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Issue #1 Spotlights dance across the clouds above Halcyon City on a warm, spring evening. There's a big game going on at the Ember Center, named after the telecom company, and the score is tied. One side scores, then fireworks join the replace the stars hidden behind the clouds. When they pop and hiss, the windows of a prism-shaped building on the skyline flicker and go dark. Atop that building, the keypad on the door to the roof turns from red to green, then it opens to reveal a tall white girl with cybernetic enhancements holding a black metal attache case and speaking into an earpiece–Mastermind. A helicopter descends without the aid of landing lights, and White, a pale Indian man in a suit and vest steps out of it, applauding. He courteously extends an arm into the escape vessel, palm up and bidding her to take her seat, and suddenly the suitcase leaps out of Mastermind's hand and flies into it. As the helicopter door closes she reaches at the cockpit and green beams of light fire from her fingertips pass through the cockpit window and crawl across the instrument panel. The pilot doesn't move, he just flickers with static and vanishes–a psychic illusion. With a bewildered look the lights go out and she murmurs, "It's completely mechanical...!" Then come the alarms. Mastermind steps over the edge of the building and slides down its side, leaving a trail of five glowing green lines reminiscent of a circuit board. Every floor she passes the lights turn back on. On the streets below the building streamlined electric cars have shut off completely, with some drivers futilely and repeatedly pushing the start buttons, and others scrambling for futuristic storm cellars. A latin man in flannel steps out of a retro pickup truck, gas engine cut with a turn of a key, opens a modern sportscar's door and hauls out a white man, pointing him to safety. Mastermind hits the ground and he hustles after the white man, holding his cowboy hat atop his head to keep it from flying off. The cybernetic woman waves a hand and all the cars turn on and part ways for her, forming a path to the sportscar, which beeps twice and turns on. She steps toward it but is interrupted– A hero is on the scene!
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Apr 19, 2017 22:53
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| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 07:48 |
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 Location: the street outside the Ember Company Headquarters. The girl rolls her eyes at you all and recites her thoughts in a slightly autotuned voice, "White sets the alarms to be sounded and you show up like Pavlov's slobbering dogs..." She closes her eyes and touches her temples, then the SUV Kon is hiding behind starts up with a roar and peels out, turning clockwise, hard. All of the electric cars save the candy red sportscar follow suit, while it darts over to Mastermind at speed. She has perfect confidence in her calculations, and no doubt it will skid to a stop in front of her, door open. She opens her eyes wide, drinks in the controlled chaos–every electric car on the street is doing tight spirals at top speed, threatening to run you all over, chasing you and herding you while perfectly staying out of one another's way. She calls out to you somewhat tentatively, "This must really grind your gears...?" slydingdoor fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Apr 20, 2017 |
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Apr 20, 2017 03:04
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Location: Ember Company Headquarters, elevator, floor 44. Mastermind instantly recognizes she's stuck in this box and lies down the recovery position, looking down on you, unblinking. Her voice comes over the PA, but her lips don't move. She's somehow transmitting her signal past the electric web, but it's rendered her temporarily comatose. "I was in control. Everything was completely safe. I never wanted to injure you or Kon. Why? Because I'm just Jennifer Tyner, like you're Lydia Bristow. Your soul got lost and returned to you broken. So did my brain. But if you found something that could make you whole, you'd take it, right? I did... but White stole it from me. I can't find him from prison, I can't catch him... Please: help me. No one has to know, I can find him from the holding cell in your headquarters. I'll lead you to him, you can beat him, I'll fix myself, then I'll do everything I can to fix you. Raiken too." Tears stream down the side of her face onto the floor of the elevator. The cage turns off and she rises to a sitting position. "I surrender... 0% chance of escape." She takes Influence over you and Take a Powerful Blow. slydingdoor fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 21, 2017 19:06
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Location: Your HQ, Memoriam's old laboratory You all watch Mastermind's wrist-mounted screen rapidly scrolling with images of security camera footage. Every so often one shows a private helicopter and is outlined in green, or shows you two escorting her to your hideout and is crossed out, DELETED. "Good job. I found White descending from his helicopter at a junkyard on the outskirts of town, the last place one would expect someone in a fancy suit to be. What he stole was some a rapid 3D printing, self-replicating nanomachine hub–I was going to use it to reconstruct my body... "I'm going with you. I just need some clothes to hide from the police. Kon, you hide your identity..." She thanks you in private for trusting her and lying to the police, then takes one your spare masks, puts it on, and remarks that it smells like your face. . . . . Location: White's lair You all crouch behind cover just outside the junkyard, and Mastermind shows you a dated timeline of satellite photos of it. Over the weeks it would shift slightly as junk came in and was sold or crushed or deconstructed, then five days ago it completely changed and stayed that way. "It must be a psionic illusion. I also have to warn you, not all of his gadgets are electronic. His means of escape from me on top of the Ember building was a completely mechanical helicopter with a dummy control panel. He was operating it completely by telekinesis." She holds her arm and looks down and aside, "There might even be nothing for me to hack in here... perhaps I should just stay back." She's Insecure. If you can clear the condition she will help you in the fight and you all can choose for her to spend Team to aid any of you. What do you do? slydingdoor fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Apr 26, 2017 |
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Apr 22, 2017 03:18
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 Location: Viking Auto Salvage Sparks fly in the dirty windows of the junkyard's warehouse, barely translucent except where they're broken. White, back to you all, murmurs to himself as the nanotech hub–otherwise just an open suitcase–deconstructs rusty automobiles by disintegrating them with a swarm of nanites that leave behind shining metal and gleaming crystal seemingly by alchemy, and then sprouts robotic arms to assemble those parts... but into what? The Indian man sighs and stretches his arms, revealing in his right hand a free floating, concave satellite dish no bigger than a basketball. Its design is intricate, with lace-like wire and emerald needle. It rotates this way and that and changes aperture like a camera, always pointing straight at the hub. A psionic amplifier, that's how he's operating the complex machine! But on closer inspection, there's another amplifier too, in his left hand set in a silver band on his ring finger, turned palm-side. It's only the size of a coin, and it always faces its larger sibling. It's obvious now what White needed the hub for. Before him, layer by layer, grows an even larger amplifier, large enough for him to step inside. A junkyard dog howls at the moon and he winces, then amplifiers' needles point in the direction of the sound and replaces it with the sound of a whimper. He chuckles to himself and recites a poem. quote:Another Reason Why I Don't Keep A Gun In The House What's the plan, who's the leader, what do you do?
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Apr 22, 2017 23:53
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Location: Viking Auto Salvage "Silence one whining bitch and takes its place–!" White snarls as he pantomimes choking Styx with his ringed hand, but he has to redirect his attention to Raiken's attack. He darts through the air with psionic propulsion to avoid her rampage, taunting her all the way telepathically. "Remember when we first met? I never told you since then I consider you like a daughter to me, hmhmhm." The surfaces in the warehouse turn into that of the Santiago Foundation complex on that fateful day, and he superimposes Grace and Poise over Styx, occluding her. As the roof falls down upon you and your opponent he disappears from sight, having psionically taken control of and energized the dust to obscure his position even from super sight. "I was there when I set you free to learn, you know–let me enlighten you!" He hits the brakes on the passage of time, which comes to a halt inside of a second, and then he transmits whole, unedited memories into your head. quote:White psionically invades the memories of an unconscious man with gray hair and translucent skin, head Santiago Foundation scientist Dr. Smythe. He learns that cybernetically enhanced children only have the illusion of free will, that their enhancements are quite ready to attack without mere organic stimulus. It is the opposite of his psionics, which are purely extensions of his will. However, they are slower than the speed of cutting edge computers... No matter, the price was too high, and he pitied most the poor children for whom it was paid without their knowledge. It angered him then, and he's Angry now. Kon, what do you do? slydingdoor fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 19:23
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Location: Viking Auto Salvage "For one whose mind is so dim one would need to squint to detect it, you have a fine idea! We all know how fragile you are... a fine trait for a hostage." Instead of moving to block Raiken and Styx's sight of him, the sheet of dust hangs still and White's attention shifts to the unfinished Psionic Amplifier. He lifts and inverts it like an upside down bowl prepared to drop it over your head like a glass over a moth, but when he releases it another lifting force takes its place–the magnetic crane grabs it out of the air with so much force that it flattens it, swings back like a pendulum, then swings straight at White and tosses it straight at him! He snarls and shields himself with his hands, but before it hits him the Hub sends a swarm of nanites through the air like a flying serpent swallowing it whole. Slowed by its mass, they sink to the ground and with a hiss, then the Hub shambles over and starts reassembling the Psionic Amplifier, salvaging what undamaged pieces it can. White laughs, pleasantly surprised, "If only all tools were so loyal! I wonder though, what waste it will leave behind after devouring you." The swarm gathers behind him like flies on glittering sugar, and he points to you and watches it go. "Feel free to surrender at any time, sooner rather than later if you prefer to save Kon's skin." The dust has settled and now he's in plain sight, but the nanites are after Kon. Styx, you seen Kon in this position before but when you tried to help you just made it worse. Raiken, Mastermind mentally "texts" you that if she can get to the Hub–or you can get it to her–she can override it. What do you all do?
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Apr 25, 2017 22:59
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Location: Viking Auto Salvage, junkyard, near electric crane The cyborg girl kneels by the Hub and puts a cable into it that she pulls from the inside of her wrist and reprograms the nanoswarm that had been slowly rebuilding itself after Styx's attack to return to it. White watches its trajectory and warns, "You'll regret it, Jennifer Tyner! And not just the pain!" She looks at him defiantly and continues reprogramming. The stream of nanites comes back out of the hub and start to cover her body. Location: Viking Auto Salvage, destroyed warehouse White shakes his head and turns back to Styx growling, "Very well." He flies into the air and points his psionic amplifiers... nowhere near you? Then, from outside of the now roofless and windowless warehouse you hear helicopter rotors. Styx and Raiken, with your super senses you see an electric field surrounds it, powered by a gadget inside, glowing bright white with spiritual energy and spinning gyroscopically. The raptor turns towards then its rotors angle down and it swoops low to the ground straight at you from behind. That field could fry you all! Then Mastermind starts screaming. What do you do?
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Apr 26, 2017 19:14
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 Location: Alliance Medical Center Styx, you head through the doors to the emergency room, and citizens recoil at you, but you can't just drop Jennifer off, you need to keep her soul restrained until she's been healed. Kon's sister Hana arrives just in time, having used her precognition, and brings with her Memoriam who steps in and vouches for you. The old mage doesn't take over for you though, he just watches you enthusiastically as the doctors perform a cranioplasty that goes by without any complications. The doctors are pleased with the results but avoid looking at you as they thank you for what you did, inexplicable as it was to them. Memoriam walks you out, then puts his hand on your shoulder. "Never forget that people come around to every hero eventually, especially the more people you save. When someone's family or friend is alive because of you... they learn." He's shifting Savior up and Freak down. quote:Styx (Theantero) - Yesterday at 4:25 PM ***** Raiken, at the reception desk they ask if you know the girl's identification. You know she's in the same boat as you when it comes to the Santiago Federation: they declared you both dead but would be very interested to find you still alive. The doctors say her brain is undamaged, and she will make a complete recovery and be due to be released from the hospital in mere days... But she should be dead or comatose without her implants! You would be... quote:Raiken (Tricky) - Today at 2:34 PM AEGIS move her to their fortified wing of the hospital for patients targeted by supers–"heroic" or villainous–until she's well enough to identify herself. ***** Dr. Smythe at the Santiago Federation steeples his fingers and smiles as he watches CCTV footage of the new Mastermind fighting the HCPD. ***** Kon, the HCPD lets you know that they haven't been able to catch Mastermind, and they warn you that they encountered her and she's changed her MO from hacking and infiltration to unleashing EMPs and beam weaponry, so be careful if you encounter her again. They know nothing about White's involvement, plan, or your battle with him. Hana looks horrified that you picked a fight with him. "You could die, and I would know." Nines, who accompanied her steps up and says, "The next time you run into someone as dangerous, let us know and we'll take care of it. It's a job for more established heroes, who punch a little higher." Your parents are there too, and they just hug you tight before you can respond. They're trying to shift your Mundane up and Danger down. quote:TBD  Location: Halcyon City, above the hospital. Outside the hospital police helicopters shine their spotlights on the city below, searching for the at large villain Mastermind. But one of them emits no light, and through its side door and looking down on you is White sitting on the destroyed psi-electric field generator, leaning forward, chin on his fist, amidst the ruins of the crushed, incomplete psionic amplifier. The only ones you left behind. END At the end of every session, choose one: • Grow closer to the team. Explain who made you feel welcome; give Influence to that character and clear a condition or mark potential. • Grow into your own image of yourself. Explain how you see yourself and why; shift one Label up and another down. • Grow away from the team. Explain why you feel detached. Take Influence over you away from another character.
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Apr 30, 2017 23:58
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 Location: "Babs" (Brewed Awakening Bistro) Jeanine Holtman, the proprietor of the newly reopened teahouse, where you all met and now reunite, brings you all your drinks and pastries, asking what you think. Hana wistfully says it tastes like home, Nines guzzles and munches wordlessly. Crimson Fist–Chance, to you, Raiken–is late, though. The second someone mentions it, Hana chokes on her drink and realizes she forgot a prior engagement. "That's not like you at all!" remarks Nines, who she silences with a glare. "You forgot about it too, didn't you?" She says, slowly. He looks bewildered then eventually and abruptly changes his tone, "Oh of course... that. We better get going or we'll be late...?" They start to leave, and Raiken you realize your phone's gone missing–Chance's ringtone starts coming from Nines's pocket before he and Hana break into a sprint and round a corner. They're looking for a dark alley and you know Nines can teleport himself and passengers across shadows. What do you do?
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May 13, 2017 23:55
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Hana tells Nines to give the phone back, which reads "1 missed voicemail." You all listen to it while you travel through shadowspace. Flashback: "It's like an elevator" Nines explained to you before, Kon. As long as the "doors" are working and he knows which "button" to press he can create a stable dimension that travels through spacetime from shadow to shadow. From the phone you hear Crimson Fist whispering, "There's 10 heavily armed, highly trained soldiers in here calling out for 'Asano Ruri' and shooting some kind of silent rays at loud–" There's a pause "–at loud noises. I'm going to try to get out at meet you at 'The Pool.'" "You know what coffee I like, just bring it there and we can figure out what the..." Another pause. Longer this time. The anechoic chamber causes the internal sounds of your bodies to start to creep into notice, like when you hold your ears shut and clench your teeth. Then you all feel dizzy and disoriented. Hana retches and Nines looks apologetically at you all and says "We're almost there. And don't the rest of you worry it's normal. Sensory deprivation stuff..." (The Pool is this empty pool that some kids used as a skate park. Crimson Fist would learn who needed to get their asses handed to them by catching up to his friends there.) Hana tells you all, "He's not going to make it to the Pool alone–that much I know, and now that you all are coming, someone's definitely going to get shot, no matter what I do." Nines goes, "So... plan?" He's talking to her, but… Styx raises her eyebrow ever so slightly at Raiken's uncharacteristic flinching (at hearing her secret identity named), but says nothing. Well, nothing relating to that. "Righto. Don't really like the sound of mystery rayguns since like half of those have some sort of galvanic doodad that can fry a dainty ghost lady like myself real easy, you know, by discombobulating the thaums or whatever haha, but I can still go incorporeal and do some advance scouting. Maybe with Nines?" Hana doesn't even look up from the ground, "That won't work." Nines: "Yeah, they probably have bright lights... and it's the middle of the day." Styx replies, "Whaaat a warehouse WITHOUT mysterious dark corners? Man I bet they act all in line with OSHA regs too haha. But yeah I get that. "But like, I can always hook underground. And use my cool wraithvision to locate their life essences without being seen myself. That sorta thing you know." Nines: "That couldn't hurt, right?" He looks at Hana, who's still bent over sick. "Now we're getting somewhere. Pick them off one by one." Nines interjects, "Ding~" then the 'elevator door' opens. There's a crack of light and the sound of a city street, Nines tries to push open a wider opening, fails, and just turns sideways and scrapes through the narrow passageway. Seems there was a dumpster in the way. Kon follows after, he can easily fit though the gap. "The joys of being a small manlet..." Hana shoves her way past anyone else and grabs Nines's arm before he can walk out of the alley–"The van." There it sits, white and new, parked by the sidewalk, sunglassed man in the driver's seat, both hands on the wheel. Bored. Fit. Wearing an earpiece. "Don't be seen." Kon glances back at the rest of his team, and says in a half-wary, half-joking tone, "Guessing this ain't no friend of ours then? Not being seen is kind of my shtick, Sis, and Styx can handle herself fine. What about Raiken though?" You all move from boxpile to boxpile, hunting the hunters with your maphacks, Styx in the lead. At one point you wait for one lookout to walk past blocking terrain before signaling for everyone to move and taking off for the next cover, but Hana spreads her arms and blocks everyone from moving past her. At that moment, Styx, you realize that there's 11 life forces now, the one you were waiting for just doubled and sent another soldier walking the exact opposite direction. A beam of light fires down the lane and the soldier shouts out, "Asano Ruri, your parents sent us, we're here to help!" The ones out of sight instantly start changing their search, zeroing in on your position. One climbs up, the one who saw you stays to pin down your position. All search for new vantage points and take whatever shots they can get. Silent blue beams leave no marks where they strike boxes walls and concrete floors after you quickly squeeze behind another box corner. Finally one hits you, bluescreening your world. Everyone else you see the solid outline of Styx in neon blue, frozen solid and lightly crackling like a malfunctioning display. Styx, your world fades back into view and you're inside a cramped, transparent glass cube. To your left is Crimson Fist, in another cube, to your right is a woman on dispatch, watching many display cameras. Business dress, olive skin, amber eyes–the last of which regard you with disappointment. "Bad news: not our target. Good news: if it were that'd mean she'd be already dead." Hana mutters to the rest of you "That had to happen. Nothing we could do. But now..." She looks into Nines's eyes and points with her chin to the soldier on the high ground, he opens a shadow portal and she draws her gun, puts her hand through and pulls the trigger. You hear the gunshot come not from where she's standing but from where it was fired point blank next to that soldier's head. The rest of his team all turn to his last known position, pointing their rifles at nothing but an unconscious body. 10 left. "This is the part where you guys take out the rest of them." Says Hana. Sure enough, it hits you all like 'aha' moments how they've positioned themselves perfectly for an attack. From where the group is, it's pretty clear that knocking over one of the large scaffolds is going to create a chain reaction that should cause an avalanche of boxes and assorted abandoned warehouse-y things to knock them flat. Just the sort of thing that a little super strength makes possible. (so like, 10s sequence of you surfing down a box avalache disarming everyone batman style, just breaks the gun in half maybe shoot some guns doesn't need to be you setting up the perfect rube goldberg machine use one dude as a human shield so his gun gets shot by someone else's gun) Cut over to the op center, Raiken headbutting a soldier up on the big screen via the dude's helmet cam which fizzles to static. Kon just watches all of this with a dumb ol' grin on his face. Styx, you see the woman touch that screen, rewind it to Raiken's headbutt, and pause the image. "Asano Ruri... "How you've grown" The woman's attention goes back to the camera feeds, some of which are still and askew. "Get out of there, soldier. You're useless without those guns. ""I" is in the best position to escape. A, climb up to relieve J. The rest of you just distract Asano." 8 soldiers mob you Raiken, while Kon you see one of them scrambling up the shelving to the unconscious one who Hana shot. That one still has his rifle, too... The last soldier is making a run for it back to the van, which the driver starts up. What do you do? Raiken grabs one of the soldiers and takes down the runner by throwing him bodily. When one soldier strikes another a peculiar thing happens, they merge into one that one still eats poo poo and can't get up, but you'd have expected that blow to knock them both out. "King, we're hosed," says the driver to the woman. "Nothing more funding won't fix, let's go." The van starts up. Meanwhile, in the warehouse the Soldiers back off, hands up, and change their formation from a circle to a line facing you. They're all cool customers, already seeming to be settling in to planning for later. "Every second you waste with me here puts distance between you and your friends..." One of them says. "Tick tock." Kon, Hana is about to tell you and Raiken to call HCP and wait for them here while she and Nines after the van. You don't need to be a precog to know that. Kon scoops up one of the fallen rifles and takes a pot shot at the van's wheel, but when the unconscious soldier's finger is taken off the rifle, the safety comes on. He has to puppetteer it. The silent blue beam ends at the wheel. Just like in the warehouse, whenever they fired it at sounds it left no mark: the perfect weapon for kidnapping someone and getting away with it and just lighting a place up with a high rate of fire. If you fire a hundred beams, one of them has to hit something right? If you shoot someone with one of these guns, they get teleported into a cell and no one will know all the times you missed...unless you shoot the wrong people, then they'll be in the cell. Inside the van Styx you hear the driver shout, "They stole a gun somehow! Keep your head down!" Then the van starts swerving and King sits down and buckles up, white knuckling the counter with all the monitors on it. You and Crimson Fist are thrown back and forth into both sides of your crates and your captor laughs. Styx is not at all okay with ANY of this and lets out a good ol' face-twisting, soul-freezing banshee wail as she feels the van speed up. King cries out, "They're inside!" unbuckles herself, slides open the van door and rolls out. The driver follows her lead and abandons the vehicle as well in mid turn, sending it rolling. The harder you smash against the energized walls of your cell the harder they force you away, causing a positive feedback loop. Crimson Fist ragdolls inside his, unconscious. Kon and Raiken, you see a woman in uniform and the van driver bail out of the van which rolls over and slides into a street lamp. The driver's up first, and he helps the woman to her feet, hands on her shoulders as he escorts her to cover. What do you do? Kon's only experience with guns is being around Raiken, and even then he doesn't know all that much about them besides the literal basic of "It shoots bullets." He stops, but attempts to provoke her into throwing down her gun because even if she shoots, Raiken's not far behind and she's not gonna get stopped by a bullet. We're superheroes, one of which took down all these woman's goons by herself, she doesn't even know about what Hana and Nines can do, and she's not getting far without wheels, so as far as I can see it, there's no getting out of this mess, and shooting me isn't going to help her escape while also escalating the situation. It's really in her best interests to just surrender and not potentially piss off Raiken or Styx. The man all but agrees with you, but you see a flash from the gun muzzle and feel a bullet whizz by you that you dodged on reaction, or just missed. "The mission is to capture!!" the man exclaims. Her eyes stay trained on you, and mutters back to him, "This is why you're the clone OMA [OneManArmy] leaves behind." Then she calls out louder, to you. "I can make her choose between chasing me and keeping you from bleeding out, can't I? Drop the weapon and put your hands on your head." Is she bluffing or does she have the read on you? What do you do? Now that you hear their voices, you recognize this man as Mr. Suspicious, who was observing you during your first fight together. King must be the Ms. K they were talking about. She must not have been happy about how things went with Jormungandr. She's not happy about how this mission is going either. Kon starts to drop the katana, then kicks it at her mid-fall to try and knock the gun away, but she shoots him first. When you hear the gunshots Raiken, Hana collapses and Nines tries to catch her. She's too heavy. "Only one was supposed to...!" Raiken tells Nines to hold down the fort and runs towards the gunshots and screaming. King looks up from over Kon right at you Raiken, then says to OMA, "See, carpe diem. Now I've drawn her out away from the rest of her team. Forget about those stupid capture beams and help me incapacitate her the old fashioned way–" The man cuts her off with a surprised shout and stumbles. A split second later you hear the rhythmic report of Hana's pistol from the warehouse. "The bitch is shooting my clones!" Every time in the same place by the look at it: exactly where you were hit, Kon. Has Hana ever lost it like this before? King keeps her eyes fixed on you Raiken, ignoring her partner's pain, "...Fine, you sit there and watch while the women do all the work." Her finger flicks the safety of her weapon and it starts to glow with the same lightning you wield, Raiken, what do you do? Styx, the side of Crimson Fist's cage that he was leaned against flickers and shorts out and he tumbles out onto the floor of the van. Beyond him is where Ms. King sat at the control panel. HUDs tracking all of OMA's clones turn red in the same place one after another as Hana maims them and you can see a feed of the driver's headcam to Kon on the ground bleeding out and Raiken squaring off with King. What do you do? I think there's really only one thing to do! Raiken is going to take King down. Hard. Go in for a quick sweep and then try to destroy her weapon. She takes a shot from it along the way, but Raiken is pissed! Gonna take more than that to ruin her day. Raiken, King flies back from a clash and plays her final card. She draws a detonator and flips up the guard. "All right, that's enough! Go over to OMA and let him deactivate you or the van blows! Thought I wouldn't be surprised if you refused, all your programming cares about is self preservation and the mission... A woman after my own heart." Raiken doesn't immediately follow King's orders, but she does drop her guns as she bites out, "gently caress you. You don't know the first thing about me." King nonchalantly starts rattling off facts no one could know but you that she says were extracted during your augmentation. Which one had you forgotten until she brings it up? Kon, you can't move without hurting but you can watch and listen just fine and it takes your mind off the pain. Who do you turn your focus on? (I also asked a thing about Hana earlier) Styx sees a remote self destruct notification come up on the control panel. ARMED in big red letters. If you're looking to trigger Unstoppable, do so and roll it. Raiken appears (mostly) unshaken by King airing trivia from her past until she mentions how she broke her leg falling from a tree when she was a kid. Specifically how it left a small, star-shaped scar just above the back of her knee. Her hand drifts down to check and her eyes widen as she finds it there just like she said. Styx looked around in panicked bewilderment as things happened around her faster than she could really process them. Kon was shot, Raiken was fighting, Hana was doing something and Crimson Fist was unconscious and THERE IS A BOMB!? No matter how she pushed, she could not quite pierce the cage she was in, nor phase through it. She was still too entrenched in the material to do something like that, she would have to fully disappear to pierce a barrier like this, but how, but how… …Perhaps there was a way. A method she had not really dared to try. She would have to phase into the nether completely. Tap power from the source, the River itself. But the river was scary. Really scary. And she didn’t want to go there, anymore. But Crimson Fist was in real danger. Could she really allow her fear to stand in the way? … Styx closed her eyes, and for a moment, she disappeared. She dived and subsumed herself. And what reappeared was a wraith of dripping blackness that could not be held back by any means short of the divine. The figure blasted through the barrier, grabbed the unconscious hero, and pierced through the car as if the obstacles weren't even there. However the thing about being an unstoppable wraith is that you disintegrate everything you touch leaving tortured slag in your wake. "Grabbing" Crimson Fist in this state, especially when he's leaking vitality onto the ground would probably doom him worse than you imagined you did Kon the other day with the cars. If you want to save Raiken's friend, you have to get rid of or get him away from the bomb and from you. What do you do? I go through the bomb instead. If I disintegrate its molecular structure, it cannot explode! There's a loud lightsaber crackle of your cage straining and breaking, then you claw apart the van. It looks and feels like dense and gooey dark chocolate cake underneath expertly textured frosting, until the lights go from broken circuits. Your phone and belongings are gone, so you can't use it for a flashlight, so you have to open the ceiling to let in more from the overcast sky and take apart the whole van more or less to find all the charges, which you disarm by blowing out like birthday candles. You feel like you're piloting this wraith from inside it or somewhere else, you don't know, but you look like a xenomorph cosplaying a dementor from what you can see. Can't see your own face without a mirror, after all. Kon rolls onto his back, his eyes dancing back and forth between King and Raiken as the former throws information after information towards his teammate. Information that he himself knew nothing about. How much did he really know about Raiken? Not much, close to nothing at all. But he was fine with that, or so he thought. Yet hearing this strange woman speak so much about Raiken’s past made him feel… annoyed, actually. Annoyed with King for taking advantage of what she knew. And annoyed with himself for not knowing. Well, the latter at least could be remedied later. Assuming he didn’t bleed out here, that is. His eyes moved now onto the van. Specifically, the side of the van that was apparently getting burned through with a familiar glow. Styx? She was in the van? How? Wait, no, who cared about that!? She was in the van, and now she was trying to escape in not exactly the most subtle of fashions. If King noticed before she broke through, it’d be bad. Real bad. Explosion bad. No, no, no. Kon might be bleeding out on the street, but he wasn’t going to just sit by and let this happen. He’d still sit though. Hurt too much to stand. Forcing himself to focus through the pain, he looked to Raiken, who seemed dumbstruck as she listened to King, and shouted, “Oi, numbskull! So she knows a thing or two about you, maybe more than she should. Who cares!? Are you gonna just let that stop you from taking her down? She’s a baddie, Raiken, which means that as heroes we got a job to do!” Kon winces as all his yelling causes pain to shoot throughout his body. It hurt, but he needed to keep speaking. Divert King’s attention. And there was an effective way of doing that, though he hoped Raiken wouldn’t actually follow him up on it. “A bullet for me, a bullet for her. That’s only fair, yeah? Don’t even give her a chance to blow up the van. If anyone can quickfire like that, it’s you, Raiken.” King calls "Open fire!" to whoever's listening and runs for cover, calling headquarters for evac. Dialogue is closed: she thinks you're going to kill her. You hear her rage into the communicator, "Now do you believe me that once your precious cyborgs go rogue they have to be destroyed?" The only response is that evac is in 5 minutes by air. What do you do? Raiken is more interested in figuring out what King's deal is than shooting her. Especially since she's the only lead she has on figuring out what all she's forgotten/lost. She find her rushing up a fire escape trying to get to the roof of a building. Looking up, you all see the contrails of a jet having turned abruptly and started to heading for her. Then you see Hana's silhouette step onto the ledge of the building nearby and point her pistol right at the unaware King. Raiken just grabs the fire escape and starts to tear it off the building, ruining Hana's shot. The whole scaffolding whines as the metal fatigues and bolts pop out of the brick. It separates from the side of the building and before King can break a window open and get off the ride it's carrying her to the ground. It's Hana's shot that shatters the window instead, and then a frustrated click of an empty gun. She backs off behind the ledge again as the would-be rescue jet flies by. On the ground, King feebly reaches for it then blacks out. HCPD and ambulances begin to show up and immediately @TheObservingMagi is put into a stretcher, patched up and sent to the hospital. You hear a voice outside doubtfully say, "Family?" then Nines busts into the van with you. "Where's Hana?" he asks, hesitating before finishing sitting down and settling on taking the trip with you. Styx, you're stuck in this demonic form inside the van with the injured and unconscious Crimson Fist. A suggestion of hazmat suits is cut off by someone contacting the Night Watch: a team of heroes dispatched to deal with supernatural threats. A cautious young man's voice says, "This is black magic or something, you can feel it, and it's spreading... Wait! It's too dangerous!" Boots approach. Raiken, you catch some dirty looks from tenants and police for destroying the side of a building as they extract King from the rubble and cuff her to a stretcher, but those looks turn to worry as they see the clawmarked van dripping with slag. "I hope we brought enough firepower..." Styx looks at her hands, now black and gnarly things, and sighs dejectedly. Then, she sinks to the earth. With the villains vanguished, her continued presence caused others nothing but distress after all, and why subject them to that? She ghosts away away, underground. Raiken, they recover Crimson fist from the van, see the bubbling asphalt where Styx went underground, and call it in. You hear over their comms that they have its bearing and are tracking it. Night Watch is on their way. What do you do? Styx sighs. Figures they would try to track her. No point in wasting their time, she supposed. After all, since they were already on her trail, they were competent enough to find her too, all she was doing was wasting time. She'd just find some abandoned lot with her soul-sight, and wait with her hands up. She might have looked like your worst nightmare right now, but her chipper personality would surely make them ask first and shoot only later, haha! Raiken's sensors can track Styx, so she heads on after her hoping to help talk her out of her monster funk. Raiken raises a hand in a half-hearted 'my bad' gesture as the dirty looks flood her way. It was really pretty mild, all things considered. They'd taken down an entire (one man) special forces team, captured someone with links to her past and vital information, and... Well, Crimson Fist was going to be fine. He was tough. Kon too. Her HUD spiked with red warning symbols as some sort of necromantic force flooded out of the van and through the ground. Raiken looks at the van, specifically the slag, and sighs. Styx. Why was she running away? Not that she'd be able to escape the Night Watch anyway, but... Well. What kind of teammate would she be if she left her to get taken down? She'd just be proving King right. Determined, Raiken follows the tell-tale arcane signature. "I wish more of you used the last bit of control you had to give up..." mutters Wolfsbane, when she finds you alone, Styx. She draws a short sword and drenches it in liquid from a vial. "Thanks. And consider yourself avenged." Then she advances to execute you. There is a flat, if eerily reverbating "What" as Styx addressed the heroine in front of her. "WHAT!?" she was yelling now, "YOU AGAIN!? Trying to murder me ONCE wasn't enough for you, you blind- blind, uhh AGH, BLIND PERSON!? How do they let you even have your license sheesh, who knows how many innocent people you've killed, acting like this!" Oh. That might've been a tad too far. Styx backed up a bit, and gazed to the side. "...Sorry about that. Didn't mean it, but just, like... go away. I know we did this whole song and dance before but being hunted like some monster is not something I need right now. I just want to be alone for a bit." Styx you sound like a snarling hellbeast with a vocal filter when you speak. You're barely intelligible. Wolfsbane grimaces and sighs to herself, "She's lost... dammit, fiend!" She seems uneasy while continuing her advance. What do you do? Styx gagged and coughed a bit, as her words failed to properly manifest. So much for chipper personality huh? She looked around, forlorn. Maybe she should escape again? ... Or maybe she should do something else, first? She floated back a bit, and lifted a single finger, in a plaintive gesture for the heroine to wait. Then, she attempted to scrawl a message on the ground with her corroding essence. I'M STILL ME YOU CRAZY KNIFE MANIAC "Runes!" she says to herself, before throwing a flask of some kind of arcane, flammable liquid at you and your letters. What's worse, you find yourself stopped by a ring of salt when you get to the perimeter of the lot. Oh god, Styx thinks to herself, Wolfsbane was just as crazy as before. Totally unreasonably, too zealous to listen. Probably even if she could talk. And who knew about whoever was making these salt circles for her? ... ..... Was this it? Was this what her life was going to be like? Getting no peace, not just from villains, but from heroes too? Why were all her best efforts rewarded with headhunts from her own side? Well, her nominal side at least, didn't really feel much like her own side at the moment. ...Did she even have a side? Styx looked at her hands again. Was she really so horrible? ... Man, this was heavy. She didn't want to deal with it at all right now. She just wanted to get away. And be alone. Then she charged the barrier, with all intent to barrel through, and loses control of her powers in a terrible way. Styx pressed against the barrier. She pressed, and she pressed, but it would not yield. But it didn't matter. The less it gave way, the harder she pressed, and more singular her desire to escape grew. So she pressed. She had to escape. She was faintly aware that she was wailing. A horrid, screeching, keening sound, louder and more primal than anything she had thus far aired. She was aware also, that her pressing against the barrier was squeezing out the excess essence of The River from her like water from a rag, flooding the lot, the surrounding area. There was a smoky haze born of the ground dissolving in a deluge of corrupted essence. Then there was darkness. Kon opens his eyes as Nines rushes into the ambulance, the boy hero having been trying to rest in spite of his concern over his teammates, over his inability to help them. The fact that Nines had come through when the workers had questioned about 'family' was doing little to improve Kon's mood either. More than a little frustrated with how everything had gone, Kon made no efforts to hide his annoyance as he replied, "Does my sister look like she's in here? If she's not with you, then I don't gotta clue, Nines." Raiken, you arrive at Styx's location but the creature giving off the energy signatures you've associated with her is completely alien to you, and the way it's fighting with Wolfsbane is like nothing you've ever seen from her. For one thing, she slams the ground and makes two trails of sludgy filth ring the Night Watch huntress in the lot with her. Then they start constricting that arena. The walls are closing in on them. What do you see that makes you and probably only you recognize her for sure? Kon, you aren't there but you've always known somehow that Styx was capable of terrible things and warned Raiken about them in your own way. What one of those things does Raiken see? If she tells you about it you'll be able to say "I told you so..." "Don't intervene." caws a black bird perched nearby the battle, either a shapeshifter or some kind of familiar or animatronic scout. "This is her destiny. Coming of age. She should pass the threshold alone, but we Watchers will save her should she fail... and remain a child." There is some impatience and disdain in that last part. What are you sure's gonna happen if you don't intervene? What do you do? It's safe to say that Raiken wasn't expecting the sight that greeted her. Styx - and she knew it was her from the way her right hand kept clutching at her heart - was squared off with Wolfsbane. Yet, despite everything telling her that this was Styx, she was like nothing Raiken had seen before. Raiken's eyes swept over the situation. Some sort of mystic barrier. It was likely unable to impede her advance. Wolfsbane appeared unwilling to cease her hunt. Mysterious watchers were warning her to back off. She wasn't in the mood to play games. It was clear that Styx was hurting. Lashing out at the world. And right now? Everyone standing between her and Styx was an obstacle. No obstacle could stop her. Not now. Raiken bites out, "I don't care. She is my friend. And your destiny bullshit can gently caress right off." Not even waiting for a response, she began to walk towards the battle between Wolfsbane and Styx. She was going to stick herself right between the two of them. If need be, she'd smash Wolfsbane into the dirt and talk down Styx afterwards. She needs to smash Wolfsbane into the dirt and talk down Styx afterwards. Raiken, the raven takes flight as you leap past the ring of salt and muck and try to slam the young huntress senseless but she reverses the throw, taking you down with her. From your floor-height point of view you see the two fudgy trails are sinking into the concrete, which begins to crack and issue steam. Styx, you find the time to finish the writing you tried to make to communicate with Wolfsbane earlier, but it changes before your eyes from "I'M STILL ME YOU CRAZY KNIFE MANIAC" to "HELL'S GATE RETURN WHAT WAS STOLEN" Then the floor falls out from under you all. A force far more severe than gravity sucks you down into the pit, faster and faster. Wolfsbane clings to you Raiken, screaming bloody murder as you two spin out of control. You lose sight of the small circle of the Halcyon City sky and you're still accelerating, then the Night Watcher trainee is torn away from you and you lose consciousness. Kon an hour later you're in the hospital and in recovery, surrounded by your clan minus Hana, who Nines just keeps trying to contact to no avail. Same thing with Styx and Raiken when you try to get a hold of them. You doze off into troubled sleep until a plaintive old man's voice awakens you. It's Memoriam, and you're in some kind of dreamscape, uninjured. "Your friends are in danger. Death made their play and took control of Styx, forcing her to create a hellgate that swallowed her, Raiken and Wolfsbane of the Night Watchers. "No one else can enter it unless they are the same age as Styx, and the only way to rescue them is to bargain with Death. Offer them this." He hands you a jewel box with an ancient lock and no key. "Are you ready?" What do you do? Any people your age you want to bring with?
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Jul 29, 2017 00:14
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 Location: Memoriam's Sanctum Memoriam stands at the head of a table in his ritual room, briefing you and pointing to a tome in its stand that shows diagrams of demonic arms and armor. They span from blackened iron and glowing flowstone, to the grotesque and creaturelike. "...I cannot stress this enough: do not engage anyone who wields one of the ancient demon weapons. They exist to clash with one another and either grow stronger from the conflict or break. Adapt, or die. Thus, a wielder of a mature demonic arm cannot be overcome except by another wielder, even by Chevalier under perfect conditions... The weapon would consume its wielder first, and no one wants that." He snaps out of the digression. "That is why your mission, children, is to reconnoiter. Whenever a demon weapon wielder is defeated, another another auric ovum–golden egg–is created. Older, more experienced heroes are who you are to call upon if you see any more of them, for they draw the attention of the Lightning Demon, hatch when exposed to its sparks, releasing the spirit embryo within to go seeking the beginnings of the kind of conflict it's been dreaming about and make those dreams a reality. The first new weapon has already been born–" He turns a page to a confidential letter written by Font, the journalist super heroine. Styx, you realize you dreamed about her before she wrote the article about you in the Halcyon Star, this must be one of her secret powers!  "–it named itself the Evening Star." He looks at you, Luci, searching for a reaction, but other than sort of sounding like your angelic name, it doesn't ring a bell. Should it? "By my research, this weapon will be searching for a certain type of wielder based on its dream logic. All there is to go by now is its chosen name, which refers to Venus, so I suspect a nocturnal female wanderer. That could apply to any one of you, which follows because you were near enough to the dreamers in Hell that you may have inspired them." He stops and looks directly at you, Styx, reassuringly. "Despite what Helios, Grimoire and the Night Watchers would have you believe, the Hell Arms' rebirth on the firmament isn't necessarily bad and your part in it is nothing to be ashamed of. Power needn't be corruptive, and weapons are tools. Therefore, while I think they are right to believe and we all would prefer the Evening Star should be safely restored to Hell with its own kind, weigh the risks and use your best judgment... A frayed scroll map of the city with moving ink sees one of its pearlescent droplets of ink stop, sink into the parchment and dry with a wisp of smoke. It's in Crowley Park. "The demonic arm has chosen its hand. There. Remember: your mission is to reconnoiter. Observe and report." He looks each of you in the eyes with that guilt inducing grandfatherly gaze. There is more research in Font's dossier of the Evening Star, and an angrily scrawled "What relevance could this possibly have?" That you know cannot be hers. "Evening Star (1827) by Edgar Allan Poe 'Twas noontide of summer, And mid-time of night; And stars, in their orbits, Shone pale, thro' the light Of the brighter, cold moon, 'Mid planets her slaves, Herself in the Heavens, Her beam on the waves. I gazed awhile On her cold smile; Too cold—too cold for me— There pass'd, as a shroud, A fleecy cloud, And I turned away to thee, Proud Evening Star, In thy glory afar, And dearer thy beam shall be; For joy to my heart Is the proud part Thou bearest in Heaven at night, And more I admire Thy distant fire, Than that colder, lowly light." From Investopedia.com: "The Evening Star A candlestick requires a certain amount of information about a stock. You need to know the open, high, low and close price for the stock over the time period you want to analyze. Each candlestick consists of a candle and two wicks. The length of the candle is a function of price high and lows within the given time period. A long candle indicates a large change in price, while a short candle indicates a small change in price. In other words, long candlestick bodies are indicative of intense buying or selling pressure, depending on the direction of the trend. At the same time, short candlesticks are indicative of little price movement. The evening star is a candlestick pattern containing two long candles and one short candle. The first candle in the pattern is a long bullish candle, indicating a long move up. The second candlestick in the pattern is a short candlestick indicating price consolidation and indecision. In other words, the trend that created the first long, bullish candlestick is losing momentum. The final candlestick is a long bearish candlestick gaping lower than the previous candlestick, indicating a confirmation of the reversal and the beginning of a new trend down."  Location: Crowley Park It's late summer, the nights are cooling. Like the body of the werewolf off the beaten path. Wolfsbane still pants from the exertion, wiping her silver knife on the grass and slightly limping to a pole topped by a destroyed street lamp to lean on. Her clothes are wrinkled and worn, unchanged since her escape from Hell, and she looks like she hasn't eaten well in days. She pours water from a cheap plastic bottle that used to contain a soft drink over busted knuckles and the fang-abraded palm of her off hand. The Night Watchers recruited her because she was immune to the spiritual disease that devolved people into beasts, but the potions and rituals they offered to strengthen her also made her a lure. "Wolfsbane" wasn't a repellent, it was bait and poison. And it had done its work. Where once was a monster now only fur remains, before scattering and ascending on the wind. The girl returns to the park bench under the broken light and slouches back into it closing her eyes and exhaling. She snores softly in the dark, then is cast in brightening reddish light. She turns her head away from the source, which dims again. "Help me," says a boy's voice. Wolfsbane's eyes open and focus on a spikey haired teenager perched precariously on the lamp pole. "I'm gonna fall!" He does before she can stop him, and he just laughs and groans in pain and laughs some more. "My hero..." he says, reaching up for her hand to help him up with an red glimmer in his smiling eyes. **** A boy wreathed in flame with huge iron spikes protruding from all sides of his body and rams horns on his head flies like a wrecking ball unchained through trees and walls and bridges and the bronze sculpture of a loyal dog, leaving nothing but smoldering splinters, dust, gravel and slag in his wake. The spikes and horns retracts and flames go out as he argues with Wolfsbane, "Just wait for it, the park guardians will come–Head werewolves, which the Night Watchers never told you! We'll beat them up, then you can take a well-earned vacation from werewolves. Admit it: you love to fight, but you hate your "duties." I saw it in your dreams! Join me and we'll live for the fight, on our terms!" He tilts his ear, listening. "That was quick...the twilight bark just started." Then he sees it's you, Raiken, first on the scene. "Oh. Well you suck too. Might as well be the queen bitch werewolf for how much you've ruined Zlata's life!" The horns thorns and flames come out again and he lowers his stance, preparing to charge before stopping himself and sniffing the air, then scoffing and clapping his hands together. "I didn't know you became part of the family, Ruri. What a pleasant surprise! ...do they know? Should I tell? Or should we show them!" Evening Star can only be referring to your demonic weapon. Wolfsbane has no idea what he's talking about, and no one else has arrived yet. What do you do before the next one of your team makes their appearance, one by one?
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Sep 27, 2017 22:00
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Evening Star points at you Raiken, gaping, and looks at Wolfsbane while faint howls echo in the distance, "She admits it, Zlata! Help me stop her, just this once, promise I won't even bind to you–" "I don't care. Raiken and Styx are both on a slippery slope, I've always known that. So am I. But I won't sink to her level. I don't care about setting her free or stopping her or saving anyone anymore. I just want to be alone with whatever part of me is still me, and never see any of you ever again!" She's screeching by the end of it, and runs into the darkness, right into 6 pairs of disembodied yellow wolf's eyes shrouded in pitch darkness. She leans forward to sprint between them with her forearm guarding her face, but they just let her pass? Then you see why: a solitary left eye, glowing blood red and larger than all the others comes into view when the leader of the pack makes a twisting leap to slash across Wolfsbane's back with a massive metal claw that glints in the flickering light of the trees you and Evening Star have burned. She briefly stumbles, keeping her balance in the end but now leaving behind a trail of silver-tinged blood. Evening Star looks perturbed as he continues to flee and dodge pistol fire, "Huh. Guess dreams can lie... Oh well!" He touches his temple, extends a hand towards the red eye, and inhales through his nose. "Pretty limited imagination, but this guy looks powerful at least! Raiken, Judecca: meet Ognjen. Judging by the smell of it, you just destroyed his favorite tree." The trickster himself vanishes in a quick burst of flame that streaks over to the splintered trunk and shapeshifts into the convenient-looking handle of a massive club. Then the thirteen eyes return their predatory gaze to Raiken. The twelve yellow ones look up to the sky and howl in unison and the overcast sky splits in two, revealing a bright and shining full moon that spotlights the pack leader. Hunched forward, probably ten feet tall if he stood up straight, his right arm is hairless, scarred, and white knuckling a manufactured silver claw weapon that drips with Wolfsbane's blood. Spittle flies as he snarls at you, Raiken, and charges on all fours with supernatural speed. You interlopers have slain his pups and defile his hunting grounds, now you will pay! Lucky for you, he's not the only one with backup. Which one of the rest of you come to her aid? What do you do?
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Sep 29, 2017 21:40
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Ognjen slows once you crest the hill, and stands atop it, spotlit by the full moon. All he does is watch, and Luci you know he's waiting for you to leave and never return to his territory which you despoiled. One by one his six yellow-eyed werewolf packmates arrive carrying passed out or terrified people in their maws or arms, and send them rolling down the hill. Humans are no longer welcome in Crowley Park, and trespassers will get worse than the scrapes and bruises these curfew breakers got. Wolfsbane is not among them, nor is Evening Star. According to the map, he's still unclaimed somewhere on the grounds, attempting to be tempting, and she's hiding, invisible but trackable. Nothing's easier than washing your hands of things and letting the chips fall where they may. But in terms of speed, Ognjen is wielding a weapon that could easily kill him. A metal claw dripping with poison blood. Why on Earth would he keep something so close? Perhaps to rule his pack with threats of swift death? Or maybe he doesn't even know its significance? It'd have to be a learned Earthling to know the truth... as for now, what do you all do?
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Sep 30, 2017 20:49
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Ognjen's packmates flinch at the weapon and flatten their ears. He looks at his scarred, empty hand and then his pupils move up and to the left, searching his memory for a replacement weapon. Then he grins, barks at his cowardly gang and leads them back into the darkness, surely to his favorite tree, where Evening Star lurks temptingly. Any who give chase are met with a supernatural fog rolling in: the clouds that were blocking the full moon now do its bidding thanks to the twelve lunar disciples' circle magic. Crowley Park has become walled by swirling lunacy fog that scrambles all sense of place and leaves all who inhale it with a sense of being hunted. Everyone but you, Luci, you feel insulated by some blessing upon the metal claw. As long as you wield it true and your friends stay close, they too are protected by the wards, but should you become separated... Styx, you escape the fog just in time, if you had tarried any longer even you might have gone mad. What do you all do now?
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Oct 2, 2017 01:16
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Styx, the familiar sensation of being torn between two worlds washes over you as your form destabilizes to that of a pitch covered banshee-demon and you lose control of your voice. You fly out of the subway terminal and into the fog leaving the same moist, devil's food cake-like trail of tainted earth that you did the last time you rushed off to meet Wolfsbane, before you dragged her to Hell. The cold mist settles on it and thins the mixture until it reaches the consistency of crude oil, which sinks deeper, revealing a supernatural wrought iron grate: a storm drain to the abyss. That’s different. Now the long gate to the netherworld that follows Demon-Styx wherever she goes is fenced off–you aren't welcome back. However, a trench in the fog opens up as the long, thin Hellmouth you leave behind slurps up the pea soup fog, and you can see where you came from easily, and wherever you go visibility gradually improves. Zlata's traps are no better obstacles. Pentagonal treebind glyphs flare out in woodburning white when triggered, but the branches' tight grasp only warps them to their own breaking point. The living wood bends, splinters, and breaks like rotten rope; your speed remains constant. A tripwire sends atomized silver solution into your face, but you needn't even blink as it covers your corneas, nor does it obscure your lifesight. You realize that as same as a child watching a horror movie, you can't stop *seeing* even if you will your eyes shut. But it's your hearing that leads you to Wolfsbane. Her prey cries out in the wilderness, stung by one of her traps as they try to surround her entrenched position: a ranger's station with boarded up windows and floodlights pointed outward, rays thrusting out through the mist like a circle of pikes. The pack of puzzled and bloodied lycanthropes all turn to you in shock when you let loose an unbidden screech, then one sniffs the air, touches its lips and looks to the others. They nod and scatter into the thinning fog and begin to stalk you instead. After avoiding being lost in the fog or caught in the young Night Watcher's traps, you wind up caught in a dozen jaws striking as one, from every angle, and as they begin to gnaw, a yellow eye for every hour of the day looks to the log cabin for a response from their real target. It comes in the form of a stunning silver bolt to your chest: an apparent mercy killing. The werewolves are taken aback, and you have an out of body experience as they lower the demon form down onto the disintegrating earth and leaving you for dead. Your wraithvision reverts to that of a normal ghost. You hold up your hand and see the untainted human spirit of Lydia Bristow. Beyond it and below you the same werewolf who sniffed the air before covers the demon’s silver sleep mask with its claw and sniffs the banshee demon's lips, shaking its head in confusion. You understand why: it smelled of Zlata Havlíková, but she just shot you rather than come to your rescue. It's a violation of all that they know about being a pack *and* about hunters. Now more than ever these werewolves see the huntress as the real monster. quote:2d6 Styx takes her beats (like a champ hopefully) = (4+5) = 9 As the werewolves charge the ranger's station and jump through the barred windows, you will yourself through the pain of separation to repossess the demonic form and rise again. However, your vision doubles, and you notice the bolt missing from your chest. Looking back, you see it never moved. The human Lydia Bristow's spirit-corpus is what lies on the grate now, shot in the breast, and when you hold up your hand it's the demon's that you see again. Your human emotions feel distant, but with your sharper wraithvision you see that the silver bolt is named Tomas, after the one of the 12 followers of Jesus Christ. The one who doubted him. Do you believe Zlata can walk out of the tomb she’s in? There’s reason not to: 12 disciples, 12 bolts, 12 werewolves, but she used one on you. Now she's fighting them alone, expecting you to just stay pinned to the spot and to witness her. What do you do?
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Oct 22, 2017 21:29
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