Ari
-
Posts
7,853 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Freedom City Guidebook
Freedom City PBP: A How-To Guide
Gallery
Events
Everything posted by Ari
-
GM Some kind of distortion field was in place, but a quick look around confirmed one thing: the Fallen Heavens Complex(as designated by a convenient sign) was damned weird. A high wall surrounded the complex proper, a dark metal vaguely familiar to Sharl, though off the top of his head he could only recall a statue his sister had made long ago to represent antiquity and obsolescence(though it being a solid statue would have been enough). Guard towers stood, empty but for the countless cameras. Around the top was razor wire. It stretched in a circle for almost a mile in diameter, with one opaque gate opening onto the Oceanside freeway. The buildings so defended were harsh white, angular things in total defiance of Terran norms, connected to each other by tubes and with no visible access or exits. Though there were dutifully-marked 'EXIT' fire door signs at seemingly random points. Not a soul was in sight or sound. At the center was a jagged tower that stabbed fifty stories into the air, holding aloft the hilariously mundane Ming Xi Visions logo of an 'M' at the center of a stylized human eye. The tower was made of the same whatever as the wall. All that was well taken in and digested during the total silence that followed Citizen's request. A silence suddenly broken when something flew out of the complex and landed in front of Sharl. Another Sharl. With very different eyes. "Hey." He said, quite casually, then turned back to the walled compound, beckoning to Citizen "You coming in or what? They're waiting."
-
GM "Of course, my deepest apologies. I am Tower, this is my associate Talespinner." Around the bend Hakim found himself all but face to face with two people in long coats. One was a woman so obviously a vampire the predominant black and red of her clothing seemed downright cartoonish, her long hair and skin pale as milk and hard eyes and thin lips red as blood. The other was a Pakistani-looking gentleman in a copper-coloured three-piece suit with accessories in violet. His beard and gentle widow's peak gave him a fatherly look, and his easy-going lounge against a bookshelf, thumbing through a tome, set him instantly at odds with his ramrod-straight and grim-faced comrade. "We are agents of the Order of Light, Sha'ir. A special collections branch for their library, you might say." the obviously-a-vampire said by way of explanation "We find and confiscate magial artifacts before they fall into the wrong hands, which regrettably puts us in frequent conflict with the many mystics and monsters of this world." Talespinner closed the book he'd been reading with a soft whump and gave a kindly smile to Hakim "We understand you've been perusing the texts stored here, Mister Spellsmith, 'thout so much as a 'by your leave'. Ordinarily that's a serious offense, but we ain't sticklers for rules out here in the sticks, eh?" He chuckled at his own joke. "Regardless," Tower soldiered on, producing sme newspapers and flipping to relevant articles "we would like to request your help. As you may have heard, there have been several strange murders in the last few months, all victims found in secluded, shadowed places and drained of blood. The work of vampires. A clan of considerable power, to act so boldly." She looked him in the eyes, obviously displeased with what she saw "As this city's chief mystic, this is your problem and must be dealt with speedily and decisively. The Redletters(us) will assist you, but only this once and at cost: we will monitor the use of our Library by you." She raised a forestalling, slender hand as black as night "You have free access to the area we installed in Emerald City, and the other branches across the Earth. But we will be watching." Tower folded her arms. "Do we have a deal?" Behind her, Talespinner silently made the "call me" gesture to Sha'ir, having grown visibly uncomfortable with Tower's words as she'd gone on.
-
Paris managed to keep himself from saying anything especially embarrassing. He smiled winningly at the young techie as she went to work. "Well, it is the most obvious side of you, Spider. But it's not like you can just charm pixe-huh?!" Stopped short by the name scrolling across the screen, the Salmon stepped closer to re-read it incredulously "Agostino is a metabats?! What the ****?" Rubbing his exposed jaw nervously, Paris struggled to square this with what everyone in Upper and Lower Emerald knew about the blonde socialite. "She does have that church to some Egyptian cat god...maybe that's where she got the powers?" But Salmon knew that couldn't be it even as he spoke. For a start, everyone knew the gods in Jersey always mentioned who they were and how their powers worked. So you'd know they were legit...? Paris began edging backwards, then swiveled around to head outside "I'll...go make sure about our prisoners, be right baaaAAAAACK?!" The speedster scrambled backwards as a portal opened in mid-air and the ten-person ECPD SEAT team burst into the warehouse, shockers at the ready and with Wrath looking ready for blood. Squinting at the two over his mustache, the formidable wall of a man growled "You kids are the heroes? Thanks, nice work." He glanced at the man made of static lying on the floor in bonds of eye-watering spatial warps and then at the woman in the cheetah suit struggling furiously to ge her hair out of a wall of marshmallows. Sighing deeply, Wrath signaled for his team to take action, half going for Faster Pussycat while the rest began cuffing the static martial artist. Folding his arms, Wrath hollered through the portal "Hey! Scarfsmith! Get in here and get rid of whatever the jigo you've done! We're all fine, by the way! Sorry I yelled at you!"
-
The duo swept from the hall without anyone there any the wiser of where or how. Something that would have been impossible outside was made almost trivial with the addition of glaring lights and blaring music. Outside the air was blessedly cool, the manicured back alley a peaceful, well-lit haven away from prying eyes. Which wasn't much use to Paris, who found hmself facing a now very angry and confused Shino and his older brother Aro, who was staring at the lanky teen like a mustached whale getting very angry in slow motion. <"Guys! It's just a trick! Uni kids all know it, the stuff they juice the tea with makes you all fuzzy!"> Taking the split-second the two repeat murderers spared to glance at each other, Paris scooped up the coin Kim...Kiko? That cute guy, he'd got it somehow. Shoving that question aside as he shoved the troublesome bit of metal into his pocket, Paris filed a mental note to "find" it later. Having the ear of the Old Hawk wasn't much if you got in bad with his boys. Honourable, noble gangsters got there by having less scrupulous people do the dirty work, after all. Taking a breath, Paris added in a conspiratorial holler <"Dragons been talking! Spreading old-country recipes!"> That did it. Aro and his brother started at this revelation, then glanced around the Teahouse and the gawping kids with knowing, narrowed eyes. The Society could always be counted on to make good scapegoats, neither the Japanese or the Russian mobs liked or trusted them. Nothing was too low, especially, for some reason, now there was a woman Dragoneye. Paris couldn't figure why, Jun would know. <"I'll go find them, make sure they know not to try that again, 'aru?"> Their curt bows weren't a "no", so Paris raced out after the duo as fast as he could, only realizing he had lft his backpack inside as the door clanged shut behind him. "They're after us?" Jun asked nervously, shuffling from foot to foot. She'd been uncharacteristically quiet in the moments that had passed. Paris shook his head "No. So...?" the Chinook boy looked curiously at Kimo "The jigo was that? You some kinda psychic?"
-
GM The voices resolved all too slowly, but the argument did become crystal clear: Leather creaked on high boots and a long coat swished as someone paced back and forth, words flowing without pause for breathing "...Neither do I need your 'remahnder' that this city is sorely lacking in mystical defenders, Jamal. We need real help, not some novice finding his slippered feet!" Another, more silky rustle was followed by the scratches of a pen on paper "So why not take the poor fella in? Learn more, faster, no need for the old-fashioned stalking treatment you have Weaver on?" "The Sphinx has already said she can't spare more resources to a city of such low priority. We get tied up holding this boy's hand, we cannot be where we ought." "Needn't be all of us. I might have some time to kill." "With Bookbinder still out there?" "I'll let that slide once, Liza. Anyway, it's a small job, he can handle it fine. These Blood Brothers aren't no challenge 'cept to the poor folks they hunt." The pacing stopped. There was a long silence. The cool English woman's voice broke it: "It is rare for eavesdroppers to hear any good of themselves. Surely, for that novelty alone, you will introduce yourself, Sha'ir?"
-
DC35 Toughness save, resulting from Asad's energy field and Blue Jay's blades, Air-Martial's roll is 15. The armor is just obliterated, what survives scattering into the forest below. The drones are still flying, but it is now almost too easy to mop them up, so if you wish narrate doing so. Out of combat.
-
Hooray!
-
"No. Even death does not make that possible." Dol-Druth settled with a groaning creak of plastic and aluminum, a tongue as dark as old blood sliding out to clean his lips "Individual brains may forget, but the shared experience persists forever. It has made our recovery from the Incursion War difficult. If pressed we could recount the entirety of our existence as Dotrae, the only gaps are those who temporarily severed themselves. A difficult, painful process, cause for suspicion. Our blndness to the last Speaker's treachery is a blight on that record of vigilance." "Before we understood, we kept...you would call them "farms". [Ceti Alpha II, Delta Serpentis XLVIII, Gamma Draconis I], planets with high population replacement rates Dotrae's hyperspace link us to. If we had never attempted mental contact with others we might still keep them. The relevant portion of this era was the relative ease with which organisms come to accept their surroundings and circumstances. They all gave up fighting. Meaningfully. Resistance always exists where there is pressure, but effective resistance is another thing. Some of them would be taken onto the icy tomb by us, they merely hoped it was not them." "We think that extends to this planet. According to the records of your Freedom League, there exist and have existed several states under whose rule life was grinding, fearful and with little or no hope. But humans adapted to them, only a few left and few states were overthrown or abandoned. The elasticity and variety so admired in the Senate is, to our eyes, a trap." "We are afraid what is done overtly in your sourthern continent will be done covertly all over this planet. Humans are animals, just like us(a comforting commonality) and will do what seems in their best interests. What is more beneficial than letting the exceptionals rule? Already, they are forgetting the event in 2011 when an exceptional caused havoc across the Earth by their power and influence. Hundreds perished. They have since been replaced many times over." "We feel we are talking past each other. You have reason to expect Harper's regime will not last. That its iron grip will break its own fingers?"
-
@olopi OOC thread for this thread. Sha'ir meets some great new friends and gets into wacky vampire shenanigans!
-
GM March 31st, Friday, 2017, 9.40PM 2150 Hanamaru St, Riverfront district, Emerald City, Oregon, USA Stumbling into the gentle, even glow of Emerald City's streetlights, the prey stopped to catch their breath. The unseasonally warm air, a sign of the impending catastrophe, burned in their frail lungs. The cotton suit was splashed with mud and the leather office shoes were soaked through from running through puddles. The hair that had been curled that afternoon, silky black, reminding the hunter of a smiling, care-worn face above a cradle, hung in tangles. They weren't moving, just slumped, huddled against a staff of the elegant spire of light. The hunter did not dare enter the cursed, white pool. In the southern Emerald their night-time lights caught the Sun's fury and made the streets a Hell of silent fire. But the hunter had other means, greater than any other beast's claws, venom or sinew. With easy grace a human-llike shape swept from the low roof to the alley below. "Come out of the light. Come to me." All it had to do was not turn around- It did. Its eyes met those of the vampire. They were dead before the fangs sank into their neck. April 1st, Saturday, that afternoon Hakim Naifeh could count on a few small blessings in life. Foremost was the nigh-inevitability of having Saturdays off at Westrock. The office was at a convenient location(though really, given the needs of young people in tech, most offices were someplace convenient) with easy access to food and places to relax, but it wasn't the same as taking your own pace where you wanted to be. Today that place was the Library. Since last winter super-activity had exploded, the Emerald City Originals were rapidly becoming a point of tremendous city pride and Sha'ir had been coming into more and more situations needing creative mystic solutions. Which meant time spent poring over the electic collection in his private extradimensional space. But today, from the moment he had stepped into the close, musty air and glanced around the bookshelves twisting and reaching in every direction, something had been off. The first sign was the arch. It had never been there before, a pile of loose leaves arranged haphazardly into a square archway, leading into other, unfamiliar ranks of shelves and cramped desks. These books were arranged, organized with a meticulous hand. They were also mostly in languages that Hakim had never even seen, let alone knew. Harsh runes, cuneiform-like symbols, flowing script that looked like ocean waves. The second were the voices. Coming from down the narrow hallway, arguing over something. A crisp English alto was holding firm, but a bass from the Deep South was tenacious. The books and carpet muffled all sound, but it seemed like just moving a little further would reveal these intruders...
-
Spider has access, so ruling that's not necessary. Can just say she does that and whatever else you'd like to do with the systems of apparently a supervillainess.
-
Truly, I am a bastich. Okay then, 26 is more than 25, according to basic arithmetic. Peri finds the server this data is going to, and that it is owned by an Amanda Agostino. A wealthy, eccentric socialite over in Lakeside with a mania for cats and patron of a local cult of Bast.
-
Tiff, could you have Emerald Spider make a DC25 Computers check to get past Faster Pussycat's remarkably resilient security software preventing randos from finding out where all this sensitive data is going.
-
No, but now that he looks the people who were at the other exhibits are inexplicably gone. They aren't outside, either.
-
GM "One sec, gotta...confer" The apparent leader of the Crew with inhuman joints drew the other four into a loose circle, where they stood staring at each other, eyes flicking back and forth. Their mouths moved, but only a little, and only one word escaped the lips of the one who, in the gloom, had an impressively vast and thick shadow: "Refugee?" Inside Zediker's expo room, Citizen could hear the professor having an increasingly strained whispered argument with their tour guide, Razko. "...don't tell me to calm down, I am calm, young lady, and the backup power will get my portal running-!" "What for? Why do you want to risk it? Do you not see the five people with guns right outside?" "It's important! You wouldn't understand, none of you would!" Meanwhile the Munchkins and Freedonians and sundry were getting increasingly restless, the cramped room thrumming with energy while the lights remained stubbornly off. Occasional mutters reached him through the hissing thread of Razko and Zediker. None of them dared make any move, and several of them were wondering what had happened to the other visitors, and come to think of it, what had happened to everyone else?
-
@Avenger Assembled @Curious Key Okay so a bit of a choice: ruling that both Warp and Citizen can detect the bomb. Citizen because he has more supervisions than God Himself and Warp because she can sense the forces of entropy, and the bomb happens to contain trace bits of Terminus(well, Steelgrave) tech. But if Citizen takes a moment to pinpoint the thing, that would take his attention off the passel of powered thugs just long enough for something to go wrong. If Warp homes in on it, her very presence frays the thing's wires and puts both her and everything else around in peril. Except for Citizen, he'd be fine.
-
A harsh yellow lance slammed into the hall outside the bar, the pedestrians side-stepping around the coalescing beam of energy with annoyed ease. Tau Rays brought people to CoVic Station all the time, usually from neighbouring systems. People who knew exactly where they had to go and what they had to do. Not this time. A spindly, willowy creature in a gray and red encounter suit flew out of the Ray and slammed into the wall with a force that would have killed her if she wasn't already long dead. Rebounding off only to collapse bonelessly to the floor, Atraxia of Farside City stared blankly out of her opaque helmet, ignoring the sight and sound of her traveling companion also crashing out into the Station. "Apologies, Sun Walker" her voice, garbled by an echoing chatter and hiss of her suit's translator, croaked wearily "I may have set the power a decimal too high." Finally, she levitated off the floor and rose to a standing position, taking in the strange, maze-like industries of Bricktown. "At least we are in the right place?" Floating over to the soft-spoken solarian, she offered a skeletal gloved hand "Shall we question the locals? Perhaps that drinking establishment?"
-
Alrighty then! That's settled, will post-haste.
-
Shino was Hostile, is now Indifferent. Ordinarily that Stealth check would do stone-cold nothing, but in the midst of flashing walls, ceilings and floors in presses of people that works out fine. Salmon makes a Diplomacy check to try and get the Yakuza soldiers up to Friendly: 28 result, so Helpful. Sleight-of-Hand roll to grab up the coin unseen: 23 result, their Notice: 15 result. Done'd.
-
GM Sha'ir emerged in a hive of bustling activity, officers in green and blue hurrying through the central lobby Commissioner Hackman of the ECOPD had seen some strange things in his three decades on the force. Heartwarming international coalitions of crime finding common ground in exploiting the Emeralds' homeless, strange lights, shadows and sounds in the Elysian Forest he was barred from investigating, crimes that hadn't happened the next morning... ...but when a man with glowing eyes, wrapped in a swirling cloak and announcing the capture of a criminal simply appeared above his head, Hackman nearly swallowed the pen in his mouth. Around him the police of Emerald South stared up at the new arrival, some of them loosening the holsters of their weapons but most taking out phones and taking pictures. Coughing and spluttering, the police commissioner blinked up at the Spellsmith, barking "Buddha, don't do that, kid!" Waving irritably at the others with a sharp "No gawkin'! Wind it! Get Wrath and the gang in here! Full suits!" Squinting suspiciously at Sha'ir, Hackman asked dubiously "Hideout? This Catwoman maomew had a hideout? Where and what? And get us there how, you want us to go into some Star Trek space hole? And who the jigo are you?" Behind him, a troupe of men and women in impressively modern body armor jogged into view, the ECOPD's infamous shock-guns slung over their shoulders. A burly man whose face was 30% 'stache and 70% seething irritation headed them up. As they got closer, the MarsTech logo on the armor was hard not to notice.
-
Knight, how about Red Moon's asked Sun Walker for help with this, mystic dealings being outside her avenue of expertise, and used her base's teleporter to get them out to CoVic Station, the trans-Plutonian wormhole helping to lense them beyond their solar system.
-
GM On the other side, Dr. Spencer and the rest of the university tour group were standing in the midst of the broken, scattered robosaurs. Smiling with all the warmth and good cheer that a Montreal winter could hold, she went on with what appeared to be part of her running exposition: "...which brings us to the final part of our tour, the aftermath of a super-battle! An integral part of our work is things going horribly wrong and superheroes needing to step in! Say 'thanks' to the nice lady, folks!" Spencer waved, metronomically, with something dark and terrible brewing in her eyes. With a last desultory whimper, the Guardian of infinity shuddered closed behind Warp. "And that concludes our tour! Be sure to visit the gift shop! If you weren't taking notes I will find you." As the students hurried off Dr. Spencer marched up to Warp, grabbed her by the shoulders and whispered "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!" Meanwhile " But, Mentor..." the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the Continental uniform gaped at Raul, the other saurian getting to his feet and wiping away his tears with an evil light in his eyes "...you told me this was our last hope! That this 'Lab' was our only chance!" "No. There is another. Though i am loath to accept it, I have an...offer. From a human. I thought I could avoid bloodshed by finding another world, but that is no longer possible." With a deep, rattling sigh, Sssethusss Raul regarded the shattered, dissolved Brightstone crystal that his people had coaxed and grown for a million years. "That world will be ours. All it will take is a few more promises. Ones I will be sure to honour." Starting with this: I swear to tear that ape's head from her shoulders!
-
With a grace uncommon even to the serpents of Hassaan, Skirris uncurled, describing a spiral that opened a shimmering, flashing gate into the silver darkness of hyperspace, looming hulks, darting ships and the worlds beyond distantly visible. With her tail spun into a loose corkscrew to hold open the gulf of dimensions, Hyperslice motioned to the others to go through "Thisss will not be forgotten. We will count thisss debt high, Sssri Tra'Nor, I'll give you the number of a very talented Grue I've met in Bricktown." Jerking her head at Barrier, she hissed "Ssslide in, it'sss sssafe! I'll get usss out at the right plasssce, thisss time anyway."
-
The first thing Kimo heard...was the pounding music. The clatter of the ancient coin(and Kimo knew it was old. Its edges were worn smooth and the faces felt half-obliterated themselves) as it bounced to a halt by his feet was drowned out by that and by the shouted conversation nearby. "It's nothing, Shino!" The long-haired Native kid who'd been intro'd as 'Paris' waved his hands vigorously in the path of the younger, hungrier Yakuza soldier "S'minmaru, just a thing with the tea!". The man glared openly at Kimo and snapped something he couldn't understand but which made both Jun and Paris start. <"Don't think I'm stupid. I know that kid's got powers! He did something to the old man and I want to know what!"> The soldier started to move towards Kimo but was instantly blocked by Jun, who met the man's cold eyes unflinchingly. "Leave my friend alone! Back off and cool down or I'll throw you out myself!" The man stopped dead, quickly assessing this unforeseen obstruction. Whatever he saw, or thought he saw, wasn't enough to drive him off but did stop him for the moment. The tension was thick enough to start a fight with. Some of the Teahouse's patrons were edging away from the confrontation, and some of the employees were heading over to the other, very genial-looking yakuza men. Dealing with him on their own wouldn't have been something the old Hawk would approve of, even Kimo knew the godfather of Little Osaka had a long reach and a longer memory. Suddenly Paris was at Kimo's side, muttering anxiously "I can handle this guy, can you and Jun vanish? Meet you outside."
-
I volunteer my Red Moon, also a space vampire(Moon Vampire, really...) for this.
