Walk and Squeak and Squawk(OOC)

[Ari]

OOC for this thread.

[Vorpal Bunny]

1d20+15=32

This was an attack roll. It was asked of my by Arichamus. To hit the Transmogrifier.

[Ari]

That hits! DC20 Toughness save: 20. he withstands that.

Have another Hero Point, as the bad guy gets away via teleport!

[Vorpal Bunny]

Hey, I know I've been gone a while, but can we continue this?

[Cubist]

The main reason I didn't have Jube actually show up on the scene yet, is that he didn't learn about the problem until a few minutes after it had happened. Which means Rabbit and King of Suits have some time to respond however they please before Jube shows up.

[Ari]

Gotcha.

Vorpal Bunny, anything you'd like to try out with regards to these craaaazy shenanigans?

[Vorpal Bunny]

She's not in costume, Arichamus. This is during the day. Her costumed hours are at night XP

[Ari]

Edited. Apologies, that was dumb.

[Ari]

Alright, DC15 Knowledge(Technology) roll using Jack of all Trades: 10. Welp. He doesn't understand how it works(what specifically it's doing is much more difficult to answer), so he'll make with the DC20 Disable Device roll: 25! Success. The thing is shut down, and no further folks will be turned into animals.

[Vorpal Bunny]

I'll get a post in by morning. Been having migraines and dizziness since the concussion. Been taking medicine. Slowly getting back to normal!

[Ari]

Sweet mercy, I thought you were just really busy with other stuff.

No hurry at all, take the time you need to. Hope you recover smoothly!

[Cubist]

Now that Jubatus is on the scene: He recognizes King of Suits. Doesn't know the woman KoS is talking to, but they're interacting peacefully, so Jube won't worry about it. The cage full of people (that Jube does not know are transformed animals), now that, Jube worries about. The cage has a padlock on it; Jube's response will be to pull a set of lockpicks out of his vest, and pull Disable Device skill out of his Jack of All Trades feat, and execute a Quickness-accelerated Take 20 'roll' on picking the cage's padlock.

Jube will downshift and walk over to the cage at a tempo of 1, of the theory that the poor guys in the cage will be less freaked out than if he just zips over at speed. He will announce himself, so that KoS and the transformed victims will all know he's here -- "Hello, everyone! I'm Jubatus, and the first thing I'm going to do here is to free the people from that cage."

Feel free to declare that Jube's super-sensitive nose is picking up on the thick stench of terror and etc in the air (from all the frightened critters that used to be humans, right?), and said aromas are affecting the cheetah in unfortunate ways…

[Ari]

That scans by me.

[Cubist]

In no particular order…

"A voice familiar to Jubatus' ears"—How similar is Acinonyx's current voice, to what she sounded like when she was human?

The ex-animals and cage: Jube will ask these 'people' if any of them can understand what he's saying. In the event that none of them speak up, he will close and lock the cage, on the theory that that's the least-bad option.

The ambient scents: Not good. Jube will pull a set of nose-filters from his Vest of Many Things. This will mess with his sense of smell, but it can't be helped.

The hidden loudspeaker: Jube will search out this device, and see if this 'Acinonyx' joker was incautious enough to leave any useful clues on it.

The transmogrifying gizmo: Jube wants to look this thing over, see if his 29 'roll' for a Take 20-ized Knowledge (Technology) can reveal any useful information.

Jube will compare notes with King of Suits, and introduce himself to Rabbit.

The herd of transmogrified ex-humans: Jube will try to make sure nobody freaks out or 'goes native'.

[Ari]

To Jay's ears it's clearly being electronically synthesized, though to a casual listener it's much harder to discern that. It so far seems most likely that she's using a remarkably faithful text-to-speech program.

[Vorpal Bunny]

I've been dealing with one thing after the other. I'll be posting soon, possibly next week if something doesn't rear up and bite me in the ass again.

[Cubist]

Looking over my last OOC post:

"A voice familiar to Jubatus' ears"—How similar is Acinonyx's current voice, to what she sounded like when she was human?

Okay, "remarkably faithful text-to-speech program". Gotcha.

 

The ex-animals and cage: Jube will ask these 'people' if any of them can understand what he's saying. In the event that none of them speak up, he will close and lock the cage, on the theory that that's the least-bad option.

I take it that none of the cage-occupants can understand human speech? Don't want to just assume that's true, after all, because what if Aconinyx was sneaky enough to slip a "ringer" in amongst the ex-animals?

 

The ambient scents: Not good. Jube will pull a set of nose-filters from his Vest of Many Things. This will mess with his sense of smell, but it can't be helped.

Whatever GM-ish response this bit calls for, if any, will presumably show up in the IC thread.

 

The hidden loudspeaker: Jube will search out this device, and see if this 'Acinonyx' joker was incautious enough to leave any useful clues on it.

Take 20-ized Notice check here, or perhaps the relevant skill would be Knowledge (Technology)? Whichever, a GM-ish response would be helpful here.

 

The transmogrifying gizmo: Jube wants to look this thing over, see if his 29 'roll' for a Take 20-ized Knowledge (Technology) can reveal any useful information.

Awaiting GM-ish word on what Jube managed to find out here.

 

Jube will compare notes with King of Suits, and introduce himself to Rabbit.

Hmm… is Vorpal actually still around? Apart from that point of uncertainty, this prolly doesn't need a GM-ish response.

 

The herd of transmogrified ex-humans: Jube will try to make sure nobody freaks out or 'goes native'.

Again, I'd expect the GM-ish response here to show up in the IC thread. Edited March 5, 2013 by Cubist

[Ari]

You and your questions and your wanting to know things so this situation isn't an opaque mess. It sickens me.

 

I take it that none of the cage-occupants can understand human speech? Don't want to just assume that's true, after all, because what if Aconinyx was sneaky enough to slip a "ringer" in amongst the ex-animals? Thus far no, they cannot.

 

Whatever GM-ish response this bit calls for, if any, will presumably show up in the IC thread. Yeah, it will come up.

 

Take 20-ized Notice check here, or perhaps the relevant skill would be Knowledge (Technology)? Whichever, a GM-ish response would be helpful here. OOC-placeholder: Jubatus finds a bog-standard for supervillains signal hijacking device installed amidst a cluster of advertising signs. Its battery is dead, and it appears to have been a one-use gadget.

 

Awaiting GM-ish word on what Jube managed to find out here. It's surprisingly similar in design to the sorts of things Dr. Simian has used to turn people into apes, but modified for power and speed over the 'coherency' of the beam and the ability to control what is turned into what. A rushed but competent job.

 

Hmm… is Vorpal actually still around? Apart from that point of uncertainty, this prolly doesn't need a GM-ish response. I don't know. Vorpal was on a couple of times, a couple weeks ago or so, but didn't talk much and logged off soon afterwards. Probably should have just let this lie, started something new.

 

 

 Again, I'd expect the GM-ish response here to show up in the IC thread. Right, sorry, that will happen.

Edited March 7, 2013 by Arichamus

[Cubist]

Hopefully, the crowd of ex-humans will have calmed down a bit, thanks to the unscheduled exit of some overly-flustered souls (with Rabbit following closely on their heels). Jube's going to tell the crowd that he thinks the second-highest priority, after Getting Everybody Back To Normal, is to get everybody communicating again. Because whatever else needs to happen, it's going to be a lot easier if the ex-humans can tell other folks what they want.

 

How to enable animal-body-wearing people to communicate with normal humans… Jubatus did some research on exactly this point during his first few calendar-days as a cheetah, before he succeeded in teaching himself how to 'talk', and he can put that research to use now. What needs to be done is figure out what sort of communication deficits each ex-human is suffering from now (i.e., which ex-humans are currently capable of speech? which of them can't talk, but have sufficient manual dexterity that they can manage to type? etc), and provide them with the tools they need in order to overcome their particular set of deficits. Jube has the feat Benefit: Wealth 2, so he can definitely just buy whatever off-the-shelf solutions are available in a superhero universe like Freedom City—and he can pay to have it all delivered and set up Right Now, Damnit. When he's ordering this stuff, Jube won't ask for charity, but he will introduce himself as 'Jubatus' and explain about the situation he's dealing with… and he won't mind one bit if any of the people he talks to decide, on their own initiative, to waive some or all of the relevant fees.

 

Hmm… possible obstacles to this plan… Idiot on the other end of the line doesn't believe it's really Jubatus they're talking to: Assuming they're within a 50-mile radius or closer, Jube zips on over and speaks to said idiot in the flesh. This personal attention should yield helpful results. If they're not close enough, Jube mentally crosses them off his list of Companies Worth Doing Business With, and moves on to the next company on his list.

Company X doesn't have whatever-it-is on hand: Find out which other companies whatever-it-is can be obtained from, and get whatever-it-is from one of those other suppliers. If it's 'merely' a case of waiting for a shipment of temporarily-out-of-stock item(s) to arrive, Jube puts his superspeed to good use and delivers whatever-it-is right then and there.

[Ari]

As it happens, ASTRO Labs has been doing public experiments with devices enabling humans and animals to communicate, translating thought into speech with a surprising degree of success and accuracy.

 

They've been letting ArcheTech sell some of their more stable and user-friendly inventions over the years, even after the turnover. So Jay's easily able to get his hands on a couple dozen of the things.

Edited March 24, 2013 by Arichamus

[Ari]

DC25 Gather Information roll: 27, success! KoS finds out about a recent rash of such purchases.

 

Two hours later he comes back to the intersection. And this train wreck can finally proceed.

[Cubist]

Does that 783 Allen address remind Jubatus of anything? Take 20 'rolls' on Knowledge skills for Business ('roll' of 28), Current Events (28), Technology (29), and Theology/Philosophy (29), if that helps.

 

Jube will interrogate KoS on whatever specific technological details he may have gleaned from Barven & Chandler and all, followed by a Take 20 'roll' of 29 on Knowledge (Technology) to see if he can make any useful deductions about the gadget Acinonyx & Transmogrifier want to build. Like, say, does it require enough power that it needs to be plugged into a 220-volt power line? That sort of thing, operational restrictions. Anything Jube can use to help zero in on the exact spot where A&T are going to set up shop for whatever their nefarious plan happens to be.

 

What to do with the transformed ex-humans: Oy. Jube has no idea. Calling the Freedom League is as good an option as any, and better than most. Also try ArcheTech, on the grounds that even if ArcheTech can't/won't help out, there's a good chance that they know people who can and will help.

 

What to do with the cage full of transformed ex-animals: Again, no idea. Call Freedom City's Animal Control officers? Call the Freedom League? Hmm… try the League first. They'll prolly delegate to Animal Control, but since it'll be The Freedom League doing the delegation, that's likely to get a better response than if it's just a couple of B-list superheroes like Jube and KoS.

[Ari]

1) It's the address right down the street from Sue/Acinonyx's old apartment.

 

2) The stuff that had been asked about would make mostly low-voltage equipment, wholly unlike the mini public announcement or transformation gizmos. It requires a bare minimum current of 20 volts, can catch and transmit radio waves and microwave at a distance of six miles, or could redirect or block such transmissions along with other electric currents. Whatever it's for, it could potentially black out a significant area of the city. It would need to be physically connected to whatever the current's running through however.

 

3) ArcheTech has relatively little for such things as mass transformed humans. The Freedom League on the other hand has plenty of resources for holding people in such situations, including a small wing at the Hanover Zoo!

 

4) They can be helped same way as in #3. Dr. Simian has done some terrible things!