go there. You're not up to it, and probably never will be. They are not f***ing around down there, kids." Mars glanced sidelong at the munchkin masks, still smiling "I'd put the whole thing out of my mind, I were you, go back to finding lost cats or whatever it is you do when you're not blundering into something you shouldn't." "Oh!" he snapped the uninjured fingers on his left hand "And Stan is going to lose his job before the week is out. He's in deep with the Russian mob, turns out, thanks to Amanda's leak of his personal records. What a clown, keeping anything dangerous to him around. We're getting a new district attorney, probably Marion MacDaniel, she's even harder on crime than Stan is. You should drop by her office, when she gets here. Could be someone good to know." Mars smiled lazily "Aaaaaand that's all I feel like spilling today. But I'd love to reveal more, Spider. Maybe over dinner? I know a great sushi and fish steak place on the Red River. Literally on the river, floating restaurant, the Sizzling Finn."

@Tiffany KortaOkay that works for the initial entry, what does Peri want to look for? On the table is Lab Surveillance, Access Point Surveillance, Hall Surveillance and Lavatory Surveillance. She can check all of those, but each one will leave less of the others to search. @Avenger Assembled Also, sorry to pile one, but would you roll Notice, please?

@Exaccus Would you care for an Invention check? I'd suggest Jury-Rigging, since he's under pretty tight time constraints, though the full context of that has not been made clear to him so Erik has a better chance of winning.

Okay, so Mary spots the command tower of a Nevada-class battleship standing among the trees, with clear signs of seawater damage right up to the top. It looks just like the Oklahoma, a ship Torpedo Lass helped recover from Pearl Harbor the same year she was flung through time, though there's no indication how it could have ended up in a deep tropical island valley off the coast of Oregon.

Anyway, there's some options. What does Scarab want to do?

GM The grenade pinged inside the forcefield. There was a sudden jolt that crashed through the air, the floor and into Scarab's very bones. The windowpanes rattled dangerously and the lights in the room flashed. A painting fell off the wall and its glass cover shattered on the floor. Getting trembling to his feet, hat knocked off and eyes wide behind his glasses, Josh nodded dumbly at the Scarab's command and began to awkwardly run for the stairs, picking up his radio as he ran and babbling frantically into it. Meanwhile the people in the armored costumes were already out of sight, their rappel lines wavering and taut as wires as they bore hundreds of pounds down to cruel terra firma...

Okay real sorry. Titan Security has badges just like the ones on the people who just ran away. And the grenade is proprietary Titan design, a concussive type that emits a brutal subsonic pulse but is meant for nonlethal subduing of criminals. it doesn't explode, which helps, but it would have blown Scarab and the kid right out of the windows at this range.

Blarghy these are the best kinds of questions. Will have my own answers this evening. Well done.

GM ">Oh sure!<" the waitress's pulp face crinkled until her eyes nearly vanished ">I'll keep your plate warm 'til you're back!<" The rest of the people shifted a little, but most of them took the warning in stride. It wasn't like the West End was off-limits to the struggles between superhumans, even before the Interceptors had made it their turf. For their part the minions of Hades got up and followed Moira out the door without rancor. Ixion and the hulking mass of muscle in the vaguely military clothes even seemed relieved to be outside. The scrawny, wide-eyed man in the ill-fitting suit had to be pried off the door to the restaurant, an imposing piece of olive wood Mic's grandfather had hauled to Freedom City seventy-four years ago. Seeing Scion transform, the green-eyed businessman grinned and snapped his fingers, a signal for the rest to shed their own disguises. With a rattle of steel, a hiss of steam, a creak of bulging muscle and a slosh of water, the Avernus Legion stood before Scion. "Nice of you to get us to this isolated..." Ixion glanced around "...parking lot. But it's free of anyone who isn't a target, so nobody for you to hide behind, not like usual, is it?" Chains dragged across chest, binding his arms tight as a straightjacket, though not as tight as the vicious twist of his face "Not even Daddy or Mommy can step in, all your friends are gone or dead. Just you, and us." "What my colleague means to say, Edone, is that we appreciate you not running. They always seem to run from the Earth King." the smiling man in the expensive suit with the cat's eyes hadn't changed outwardly, but a handsome carbine was slung under his arm, one hand languidly cradling it to aim at Moira's gut. "Now then, will you go first, or shall we?" The nurse shifted an enormous amphora onto the other white-clad shoulder, staring moodily at the ground, ignoring the lengthening dark streaks spilling over her clothes. "Why are you dragging this out, Sisyphus?" she demanded quietly "I could have stolen the bracer and we could be gone by now." With a weary gesture, black water arced from the amphora and shaped into a thin wall surrounding the loose posse and Scion. "'Lethi, sooner we pound her, sooner we go home. We'da had to fight anyway." Now looming several heads above her, the giant eyed Scion hungrily, slamming fists as big as her chest together. "Not like you won't put up a fight right, Edone?" "G-good friend Tityos, w-we must temper o-our ur...urgesshrGMPH" the thin man had to stop talking as he crammed what looked like an entire cherry and cream pie into his mouth, juice and crust squirting and spilling out of his mouth as he chewed frantically, pausing only to tear a bottle of wine out of his pocket, pull out the cork with his teeth and pour the wine down either side. Swallowing noisily, his throat working like a piston, the man wiped his mouth with a sleeve. "I-if you'd like to-I me-me-mean, should you desire it daughter of Love and Slaughter surrender now, renounce yon trinket I at least mean you no harm." His attempt to smile was ghastly after the cherries, giving him a gaping red and black maw.

Dol-Druth's already large, black eyes had widened in shocked indignation at Kyle's off-hand remark about smaller ticket candidates. "For shame, Sri Steward!" the Speaker had barked, wagging a finger thicker than a sausage at the Star Knight "That kind of dilution of support is precisely why this Prae-this Imperatrix" his flat teeth clacked together as the pallid flesh around them twisted into a grimace "election is so important! The old coalitions are dead or broken by the Incursion, while the new power blocs aren't fully formed yet, with the single exception of the Star Navy. We have our reservations, but Grand Ambassador Th'emme is at least a more flexible candidate than Grand Nauarchus Frankan." "We worry that this is easily forgotten, Sri Steward, but every time the old Vani Empire raised a general they birthed a war for them to fight. Our reading of Terresi history has indicated this is a common thread on your world as well. Deescalation is the key to peace, if the Unity sees the Coalition readying to strike they will simply strike first and harder. Frankan has already built an impressive fleet that any of the strange Khanate princes would be too happy to destroy. We have never defeated either of them, no matter our technical edge. The Unity forced us to a stalemate and Kinan's makeshift hordefleet took the aid of a Terrestrian and the Citadel Knights to stop." "That isn't even going into the potential lapses in sapient rights, as little by little things are worn away because why should you eat your fill while the soldiers starve? Why allow any potential breach?" Dol-Druth had snorted "Dotrae remembers the last administration better than most. We'll tell you another thing- -Well, hello there." The appearance of the luscious news-Hound sparked a positive transformation in the towering psychic terminal. His earlier irritable, growling voice lightened and softened, and for the first time since Kyle had ever seen him, the Speaker of Dotrae smiled full and warmly. The alien bowed ponderously, antennae twitching towards Hro Talak before rising again to lean against the force field rising from the slidewalk. "We would be only too happy to oblige you, good man. Whatever can we help you with? We are at your disposal." Dol-Druth's forehead creased slightly, but only for a moment "Ah, we should add that several tens of millions of Dotrae would like to express a fervent wish for carnal relations with you. We are passing along strict instructions to keep our distance unless otherwise requested."