Essays and Evildoers: Claremont Academy IC [M&M2e]

[betafin]

Introduction

It is a new year at Claremont Academy, the official unofficial top school for the differently capable. The brief introductory ceremony was held just past noon by the aged Head of the Academy, Duncan Summers, an older-looking man who initially seemed to have retained much of his vigor and strength, but also clearly had white and grey streaks appearing in his hair and signs of wear and aging could be seen on his face.

He walked to the podium with a slight limp, supporting himself with a cane, and briefly welcomed everybody to the academy, be they locals, those with connections to the academy, complete newcomers, 'exchange students,' or anyone else. He went on to mention a few of the expectations they had of the students - mainly things such as not to use your abilities for selfishness, keep a good grade average, be responsible and thoughtful, follow the directions of your instructors, and the like.

Shortly after he finished speaking the ceremony ended and the new students were let off to prepare for the new school year: those whose families were present went off to spend their remaining free time saying their goodbyes, those who had final procedures to settle went off to finish those and the remaining few who already had everything taken care of and whose families were not currently present (you all included) were lead to their dorms and shown their rooms.

The male and female dorm managers gave their respective subjects the lowdown of acceptable behavior: boys are not allowed in the girls' dorms, those who destroy the facility have to rebuild it by hand, if you must personalize your room then use paint and not wallpaper as it's a pain to remove, don't leave the seats up or hog the showers, etc. You are then given a map and a broad pointing-out of landmarks and directions, and by that time most of the day is over.

Now in the present, you see that your dorm room is relatively spacious (for dorms) and that there are enough beds for four people. Currently there is only one other person with you in your room, but you are told there will be a third or possibly fourth occupant once everyone's families leave and everything settles down. The beds are arranged one per corner, the foot of the beds facing toward the opposite one, with corresponding desks set next to each other in the middle wall area with windows above them. Another door opens to a hallway with four smallish personal closets and leads to two other rooms, a bathroom and a mini-kitchen area with basic food, cooking and cleaning equipment. You are told to get along with your roommate, and then the group moves on to bring the remaining people to their assigned dorms.

Avari & Conduit
You two are roommates; you're told there will definitely be one more roommate who is currently with her family, and it's uncertain but unlikely they'll need to move anyone else here after that. Keep that in mind when partitioning space and personalizations/decorations.

Curio & Warp
You two are roommates, you are told chances are high you'll have another roommate who is still dealing with transfer issues if the bureaucracy goes through on time, but after that it is unlikely there will be any more. Keep that in mind when partitioning space and personalizations/decorations.

Dorm Design (not to scale, they're a little more cramped than they look)
http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/8636/dorm.png

[BluesEclipse]

"So, looks like it's you and me, then," Jacob says to the other boy, a friendly smile on his face. "Jacob Allen, though my friends call me Warp." Jacob offers his hand to his roommate for the forseeable future.

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica puts down her suitcase, which only held clothing and her power harness, which was pretty much all she owned at this point in time, she was a permanent dormer. That didn't sit well with her, she liked her privacy, and if the people here knew her past, which was likely, she wouldn't get any peace or privacy. She flops onto the bed and puts an arm over her eyes, staying quiet after that unless someone talks to her.

[Rook.Gamer]

Arranging his stuff around one of the beds by the window and carefully placing a well worn stuffed monkey on the pillow with care, Magnus turns and looks at his roommate, Jacob, with barely contained glee evident on his face. I'm Magnus Brighton, but please call me Curio. If I had friends that's what I'd want them to call me, its really good to meet you, Warp. I am very glad to be here.

[Mekboy]

Dropping her bag by one of the beds, Avari takes the opportunity to take a proper look at the room - her roommate didn't seem like she wanted to talk, and truth be told Avari was a little nervous about properly greeting her. The kitchen proves to be particularly interesting. Most of the implements seem familiar enough, but a couple's purpose are particularly elusive. The food however is a different story entirely. She recognises some of them from the Cultural Immersion tests, but others seem entirely alien.

Eventually Avari gets bored of exploring the wonders of earth cuisine. Fiddling nervously, she walks over to her roommate's bed.

"Er... hello? We will be sharing this room, will not we? I am called Avari. What should I call you?"

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica moves her arm to look at Avari, "Interesting name, I'm Angelica Eisendiel, at least when out of costume," she says. She sits up and rubs the back of her neck, then turns her head to she side with a loud crack, "so, how'd you get your powers?" she asks, the girl seemed nervous, and having a nervous roomy was annoying, "got mine after being struck by lightning a few years ago," that was always a good ice breaker... any telepath could tell she was mentally facepalming.

[Mekboy]

This will be a fun one to explain. "I was born with them. The Goddess blessed me with Her Light." She gestures to the bed "Do you mind if I sit?"

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica raises an eyebrow, "go ahead," she replies, "blessed by a goddess, eh? Sounds interesting," she chuckles, though the bored look to her eyes never changes, she then looks at Avari, seemingly scanning for something.

[Mekboy]

Sitting down at the end of the bed Avari continues. "I guess so. It is the reason I am here after all." She smiles a little nervously. "First time I have been off the ship."

[BluesEclipse]

"Curio, huh?" Jacob says, a note of curiosity in his voice. "Interesting handle... so, what brings you here to Claremont?"

[EdroGrimshell]

"Guessing you're not accustomed to Earth then," Angelica says, "what's your planet like?" she asks, genuinely curious.

[Mekboy]

"I think you misunderstand. Coming to Earth was the first time I have been outside a ship my whole life. We do not have a planet of our own now. The majority of us live in, um... I think the best way to translate would be world-ships. I lived there before I had to come here."

[EdroGrimshell]

"Really?" Angelica sounds surprised at that, and it's evident, though it's easy to see the bored look on her face with it, it's an odd combination, "never expected that, you seem acclimated to Earth well enough, normally there's bone degeneration from the lack of gravity, unless you had artificial gravity... did you?" her eyes light up a little at the mention of artifician gravity, literally, her eyes are glowing bright green.

[Mekboy]

"Yes, but I am afraid that I do not really know much about it. Um... your eyes, do they usually do that?"

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica looks confused for a moment, then, "oh, right," she says, her face going red as the glow dims, "side effect from my powers, my eyes glow, though how bright it is depends on my mood at the time."

[Mekboy]

Avari stops a little awkwardly. I think I may have embarrassed her."Sorry... do you mind talking about your powers?"

[EdroGrimshell]

"I don't mind them, it's just, that particular side effect is a little embarrassing, it's sorta like a mood ring for me," Angelica says, scratching the side of her face a little, "the powers themselves are actually pretty simple, I can drain electricity from anything that uses it and store it, then shape and release it," she holds up two fingers in a peace sign and has electricity arcing between them, startign at the web and going up to the tips before starting over again, "I'm also immune to electricity, though it still causes the usual side effects, hair standing on end and all that, it just doesn't hurt. The electricity itself does fade after a while, but it's usually not a problem with how I tend to use it."

[Mekboy]

Avari leans in a little to get a better look at Angelica's display. "Amazing. Quite amazing." She pauses. "What is a mood ring?"

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica smiles, lightly, "it's a ring with a kind of gel inside that changes color based on how hot it is, the human body temperature changes just enough for it to actually tell you someone's mood based on the color of the ring. My eyes are similar, only it's how bright the glow is at any given time, and if they're throwing off sparks, though that only really happens when I'm angry."

[Rook.Gamer]

Magnus' face droops a bit as he turns slightly away from Jacob. "My parents disappointment," he mumbles. Then trying to recover the situtation, So what type of music do you like?

[BluesEclipse]

"Oh... sorry, didn't realize I was stepping on a touchy subject there," Jacob says, quickly, before gratefully accepting the change of topic. "Music? I really don't have much preference... except I can't stand country. Beyond that, I'm fine with anything. You?"

[Mekboy]

Evidently confused, Avari gives up on trying to understand and latches on to the remainder of the sentance. "I do not think I would like to see you angry."

[EdroGrimshell]

"Not many people do, esspecially when I have my harness on," Angelica pauses then opens her suitcase and pulls out said harness, "this thing amplifies my physical abilities when I'm using it. It's only a minor increase at the moment, but I plan to improve on the design as time goes on," the harness is a bodysuit made of sturdy kevlar and leather with light-weight metal plates, circuitry can just barely be made out at the edges of the cloth and leather. The helmet, however, is another thing entirely, it would cover all of Angelica's face except her eyes, and with the way her eyes glow, in the dark, or even just shadowed, it would make a terrifying image if she were truly angry, "Mom always did say I was a little too theatrical with these things, and that I should change my middle name to Overkill," she laughs nervously at that, "I tend to go overboard with my electricity, it's one of the reasons I'm here."

Describing it now rather than later, I will update the look as she improves on the thing.

[Mekboy]

"I see you have put a lot of thought into this. I only brought clothes and a few curios from home. This would truly be an intimidating sight." She pauses. "You came here to learn control over your abilities?"

[EdroGrimshell]

"More like how to properly gauge them, I have decent enough control, but I generally go by the feel of it, not the actual amount needed, which has caused problems in the past, last year I accidently caused every streetlight down one street to blow up when a stray lightning bolt hit it because i put to much power into it. Also left my hand partially burnt from using too much at once," Angelica says, "I try to keep them in check, but sometimes I just put a little too much into whatever I try."

[Rook.Gamer]

That's unfortunate, Magnus says with a little smile pulling a battered iPod out of one of his bags, I love country... Hank Williams ... Toby Austin... I just can't get enough. Then he plugs in a set of small speakers and turns up the player. A Beatles song starts up. I'm just kidding. I love lots of music, I think that sort of thing happens to kids that are on their own a lot, but country isn't one of my favorties, too depressing most of the time. I really prefer the older rock stuff.

[BluesEclipse]

Nodding, Jacob says, "Hopefully our other roommates will share the same tastes. Anyway, if you don't mind my asking, what exactly do you do? I'll admit, I can't think of much that works with the name Curio..."

[Mekboy]

Amazed and a little shocked, Avari leans in a little further. "You burnt your hand channelling your power? Did it heal acceptably? I feel lucky I was granted more controllable energies."

[Rook.Gamer]

Magnus looks a bit green as the conversation turns to powers. I don't do much of anything really. I can ... Well talk to things... You know books, chairs, doors that sort. I can talk to them and sometimes they tell me useful stuff. If I try really hard I can convince them to do things for me. It doesn't always work but it's handy when it does. Feeling dry awkward for talking so much about his least favorite subject Magnus tries to at least take the focus off himself. So what does Warp mean?

[BluesEclipse]

"Oh, I can teleport stuff. Not people, though... just stuff," Jacob responds, smiling. He points his hand at his bag, firing a pale blue bolt at it. When the bolt strikes, the bag vanishes, reappearing on the empty bed across the room. Another bolt returns the bag to his side. "I'm trying to develop it more, to be honest."

[EdroGrimshell]

"It healed fine, it was a minor burn, like being scalded by hot water, a little painful but no lasting damage," Angelica replies, "speaking of powers, what are yours? I know you said they're from your Goddess, but we don't share a pantheon so I don't know what that would entail. And I'm pretty sure not being human has some perks too."

[Mekboy]

"The Goddess gave me Light. It sort of makes my emotions more physical. If I use them right I can levitate off of the ground or heal or create bolts of destructive light. It is a little hard to control sometimes, but I think I mostly understand it now. And from what I have heard, I have a more accurate sense of smell than most humans, and can hear higher pitched noises. It can be quite annoying."

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica gives a slight smile, "Sounds interesting, to say the least. I think this will be an interesting year, in the good way," she says.

[Mekboy]

"It will certainly be something new."

[betafin]

And so the new heroes talk into the night, each falling asleep at their own pace.

The next day brings them to their first class -- homeroom, in classroom 302-A (third building, second floor, first room). Walking in, you see that the room is just an average classroom at first glance: there are desks seperated into groups of four, a large dry erase board, a heavy teacher's desk in the front corner, large windows that reveal the Freedom City skyline in the distance, etc. A closer look would reveal some out-of-place details, such as some sturdy-looking metallic white framing above the windows and the ceiling and floors being made up of rather large square panels. A large seating arrangement diagram is taped to the dry erase board at the front of the class, and people have already begun sorting themselves into their respective groups of four.

Walking to your seat, you see three other people heading to the same place. You recognize that one of them is your new roommate, but the other two are unfamiliar. You give a wave, or perhaps a nod, to your roommate, but as you are about to introduce yourselves to the others the surrounding noise dies down as the teacher enters the room.

You see a black sweater, tan pants, smooth brown shoes and a pair of glasses. Then you look again and notice there's someone wearing them. He's... well, "average" describes him. Average build, average height, average looks, his skin is an average semi-tan, his hair is an average black, even his glasses somehow seem average. It's really quite amazing how unremarkable he looks, to the point where he's just a face in the crowd despite being by himself. He glances across the room then closes the door, locks it and flips a switch to lower shutters that completely cover the windows. All attention is now on him.

"Good morning, class," he says cheerily, with a voice you could hear anywhere, "I hope you slept well? I am your homeroom teacher, Mr. Smith. This class will be the "base of your operations," so to speak. Today is your first step towards becoming a hero, and I trust you will all do your very best." He is constantly pacing around the front center of the room as he talks.

"As you have probably guessed, the individuals you are currently grouped with will serve as your companions for the remainder of the school year. We hope you will get along, we have really tried our best to match you with suitable teammates, and being part of a good team dynamic is so incredibly important for new heroes." He paces back to the very center front, leaving an expectant pause in his speech.

Ask any questions about the why's/what's/how's of teams here, if you have any. Not required.

[BluesEclipse]

Jacob takes a moment to look at his apparent teammates before turning his attention back to the teacher, waiting for him to continue.

[EdroGrimshell]

"So this class is essentially team dynamics training, right?" Angelica asks, "I can imagine where that would be useful."

[betafin]

"Yes, you are mostly correct, Miss..." He steps to his desk to check the seating chart for her name. "...Eisendiel. It is an important aspect to being a hero, and is quite necessary even if the hero prefers working alone. We also have found, through much trial and tribulation, that young, gifted people have drastically fewer chances of... 'accidents' occuring if there is a positive team dynamic around to support them early on." As he says this, looking very closely you might see his cheery demeanor very briefly shift to a softer look before reverting back.

"But do not be mistaken that homeroom's jurisdiction is restricted to team activity. Your results from other curriculum will have a bearing here, and vice versa, which may affect both you and your teammates."

[Mekboy]

Avari spends most of Mr. Smith's speech examining the two newcomers while listening. It was still interesting to see how people looked, how they acted, how they dressed.

[betafin]

Avari:
You notice that another classmate isn't paying full attention to his introduction -- a girl with long greyish-silver hair that seems to stick unnaturally close to her clothing (light blue shirt over dark blue pants, looks like it's high quality). She's staring in the general vicinity of your group with a very flat, almost tense expression.

Mr. Smith's head suddenly jerks up. He puts a hand to his ear, and nods once. "Oh! It's about time for the first one."

He turns to the group farthest to his front right, you and your new teammates. "I should probably mention that in the past we had many complaints of 'real opportunities' and 'circumstances to prove ourselves' because of unfavorable results in our initial proficiency test. Well, we agreed that there was some validity to that, so we came up with this to try and settle the issue. You all signed your responsibility waivers when you were accepted to the Academy, right?" He smiles.

The large floor panel beneath you suddenly drops down and to the side, dumping all of you onto a rooftop several feet below and possibly scaring you half to death. You now see that the entire room is being carried by a large, blackbird-looking aircraft with reversed-shape wings hovering over this building. It is incredibly silent, you can only barely hear and feel the engine vibrations. The room itself has mechanical 'arms' of some sort attached to the bottom panels, the one you dropped through being held off to the side, the desks and chairs mysteriously nowhere in sight.

The sounds of the city are very audible, so that room must have had amazing soundproofing. There are many sirens nearby, and a brief glance around reveals that you are on top of a bank, right by the roof access (the door is ajar). From the sound of the sirens, you can safely assume that the bank is in the process being robbed.

Mr. Smith's smiling face pops into view from the hovering room. "You all should be fine, so don't worry too much. Just be natural and I'm sure you'll do great! Oh, remember, heroes are people of Justice who protect the innocent! We do not look kindly on unnecessary force or any lethalities! Just enough power to handle the situation! This will be graded, I look forward to your resuuuuullts!" As he delivers that line, the panel closes back up and the aircraft (and classroom) quickly and quietly zoom off.

You are now alone on the rooftop of a bank being robbed, with the roof access door very conveniently ajar for you. A note is pinned to it with an arrow pointing inside and "Good Luck!" scribbled in the corner. Truly the most subtle message you have ever seen.

[EdroGrimshell]

"Oh you have got to be kidding me!" Angelica exclaims as the class is dropped into the bank, "at least I thought to put this thing on," she says as the helmet for her power harness flips up and onto her head, charging up as her eyes glow brightly underneath.

I have blindsense based on sensing electrical impulses like a shark and I have radio sense so I can sense people nearby and hear any conversations over radios.

[Mekboy]

Avari takes the opportunity to introduce herself. "We are a team, yes? My name is Avari. This is Angelica. I think we are going to need to work out a plan. And do so quite quickly."

[EdroGrimshell]

"Conduit when in costume," Angelica says as she looks for an external power source, even a code box or alarm would work since she could drain the electricity from the circuit, "electric powers, can temprarily shut down the electric systems in the bank, might not be a good idea though since it can shut down the electric lock on the vault if they have one."

[BluesEclipse]

"Call me Warp," Jacob says. "I can teleport things around. Doesn't work on people, though."

[betafin]

Curio introduces himself, saying something about "I just animate objects to move around, it's not much of a deal..."

You all quietly move into the bank, arriving on a second floor landing. Despite the noise filtering in from outside, it is almost devoid of activity. Two large, smashed-in holes are visible in the area to the left side, one into a teller's window and the other into the banking room's windows, probably the answer to a failed attempt to lock the robbers out. The tellers' area is filled with computers and individual filing cabinets, office supplies scattered everywhere. The middle of the bank has a huge table with cash strewn across it, and nearby are a few smaller tables for brochures (one is on its' side). There are six ornate pillars all the way down the center, they seem fairly sturdy.

On the right side of the bank are cheap, expensive-looking bungalow-style walls dividing the area into small "rooms" for discussing contracts. You notice that you can see directly into them from the landing as they have no ceilings; nobody is inside them. Behind those there is a small seating area with some chairs and magazines.

You can immediately identify that there are four robbers in sight/earshot, all on the first floor, the nearest loitering near the door leading to the Vault entrance (door circled red), which goes underneath the second floor landing and probably into a basement. The second is very focused on hurriedly sorting cash on a large table, while the final two have pushed one of the huge, thick tables on its' side as a shield and are looking outside at what looks like a solid police barricade-wall that was just set up in front of the bank. None of them have any radio signals coming from them, and there doesn't seem to be any large weaponry -- you can see handguns, and that is about it. They're surprisingly poorly equipped for a standoff situation like this...?

Conduit whispers to inform the rest of you that she can clearly sense a fifth robber doing something to the Vault door (in the door circled with red), and she can also vaguely sense that there are a few more people inside the Vault but the material is blocking her from clearly identifying their numbers. She can't sense anyone on the second floor, aside from all of you. The other room below the landing (door to the right of the one leading to the Vault, circled with blue) seems to have several restrained people on the floor in a corner, probably hostages, but no signs of movement or robbers.

You can overhear the louder snippets of conversation between the nearest robber and the one in front of the Vault, but they seem tense and are speaking in hushed voices.

"...was supposed to be a quick job......oads of trouble..."
"...'s not my fault th......autolock trigger...trapped them..."
"...utup and get them out then..."
"...orking on it..."
"......eroes...so move it!"

Bank Layout:
Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin Covering (breakable)


http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/6332/bankse.png


Everyone:
You have one post (let's say about 20-30 seconds) to safely quietly arrange yourselves before you risk being spotted, then roll initiative. After that I'll be making notice and listen checks. Feel free to spoiler the graph coordinates for movements (horizontal,vertical) (ie a robber is at 16,20) or just describe how many 'squares' up/over. I was going to update positions as things moved anyway, for my own reference.

There are a lot of approaches to this. Stealth means they won't notice you and won't be positioned for combat, but spend too much time and they'll be able to free the others from the vault's lock.

You may want to decide on a strategy. This should be rather easy, though.

Warp:
Anything in blue can be moved. You make up whatever it is (computer, chair, filing cabinet, whatever), just point out which it is (horizontal,vertical) and what you're doing with it so I can move it. Green dots in blue = potted plant, those break easily and make noise.

Conduit:
You can quickly duck into one of the side rooms on the second landing to charge a little, but if you do try not to position yourself very far away, due to lack of time. Unless you don't pace yourself and really suck away the electricity there shouldn't be any noticeable sign of it.

Curio:
I'm taking control of him while you're not here, if you don't show up for a while I'll have to find someone to replace him.

[EdroGrimshell]

"I need to charge quickly, be back in a moment," Conduit whispers before quickly ducking into a room, faster than normal for a human, and finds an outlet to drain, preferably draining the power from the computer systems so it wouldn't be noticed unless the robbers were on a computer themselves, and quickly starts draining. She does make sure it's not enough to cause flickering lights, but otherwise drains as quickly as she can until she has enough to have a max power lightning blast plus a little extra just in case.

Ducking into the nearest room and draining until I have 25 points in reserve minimum. Then use 16 to boost Electricity Control to 8 ranks with another point for an AP of Stun 8 to link to the Strike from Conduit's Power Harness.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp surveys the area, before nodding. Quietly, he says, "I think I can distract them by dropping one of these potted plants on the far side of the bank... in fact, I can probably stay back here and provide support fire for you guys."

[Rook.Gamer]

I can, for a lack of a better word, possess one of the object across the room and get a look inside that vault before we move. Also if I can get in the midst of a group of them I might be able to stun a good number of them at the same time before things escalate too much.

Curio identifies the best object for focusing his power and prepares to jump into one of the objects that will serve his purposes.

[Mekboy]

"Powers. I can levitate, heal people and create blasts of energy." Avari explains before the group moves into the bank.

Avari glances around the room. "I think I may have a plan. If Warp can provide enough of a distraction to allow Curio to get into their middle, then Ange... Conduit and I attack them from the front while Warp provides support. We can take them from surpise and attack them from within simultaneously."

[betafin]

The robbers haven't looked away from their various spots and activities, but that probably won't last long. The nearby one by the stairs loitering at the entrance to the Vault area seems like he's getting bored.

Finish off anything in your conversation you need to, roll initiative and declare your current coordinates so I can move the markers.

If you're nearby someone you can whisper to them, otherwise miming signals would work well (aka I won't penalize you for discussing a strategy in ooc or pm and acting like they understood all that implicitly or from a few gestures).

[BluesEclipse]

Warp nods, and whispers, "Sounds good... I'll get in position, signal me when ready. Also, Curio, how many objects can you animate at once?" Warp slips through the shadows, moving closer to the stairs so that he's ready to act.

Warp: Move to 3, 4(x, y)
Initiative: [roll0]
Stealth(if needed): [roll1]

[Rook.Gamer]

Curio looks at warp for a moment, Quite a few I've done a couple dozen before, though I can cause everything in the room to stand up and jump around and what not if I don't care what they do. That is messy though. Curio focuses on a filing cabinet, a few office chairs and a desk and directs his powers to work.

Curio will animate those objects while using his linked possession effect to join his the objects. Initially he won't move anything and just try to get a handle on where everyone is and what they're doing.

[Rook.Gamer]

Con check [roll0]

[Mekboy]

Avari moves down the stairs, keeping an eye out for the theif near the vault

Move to 1, 6. Initiative: [roll0]

[betafin]

The nearby robber begins to walk toward the door to the foyer, saying "Hey, you done with the bagging?" in a somewhat louder voice than last time.

Avari and Warp edge out further, still hidden behind the solid banister covering. From there they can hear the slight tinkering noises of the robber inside that door fiddling with the Vault door.

Bank Layout:


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?


http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/7324/bankur.png

Everyone:
If you move further downstairs roll a stealth check if you want to avoid being noticed. Remember that there's someone inside that door, so ducking in there to hide is a bad idea.
Curio:
Nothing happens. This is your first actual mission, and you're feeling too distracted trying to keep your eye on the robbers to focus like you need to. Vaguely remembering something your parents told you while trying to drag out signs of potential, "you can never go wrong with taking a deep breath and trying one more time..." Not all that helpful in practice, but you remember it.

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit continues charging.

Not sure how long that will take, just let me know

[Mekboy]

Avari keeps low, waiting for the rest of the team.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp glances around, making sure everyone is ready, before pointing his hand at the nearest potted plant. Once he's confirmed everyone is in position, he fires a bolt of iridescent blue power at it, his other hand pointed at the destination - above the middle cubicle on the right-hand side of the bank.

Warp is attempting to use his Teleport Attack on the potted plant at (11, 1), teleporting it to (26, 12). Attack roll if needed: [roll0]

[betafin]

Curio takes a deep breath and tries to focus his power again, muttering "I'll wait for the signal and attack them from the side." as he stares at several cabinets and a desk.

You see a planter briefly fall from up high into one of the cubicle-like sections, quickly followed by a loud shattering sound. The robbers all stop what they're doing to look over. One of the robbers at the front, bigger and rougher-looking than the others, yells to the rest.

"Keep working!" He shouts, probably to the man at the table sorting the money and the one at the Vault. "You two-" He gestures towards the other robber at the front and the one walking around in the back, "-deal with it." He then shifts himself so that he can keep watch on the entrance but also easily turn to the rooms if needed. The two indicated quickly move towards the middle room with the pot, drawing their guns.

They are all very clearly distracted.

Bank Layout


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?


http://imageshack.us/a/img580/4218/bank2s.png


Curio:
Concentration check: [roll0]

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit sucks a little extra juice, causing a brief flicker in the lights near the thugs, but little else. She quickly distributes the energy, then makes her way back to the others, "any ideas? Only thing I can think of is getting into the volt room and taking the one in there out and pick the rest of them off one by one, or to focus fire on the boss down there and break morale."

[Mekboy]

"I would say to go for the leader. Remove the head and the body shall fall, yes?"

Avari pauses a moment, then lifts gently into the air, floating about a foot off of the ground.

"Shall we begin?"

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit nods, and looks at the others to make sure they're set as well.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp nods, taking aim at one of the nearby file cabinets to drop on the leader.

[Mekboy]

With her teammates having readied themselves, Avari acts. Floating to the doorway, she calls the Light to her hands, before releasing a ray of burning white light towards the thug.

Move to 12, 7, then attack. [roll0] to hit, damage +8.

[betafin]

The biggest robber lurches visibly after being hit out of nowhere with a ray of blinding light. He's on all fours, visibly gasping for breath as he tries to hang onto consciousness and get back up. Then a filing cabinet out of nowhere drops on him. He stops struggling to stay conscious as the cabinet falls to his side.

The other robbers, halfway to investigating the earlier noise, pause for a moment and look back and forth between the unconscious robber, the source of the noise and the direction the ray of light came from, unsure of what is happening.

Curio focuses on the desk near the sorting table, putting everything he can into it, then goes slighly limp. The desk begins to shudder, the center bending unnaturally upwards, its' pamphlet holder arching up like horns.

Rolled for overrun on my side, result was 25. Robber rolled 12. The robber near the bulldesk is lying prone.
The bulldesk charges forward, ramming into one of the previously-moving, now dumbstruck robbers, knocking him to the floor and running over him. He lies on the floor, more surprised and confused than hurt. The bulldesk seems almost... happy.

As the initial shock of the attack fades, you can see them tense up and get ready to fight back.

Everyone:
New round. One robber unconscious (grey), another prone (orange 'P'). Bulldesk is belligerent, but not aggressive. Initiative is Conduit - Avari - Warp - Curio, if it matters.
Bank Layout


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?

Spots at (8,9), (9,9) and (4,24) are holes you can go through.


http://imageshack.us/a/img17/2311/bank3w.png

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit dashes down the stairs and through the broken wall before firing off a blast of electricity at the closest, conscious robber.

Edit: Oh, right, Conduit moves to 10, 10

Attack: [roll0]
Damage DC is 23, 28 if I score a critical

[Mekboy]

Gaining speed, Avari soars onwards, hurling another ray of Light towards the nearest robber.

Move to (20, 13), attack robber in (19, 21), [roll0] to hit.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp fires another warp bolt at one of the filing cabinets, this time dropping it on the farthest of the conscious thugs.

Teleport object at (1,12) to maximum height at (21,19). I'm not sure what the rolls would be for this, exactly, since the power itself isn't causing the attack - but I'll assume it's normal attack roll and Damage Save DC.

Attack Roll: [roll0]
Damage Save DC: 23, I believe.

And again, I do apologize - this is my first combat with the system. I'll pick it up quickly once I see it in action.

[betafin]

Conduit steps out of the room and almost casually aims a blast of electricity at the prone robber. She's rewarded by the sound of the blast hitting him, and he shudders briefly then collapses. OHKO.

Charging forward (and upwards) into the center of the bank, Avari glows and lets off a flash of light at the robber by the table. The light hits him in his chest, knocking him back a step, leaving him leaning on the table gasping for breath.

Warp aims another cabinet above the furthest robber, and drops it on him. The robber fails to notice the filing cabinet from the heavens, but Warp's aim was off and it only strikes a glancing blow to his arm on the way down. The robber angrily shrugs it off and fires a shot at the most noticeable target in the room, the glowing, flying bluish girl.
Rolled for Robber's attack on my side, result was 10+3.
He aims a shot at her and fires. Avari could almost swear she saw the point of the bullet heading towards her for a microsecond, but the next microsecond it pings by, passing through her glowy light aura and failing to even hit her.

Curio as bulldesk turns toward the robber who just fired. If wood was capable of bellowing it probably would be, judging from the vibrations below the pamphlet "horns" at the front. It paws a table leg on the ground and starts charging.

Bank Layout


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?

Spots at (8,9), (9,9) and (4,24) are holes you can go through.


http://imageshack.us/a/img443/6106/bank4.png

Warp:
From inside the Vault entrance room you can hear a muffled swear word and some rather hurried metallic tinkering and beeping noises, followed by another muffled swear word.

You could try to deal with it yourself, do nothing, alert the others, 'wake up' Curio for help, etc. Just in case, I'll mention that you would have a harder time attacking by simply dropping an object in a room with a relatively low(er) ceilling like in that room. Not much space to gather velocity (ie a small penalty).
Conduit:
You can feel an electronic device starting up somewhere near the stairs where the others are, but lower, via a few radio pulses it briefly sends out. It doesn't seem to be a weapon, from the very low concentration of pulses.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp begins making his way down towards the vault entrance, cautiously, standing ready to deflect any incoming fire.

Moving stealthily to (8,7), then looking into the vault to see what's there. Readied action to deflect any ranged attacks coming my way.

Stealth: [roll0]

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit looks towards where the device is, eyes narrowed, she decides that she'd have to check it after taking care of these idiots. She dashes towards the closest robber that was conscious and not already under attack and slams a fist, crackling with neon green electricity, into him, not caring much for defense at the moment.

Move to 16,20 (top,side because I forgot the actual order it was supposed to go in)

-2 Defense to fuel All-Out Attack

Attack Roll: [roll0]
Damage is 23, 28 on a Crit.

Stun DC is 18, 23 on a Crit.

[Mekboy]

Weaving a little, Avari keeps moving and gaining height, before throwing another burst of light towards the robber. That last one had been too close.
Move to (20, 27), attack robber at (19, 21) [roll0]

[betafin]

Conduit's fist sinks into the gasping robber's solar plexus. Her punch goes through so incredibly perfect it surprises even her, let alone the robber. He actually hangs in midair looking down at her fist for a brief moment before rocketing backwards into the large table barricade, knocking it over, a trail of flashes, sparks and electric snapping sounds tracing his route.

Without the barricade in the way, you can see clearly outside through the large glass entryways. There are no crowds in sight, not due to a lack of crowd (you can hear them) but because there are large plastic-looking walls in a semicircle around the bank entrance, blocking everything from view. You can't even see any policemen or spectators looking over it.

The other robber, who was turning around to keep up with Avari as she moves, stops and stares on seeing his ally fly backwards like a cannon shot him out. He remembers what he was doing and looks back up at Avari just in time to see a blinding light covering his field of vision. He falls backwards into the floor, almost out of the fight. The ground does the rest. He almost looks relieved to be unconscious rather than having to keep fighting.

The bulldesk turns its' charge, adjusting course to the right, and starts shuddering again as Curio pulls his consciousness out of it. There seems to be some difficulty with this, as the desk seemed to enjoy rampaging around, but nevertheless it shakily uncurves its' parts to a more natural-looking state as it reverts to a pamphlet desk. Back up on the stairs, Curio gasps for air as his consciousness resyncs to his own body.

You hear a loud yelp-like noise coming from the Vault entrance area and some clattering.

Bank Layout


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?

Spots at (8,9), (9,9) and (4,24) are holes you can go through.


http://imageshack.us/a/img14/1142/bank5cl.png

Warp:
You move as carefully as you can, but unfortunately the robber is in a very heightened state of sheer panic and is constantly looking over his shoulder as he fiddles with the Vault lock. He sees you and yelps, turns around, knocking over a toolbox and noisily scattering the tools, to hurridly mess with a speaker-like device wired to the edges of the door one last time before actually hitting it in hopes that will make it work.

You hear him loudly mumbling to himself in panic. "Wasn't supposed to happen, these... freaks shouldn'ta been here this fast... --ing lock!" He scrambles for his gun with one shaking hand, the other still reaching behind him toward the device. As you take this in he is still reaching out to pick up his gun.
Everyone:
You can assume the 'room' leading to the Vault is a 1-square wide corridor strewn with a speaker-like device, wires and some bags.

[EdroGrimshell]

"Avari, go for the Vault, I'm going to see if there's anyone else in the other room," Conduit calls out, her voice having a metallic quality with the mask on, she goes to the other door and looks inside.

Conduit moves to 18,5.

[Mekboy]

"I shall do so!" Avari calls back, ignoring the dispatched robbers and heading to the vault.

Move into vault corridor.

[BluesEclipse]

Seeing the man reaching for his gun, Warp quickly fires one of his teleporting bolts at the weapon, teleporting the object to him - though pointed safely at the wall.

[betafin]

Conduit reaches the large, expensive-looking wooden (oak?) door and carefully opens it enough to peer inside. The room inside is... well, for lack of better phrasing, it looks like it was built to look like a stereotypical banker manager's office. Through the gap she immediately sees the nice blue carpeting, some bookshelves, a painting and a heavy desk with a chair behind it against a large window. Oh, and several people, presumably the staff and security, bound and gagged on the floor around the desk.

Avari flies to the vault in time to see Warp, holding a gun cautiously towards the wall as though he'd like to ditch it asap, looking into the door with a slightly nonplussed expression. Curio walks near Warp, looks inside, then looks at the other two and shrugs, unsure of what to do.

Peeking into the Vault entrance room, she finds out why - a single robber is sitting in the middle of it, hugging his knees in the vertical fetal position and quietly murmuring to himself in sob-like tones. There is a device that almost looks like a speaker with a monitor and interface sitting behind him, wires connecting up to various panels and opened parts of the locked Vault door. Apparently he couldn't get it to work and just gave up.

Bank Layout


Key:

Colored Circle: PC position
Red Circle: Robber
Gold Line/Curve: Door
Blue Object: Movable object (file cabinets, desks, chairs, computers, etc. Green dot = potted plant; very breakable, makes noise)
Black Line: Wall
Thin Gray Line: Thin covering (breakable)
Door with red circle: leads to Vault Entrance
Door with blue circle: leads to... hostages?

Spots at (8,9), (9,9) and (4,24) are holes you can go through.


http://imageshack.us/a/img402/4266/bank6q.png

Conduit:
If you go in the room you can make notice/sense motive/investigate checks if you want, to figure things out.
Avari & Warp
Deal with the last robber as you think you should. Passive sense motive checks (let's say taking 10) say he's unlikely to try anything at this point.

[EdroGrimshell]

Notice: [roll0]
Sense Motive: [roll1]
Investigate: [roll2]

NAT 20! Yes! :smallbiggrin:

[BluesEclipse]

Warp chuckles and turns to Avari, saying, "I think it's safe to say he gives up. Anyway," he steps back slightly, gesturing with his free hand for her to enter as he smiles, "Ladies first."

[Mekboy]

Trying to look imposing, Avari strides into the room. "You are the last of your group left. My friend has your weapon. Do you want to stop fighting? If so, you will not be harmed by us."

[betafin]

Clarence the robber is having a bad day. He really missed his old job as a technician. A failed technician, but a technician nonetheless. Things had been looking up ever since these guys picked him up off the street! He would be able to afford his antidepressants! Things were supposed to go well! Quick in, quick out, nobody harmed. And now look where he was, stuck here unable to open a single vault lock he had accidently triggered, surrounded by heroes with a bluish girl lecturing him about something. He tilts against the wall, not doing anything, and decides to let whatever happen, happen. Things can't get much worse, they can just drag him out for all he cares.

Conduit:
Conduit edges cautiously into the manager's office, on guard just in case.

Notice
Strange, but not surprising, how much seems to have been spent on this room compared to the relative industrial-manufactured cheapness of the rest of the bank. The carpeting is thick, plush and dark blue. She can see her own footprints being left in it. A few nice paintings are on the walls (which are a darker stained wood), one of them looking slightly heavier than the rest: it's apparently untouched, but Conduit would bet there was actually a small safe behind it.

Much of the wall space is taken up by the bookshelves, containing rows of seemingly important finance books interspersed with antiques - small statues, some fragile looking pots, etc. At the top of the bookshelves she notices what are probably the most expensive things, although antiquing was admittedly never her specialty; some very fine probably-silver platters, a very nice... Greek(?)-looking urn or two, a few unrecognized paintings with heavy brush strokes and an exquisitely crafted Victorian (probably?) doll dressed in black.

The desk is set out from the thick windows, which tint the sunlight a pale gold, the large empty chair in between them bringing the words 'hand-carved' to mind. The desk itself looks ornate, heavy and probably has tons of drawers and some secret compartments. Around it are the hostages, all of them blindfolded and gagged with their arms and legs tightly bound.

Investigate:
From what she can tell from the drag marks and foot imprints on the thick carpeting, the robbers just tossed them in here and restrained them. They didn't seem to bother taking any of the antiques or books, and none of the hostages have disheveled clothing or missing jewelry that would indicate a shakedown (the fat man furthest to the right has a goldish chain still hanging from his pocket). The robbers were probably only after direct cash and skipped anything they would have to pawn, maybe to avoid having another traceable factor. This seems to have been done in a hurry.

Sense Motive:
While the fact that all of their faces are bound and gagged makes it hard to figure out if any of them are plants, given their appearances and that this apparently wasn't supposed to be a prolonged robbery Conduit can't see how any of them could be anything but innocent hostages. They can clearly hear that she is there, and some blindfolded/gagged heads are turned in her direction accompanied by a few muffled cries. The loudest muffled noises by far are from a fat man with expensive clothing.

Everyone:
Combat is over, unless someone really wants to try to open the vault for whatever reason, which you can honestly just leave for the police to handle. All that's left is to clean up the loose ends.

[EdroGrimshell]

"Calm down, I'm going to untie you, the robbery failed," Conduit says, lowering the helmet so she sounded normal and looked less intimidating. They'd likely still be able to recognize her as the daughter of a villain, but that was beside the point at this time.

Once they calm down a little she takes off their hand bindings, letting them take off the blindfolds as she moves down the line. This would make it so there was minimal exposure of her face to them and allowing her to move quickly. Once done, she recovers her face, "let's get you out of here."

[Mekboy]

Watching the thief slump back against the wall, Avari turns away from him. "What do we do now?"

[betafin]

Conduit:
You don't notice any reactions to your identity, most of them seem somewhat distracted from having been hostages. The fat man in the expensive clothes gets up faster than the others, stumbling a little, with a harumph.

"About time!" he says irritatedly, and storms out of the room as though he owns the place (you have the sneaking suspicion he's the bank manager).
Avari & Warp:
While trying to figure out what you're supposed to do next, you hear someone loudly walking out of the other room with heavy footsteps. Looking out, you see a finely-dressed fat man looking around the bank. He sees the cumpled robbers and then looks over at you loitering near the Vault entrance.

"Good work," the fat man says loudly, with a tone of voice like it was expected of you. He seems confident to the point of arrogant. "Good to see you earning your keep. Now if you could move along, I need to take back control of my bank." As he says the last part he claps his hands together a few times as though it will move things along smoother.

At this point you hear more footsteps. A squad of helmeted and armored policemen are streaming through the front doors. The man in the front, probably the leader, is the only one with no helmet. You notice he's holding a scrap of paper to his side. He signals and several of his squad break off to deal with each robber as they pass by. Several of them move past Warp, Avari and Curio to lift up the surrendered robber, cuff him and move him towards the front.

Their leader heads up the stairs and gestures you all to to him, away from everyone else. As you move there some of the remaining squad members go into the hostage room carrying medical kits and escorting a loudly protesting fat man right back into the room. Several others carrying bulky cases and large shields move into the Vault area.

The leader looks like he's somewhere in his 30's, has a tough-looking face with a few noticeable scars and has what seems like a grown-out crew cut under his standard issue police hat. He offhandedly waves the sheet of paper towards you with a rather exhasperated, annoyed look on his face. He seems tired.

"Captain Antes, SIF division. I am in charge from here on. And you are more of the new ones.... Looks like it's that time of year already. Figures." With that snide comment he looks each of you over for a second, then glances back down at the paper. He waves it again, dismissively. "Seems like your ride back is waiting for you up top. You should go, about now. We're about to pull your wall down." He glances to that plastic-ish wall around the front of the bank that was blocking the view of the crowd.

Conduit & Avari
As he waves the paper you can briefly see, upside-down, a hand-scrawled line saying Things fine, others stuck in vault, move in soon? near the top.

The second time he moves it you can glimpse another line below it, or at least the parts showing over the crinkles and spots where he's holding it:
Transportation at roo--------------
Thanks again Cap--------------
Sorry for t-----------ble, ----------ll send case by Tues----------

Conduit:
You're fairly sure he looked at you for slightly longer than the rest of your team, but otherwise gave no reaction to you. You can easily second-guess yourself, though - it might just be you being paranoid, you have spent much of your life around hero-related people who would be fully aware of your heritage and treat you as such.

[EdroGrimshell]

Conduit nods, "We'll be on our way then," she says, "We hope to work with you again in the future."

[Mekboy]

A little confused, Avari does what seems to be the easiest thing in social situations: copy someone who knows what they're doing. "Thank you, Captain Antes. We will be leaving now."

[BluesEclipse]

Shaking his head at the captain's behavior, Warp says, "Yeah, we'll leave you to it, then," before turning to follow the others.

[betafin]

Leaving the police behind, you walk back up the roof access stairs. Reaching the roof you find the plane hovering just over the ceiling, silent as always, only this time it isn't holding a classroom. A door in the side is open, with a small ramp is coming from it.

On entering you can hear the ramp slide in and the door shut with a hiss. Now that you're paying attention and looking for it, you can just feel the vibrations of the plane and the slight thrust of inertia as it starts moving. To the right of your group you hear a slow, paced clapping out of nowhere. It turns out Mr. Smith has been sitting on a lone student's desk in the middle of the plane, and is smiling as he applauds. There's no sign of anyone else.

"Wow, that was fast," he says as he stops clapping, "you almost finished first, not that that necessarily means anything. And from what I hear, you handled it rather smoothly. I'm sure you will find your results satisfactory. We'll have them finalized and posted in about two days time, if you were looking forward to that."

He pauses for a moment, then smiles a very shallow, slightly strained smile. "Ah, yes, I hear you were fortunate enough to meet the esteemed Captain Antes? We didn't think he would bother with such a minor problem, but there he was. He's a fine officer, of course, well-respected and gets results, and from what I hear is also a good enough man deep down. I have not experienced that personally, but I do hear it. From the looks on your faces, I can assume he was quite rude, yes? He gets... testy, when it comes to heroes, and it seems to come to a peak during examination times. Something about overstepping bounds, and jurisdictions, from what I understand. I've never been able to bring myself to personally ask him about it, mind you."

He suddenly puts a hand to his ear and looks over. "We're back at the Academy. If you have no questions for me, you're free to return to your dorms for the day to finish unpacking and get everything settled. Tomorrow your regular curriculum will begin, as well as looking over your electives, so make sure you're prepared!"

Tl;dr: as usual you can ask any questions your character would have, or just go back to your dorms and start the next day. The results for this will be posted the in-game day after tomorrow.

My internet is up, though it's still really stormy.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp nods, having no questions of his own, and listens to any questions the others might have along with the answers. As they are dismissed, he turns to the others and says, "Well, I have to say, it's definitely going to be great working with you guys. Conduit, Avari, I'll see you tomorrow, then!" Waving, he heads back towards his room along with Curio, spending the rest of the evening organizing his things in the room before heading to bed.

[Mekboy]

Feeling a little embarassed, Avari speaks out. "Apologies, but what is jurisdictions? And would you think that we will be encountering Captain Antes and his men often?"

Once the questions are answered, she bids farewell to Warp and Curio. "Thank you, Warp. I was glad to fight with you today. I shall see you tommorrow as well."

For the rest of the day, Avari spends her time unpacking her remaining belongings and trying to talk to Angelica some more. Once the fight had had time to sink in, the overwhelming victory left her feeling somewhat elated.

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica makes some small talk with Avari until it's time for bed, at which point she tunes into her favorite night station and goes to sleep.

[betafin]

Mr. Smith turns to Avari "Miss Sol---" The calm smile he constantly seems to wear flickers off for a moment as he tries and fails to correctly pronounce her name. He briefly checks the clipboard behind him, checks it again, then puts the smile back on. "Miss Avari."

"Jurisdiction is... to put it simply, Miss Avari, it would be the range you are supposed to take action in. Captain Antes simply feels that most criminals should be handled under the authority and power of the police, rather than hero activity. Unfortunately, such things do not work out so simply." He shrugs.

"And as to whether or not you will meet him in the future, I cannot say. Quite honestly, I am not sure why he showed up this time. It may have simply been an on-the-spot decision. He is... unpredictable, in that sense. You may end up seeing him more than once, though I personally doubt any of you specifically would be the reason." You get the impression that Mr. Smith does not have a very positive relationship with Captain Antes.


Their questions answered, they are dismissed and head back to their dorms (the plane dropped them off on a roof landing near the dorm buildings them immediately flew off in the direction of the city). Unpacking and organizing is somewhat easier for Warp and Curio than most people, given the nature of their abilities - a few of the students from the other dorm rooms spot them while walking by and suggest that they could make some money or favors (you help with your powers, they'll owe you a favor with theirs) helping others move things in the future.

On their return, Avari and Conduit find a notice on their door to leave one of the beds and closets open, as they will have a new roommate tomorrow.

[betafin]

The next day arrives. Today is the first full day, and from what Mr. Smith says during homeroom much of the school year is focused on standard, non-hero curriculum. This is a high school, after all. Your seats are grouped with the rest of your team, and looking around you see that the other groups are in various states of well-being. A few groups are also perfectly fine, but the others, not as much. The two red-haired twins in one group both have a different limb in a sling, for example; another has a girl with huge glasses who you're almost positive had longer hair yesterday (she still has a few visible singe marks); various other bruises, burns or other small signs of injury are generally visible throughout the class. It seems everyone is still here, though.

Before leaving homeroom you receive a small questionnaire to think over and turn in later in the day. It has a few questions on it and you are instructed to keep your answers private. Mr. Smith assures you it won't have a direct bearing on your scores, it's merely for team evaluation.


Answer the following questions as best as you can:

How do you think your first mission went? Why?

How could it have turned out better?

How could it have turned out worse?

Which teammate had the most influence in the mission? The least? Why?

Who was the most strategic?

Who was the most effective?

If you could re-do it, what would you have done differently, if anything?
During the rest of the day, while you notice that your standard curriculum classes genuinely don't seem to have anything related to hero training, you're not sure whether the teachers are heroes or not. Given the nature of Claremont it's a safe bet that many of the new students are trying to figure out the staff's abilities, and if they have a hero identity. You hear some rumors that an underground betting pool inevitably crops up every year over what the teachers can do. All the upper classes are keeping their mouths shut on the issue, probably because they also have their own betting pools on the freshmen figuring things out.

A few examples of your teachers:

Your mathematics teacher, Ms. Enoshima, looks like the serious type. She arrived at class wearing very professional office/teacherwear, and got straight to business. Her most notable aspect was probably her very long, fine hair. It caught the eye. She muttered a bit when speaking, making it a little hard to hear her, but otherwise nothing seemed much out of the ordinary.

Another teacher, Mr. Cauley, handles all the social studies and philosophy courses on his own. He drew everyone's attention immediately - he would have fit into academia perfectly several hundred years ago. He's a large man with a very old-sounding accent, possibly Scottish, a thick beard (thick enough that it looked like he had mutton chops) and loose-fitting clothing that looked almost modern-Renaissance in nature. He spoke as though delivering a lecture with a tone of voice that expected respect from his students. His classroom had no signs of technology in it.

Your general sciences teacher is Mr. Allen, a skinny man with a nervous tick, who verbally fumbled about explaining the goals of the class and some of the basics of biology and chemistry he would be teaching soon. He seemed like the nervous type but apparently had the reflexes to pull it off. Every time he bumped into something one of his hands would be there almost before the second wobble, stabilizing or catching it. It was almost a form of entertainment in its own right, but you really wonder how safe practical labs will be.

After the full day of standard curriculum, you go back to homeroom to turn in your questionnaire and are shown your extracurricular hero electives options. These grades won't be on your "official" transcripts, but will be an influence for your capacities as a hero. While you don't have to, Mr. Smith mentions it is generally recommended to eventually take at least one course totally outside of your specialties, if for nothing else to get an idea of how such things function. Some of the course titles on the list seem strange to you, either in the premise or in the course title: Introduction to Magic, Experimental Technologies, Investigations, Records Archives (Research), Practical Subterfuge, Mythology and You, Applicable Divination, etc.

Everyone:

Answer questionnaire in spoiler, don't look at the others' answers if you can help it.

Then write down... let's say two electives classes that your character would take. I honestly haven't been able to come up with many options you might want, so if you're looking for something specific that sounds interesting just ask. You can take different courses or share a course with someone. Most likely a safe bet you'll get a benefit of some sort from the courses.

If there's a standard curriculum course you want more information on for whatever reason, I can probably come up with something.

[EdroGrimshell]

How do you think your first mission went? Why?
I think it went fairly well, no major injuries occured and we completed the mission without causing any significant damage.

How could it have turned out better?
We could have been both faster and more prepared. I myself had not charged beforehand, which left me vulnerable until I could.

How could it have turned out worse?
We could have been noticed before getting into position or one of us could have been injured.

Which teammate had the most influence in the mission? The least? Why?
Look at my answer to "Who is the Most Effective?". I answered it first and it applies here as well.

Who was the most strategic?
Warp, without a doubt. His powers pretty much require it, more so than even Curio's.

Who was the most effective?
If I were to be completely honest I would say it was a balance between everyone. Everyone supplied in various areas that kept us to close in effectiveness to tell which was most or least effective.

If you could re-do it, what would you have done differently, if anything?
Nothing at this point, changing something may very well have led to a worse result, and with the minimal injuries and damage it is the best result we could have gotten on such short notice.
Once she hands in her questionaire and takes a look at the electives, Angelica takes a moment to consider her options before choosing the ones that would be of interest. Introduction to Magic, Experimental Technologies, and Mythology and You. She was more interested in the second one, the other two were something that was more of a general interest from when she was young, she loved the fantasy genre, and magic and mythical creatures tended to prevail in them.

[Mekboy]

How do you think your first mission went? Why?

The mission went well. We stopped the theives without recieving any major wounds or causing large amounts of damage to the building.

How could it have turned out better?

We could have taken better advantage of the distraction Warp created and been faster to prepare our plan.

How could it have turned out worse?

The theives could have reached their prisoners and threatened us with them.

Which teammate had the most influence in the mission? The least? Why?

Warp had the greatest influence on the mission, as he provided a distraction when we first attacked and helped in the next combat. While Curio provided support with the table, he may have been able to help better.

Who was the most strategic?

Warp was the most strategic because he provided a distraction and removed theives while remaining safely placed.

Who was the most effective?

Conduit was the most effective as she successfully removed two of the theives and rescued their prisoners.

If you could re-do it, what would you have done differently, if anything?

As our team was successful and remained unwounded I would not choose to change anything about our actions.

With the questionnaire handed in, Avari spends a while perusing the various options, then a while more finding out what some of the words mean. So many of them seem interesting, but eventually she settles for Experimental Technologies, Mythology and You and Introduction to Magic.

[BluesEclipse]

How do you think your first mission went? Why?

It went rather well. No real damage caused to the bank, no hostages lost, and the culprits were caught.

How could it have turned out better?

Honestly, I don't know that there could have been a better outcome - except maybe if we had convinced them to surrender without a fight, but odds of that one happening would've been slim to none.

How could it have turned out worse?

If they had someone in with the hostages, they could've threatened their lives or even killed one or more of them. If we hadn't gone in quietly to begin with, they could've left us in a position where we had to choose between them escaping and people dying.

Which teammate had the most influence in the mission? The least? Why?

For most, it would be a toss-up between Conduit and Avari - the two of them are the ones who put themselves in the line of fire and did the bulk of the fighting. Least... Curio, or maybe myself.

Who was the most strategic?

Avari, definitely - she was the one who planned out our attack here.

Who was the most effective?

Conduit was the most effective, though Avari was close behind.

If you could re-do it, what would you have done differently, if anything?
In all honesty? Nothing - our plan was sound, our tactics worked, and we ended the conflict with no real injuries and no real threat at all to the hostages. I wouldn't want to change things and risk a worse result.

Jacob hands in his questionaire, and looks over the electives offered. He quickly decides to mark down both the Introduction to Magic and Experimental Technologies classes so that he can get more background on two of the most common ways a hero or villain can get their powers, and after a moment also selects the Practical Subterfuge course in the hopes that it might inspire him on some new ways to use his own power - and worst case scenario, he might learn something useful.

[betafin]

You hand your questionnaire in and electives sheet in. Before you leave, Mr. Smith tells the class that after they receive their mission results and begin their electives classes, if their scores are good enough (and they can maintain good grades in standard curriculum) the teams will be allowed to accept "missions" they qualify for that come up. Those will be posted on the freshman bulletin board while they are still applicable.

Warp:
Returning to their dorms, Warp and Curio are ambushed by about five other freshmen saying that their powers are so freaking useful and asking if they would help them unpack and move their stuff.

Two of them are the twins from your class who each have a different limb in a sling, one is a massive jock-looking guy and the last is a short kid with glasses you don't think you've noticed before.

Assume that Curio will just go along with whatever you decide. I've decided that since your power is a very good support role one, I'm basically going to be throwing connections at you to take advantage of its' flexibility.

Avari & Conduit:
On coming back to the dorms, you're alerted that the new dormmate has moved in and is unpacking. They had been with their family up until now and were assigned to your room due to "compatibility reasons."

On entering the room, you can see a thin, medium-tallish girl with long, grey-silver hair that seems to be sticking to her body, as though with static cling. She has her back to you two, it looks like she's just finishing up setting up the last of her stuff. There are various trinkets and knicknacks on her bedside shelf, and a photograph in a frame that she's just placing down. She turns around, looks at you two, looks at Conduit and says "OOooooh, FFFFFFFFFFF--"

The next hour or so consists of her calling the dorm head and very loudly complaining to be put into another room, which is denied, after which she furiously claims that "There is no way I'm going to be sharing this room with that...." --she searches for a word but fails to come up with one-- "bitch!" she finishes lamely. She also seems irritated that she couldn't come up with a better word. You can see the name "Alicia Serrias" on some of her papers lying around.

Conduit:
You sense a disturbance in the Force.
Avari:
You're a cheerful, upbeat, optimistic person, right? Welp, have fun with negotiations and diplomacy!


Well, Halloween's over now...

[EdroGrimshell]

"I have a feeling this is about my father," Angelica says, simply going over to her bed, she was used to this sort of thing, "you do know I'd prefer he go to hell myself, right?" she continues as if nothing was odd about it, "he killed my mother and tried to kidnap me when he found out I even existed. Not really an ideal father figure. Only good thing I got from him was my ability to absorb electricity," she seemed to not really be paying attention, and the mask of boredom she usually used was in place now, only people that could sense emotion or knew her really well would be able to tell what she was actually feeling, "I'm not him. Now, I'm going to the roof. See you tomorrow Avari," she says, already deciding she'd probably be staying up their tonight. She takes her pack and a rolled up bundle from her closet before going outside, briefly channeling electricity to her power harness and jumping up to the roof. She could have used the stairs, but honestly, this was a better way for her to calm down. Once their, she tunes into the radio signal and looks for her favorite channel and leans against the roof entrance.

[BluesEclipse]

Chuckling, Jacob says, "Eh... I suppose we can give you a hand. Just remember, you guys owe us one. Alright?"

[Mekboy]

Remaining quiet on her bed for after Angelica leaves, Avari spends a while thinking. Angelica had not really mentioned her father much in their previous conversations, and now it was obvious why. Alicia – that was her name, right? – did seem to have some big problem with her. Naturally, she disagreed with Alicia, after all, Angelica was a friend. They had fought together. Still, if she could at least try to make friends with Alicia, she could try and convince her Angelica was alright. Recalling her and Angelica’s first conversation, she begins.

“My name is Avari Ethnul. I do not want to argue with you, but Angelica is my friend. She seems to me to be a good person. I do not want that to be a barrier between us. Please can we discuss other things? I understand everyone here is different from normal in some way. What is it that you can do?”

If necessary, Diplomacy: [roll0]

[betafin]

Warp:
Helping them move is easy enough.

You immediately find out that the large guy's main problem was that everything he owns has to be reinforced, and thus is non-collapsible or disassemblable, and thus a pain to get through doorways. His name is Chaz (codename - Goliath), and he has some sort of earth-elemental affinity. You don't really understand it and he wasn't very good at describing it, but it has something to do with proximity to the Earth and earth itself. Despite him looking like a jock, he seems to be a decent person. The material of much of his stuff is so dense that Curio has a lot of trouble bending it even slightly through possession and animation, and you find that you have to really concentrate to move it accurately (without missing and breaking the room). It seems like high density and weight (or maybe the materials?) can somewhat throw off your precision.

Moving on to the twins (Darren and Derrick; aka Dual and Duos), you learn that their abilities are mutal support when they act in tandem with someone - essentially, they boost the effects and capabilities of themselves and other people (especially each other) when they work together. This apparently has something to do with their injuries, but they really don't seem like they want to talk about it. They say they would be able to do the moving themselves, but also (looking very awkward) tell you that they would probably cause each other more injuries from 'boosting' as a result of already having their current ones.

Finally, the small kid with the glasses (Martin, codenamed Asterisk). He has the physical strength of the common lemongrass and the first thing he does is flat-out refuse Curio's direct help, as everything he owns is sensetive technology and he doesn't want to risk something breaking, so Curio is delegated to possessing a table and quietly rolling things along back and forth from a moving truck that just arrived. Mountains of computer and technology parts later, he thanks you and informs you that he can handle setting everything up from here. He says he's going into investigations and archives, so if you need help just ask.

They all give you their numbers and owe a favor or two.

Avari:
She looks incredibly... angry? It's hard to tell at this point. She looks like she's about to cry from frustration. "I don't care," she says, "It's not something I expect you to understand. I... know I have to room with her. I can put up with it. But I do not want to. I don't want to get to know her. I just want... Rrrrgh!"

She seems resigned to the fact that they are making her room here, and doesn't seem to hold anything against you (except maybe by proxy). She throws her stuff into place and lays down to go to sleep without another word.

Conduit:
Sitting on the roof, Conduit stares up at the stars that are starting to emerge as the sky grows dark. She sits and watches for a long time as the night deepens, and the moon rises above the city skyline.

Excuse me, miss. It is dorm policy to be indoors, in your room at night." You may or may not have flinched, depending on how you choose to remember it. Really, this is the second time a teacher has caught you unawares in a two-day timespan, you might really start to suspect that the teachers are closet sadists or something. It's like none of them have even heard of introducing themselves first... Anyway, looking over, you see that it's the mathematics teacher, Ms. Enoshima.

"Apologies, I'm still learning the dorm rosters. I am in charge of this section, you see. You are..." and she checks a personnel list. "Ah? Oh. Ooooooh..." You hear her mutter as she flips through to your page, and then to another page following that. "So that's what's up?"

She sits down next to you. "Look, I don't blame you for anything. But others might... especially if people around them have been hurt. I might not have any right to say this, but my advice is to just give it time. Let things run their course, and they will eventually heal." She pats you on the back. "But either way, you have to stay in your dorms at night. It's... well, I'm not really sure why, but it's one of those traditions."

She gets up and opens the roof access door back to the downstairs landing, gesturing you to go back down. "If you need someone to talk to, just ask."

[EdroGrimshell]

"Sorta thought it was tradition to sneak out and have a night on the town," Angelica says, still leaning against the roof, "just give me tonight, and I'll be fine staying in the dorm, just need some time to calm down, and I'm sure she does too..." she requests, this happened every now and then, normally, she'd have ignored it, but, every now and then, it'd break through. This was one of those times.

[betafin]

Conduit:
"Well..." She checks her watch. "...Look, you have half an hour before the security systems come on. And they're not all electronic, or technological. I really think it would be a good idea for you to be in your dorm room, but, if you really don't want to go back there tonight... I guess I could let you use the couch in my quarters." She gives a deep sigh, perhaps from exhasperation or resignation.

I actually meant to have that as the reason behind the "tradition" but forgot to add it in when I was proofing it, and that probably would have changed your response. Sorry about that.

But yeah, the upperclassmen do start to sneak out when they've become skilled enough. There are some reasons why it's not a good idea for the newer students to be out, that'll come up later.

[EdroGrimshell]

"Thanks," Angelica says, deciding to go with the teacher. She wouldn't say any more than that tonight, at least, not while she was awake.

[Mekboy]

With the chances for any further conversation somewhat stymied by the fact that Alicia is asleep, Avari drifts off as well.

[BluesEclipse]

After helping the others move, Warp and Curio decide to head back to their own dorm for the rest of the night.

[betafin]

Avari:
During the night, you are woken up by crackling noises. You open your eyes in time to see a flash of electricity crackling up the wall where Alicia is sleeping. Then there's nothing. Then another bolt of electricity sparks across the ceiling, leaving a small black trail behind it.

This occurs sporadically throughout the night. You start to suspect the exact reason why she was assigned this room. In the morning, if you so choose to bring it up:
Alicia's face turns red and she says nothing, hurridly getting her things and rushing out of the room. It seems as though this is something that is very embarrassing to her.

Morning comes, you get ready and head for class. All of you meet up around the same point in the entryway of the hallway and walk to class. You remember that today is when you are supposed to get your mission results back, and feel slightly apprehensive. The rest of the class is already crowded around a paper pinned up by the door, and you can hear some cheers and groans.

Squeezing through the crowd to look, you can see the results (in no particular order). Oddly, there is no visible overall score - it the categories that are being measured are coordination, efficacy, collateral, directness, indirectness and ingenuity. It seems to be out of 100? There's no indicator of scale, or even if any of the scores are good or bad.

Your scores are:

Coordination: 78
Efficacy: 89
Collateral: 14
Directness: 87
Indirectness: 13
Ingenuity: 20

You hear a triumphant "Hah!" from Alicia, who has her finger on her team, or more specifically, their efficacy of 99. Their coordination score is lower by at least 10, but the others are about the same or higher. Ingenuity (70) is easily the highest ingenuity score of the teams. Some nearby people mutter darkly, and the girl with singed hair (team collateral: 50) walks off griping something about 'her not having to something something out-of-control fires.'

In homeroom, Mr. Smith casually dodges any questions about the scores, leaving some people looking very depressed, and passes out the locations of your electives classes. They will take place every day after the standard classes, one per day, on a daily rotation basis.

Do you have a specific order you want the elective courses to be in? Ie which one today, tomorrow, the next day?

[EdroGrimshell]

Ingenuity, probably low because we went with a rather direct approach, which is reflected in our scores. I don't think we caused much collateral damage, the worst was a filing cabinet from Warp and the table from Curio. So Low on Collateral is probably good. We'll have to work on indirect combat, though Warp and Curio have powers geared towards that, hopefully Intro to Magic and Experimental Tech will help me with that a bit so I can help the others.

Angelica's thoughts continue to analyze until she gets into class, which she decided she'd be wearing her harness to every day from now on since that surprise 'test' on their first day, and she charged up before class, bringing a few half dead AA batteries, as an emergency power source, she'd need to get rechargeable ones later, maybe some high power ones once she got into Experimental Tech.

She glances at Alicia, it was best she not talk to her, but she wanted to at least know what her gripe with her was, if it was just because her father was a villain and she saw her as her father's daughter, then it wasn't worth the trouble, but, if it was another reason, maybe she could work around it somehow. For now though, she'd have to just wait and see.

For Order:
1) Introduction to Magic
2) Experimental Technologies
3) Mythology and You

[BluesEclipse]

Jacob looks at the scores, thinking over them for a moment. Not too bad... Coordination is good for a group that hasn't really worked together before, and the Efficacy is nothing to sneeze at. Low Collateral can only be a good thing, though it's somewhat surprising that we still seem to trend towards a direct approach even with me and Curio both on the team. Still, it seemed appropriate for the situation. Ingenuity... we can work on that one, I suppose. Not bad overall, it looks like. Nodding to himself, he heads towards the cluster of seats reserved for his team. "Mornin'... sleep well?" he asks, casually.

Elective Order:
Introduction to Magic
Experimental Technologies
Practical Subterfuge

[Mekboy]

Looking over the scores, Avari is quite happy with the results. Low scores in indirectness and ingenuity, in that case simple had proven to be effective. The coordination score was particularly pleasing.

In response to Warp's greeting she scowls slightly. "We have a new person in our room. She is decidedly vocal about having to share with Angelica. And while she was sleeping she awoke me with sparks of electricity." Smiling, she continues. "That aside it was acceptable. The sleeping arrangements here are quite comfortable."

Electives:
Introduction to Magic
Experimental technology
Mythology and you

[EdroGrimshell]

"Don't concern yourself with it Avari," Angelica says, "she has a problem with my father, most likely, he's a rather well known villain, people tend to project their dislike for him onto me if they know my heritage, and most people do, unfortunately," she glances at her again, "It's a waste of time to worry about it at this point, as long as she doesn't decide to instigate anything we'll be fine," she shakes her head at this point, "I gave her time to calm down last night. If what you said about her sparking is right, I have a feeling I know why she was put there, and why I need to be in the room."

[betafin]

Mr. Smith lets you go for the day, telling you the days and times the electives will be held. He mentions that those who selected Introduction to Magic will be able to begin later that day, and wishes you best of luck. On that subject, he also advised those who applied to have patience and perseverance, in the same exact tone of voice as when he spoke to you about Captain Antes.

Most of the day is, for lack of a better word, mundane. The closest to interesting is math, which is largely self-study as Ms. Enoshima is filling out paperwork for most of the class. The occasional crossing of paths with Alicia results in her face turning slightly red and quickening her pace, not looking at Conduit at all. At the end of the day you rush towards what you have really been looking for, the first electives course.

Arriving at the location for Introduction to Magic you can see a medium-sized group already there, and a few familiar faces from your homeroom nod hello on recognizing you. It seems that a lot of people took an interest in the course. Some look nervous, others oddly skeptical, and very few comfortable and at-home. The door opens.

You walk inside to a *very* spacious, old-looking circular room with a large ornate circular carpet covering much of the floor, chairs evenly spaced against the walls and another door at the end. Relatively high up on the walls are shelves with various arcane and occult-looking items - candelabras with intricate runes across them, a stack of tarot cards, various strange medallions, an antique Victorian era-esque doll, a sword, a vicious-looking spear, etc. The chandelier's candles illuminate the entire room with a soft glow, but much brighter than candles should be able to. There are exquisite wooden carvings on just about everything, including the paneling. The door opposite you opens, and a secretarial-looking woman steps out, gestures for you all to follow her, then steps back in.

The group moves forward, and when everyone is through the door shuts behind you all. You're in a library with a literal maze of bookshelves that stretch all the way up to the low ceiling. There is no sign of the secretary from before, but in front of you is a placard stating: "The path to knowledge is not immediately obvious."

A few students nod to themselves and immediately start walking in random directions, with the rest following someone else or choosing their own direction. Some use their abilities - a guy with spiky black hair closes his eyes and begins walking, and you can see a faint glow as the outline in the shape of another pair of eyes traces across his forehead. Another classmate, a girl with short recently cut hair and very large glasses, takes out a crystal on a chain and swings it slightly before moving on in a very sporadic path.

There is the opening around you, with eight gaps in the bookshelves - one in each cardinal direction with another inbetween two, like a + overlaid with an x. The wall and door are no longer visible, you notice.

Everyone:
Okay, I have this figured out. Choose what to do, and with each post you make, even if a reply post, make a will save and then EITHER an investigate, notice, search or survival check. You may want to mix those checks up every so often. This won't take long if you roll well or are inventive.
Sorry this was late, but bloody hell it took me a long time to come up with a workable way to do this. Everything I thought up with was either reliant on real-time interaction or would take an entire year to get through...

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica closes her eyes and extends her senses, particularly her electrosensory abilities, before opening her eyes again, "Jacob, Avari, let's see if we can't find where we're supposed to go," she says quietly. Then consults her senses to see which way they should go.

Will Save: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

[BluesEclipse]

Nodding, Jacob answers, "Yeah... though... the phrase there seems almost like a riddle. Maybe that has something to do with it?" Jacob thinks as he scans the room for any indication of the correct path.

Will: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

[Mekboy]

Avari considers the note. "Maybe this is not real? This place is for magic, yes? It could be some form of false image..." She walks over and places a hand on a bookshelf, partly to test its reality, partly to examine in more closely.

Will: [roll0]
Search: [roll1]

Also, can I sense anything particularly odd through scent or ultrasonic hearing?

[betafin]

Curio:
Will Save: [roll0]
Survival: [roll1]


Curio feels trapped here. Something nags at him, though, and he frowns slightly and starts thinking. After a few seconds, he asks Conduit and Avari how the other students' progress is - how far away are they, how are they moving, etc. That said, he has no idea what the information could signify and starts feeling totally lost.

Conduit senses the surroundings and identifies the other students milling around the maze, some more purposeful and directed than others, but aside from that there are no signs of anyone else. It seems like the maze is much larger than it initially seems, from how spaced out they're getting, and... it also seems like everyone is moving in a gradual clockwise manner. As she focuses on figuring this out she suddenly realizes that, counting their presences, there is one student missing! She has no idea when it happened, though. Looking at her immediate surroundings, she just sees immaculately clean and ornate wood-carved bookshelves on carpet, nothing else of note. Each direction looks as good as any.

Warp immediately hones in on one very fundamental fact: it's a maze! And as such, everyone is, naturally, wandering around in it. Glancing around him, he sees that everything looks the same in any given direction -- aside from the books looking different, of course. There are no discernable patterns in the books, though, which are very thick, have old bindings and are all in languages he can't read, or even recognize.

Avari uses her powerful senses and tells the others that she identifies... dust, but only in the center of the room where they're standing. Listening for the other students, she can hear that the ones further away are either moving the fastest or backtracking the most. A few are cursing as well. Several of the people closer by are moving slower, or at least more purposefully. Reaching over to examine the bookshelves she notices that there are no books labels, or anything that distinguishes them from any of the others. Putting some weight against it does not budge in the slightest. By all means it appears to be real.

Avari and Curio seem to be getting really fidgety and feel like they want to start moving and exploring. The rest of you don't feel the need.

[Mekboy]

Trailing her hand along the bookshelf, Avari starts to wander down the nearest corridor. "It feels real... Maybe I am thinking too much. We should start moving."

Will: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

Also, just to clarify, ultrasonic hearing is for tones higher than human hearing (dog whistles, bat's sonar, et.c.), not just hearing at greater accuracy.

[BluesEclipse]

Thinking for a moment, Jacob looks back at the message again. "There's something we're missing... something important. Though, I would've thought that the path to knowledge would've been outside this place - we're pretty much surrounded by knowledge here, right?" He gestures at the books as an example. "...You don't suppose we're supposed to find something in these books that will help us figure out the right path?"

Will: [roll0]
Investigate: [roll1]

[EdroGrimshell]

"...One of the students is missing, or isn't emitting electrical impulses," Angelica says, "honestly, I suggest just staying here, the fact it says 'not immediately obvious' makes me think we should do the opposite of what we'd normally do."

Will Save: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

[betafin]

Curio rolls:
Will save: [roll0]
Search: [roll1]

[betafin]

Avari:
I'm going on the assumption that you have better hearing than the others what with different alien physiology and ultrasonic hearing capacity.
Warp walks over and flips through a few nearby books. He can't read them but they seem legit, each one is distinctly different from the others. In fact, from him shuffling different books trying to notice anything wrong, it really seems like a library of some sort, minus the Dewey Decimal System.

Warp:
Sometimes when picking a book up you notice that the strange texts on them seem to start changing to a different shape, but always just out of the corner of your eye and stops when you look.

(Your next Will save will determine what you meta-learn of this.)
Avari, held back by the others being cautious and taking their time, starts to feel mentally clearer and more purposeful. It still definitely seems like an aimless maze, but there's noticeably less draw to it.

Avari:
Casually glancing across the bookshelves, she hears one relatively close person's footsteps stop. They can't be more than a few rows away, although she's not paying particularly close attention to the others across the maze. She does, however, hear a papery sliding noise followed by a male voice mutter something that she can't quite make out (it sounds calm - like the person asked themself a question) and then there's absolutely nothing. No noise whatsoever.
Something about what Warp said latches onto Conduit's mind. This is a maze, after all, but in why are there books? You all are technically surrounded by knowledge, aren't you... She figures that this would probably be easier if any of them had magical abilities, and is starting to suspect that a few of the more purposefully-moving students do.

Conduit:
The natural thing to do in a maze is explore, but the placard doesn't directly bring it up. In fact, it focuses on 'knowledge' instead. Maybe the placard isn't as much directions as an indicator of how to think?

Now that she's paying close attention to the presences of people, Conduit suddenly looks over in the direction Avari is as another nearby presence suddenly vanishes.
Curio springs up suddenly through a spark of inspiration, looking as though he's bipolar in the process. "Wait, say that again!", he says to Warp. "This is a library, right?" He starts walking down the same path as Avari, looking among the rows for anything that draws his attention.

Everyone:
The first round was setting the stage for the findings this round, the next round or two could be used to find the mechanisms you need to clear it.

[EdroGrimshell]

"Another one vanished..." Conduit says, looking in the direction, she narrows her eyes, then her eyes start to glow and spark as she channels her electricity to them to empower her senses.

Spend enough points to get electricity control with the alternate power Detect and Awareness for Energy, trying to tune into magical energy.

Will: [roll0]
Search: [roll1]

[Mekboy]

Avari looks back towards the group. "I heard him. It sounded to me like he read something from one of the books before he left." Drawing a random book from the nearest shelf, she flips it open.

Will: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

[BluesEclipse]

Warp thinks for a moment, Did that book just... He looks at Avari taking one of the books, and says, "Hey... memorize the page you're on, then pass it here. Don't say what's in it, though - let me see that for myself."

Will: [roll0]
Search: [roll1]

[betafin]

Curio Rolls:
Will: [roll0]
Investigate: [roll1]

[betafin]

Avari hands the still-unreadable book over to Warp to compare results, Curio is still flipping around while moving further away and Conduit's eyes eerily glow as she looks at the room around her.

Conduit:
Conduit extends her senses outwards and... well, short answer: she can't sense anything. Magic doesn't seem to operate on a level she's familiar with.

Long answer: she can't sense anything. There are none of the usual traces of various forms of electrical energy flowing around. And it's not just that there is nothing here, even the familiar "ley line"-ish currents that energy moves by when it's not being directed just aren't present. The sheer, almost oppressive lack of free-moving energy is suspicious and makes her feel somewhat uncomfortable.

Cumulative Will save hint:
Putting her mind on it, it's like the rules here are different. This doesn't seem to be a normal place, let alone natural. It's like everything here is just standing by for a stimuli.

In fact, thinking about everything that has happened so far, she has to question if everything here has been operating by some sort of ruleset the entire time.
Warp:
Warp takes the book from Avari and looks at it for himself. It... does not change. Comparing what he sees with what Avari describes, the strange texts look the same as when she had it.

Cumulative Will save hint:
After studying the nearby books and then comparing that to Avari's book, Warp suspects that they only change when someone isn't specifically focusing on them. But then what is it that decides what they "lock" at? It seems to be a triggerable cause-effect event.
Avari:
There's books! So many books! Overwhelming amounts of books! If you run you might find a better spot! Run!

Since she has been keeping her actual senses honed the entire time (if not her mental fortitude), she has started to notice that as she moves further forward the text on the books' spines seem to change more often. She has no idea if they will get more readable, however.
Everyone:
If you suspect something and want to try it, you don't necessarily have to act as a group. It's fully possible for someone to individually trigger a reaction, on purpose or by stumbling across it with the right setup and a lucky roll.

By the way, at this point I'll flat out say that low will saves will get you swept up in the maze aspect of it and higher will saves will get progressively clearer hints (I'm trying not to make them too obvious or too obfuscated). So far this has had a disturbing level of correlation to their personalities.

[EdroGrimshell]

Not even the slightest bit of energy... Angelica thinks, eyes narrowing as the lighting in them dies down, she instantly goes to one of the bookshelves, then does something that'd seem very spontaneous, she fires a bolt of lightning at the shelves, keeping her senses up and running, but more focused to the nearby area.

Will: [roll0] 21 via Hero Point
Notice: [roll1]

May use a Hero Point if I roll too low. was too low for comfort, spent a hero point

[BluesEclipse]

Warp looks around at the books, raising an eyebrow as Conduit fires a lightning blast at one of the nearby shelves. After a moment's thought, he closes his eyes, raises a hand towards one of the shelves farther down the hall, and thinks, I can only guess the books lock their text when opened... do they show what the reader needs them to? If so... I need directions on how to proceed through this test. He fixes the final thought firmly in his mind as he fires one of his warp bolts down the hall, teleporting an as-of-yet unseen book into his hand. Upon receiving the book, he opens it, wondering if his hunch was right.

Will Save: [roll0] Hero point spent to reroll(in OOC): 20
Survival: [roll1]

Like Conduit, I reserve the right to use hero points as needed.

[Mekboy]

Handing the book back to Warp, Avari suddenly feels overwhelmed. It all seems too much - the library, the maze, the ever-changing books. Breathing quickening, Avari panics and starts to run.
Will: [roll0]
Notice:[roll1]

[betafin]

Curio:
Will: [roll0]
Survival: [roll1]

[betafin]

Thanks to a small amount of circumstance and some memory, I do in fact have power!

There is a blinding flash of light as Conduit's lightning arcs through the air, hitting the bookshelves. The shelves and books glow a hot white for a moment, then the electricity pulses outwards along the bookshelves and into the maze. Facing a different direction, Warp portals in a random book. Closing his eyes in concentration, he mutters slightly to himself before opening the book. Behind them, Curio takes a cue from Warp and also closes his eyes while reaching out at random while Avari dives further into the maze.

Conduit:
Conduit sees that her electricity keeps to the bookshelves and doesn't seem to touch the actual books. Sensing outwards, she can feel it trace a short path along the bookshelves until it stops at a specific point a small distance away.

What really stands out is that, unlike when she normally uses her power, the electricity stays stable after she fires it, sticking to the line it "drew" without dispersing or spreading. It also doesn't behave like a natural element, as electricity usually does; she can still feel a connection to it - it's as though it were still a part of her, still inside her, but simultaneously being spread outwards into the outside world. It's a new sensation that feels... well, slightly discomforting to say the least, but could range to downright heretical depending on her feelings about (very) personal boundaries.

She hears a strange noise behind you for a brief moment, almost like what it would sound like if the air itself was gasping for air. Warp's nearby presence vanishes. She also notices that in that small time frame when she was distracted by the electricity, four other far-away presences have disappeared.
Warp:
Finally looking at the book you opened, the first thing Warp notices is that he didn't see the text change at all. Feeling disappointed that the text didn't change around and then lock, it takes a few seconds for the fact he could actually read the text in the first place to kick in.

The first page says, in large letters, "Introduction to Magic."

As Warp reads it to himself, his vision suddenly goes black and he feels whirling air around him and a vertigo feeling dropping into the pit of his stomach.
Avari:
Avari dashes through the maze, trying to find a way through this confounded puzzle. She's not built for this kind of thing! No sane person back home would have enjoyed something like this!

At this point it's hard to even discern which direction is up, let alone the correct way to go. She's moving through the maze more on impulse than logic. The texts around her shimmer and change more and more, and the more she goes the easier and easier it seems to get to run further outwards in the maze.

[EdroGrimshell]

Angelica grins, well, Warp made it, and she was onto it too. She picked a book up and focused, not only on her electricity, "I want to learn," she whispers, "expand my horizons," she continues, "show me the way," she then opens the book.

[BluesEclipse]

Warp blinks, looking around himself curious as he experiences the unusual sensasion of movement, thinking, I wonder if this is what teleporting actually feels like...

[Mekboy]

Some degree of panic turning to curiosity, Avari considers her options. It would probably be impossible to get back to her friends, and anyway the maze seemed easier to move through this way. Maybe if she tried to find someone else nearby they could help?

Trying to hear/smell someone nearby and get to them. If no-one's there, just keep going.

Will: [roll0]
Notice: [roll1]

EDIT: Or keep running and screaming. That works too.