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Acheron River, Mesopotamos, Greece In an instance you’ve gone from the night sky of Freedom City to a bright blue sky of a beautiful Greek day, in what seems to be a relatively rural area of the country. After a few minutes of a relaxing river ride you come across a bend in the river where another dock has been set up for your arrival. At the dock you’re all helped to shore by Nereid’s and again assigned an assistant (the same one as before if you wish). A small crowd is also gathered here, most interested Greek locals, with a smattering of local and European media. They’re held back by what appears to be warriors clad in traditional Ancient Greek Armour watched over by an angry looking woman in very similar garb (Ioke a spirt of onslaught, not someone to mess with!). This is much smaller crowd and no one here to have arranged any interaction with them, though even Ioke won’t stop you if you wish to talk them (though Ioke gives you some pretty withering looks). Your assistant points out the wooded hill that sits above the town, up there sit’s the site of Necromanteion of Acheron, which compared to the glitz and glamour of you leaving Freedom City (or wherever else) is rather underwhelming. Your assistant explains that the road ahead leads up the hill towards the Gala, it’s about a ten minute walk, but if required transport can we put on to get up the hill (or you can fly up directly). It’s quite a pleasant walk with forest on one side, filled today with various creatures and spirits of nature (hopefully to keep you safe), and white washed red roof buildings. The locals seems to be curious about everything going on but seem content to watch at a safe distance. Whatever route you take you all end up at the same point, a path that ends up with a symbolic looking doorway through which you can’t see beyond. Set up just before this is a little lectern where the four eyed Argus Panoptes, dressed much like a maître d', who was checking tickets against a massive list of potential guests (a list that Argus is very much keeping away from guests). It’s mostly academic as it seems no one has tried to sneak into the event, or that they don’t seem to be bothered about any interlopers. If any trouble was to start Argus had someone to help out, the massive three headed dog Cerberus. Though the Ancient Greek Good Boy rather than a ravenous beasts was like a massive puppy enjoying the attention of some of the guests. Though after several thousand years he was well behaved. Once your ticket is cleared you’re allowed to step through the portal into the gala itself… This is the second of an open social threat a chance for player characters to meet and greet each other and some NPC's. Only one of you characters can be active in a thread at a time, but you can move them through the threads as to have one in each at a time. If you want to spend more time focused on something you are welcome to spin off into another thread, or a vignette or even ten questions! You are free to create and use minor NPC as needed, the more important character like the Ioke will need a Ref's permission, you will obviously be interacting with Argus but he’s all business. Cerberus will obviously be available for skritches of all kinds!

Necromanteion of Acheron, Mesopotamos, Greece Through the doorway the sun again streamed down and the sky was a deep blue, with a squint (or with magic) you could make a fain barrier that was here to provide some privacy from any and all forms of aerial spying. Those that had check the reconned could see that everything was as before, and it seemed you were free to wonder the site away from the gala if they wished. The space for the Gala was fenced off with large ionic columns covering a large clear area, looking through the columns you could see an area that was somehow larger than that the columns should cover. Those with the knowledge would know it was a pocket dimension, and out that would allow those covered by the Pact to visit this plane of existence for the party. Despite some rumours to the contrary the pocket dimension was tied to this place and not Hades underworld as some had suspected. Just inside the pillars there were a series of white marble statues, done in classic style by a well known Freedom City artist. They showed some of the most famous of Freedom Cities (and other placed) heroes, head of them all looking down on everyone that entered was of course Centurion. The rest of the place was a fairly traditional entertainment space, with touches of Ancient Greece thrown in, there was two bar on regular and one juice for those who didn’t (or couldn’t drink) and a buffet that was a mix of traditional fair and classic Greek dishes. Serving staff, mostly human it seems, were wondering around offering drinks and snacks. They seemed to have been hired from the nearby town in a once in a lifetime gig! Think were still fairly early and only a few you recognized were milling around in conversation. Most were superheroes or there friends and family, with a smattering of other well known people from a variety of fields. Most of the major guests, including the hosts, weren’t here yet, as was the fashion they would of cause be fashionably late to there own Gala! This is the third of an open social threat a chance for player characters to meet and greet each other and some NPC's. Only one of you characters can be active in a thread at a time, but you can move them through the threads as to have one in each at a time. If you want to spend more time focused on something you are welcome to spin off into another thread, or a vignette or even ten questions! You are free to create and use minor NPC as needed, the more important character will need a Ref's permission. Player characters with suitable job are welcome to work in there civilian roles before going off (or not) to the gala itself.

As arranged when your ready to leave a taxi arrives to take you to the departure point, not only is it remarkable well time whatever company you choose you get a classic old style taxi. The driver, who speak in the broadest Jersey accent, explains that everything been paid for and he (or she) knows a few shortcuts to get you to the spot quickly. And indeed despite the traffic you seem to get there in almost no time at all! Your destination is the docklands all light up with a rather impressive layout for the whole thing. You can see what appear to be giants, probably Cyclopes, keeping back a fairly large crowd. Leading this security is a woman dressed all in black with a large skirt and veiled hat, you can tell it’s probably one of the Gorgons as her snake hair has been (carefully) teased into a ponytail. Your taxi stops a distance away from all this, in a relatively darkened area, and your met by what seems to be you guide to all this, a nymph or satyr, suitable dressed for this kind of night. (those of you that choose to skip the taxi are met by suitable creatures, including Tux wearing harpies for those that fly, who explain similar things). They explain that theatre has been laid out a whole media circus arranged, with photo ops and interviews as you wished, but they then point out a back route darkened and out of shot for those that wish to avoid all that. This leads down to the dock and your transport to the gala. Those of you that still wish to run the gamut of the press are guided to a small gaggle of PR people, who seem to have been picked from the smaller newer superhero PR companies. Your assigned PR agent for the night explains that the red carpet has been split into three groups. The first group are student reports and small independent creators, lots of social media types a few you might recognize for there fairly balanced reporting, no influence types just out for themselves. You then have the local new people, from all the television, radio and newspaper, and finally the national and international reporters. There are even spot where you can instead go and meets the fans who came out to watch this media circus, either in the crowd or places set aside for more intimate meetings. After spending however much you wished dealing with the press and public you go down to the river to see your transport to the gala itself. Down a set of steps, with Tritons and Nereids keeping people safe, is a wooden boat looking like a miniature Ancient Greek Trireme with it sweeping eye festooned prow. At the stern is a tall cowled figure ready to row you to your destination. It was be a good guess that this is Charon, helped by your assistant giving you a obol for the journey, though they insisted it was just a souvenir for the night. Once about a dozen or so of you were seated in the boat a silent Charon pushes the boat off the dock and begin to punt the boat, that after only a few meters disappears for those in Freedom City to appear halfway around the world. This is the first of an open social threat a chance for player characters to meet and greet each other and some NPC's. Only one of you characters can be active in a thread at a time, but you can move them through the threads as to have one in each at a time. If you want to spend more time focused on something you are welcome to spin off into another thread, or a vignette or even ten questions! You are free to create and use minor NPC as needed, the more important character like the Gorgon will need a Ref's permission, Charon however will not speak at all he's just here to do a job! Player characters with suitable job are welcome to work in there civilian roles before going off (or not) to the gala itself.

You found the golden envelope at your door after a hard day (or night) patrolling. Cautiously opening it you find an embossed card with a stylised pomegranate, the logo apparently of the Proserpina Foundation. On the card in a fine cursive script is just the following text Hades Gala, 19:00 EEST (Eastern European Summer Time, around 12:00 EST) on 21st June 2022, Necromanteion of Acheron, Mesopotamos, Greece. Also, in the envelope is a card for a rather exclusive local tailor that tends to specialise in a superhero clientele. For decades there have been rumours of an exclusive party held in various places around the world on the Summer Equinox. This year the guests are a selected superheroes of various stripes, personally invited by none other than the Lady Persephone and the (reformed) Lord Hades rulers of the Greek underworld. In honour of this year’s upcoming X-men’s Hellfire Gala, we’re going to have our own little gathering of superheroes (and maybe less heroic Greek superbeings). We’re going to do the gala in two parts: 1) From May we’ll have a vignette where you have a chance to try on, and describe the variation of your costume designed especially for the Gala. This can either be the standard 1,000-2,000 words or an image or any mix of the two. Tailored Fit (May/June Vignette) 2) from June there will be an open threads where your heroes can interact with each other as well as certain famous NPCs with permission. You can also spin-off to other threads or vignettes if some heroes want a more private meeting. The threads are now open: The Hades Gala, departure (Freedom City) The Hades Gala, arrival (Greece) The Hades Gala Also if you wish to cover something that won't quite work in the threads, meeting with NPCs or quiet moments between characters, can be handled as a vignette to be posted here. Be aware bot vignettes will only stay open until July, whilst the threads will stay open as long as people want to keep posting there. Each vignette should be at least one page (~500 words) in length; if posted in your thread counts at the end of the month, it is worth 1pp for the associated character. An especially long vignette, 1000 words or more, may be worth up to 2pp. Multiple players can collaborate on a single vignette - we recommend Google Docs for this, it's very useful - but the vignette should be about one page per participating player.)