[M&M 3e] Defying the Future IC

[Zelphas]

August 1, 2018. The Dome has been over the city for a month.

In that time, while the League of the Future formed at least in name, the five super-powered people have rarely interacted, at least in public. Lockdown focuses on building up his power base by recruiting people with potential and people without—anyone who’s willing to make a deal. Manchineel sticks to the Manitou Forest, sending out monsters occasionally and steadily erasing all signs of human habitation from the lands around Forester’s Bay. Apophis appears where he wishes and does whatever he likes, sowing small seeds of chaos independently from his fanatic followers, the Suneaters. Doctor Proxy remains unseen, abducting people and things almost at random and creating new mechanical monsters to serve their strange purpose. And Watcher makes his speeches about patience and the needs of the future and remains in his Obelisk, rarely seen, the shimmering Dome a constant evidence of his invisible presence.

The city of Forester’s Bay is by no means in a good place, but being menaced by five supervillains with varying levels of intensity is not as bad as a concerted team effort would be, and there’s no real signs of a true alliance coming into place between the members of the League.

At least, until today.

Here’s the series of events, from what you each could pick up. Nope, sitting quietly in his normal persona in a bar in Pub Alley known to be frequented by Bronze Links, overheard a conversation about a deal struck between a Proxysuit and Dragon, the Gold Link in charge of recruitment and discipline in the Chain Gang. It seems that there was a warehouse on the edge of Forester’s Park that contains some sort of plastic which Doctor Proxy wanted, and they were willing to hire the Chain Gang to secure the warehouse for them as a gesture of cooperation. Whatever Doctor Proxy wants, Nope doesn’t want them to get, so Remy prepared to step in.

Floral, watching the movement of the Saplings on the edges of the Manitou forest, spied a Bronze Link member enter into the forest waving a white flag and calling out to negotiate with Manchineel. About a day later, she was passing by Forester’s Park and saw a small group of Saplings and a malformed, hugely muscled boar-like creature with a piece of white cloth wrapped around one of its tusks entering into a warehouse… through one wall. That seems like something a Superhero should deal with!

Helios and Ariadne knew the least about the situation; they both responded separately to rumors about Apophis appearing in the area, and followed the sound of destroyed architecture and fighting.

At first, dealing with the group of Bronze Links led by the Silver Link known as “Wrath”, the Helpers sent by Doctor Proxy, and even the Saplings led by the Punishment-boar went fairly well; as the four super-heroes on the scene, you were able to recognize one another and coordinate fairly quickly, even against the fiery blasts of Wrath and the raging swipes of the Punishment. Doctor Proxy’s Helpers seemed to ignore everyone as long as nothing got in their way, so you were able to leave them alone and focus on the other enemies. The Bronze Links started falling quickly and the Saplings weren’t far behind.

And then a pair of honest-to-Ra mummies wandered in through the warehouse doors, wailing through their bindings and setting upon anything moving that they came across. The battle got… a bit more chaotic after that.

Wrath, her dark brown hair in disarray, the “glove” of delicate silver chains melting into slag on her left hand, looks up from the charred remains of one mummy, her bright orange eyes glowing with anger as she snarls at the remaining Bronze Links to “Deal with the other one so we can focus, here!” Waves of heat roll off of her, distorting the air. The Bronze Links move to obey, one Link looking nervously across at the Boar Punishment, two closing in on the remaining mummy, and the other four spreading out from where they were supporting Wrath to face down their foes.

The Boar Punishment coughs wetly and grunts, Helios’ Combust still taking a slight toll on the massive beast, though it is far from beaten. It and the Saplings have gone berserk from the chaos, lashing out at anything near them. One support pillar is already down, and the Boar eyes the other pillars through its black, hate-filled eyes.

The Helpers have been darting in and out of the warehouse doors in orderly columns, taking packaged blocks of plastic sheeting to a secondary location, depositing them there, and then returning in blurs of speed. Now, they have encountered an obstacle. The Helper at the lead of the column lifts itself slightly on its squat chrome legs, one spindly arm reaching out with an almost inquisitive air towards the mummy standing in its path, then to either side at the Bronze Links also in the way. The other Helpers wait with unnatural stillness, ready to strike or flee as the front-runner makes its assessment.

For the mummy’s part, it continues to wail and mutter in what might be Ancient Egyptian, its cloth-wrapped head rolling from side to side as it looks at nothing at all, twitching in unnatural jerks first this direction, next that one.

The situation may have gotten a little bit out of hand.

Spoiler: Helios

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Two days ago, you eavesdropped on Dante testing out his powers. He chanted for a long moment, slammed his fists into the ground, and pulled two mummies by the head out of the ground, directing them with his mind as though they were puppets. Satisfied, he drove the mummies back into the ground and muttered to himself that he was “one step closer.”

It’s a fair bet to guess that these mummies aren’t from Apophis directly, but “gifts” from Dante to Helios.

Spoiler: Assessment DC 10 (nested)

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The Bronze Links are PL 6 (+4/+2), with a 2-point Defense shift.

The Saplings are PL 7 (+7/+0), with a 2-point Defense shift.

The Helpers are PL 6, (+6/+0), with a 2/point Defense shift.

All are minions.

Spoiler: DC 15

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Boaris is PL 10.

The Reanimated is PL 10.

Spoiler: DC 20

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Wrath is PL 10.

Boaris’ Attack and Effect shifts are +5/+5.

The Reanimated’s Attack and Effect shifts are +8/+2.

Spoiler: DC 25

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Wrath’s Attack and Effect shifts are +8/+2.

Boaris has a 2-point Resistance Shift.

The Reanimated has a 2-point Resistance shift.

Spoiler: DC 30

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Wrath has a 2-point Defense shift.

Spoiler: OOC

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OOC Thread

Here’s the map! Place yourself wherever you like on it within the warehouse.

All PCs have 1 Bruise to start off, since we’re starting in the middle of a fight. And since it’s in the middle of a fight, All PCs are on turn. Best of luck!

[Quellian-dyrae]

This was...absolute chaos.

The notion that the villains might actually be starting to actively work together had been disconcerting. To that extent, the arrival of the mummies was, oddly enough, kinda reassuring. Whatever coordination was going on between them clearly was imperfect at best. Then again, coordination between the three who, you know, weren't possibly-literally Egyptian gods of chaos still wasn't great news.

Floral had done some good work as a hero in the past few weeks, she felt. Well, some decent work. Well, she had won all of her fights, anyway, no need to comment on how high that particular bar may or may not have been. This battle was...of a rather larger scale though. This didn't, in itself, worry her all that much.

After all, the villains weren't the only ones coordinating here. (Okay, "coordinating" might have been being generous but also they were four for four on working together and the bad guys only three for four so hah!)

No, what scared her, right now, was the realization that if the people-place-time combination had been wrong in certain particulars, it could just have easily been her brother and sister fighting this battle instead of her. Her siblings were certified badasses, but they weren't strong enough to face battles of this scale. Lily wasn't sure that the full fighting strength of the Forester's Bay Police Department was.

Lily had only had her powers for a few weeks. She had next to no combat training, and next to no experience.

But the simple fact remained that she was.

Standing just inside the doorway to the warehouse, the sun was warm on her back. The little bruise on her shoulder that the mummy had tagged her with was already fading away.

"My turn."

Lily pointed a hand, and a six-inch diameter vine shot out from it - if one looked closely, they would see the skin of her palm actually smoothly transitioning into the structure of the vine. It extended out practically to the other side of the warehouse, shooting up over the heads of the mummy and the various Helperbots all lined up behind it. Above each of their heads, a cluster of what looked like grapes grew down from the vine.

Except these grapes, rather than pale green or dark purple, had an almost violently vibrant, neon orange hue.

And then they exploded, unleashing a deluge of bright orange acid down on the heads of the robots and the mummy.

(Lily wasn't...actually sure whether her typical repertoire would work against them just as well, but while she may have lacked personal combat experience, she had played enough video games and RPGs and such to figure best not to bother trying things like poisons and pheomones on undead and robots.)

The acidic grapes also seared the vines that had delivered them, some of the acid spreading through the vines to eat them away. This normally wouldn't matter much, unless for example someone had modified the cellular structure of the vines to chemically react with citric acid to produce a cloying smell that would be mildly unpleasant to those with the right sort of pheromone signatures, and nauseatingly caustic to anyone else. But who would do such a thing?

Spoiler

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Beginning in AD31.

Free: Reconfigure Flower Power. 10 points to Photosynthetic Regeneration, 10 points to Acidic Nectar, 10 points to Floral Vines, 10 points to Heady Scent (Variable Descriptor to use Overwhelming Scent's [Physiological] [Nausea]), 10 points to Floral Scent.

Move: Nah.

Standard: Attack with Acidic Vines and Heady Floral Scent. The Heady Scent is Selective Perception Area (Olfactory), so it targets...I dunno however many folks are reasonable Perception Area's big but it's a big map. Anyone hit gets Defense DC 20 to negate since Perception Area, and then if they fail that Resistance DC 20 vs. [Physiological] [Nausea] Immobilized/Stunned/Incapacitated. In addition, Reanimated and the six Helperbots behind him are subject to the Acidic Vines, so if they get hit their Resistance check also faces DC 25 [Energy] [Acid] Damage, regardless of the results of the Defense check (although they're probably immune to the Heady Scent anyway so whatever).

I'll Routine the attack rolls against the Minions for 20.
Reanimated: (1d20+10)[12].
Boaris: (1d20+10)[12].
Wrath: (1d20+10)[16]

End of Turn: Regenerate 1 Bruise.

Current Status: Normal.

[Dorni]

From where he'd been engaged with the boar creature, Helios is momentarily taken aback by the mummies abruptly stumbling into the warehouse. "Nergal." He all but spat. The solar hero rose into the air and flew towards the front of the building, the boar temporarily abandoned. He threw a hand out towards the mummy. Golden runes filled the air before his outstretched hand one after the other, winking out as abruptly as they appeared - and a curtain of fire abruptly engulfed the middle of the warehouse, blinding in its brilliance. When the firestorm disappeared it was apparent that the firestorm had left both support columns completely unharmed and had stopped short of engulfing Floral.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move: To W29, floating 20ft up
Standard: Cast Solar Flare centered on AC24. DC 25/20 vs Damage & Linked Affliction [Vulnerable/Defenseless]

Helperbot 1: Routine 20
Helperbot 2: Routine 20
Helperbot 3: Routine 20
Sapling: Routine 20
Bronze Link: Routine 20
Reanimated 25 Rolled OOC

[Abracadangit]

Kal watched the pandemonium unfold from a distance, her needle darting left and right, as tiny veils of red thread covered the eyeholes of her mask, in response to the roaring flames. As soon as the fire had subsided, the veils unraveled back into nothing.

"I don't know if I'm cut out for a team," Kal thought to herself, concerned. "Everyone knows where to be and what to do, and I'm still figuring everything out for the first time."

Ariadne's whispers echoed, down the corridors of her mind. "You worry much, engoní, which accomplishes little. When you push a needle against the cloth, does the needle hesitate, trembling in your fingers? No, it pushes through, and it cares nothing for what is in its way. Be like a needle, mikrí engoní. Push through, and then..."

"Then weave the Thread, I know," Kal thought back, a little tired of the sewing metaphors. And if Kal was the needle, did that make Ariadne the seamstress holding her...? She could only think on that topic for a fraction of a second -- any longer than that, and Ariadne would pick up on it, Kal had learned. There would be time for figuring all of that out later, but now, to Ariadne's point, she had to react.

The boar looked to be tremendously strong, and if there was one thing Kal learned from her admittedly small vigilante-ing experience, it was that big, brawny menaces were best dealt with by being tied up in a ball. With some deft needle strokes, she began to conjure hundreds of red threads around the boar, twisting and turning into crimson ropes to ensnare him. By fanning the thread across the air with broad flourishes, she directed some of the weblike patterns to catch a nearby Sapling as well.

Spoiler

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Starting Point: AB31.

Free: Setting Thread Combat Array to Snaring Strands, and Threadwork Conjurations Array to (edit: Mass Thread Combat).

Move: Staying put.

Standard: Targeting Boar (edit: AND nearby Sapling) with Snaring Strands, thank you to Zelphas for the helpful information.

Boar: (1d20+10)[17]

Edited following some pointers from Zelphas.

[Ridai]

As vines form and acid fruit (acid fruit?! Ohh, I get it now...) burst and mesmerizing thread patterns are woven, the indistinct figure the others know to be Nope is careening through the air, cartwheeling multiple times while kind of flailing, momentary blinded by the whole place getting flashbanged, with an alarmed "Wooooaaaaah!" of an otherwise just aggressively nondescript voice for good measure. The "plan" was to get out of the way of one Boaris by taking a brief break from gravity towards the ceiling, but Boaris had different plans and just rammed him as he started going up. Since acceleration is mostly cancelled right now, that meant a trajectory ending with haphazardly hooking his foot on the upper end of one of the support beams. One of the ones positively swarming with bad guys down below. No pressure.

Well, it could have been worse? But also kind of asked for it when he went to a bar in the rowdy part of town to spy on Chaingangers, when one Remy rarely ever went to a bar (especially alone), doesn't even drink alcohol and such. And then decided to go and try stop... whatever Doctor Proxy and friends are trying to do. He could have shown up here and found himself with no backup! So, all in all, not as bad as it could have been. And only relatively minimal embarassment while he did his best to look both unconcerned about being in the bar and tired while ordering a soft drink, claiming he'd still need to drive today and that his boss won't get off his back. It worked out well enough! For someone without a car.

But anyway. Big stress right now. Reminding himself where down is (it helps that most things and people present are standing on the ground at the moment), since when you mostly cancel gravity and stand on the side of a column, one's brain tries desperately to keep up and frequently misinterpreting, Nope looks around, peering down and around the pillar as well. Right. Helper bots carrying away what the Doctor wants. That's probably bad. That they already carried out so much, that is. Some plant things. Bronze Links. And a mummy. Hoo boy. So, he should probably try to reduce the numbers before the scary lady and freaking Boaris (why is there a gigantic boar?!) come after him.

Okay, go through the process. Start with the first target, think through the series of targets after, keep effects in mind to shut them down. Wait. Not the Links, those are people. No blipping things from people! Endurance for those. Okay, start with the Helper Bot back there and start with mechanical removal, but then switch, but maybe don't care with the plant thing over there? Is that okay? Wait, did he get the order of operations right-

...Nope realizes he is starting to doubt. That's bad. He is also in the middle of live combat! Okay! No second guessing now! Helper bots! Links! Plant thing! Blip, wear out, eeeeeh whatever go!

A bead of sweat or two is slowly moving in a confused path in this local microgravity on his forehead as Nope focuses really, really hard on the mental path, hands balled to fists and shaking. But removing the hesitation, there's a moment of clarity. Execute plan right now! Hands open. And mechanics and physical/mental endurance are hopefully erased. In that order. Switching on the fifth target. Reality begins to glitch around the Helpers and several Links as the mother of all horrifying powers goes to work. Nonlethally. For the people.

A whole lot of breath is pressed out after that moment, puffing out cheeks. Okay, did not carve chunks out of a pillar by accident or blip someone out of existence. No sudden torrent of air from ambient air having been removed either. He'll take it. God, he will never get used to this.


...right. Still on the bad side of things. Remy pushes off the pillar, letting himself float through the air like an astronaut in a space station, turning himself towards a "standing" position again with his hands on the other side. Decidedly closer to his allies. He takes stock of the situation on the way. Multitasking. Gotta get better at it.

Spoiler: Remy nopes into action!

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Nope is placed on AH12, relatively close to the ceiling, and currently horizontally in the air via Remove Acceleration.

Free Switch Rote Removal to Second Guessing, and Focus Removal to Hit Points, Mass.

Standard Remove Hit Points, Mass. 240ft bendable line, starting on the Helper bot in Z7, following the line of Helper bots, then transitioning to the three Bronze Links on the right side of the map and Wrath, and ending on the Sapling in AN26. If I counted correctly and took a more or less okay path, that should be about 200ft of path. Ranged Damage DC 25, Penetrating, Multiattack, Crit 16+. All-out attack +5/-5
Edit: Creating two line areas, not one. Editing modifiers!

Routining for the Helper bots, Bronze Links, and the Sapling for 25 23.
Attack against Wrath (1d20+15)[28] (edit: please substract 2 from the result)

Move with Remove Acceleration from AH12 to AH24 by pushing off of the pillar and letting the momentum carry him over to the other one closer to his allies.

[Ridai]

The sound of a palm hitting a forehead rings through the hall.

...Crap! There are more enemies! This is live combat! He can remove more things! This is serious!

Hands ball, mental path, uhhhh, start with plant thing, just wear that out, screw it, then same with Boaris and the Bronze Links. And then blip the mummy! It's dead, it doesn't care!

Focus, more sweat, no second guessing, gogogogo! More momentary reality glitches.

...Hurrying through the process is also dangerous as hell, what the hell, Nope?! Floral was right behind that mummy, what were you thinking?!

Nope has to quickly grab onto the pillar again, threatening to drift away during his self-chastisement.

Spoiler: Remy nopes out of calm!

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I did a dumb and forgot to add a second line with Multiattack! Editing in the lowered modifiers in the first post right after this. Here is the second line, targeting all other enemies thus far not targeted.
Routining for Sapling and Bronze Links for 23
Attack vs Boaris (1d20+13)[16]
Attack vs Reanimated (1d20+13)[27]

That should be it.

[Zelphas]

Round 1

The Bronze Link closest to Floral reels away from her in sudden disgust before collapsing to the warehouse floor in shudders of nausea, unable to rise. Unfortunately, that gives the rest of the enemies near enough to Floral to smell her the warning they needed to cover their noses/smelling orifices, ignoring the sudden sickly sweet scent.

Floral's acid fruits drop on the line of Helpers, melting them into slag before they can react. The lights atop the remaining Helpers instantly turn red as they register an attack on their fellows, quick jerky movements from their spindly arms conveying an almost living-seeming agitation. The unliving mummy directly in front of Floral proves that it is not slow zombie by lurching aside from the dripping fluid in a stumble of uncanny speed, its half-covered, shrunken eye rolling in its socket as it mutters and groans.

The wave of fire from Helios burns away much of the mummy's cloth wrappings, exposing desert-dry grey flesh that crisps and blackens unnaturally. It howls, twisting away from the fire, even as a Sapling and an unfortunate Bronze Link both are bowled over by the roaring flames.

Ariadne fires a bolt of threads which neatly snare a Sapling and squeeze it into unconsciousness, but the red string isn't able to get a good grip on the hulking Boaris before the maddened boar creature rips through them with a razor-sharp tusk.

And then the indistinct figure in midair waves his hands, the world turns sideways and purple greens for just a second, and every Helper bot, Bronze Link, and Sapling still standing drops to the concrete in unison, the lion's share of their vitality plucked from them as though it never was. "The f---" Wrath exclaims, her rage momentarily overwritten by shock. Boaris snorts, his brain re-working what to do with the sudden loss of enemies nearby. The mummy simply groans.

"Oi, you... blurry-looking creepshow!" Flames suddenly burst up from under Wrath's feet, and she kicks up into the air. "Lay off!" The kicking flight transitions into a full roundhouse kick at Nope's face, and then Wrath is past him, skidding to a stop next to the open hole Boaris made when he entered.

The massive boar-creature was distracted by the read thread; it follows the bright color to a figure garbed completely in scarlet, standing far away. The black, hate-filled eyes flare, and Boaris lowers his massive head, tearing across the warehouse at a lumbering run to crash into Ariadne--and if he hits, he rears up and flings the thread-controller into the air and directly at Helios behind him.

The mummy, still reeling from the flames and the strange deletion of some of its essence, throws its head back and looses an unearthly wail; every opponent that can hear it feels the sudden urge to run, to flee, to escape this nightmare creature, abandoning any attempt at guarding themselves in their panicked flight.

Spoiler: OOC

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Wrath

Move Action: Fly to AH23, in front of Nope.

Standard Action: Use Roast on Nope, All-Out attacking for 2. (1d20+10)[30] Crit! On a hit, Resistance DC 27/22 37!/27 vs. Penetrating (Pierce Resistance) Damage and Impaired & Vulnerable/Disabled & Defenseless.
Also since Wrath touched Nope, Cloak of Rage might activate (11+): (1d20)[5] If so, to hit: (1d20+8)[25] On a hit, Resistance DC 27 vs. Damage. Not Active.

Move-by Action: Shift to J18, floor.

Boaris

Move Action: Shift in a straight line to AA30.

Standard Action: Use Pinball on Ariadne. (1d20+10)[12] On a hit, Resistance DC 25/20/20 vs. Damage and Vulnerable/Defenseless and being Luanched backwards into Helios. Miss

If Launched, to hit Helios: (1d20+10)[14] On a hit, Resistance DC 25/20 vs. Damage and Vulnerable/Defenseless (the Affliction is Contagious).

Reanimated

Move Action: Dazed.

Standard Action: Use Wail.
Floral: (1d20+10)[15] Miss
Helios: (1d20+10)[12] Miss
Ariadne: (1d20+10)[11] Miss
Nope: (1d20+10)[18] ...Hit

On a hit, first roll Defense DC 20 to negate, then if that fails, Resistance DC 20 vs. Entranced/Compelled/Controlled (Limited to Only Run Away from the Reanimated) and Weaken Defense.

All PCs are up!

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily's lips twitched in a slight frown as she and Helios lost a bit of tempo to area overlap. Okay yeah, coordinating might have been slightly generous. Totally her fault. But whatever that thinned the enemy force some and-

Thud. Every mook still standing just kinda dropped.

"Nice shot-" she cheerily called before realizing she wasn't...actually familiar with this particular hero. And now the only name that was popping into her head was "Blurry Looking Creepshow", which seemed rude. "-Man!" she finished, definitely not lamely at all.

Mum-Blah or whatever it might have actually been called unleashed its wail. Lily appeared unaffected, but it wasn't actually true. I mean, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like she was harmed or in any way hampered by the mummy's wail. Let's not go crazy here. But it did remind her of mandrakes in the Harry Potter books that had a deadly screaming attack, and while that wasn't true of actual mandrakes, they did have powerful hallucinogenic and narcotic properties that could induce unconsciousness, delirium, and madness in sufficient quantities. That sounded like something worth experimenting with!

The mummy was disoriented, a prime target for attack, but there were three other heroes here who could handle that. Lily could dish out the hurt well enough with her acid, but the longer the battle went on, the better a sense she got of the capabilities of her allies and the threats on the field. She suspected her power would be best put to use creating more openings for the others to exploit, rather than finishing off the enemies already opened up.

To that end, she turned her attention on Wrath. The pyro...kinetic? Mancer? She was a Link right? So kinetic, presumably. Whatever, the flame-thrower was hanging back from the fray and had seemed to present the greatest direct threat so far. A light flutter of her wings, and Lily took to the air, zipping through the warehouse to hover some thirty feet away from the pyro, not wanting to get too close to her fiery aura.

And it occurred to Lily, this might be her chance. This was a big deal. The forces of all four villains involved, three of them coordinating, over three-dozen bad guys against four heroes. This wasn't just her usual handful of mooks or whatever. This might finally be her chance to rehabilitate Floral's image, take her from the cutesy little Flower Girl to the badass warrior-scientist she was in her head! She wouldn't just weaken the Silver Link. She'd break her morale, make clear the power and skill of the hero she was dealing with!

"Roses are red." Lily, um, threatened? As her fingernails began to...grow.

"Violets are blue." They shaped themselves into sharp, conical forms.

"Your minions are dead!" They...totally weren't. They'd be fine. She was exaggerating.

"And so are you!" Lily cried out, hurling a barrage of thorns at Wrath. If they hit, they would transform on contact with her blood into hallucinogenic mandrake root. Even if they missed, they were originally part of her body, and Lily's personal phytokinesis would guide them around for a second attempt! The attack was perfectly solid.

But man oh man, Lily Woods was good at many things, but intimidation was not even close to one of them.

Spoiler

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I refuse...no, actually, that was terrible and I apologize to all of you. Especially since I thought up enough of these that I may be forced to turn them into a running gag.

Free: Reconfigure Flower Power. Variable Descriptor to [Physiological] [Drug]. 2 points to Petal Wings, 3 points to Floral Thorns (Ranged 3, Homing, Quirk), 10 points to Heady Scent, 5 points to Overwhelming Scent, 10 points to Miasmic Scents, 10 points to Lingering Scents, 10 points to Complex Scents.

Move: Into P18.

Standard: Attack Wrath with Mandrake Thorns at (1d20+10)[21]. On a hit, Resistance DC 20+Multiattack vs. Cumulative, Secondary Effect Immobilized+Vulnerable/Stunned+Defenseless/Incapacitated Affliction. On a miss, the attack repeats next round with Homing.

Current Status: Normal.

[Abracadangit]

As Boaris came rushing at Kal, she couldn't help herself -- with a flourish, she conjured a cape of red cloth in her hand. Just before the moment of impact, her threads picked her up, yanked her out of harm's way, and deposited her back on the ground, with a little spin. She waved the cloth like a matador, and laughed in her eerie, thread-distorted voice.

"Have you no shame, simpering swine, that you wish to fight like a bull in a ring?" Kal began to rise into the air, buoyed by crisscrossing threads. "Then I shall indulge you, but beware -- it only ends one way, for the bull."

As Kal's needle began to reshape the threads around the boar once more, Ariadne came back into her thoughts, with a new sense of urgency. "The tongue of those revenants... I know it well," Ariadne said. "It is of Aigyptos, in my time, in which many a scroll of sorcery was written. They say that they move not of their own will, but forced by a hand unseen."

"Then say hi!" Kal thought back, slightly miffed by the intrusion. "Busy trying to not get us killed."

Ariadne momentarily took control of Kal's voice, and blurted out:

Spoiler: In The Tongue Of Aigyptos

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"Hear me, O spirits of Aigyptos past! I know of your people, your lands, your magics. Tell me how we might break this horrid enchantment upon you, and lay you back to solemn rest!"

Even though Kal didn't actually speak a word of Ancient Egyptian, she still somehow knew what Ariadne was saying, like she could barely remember the meanings of the words from a distant dream.

Just as quickly, her focus returned to the boar in front of her. Without realizing it, she had spooled much more thread around her open hand than usual, which meant that some of the threads she always kept around her for defensive purposes had gotten caught up in this pattern, too. No matter, Kal thought, as she quickly wrapped the threads around her open hand.

Then, she pulled.

Spoiler: OOC

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Free: Shifting Threadwork Conjurations Array to Thread Flight, I gotta get away from this guy. Speaking to the mummies -- I'll be sure to add "Ancient Egyptian" to my Expertises on the OOC page, so everything's accounted for.

Move: Flying up as high as I can, and over to W31 closer to Helios.

Action: Using Snaring Strands on Boaris again, but this time with the help of the All-Out Attack Advantage, to the tune of -3, +3.

Boaris: (1d20+13)[25]

[Ridai]

So, like, all of the minions falling over at the same time is mildly disturbing, so immediately after that happens, Nope is busy frantically looking at the various people going "A-are they still alive?!" Floral complimenting him was met with a "Th-thanks?!"

So when the "Oi!" happens, he is yanked out of this state, and then put right into a different one by a flying burning beshoed foot to the face, causing a spectacular horizontal flip and Nope hitting his head on the pillar. Slowly spinning in the air and holding his head, everything is spinning and hurting and ringing, so he just... misses the wailing entirely. He knew that lady was scary. Turns out she is actually crazy scary! "augh, goddamn my head"

At least Boaris leaves him alone for now. There may actually be mercy in the world. Having thought that, Nope expects a flying superboar coming after him very soon. Totally jinxed it.

So as he is drifting and his head is spinning, the situation down below comes into frame again. Scary lady far away feels good instinctively. But she also moved across the whole warehouse just now, and jumped up, so that is basically his brain lying to itself. Boaris near the others. Mummy also. Actual mummies. Crazy. And people speaking in tongues.

So, focus. This time only three things to think through. Do not visualize the good folk down below. Gotta focus, even if knowing good people are around is nice and the brain likes thinking about nice things. Visualizing them would be very bad. Very bad!

"Your minions are dead!"
From up above in a dazed tone carrying the weight of a pounding two-spot headache but still sounding alarmed: "Man I hope not! Can someone please check?"

Right, right. Back to thinking. Stamina on the scary lady and Boaris, and uhhh... necromantic reanimation... magic...spell... on the mummy. Right. No overthinking! Especially not against the scary lady. No panic blipping! Zero! No cheap excuses like "she's a scary villain" or "she is trying to kill me"! Nope's hands are feeling sweaty as he tries to make himself stop spinning. Deep breaths. Deep breaths! Aaaand gogo!

Reality glitches around the remaining villains, briefly distorting and fragmenting before putting itself back together like nothing happened.

Spoiler: Head nope

Show

Move Dazed. Holding head. Spinning slowly.

Standard Remove Hit Points, Mass against Boaris, the Reanimated, and Wrath. AoA +5/-5, because Nope learned nothing and isn't thinking straight. Damage DC 25, Ranged, Shapeable Line 240', Mutiattack (Single Target), Penetrating (Pierce Immunity), Crit 16+
Attack vs Boaris [roll]1d20+15z[/roll] 19
Attack vs Reanimated [roll]1d20+15z[/roll] 25
Attack vs Wrath [roll]1d20+15z[/roll] 33. Crit!

Actually functioning rolls here.

[Dorni]

Before Helios could complete his next spell all of the League's servants abruptly collapsed leaving the sun god with his hand raised imperiously and no spell to conjure. "Well done!" he boomed instead.

With the servants dispatched, Helios turned his blazing glare on the mummy, ignoring both its wailing both fearful and mundane. "Allow me to return you to your rest," he declared, devoid of any righteous fury. Whomever they had been in life, Nergal had drawn their spirits from the afterlife, bound them to his will, and used their essence as a fuel to power their bodies. It had struck him as curious that the concept was similar to that of Proxy's creations, but that was a curiosity for anther time. That spirit deserved its rest.

Once again runes flashed through the air. From points around Helios came a sudden barrage of fiery lasers lancing out faster than the eye could track. The beams weren't solely concentrated on the mummy though - There were plenty of the sunbeams to barrage both the mummy and the boar monster between them.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Move: Nah.
Standard: Cast Sunbeam on Reanimated and Boaris, multi-attacking at -2 to hit both. AoA 2, PA 5. This is a Perception attack. On hit, DC 30 vs Secondary Effect Damage.

Boaris: (1d20+5)[14] Finishing Attack.
Reanimated: (1d20+5)[10]

Damage 10 (Multi-Attack, Perception, Secondary Effect)

[Zelphas]

Round 2

Wrath's hand snaps up to catch Floral's thrown spines in one palm, flames licking around the thorns. Her expression doesn't change, just a blank, stern mask and glowing amber eyes. Then, she does perhaps the worst thing she could do in this situation.

She sighs, a hint of pity creeping over her expression.

"You have never been in a fight before this whole Dome mess, have you, Floral?" she says more than asks, shaking her head. "You've got some power, but girl, you need to work on your--"

Down bananas, and then Wrath slumps to the concrete, her eyes rolling back into her head as her surprisingly thin frame loses consciousness from Nope's strange power.

Over near the front of the warehouse, Ariadne's crimson threads wrap all around Boaris, snaking around the massive Boar's joints and the tenderest parts of his body and preventing even this massive beast from moving an inch. Still, he struggles, his enraged growls and roars nearly drowning out the muttering response of the almost-disintegrating mummy nearby.

Spoiler: To Those Who Speak Ancient Egyptian

Show

To break mine enchantment, mine foul master must be brok'd; yet 'twould be not enough, for I fear--"

Helios lights up the cavernous space with bolts of searing fire. He times one blast perfectly; the fiery sunbeam strikes at Boaris just as the enraged Boar opens his mouth for another roar, striking at the exposed flesh within and overloading the mutated creature's tortured nerves. The hate in his eyes turns to confusion for a short moment before they cloud over in unconsciousness, the over-muscled frame slumping, held up only by the red strings of Ariadne now.

Other rays strike at the mummy, but it jerks oddly, interrupted by a directive from its master. The beams form into a glow around the tortured soul, promising new violence soon, but for the moment the mummy hunkers down, pulling itself together to face more unwilling punishment from its foes.

You only get an instants warning in the dull thump of metal on concrete, and then a human-sized blur of black and silver rushes through the doors of the warehouse. It resolves a moment later into the form of a giant stuffed bear; the left side of its body composed of the dark chrome of the Proxysuits, the right half made of the same silvery metal as Watcher's costuming. Red, faintly glowing eyes take in the room as the overly-large head spins fully around the body, focusing on each of you in turn. Then the grinning, sharp-toothed mouth opens, widening its grin. The head spins again, and with a deceptively quiet phut-phut-phut-phut, four shimmering dark chrome spears fly out around the room, each one aiming for a different costumed hero. An instant later, the AKuma has skittered over to the sparking and sizzlign remains of the Helpers, its scarlet eyes searching for something within the wreckage.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Reanimated

Move Action: Staggered.

Standard Action: Recover from Staggered.

End of Turn: Resistance to remove Vulnerable (DC 20): (1d20+12)[32] Recovers

AKuma

Move Action: Shift in the warehouse, stopping at Y20.

Standard Action: Use Bear Spear on all four of you, All-Out Attacking for 4 to offset Multiattack hitting multiple targets.

Nope: (1d20+10)[28] Hit
Helios: (1d20+10)[22] Hit
Ariadne: (1d20+10)[14] Miss
Floral: (1d20+10)[20] Hit

On a hit, Resistance DC 25/20 vs. Damage and Immobilized/Stunned.

Move-by Action: Shift to AE9, begin looking in the wreckage for... something.

All PCs are up!

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily raised an eyebrow as Wrath went down. "I'm sorry, were you saying something?" she quipped, deadpan.

...Yeah, she was perfectly content to call that one "all according to plan". Certainly, the fact that she had yet to so much of scratch any of the meaningfully powerful opponents wasn't only deepening her fear that her dinky little plant-transforming power just wasn't up to snuff on an actual superheroic battlefield.

Certainly.

One bad guy left. She shoved the doubts aside and focused on- well, on the electrified bronze spear that suddenly shot her in the shoulder, as it happened. Fortunately, her flesh was as hard as wood, so it didn't penetrate deeply. The force of it was enough to knock the wind out of her, though, and the shock jolted through her. The spasms would make flight impossible, and heck even walking would probably only get her a first-class trip straight to the floor.

Fortunately, she could shoot fine from right where she was.

You wouldn't, like, think so, given the big ol' support pillars that were set squarely between her and both remaining active enemies.

But those pillars did precisely nothing to keep their scents from reaching Lily's nose. And as far as providing a physical impediment, well.

Lily raised a hand, and the flesh of her palm kinda corkscrewed out to form another thorn about thrice as long as the ones she had fired at Wrath. She shot it straight across the warehouse, arrow-straight - and when it reached the center, it suddenly stopped, held immobile by Lily's personal phytokinesis.

And then her power went to work. No need for anything fancy here, she just extended that single six-inch long thorn into a lashing vine with each end tapered into a spike. She unlocked the solar energy that had been stored in those cells as she enacted the transformation, causing the cells to divide and redivide millions of times over in an instant, that burst of energy propelling the double-edged vine-spear outward in both directions - to strike at both enemies on opposite sides of the warehouse.

And if they dodged, she could still twist the vines around to take another swing.

"Yeah they're totally fine! Just unconscious!" she called back to Nope, taking a moment to smell for their vitals while she was processing enemy positioning. (She'd be honest Nope asking that had kinda worried her so she wanted to make sure. Like, she had assumed, but...yeah she'd have felt pretty bad about that taunt if they had actually been dead.)

Spoiler

Show

Move: Dazed.

Free: Reconfigure Flower Power Array. Variable descriptor to [Physical] [Piercing]. 10 points to Acidic Nectar, 10 points to Potent Acid, 10 points to Floral Thorn, 10 points to Floral Vines, 5 points to Olfactory Clarity (Accurate, Radius), 2 points to Scent Processing (Detect Biology), 3 points to Scent Intensification (Limited Penetrates Concealment, Extended).

Standard: Attack AKuma and Reanimated with Piercing Vines. Use Ranged to place the initial point in AE18, then uses the Shapeable Area to extend it into a 6"x6"x120' line going in both directions, which should be able to hit both of them without any Cover issues, using Accurate Scent with Limited Penetrates Concealment to get around any Concealment issues. All Out Attack for 5, Power Attack for 5. On a hit, Resistance DC 30+Penetrating vs. Damage. On a miss, Homing 1.

AKuma: (1d20+10)[22].
Reanimated: (1d20+10)[15].

End of Turn: Resistance to remove Immobilized (DC 20): (1d20+10)[17]. Fails

Current Status: 1 Bruise, Immobilized (DC 20), AoA -5.

[Ridai]

"Well done!" "I'm trying"

"Ohwow okay," slips out of Nope as he watches just thread and thorns and vines and freaking lasers zip about, just generally glad not to be on the receiving end of any of them.

The scary lady dropped like a sack of potatoes and like with the Bronze Links (and all other people he used his powers on) there is this needle of doubt and worry. But he doesn't get much time to consider, trying to focus on the mummy, when suddenly BEAR (and an exasperated "Okay."). Expanding focus to erase the AKuma (but don't blip the vines! Those are good guy vines!), a zappy spear just rams into Nope's head before bouncing off, clattering to the floor. Holding the spot, the expression preceeds the "owww!" Why is everyone going for his head today?! Let's not think about the mechanics of a spear hitting his head and mostly bouncing off and the implications of spontaneous kinetic energy erasure and what else might possibly get subconsciously erased. That way lies a bad day.

"Oh thank goodness, thanks!" is heard from above once he hears Floral confirm the KO'd people are well. He's just gonna trust her on that one right now. Pushing off the pillar to a new ceiling spot, get everyone in view (no vines!). Necro spell removal (...does that technically count as dispel magic?) on the one side and yeah whatever it is one of Doctor Proxy's creepy bots, just aim Removal at it and go. No pun bear getting away with whatever the Doc wants from here. So mummy gets brief distortion glitches (and for a split-second appears absolutely black... Nope wonders if he accidentally erased surrounding light for a while going for whatever energy is powering the undead), while AKuma briefly looks like it fell victim to screen-tearing and a garbled signal.

Spoiler: Actions

Show

Move from AH24 to AF22 (closer to ceiling)

Standard You guessed it, remove Hit Points, Mass with AoA +5/-5 against the Reanimated and AKuma. Damage DC 25, Ranged, Shapeable Line 240', Mutiattack (Single Target), Penetrating (Pierce Immunity), Crit 16+.
Attack vs Reanimated (1d20+15)[20]
Attack vs AKuma (1d20+15)[18]

[Dorni]

The creature's spear slammed into Helios dead on and the warding runes adorning his armor flared to life. A long second later the spear clattered to the warehouse floor while the sun god was unharmed. Flint knew better though - his warding runes had absorbed the impact spectacularly but the energy powering the runes was finite. They could only absorb so much before he'd have to restore the enchantment. And while the ward had physically stopped the spear, the slight spasm in his muscles testified that it hadn't stopped the weapon's electric shock. He'd need to work on improving his wards when he got out of this.

"Yeah, they should be fine," Helios added. "Now, to deal with this interruption."

Helios lifted a hand up high and with a flick of the wrist - Snap. No runes lit the air this time. This time the light was provided by the giant teddy-bear erupting in flame.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Move: Dazed. Just gonna keep floating here.
Standard: Combust this AKuma. (1d20+10)[16]. On hit, DC 25+/20+ vs Penetrating Damage / Penetrating Weaken [Resistance] & Affliction [Impaired/Disabled]

Extra Effort: If the AKuma is still up, repeat Combust on the Akuma. If it isn't, Combust the Reanimated. (1d20+10)[13]. On hit, DC 25+/20+ vs Penetrating Damage / Penetrating Weaken [Resistance] & Affliction [Impaired/Disabled]

End of Turn: Recover from Affliction: (1d20+10)[29] Recovered

Status: 2 Bruises, fatigued

[Abracadangit]

The meaning of the mummy's words coalesced strangely in her mind, like a fog was lifting. " 'Wouldn't be enough' -- well that doesn't sound good," she said aloud, half-expecting Ariadne to chime in with something suitably cryptic, but for now, there was only silence. Silence except for a strange electrical buzzing sound, approaching from behind her...?

Kal suddenly flew to the left, spinning in a whirlwind of red thread, and just narrowly evaded the spear as it whistled past her. She eyed the peculiar weapon as it stuck in the wall behind her, trembling in place like a tuning fork.

"So?" Kal thought. "No input on what the mummy had to say?"

"I am... how you spoke of yourself, before. Busy trying to not get us killed," Ariadne spat back, in a mocking tone.

"Touche," Kal thought back, as she set her sights on the AKuma, lurking by the far side of the warehouse. It certainly couldn't be any harder to restrain than the boar, could it? You know what they say, Kal thought, as she quickly retracted the threads holding up Boaris, and directed all of them to arc towards the AKuma at once, in a zigzagging volley of red ribbons.

Waste not.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Move: Flying over to W23, line of sight to AKuma.

Action: Snaring Strands, gonna All-Out again to the tune of +3, -3.

AKuma: (1d20+13)[26]

[Zelphas]

Round 3

Floral's suddenly-grown spike pierces through the center of the AKuma, breaking through to the other side of the mechanism in a shower of broken metal bits. Facing away from the group of heroes nearby, its red eyes flash once, then slowly begin to fill with radiance. The mummy, recovered slightly from its earlier damage, shifts its head to the side with a dry cracking noise, avoiding the wooden spear that was about to skewer it.

A moment later, upside-down is Tuesday, and then the mummy groans with fresh pain as more of its undead vitality is deleted from its cursed form. As for the AKuma...the two-toned head spins slowly around on the body, and the glowing, burning read eyes meet the blurry gaze of Nope with uncanny accuracy. The Cheshire Cat grin, filled with pointed triangular teeth, opens ever so slightly, as if in a slight laugh.

As Helios trains his fire-forged magic upon the AKuma, a light within its mouth blinks green for a moment, and then it begins venting steam. It is able to stay just ahead of the powerful magic-user's fire, cooling itself off without any injuries. The radiance around the mummy, however, only intensifies, glowing brighter and brighter. The mummy braces itself against the attack, then...relaxes, suddenly, its unbreathing body letting out a long, dust-dry sigh as it crumbles to pale golden sand upon the warehouse floor.

Ariadne's strings catch onto the thick, short limbs of the mechanical stuffed bear, snapping down to hold it in place. One thin thread wraps around the bear's middle, further obscuring the etched number 90 that was already warped by Floral's vine-spike. The AKuma, outnumbered, heavily damaged, unable to complete its mission, executes its last bit of programing. The red light in its eyes builds up to an almost painful intensity, a deep, burnign red glare--then vanishes completely. The mechanical construct slumps forward in Ariadne's strings.

Then it explodes, a wash of flame and shrapnel filling the entire warehouse around it.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

AKuma

Move Action: Staggered.

Standard Action: Use Bear Bomb. As part of the Secondary Effect, the AKuma itself rolls Resistance against the Bear Bomb with full Penetrating as part of the attack.

First things first: the supports! The columns are reinforced concrete, while the walls and ceiling are steel. It will Routine the attack against the building itself, rather than Finishing them.

Column 1 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[10] DESTROYED
Column 2 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[18] BREAK
Column 3 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[18] BREAK
Column 4 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[12] DESTROYED
Column 5 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[21] BREAK
Column 6 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[16] DESTROYED
Column 7 (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+8)[28] Resists

Walls (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+9)[13] ...Fiating that the walls are okay so that the roof doesn't fall on everyone.
Ceiling (Resistance DC 27): (1d20+9)[29] Resists.

If Column 2 gets a Break, then Floral gets a +5 to her Resistance check for being under cover. If it is Destroyed, she rolls normally, assuming she is hit.

Next, the PCs:

Nope: (1d20+8)[18] Hit
Ariadne: (1d20+8)[22] Hit, +2 Penetrating
Helios: (1d20+8)[17] Miss
Floral: (1d20+8)[13] Miss

On a hit, Resistance DC 27 vs. Penetrating Damage.

The blast has about a foot of clearance above the floor, so the unconscious people on the floor and the floor itself do not need to make Resistance checks.

Finally, the AKuma (Resistance DC 32): (1d20+7)[20] Staggered x2 = INCAPACITATED!

Battle over! Everyone take a Hero Point.

A few seconds after the dust settles, an ordinary pigeon flies through the open front doors, landing with a ruffle of feathers next to Helios. It regards the four of you first with one eye, then with the other, then opens its beak as if to speak.

"Well, that probably wasn't necessary, but... good! You're all here! I didn't miss you!" A voice emanates from the beak as though from a recording or a phone, sounding nervous but excited. "I've been meaning to catch all of you, and now I have. Can I talk to the four of you? Not here, of course?" the voice assures you hurriedly, the pigeon looking around the remains of the battle, "Let's see... I know! There's an abandoned restaurant about two miles from here. The sign on the front calls it Food Fast. Electronic lock--I'll have it open by the time you get there. Works for you four?" the pigeon tilts its head almost quizzically.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Okay! That was perfectly solid damage to the Evil Robotic Teddy Bear. Awesome. No need to develop any complexes here! Lily was totally chill and 100% satisfied with the performance of her powers in this battle.

The mummy finally burned to, uh, no-longer-moving-ness. So all that remained was finishing off the bear. A bit of acid would probably be sufficient to-

Annnnd the bear exploded. Fortunately the support pillar tanked the blast pretty well and shielded her from the worst of it. Having flesh as tough as wood meant the force that did get to her she barely even noticed.

"Everyone *cough* okay? Does anybody need healing?" she called to the other heroes.

...And then a pigeon arrived and asked to meet with them.

That put Lily...kinda on her guard. The bear-bot had undoubtedly been Dr. Proxy's work, so a pigeon-bot had to be assumed with his (her? Their?) capabilities. And even if it was a living pigeon, Dr. Proxy was capable of subverting human wills to their ends with psychic powers; it was safe to assume a mundane animal would present no difficulty.

"I mean, maybe? Who are you exactly?" Lily asked. "And, uh, why are you communicating via pigeon-bot?" she added, less to actually get an answer to that question and more so that the others were aware that this was indeed not a living pigeon, in case that was relevant to their interests.

Once she had, you know, full control over her nerves and muscles again, she headed over to the crates that the proxybots had been gathering around. Clearly, they had been looking for something. It might be helpful to figure out what. (Or it might not. This was Dr. Proxy we were talking about. Lily still had no idea what they wanted the teacups for.) She started rooting through the crates, just to see if anything jumped out as potentially significant.

Spoiler

Show

Lily will turn on all her various scent-based stuff, but most of it won't actually be useful - her Limited skill bonuses are all inapplicable for interactions with someone radioing in via pigeon. Although I suppose the Detect Biology sense could at least confirm whether it's a pigeon or a highly-convincing pigeon-bot. EDIT: Already covered in Discord.

Regardless, Natural Rapport to Evaluate the person speaking through the pigeon: (1d20+10)[26].

She'll also conduct a search of the crates the Proxybots were checking. If someone with, you know, an actual Investigation skill also wants to do this, she'll Team Check for them. (1d20)[3], +5 for purposes of contributing to a Team Check. Lily neither finds nor helps anyone to find literally anything.

[Ridai]

Nope puffs out his cheeks, just exhaling as the fight is finally over. It is crazy how long this sort of thing feels when you are in the middle of it. "I-is everyone alri-"

The BAKOOM splats Nope against the ceilings, where he hits his head one last time, one more for the road. With the rebounding acceleration, Nope slowly drifts down towards the floor. "I'm okay, I think"

But what isn't okay is the pillars. Some more having been blown apart, more looking precariously damaged, Nope tries to fight through everything spinning and get a mental picture of the intact pillars in his head, then overlaying the damages he sees, identifying those as damage added, altering the state of the base object, then trying to remove that. With the many steps involved and the removed thing less a physical thing but more an... object... property... of reality's engine... or something (seriously, how can he actually do thisdon't start second guessing it), he lets gravity resume (slowly), stumbling landing, hurrying over to one of the not entirely obliterated pillars. Hands on, pinch where a chunk is missing or a crack has formed for the mental bridge, then pull the damage out.

"Yeah we're here," Nope auto-pilot responds to the new voice as he tries to keep the ceiling from maybe deciding to collapse at some point, column flickering until it hopefully snaps back to a good condition. Then checking where it comes from, spots the pigeon talking, looks back to the pillar, back to the pigeon, blinking.

"Yeah, uh... sure...?" comes out slowly, kind of glancing to the others as he just... pats the restored column a few times. "Gimme... gimme just a moment. So the roof doesn't... and what they tried stealing isn't just lying around-" Okay you know what, just try to remove the column's damage and see what happened to the wares and shut up, Nope.

Spoiler: Actions

Show

Nope uses Remove Harm with Remove Second Guessing to try and restore the building to a state where it at least isn't totally threatened by sudden collapse in the near future. Then checks what the Doc tried to loot.

Investigation roll of 19 to check the wares.

[Dorni]

Helios chuckled at the sight of the AKuma bellowing out steam from its mouth and ears. The sight reminded him of a sight from a cartoon. It made it a bit less entertaining given that it was an evil robotic minion that moments before had been hurling very deadly electrified spears and a bit embarrassing that it was essentially shrugging off his attempt to destroy it. Then it proceeded to explode. That was even less funny. His warding runes flared to life when the blast washed over him and absorbed it harmlessly.

"I'm fine", he answered Floral when the rubble had settled. "I can help with healing as well if anyone needs it."

While waiting for an answer he waved a hand in a swiping gesture that left cloudy runes puffing apart in its wake. Dust and rubble that had been falling from the damaged ceiling stopped mid-air as though hitting solid ground - and then rising again as a platform of air rose up and settled under the ceiling to support it. At the same time bits of rubble were being pushed away from one of the piles of crates littering the warehouse - which Helios started floating toward. "Now let's see what the Dr. was after."

And then a pigeon fluttered in and spoke. Helios regarded the bird with suspicion. He couldn't detect any magic about it - so it couldn't be a summoned creature or an animal magically controlled. Floral called it a pigeon-bot which would track. "Maybe, but first allow me to echo Floral in asking to whom we are speaking."

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Set Spells array to Crossing the Sky. Using the Move Object portion to support the ceiling so it doesn't collapse while using a smaller portion to start shifting through the rubble to help search for whatever it was the AKuma might have been searching for. If Nope's effect appears to shore up the columns, he'll stop supporting the building and continue with the search.

Investigation (1d20+10)[29] to search.
Deception (1d20+11)[13] to evaluate if the pigeon is being deceptive with its answers

[Abracadangit]

Kal wove a web of thread with lightning speed to catch the brunt of the explosion, but a fleck of razor shrapnel still just got through, leaving a stinging cut on her forearm. "Ow!" She cried aloud, as a makeshift thread bandage formed over the scratch. "I'll take anyone up on that offer for healing," she said to the room at large, since multiple teammates were offering. "You'd think a sewing master could mend wounds, but its pattern still eludes me."

As the pigeon delivered its message, Kal listened along with the sort of skepticism one might expect from someone listening to an animatronic pigeon. Seeing everyone else have misgivings, she realized she wasn't alone in being slightly put off. "I will journey there, so long as you identify yourself."

Kal could just feel Ariadne bristling, at the thought that this might be some kind of trap.

Spoiler: OOC

Show

Ok -- you guys beat me to the punch on pretty much any useful information-gathering or supportive task, ha ha. Anyone need some Intimidation?

I kid -- I'll follow suit with Helios, and try to Insight the pigeon.

New band name, Insight vs. the Pigeon: (1d20+10)[16]

[Zelphas]

The combined work of Helios and Nope soon has the warehouse in a functional state... well, at least one step up from "condemned as a hazard to human life", at least. With the remaining pillars patched for the most part, the ceiling reinforced by runic power (it had weathered the AKuma's blast remarkably well, all things considered), and the walls in a serviceable shape, it's unlikely to fall to the ground any time soon provided nothing else explodes, bursts into flame, or slams into a wall or pillar with superhuman strength.

The search of the remaining supplies at the back of the warehouse comes up with very little. Floral finds herself momentarily stymied by the lack of organic matter; anything completely natural or not genetically engineered to be flame-resistant must have been blown up or burned in the fire and explosion. But she was a genius, darn it! She may focus on Biochemistry, but that doesn't mean that she knows nothing about other subjects! With all of this wreckage of Proxybots and broken materiel, she has to be... she... yeah, she's got nothing. It's all Greek to her, unfortunately.

Nope and Helios each find a little bit more information in their searches. Nope is able to discover a scrap of the plastic sheeting that he had heard the Bronze Links talking about. The grand majority of it has been burned away, and the edges crumble into dust at his touch. Such a thin, flammable material wouldn't really be terribly useful to Doctor Proxy in making their bots--not by itself at least. But Doctor Proxy made a deal with the Chain Gang to come after this stuff. Why did they want it? One corner of the plastic seems to be stamped with a series of numbers or letters, but it's been warped by the recent expulsions of energy and is currently too blurry for Nope to read.

Helios, looking at the sight where the AKuma exploded, notices something else. Judging by the scattered mechanical parts and twisted lumps of metal, the AKuma had placed itself precisely in the center of the clustered Helpers when it had exploded. It's a bit of a leap, but looking at its placement and replaying its actions, Helios gets the impression that the AKuma was looking for something in the Helpers themselves--and, when it was interrupted, it opted to destroy any evidence of what it was looking for rather than risk it being found.

The pigeon hops from foot to foot, its head bobbing in a perfect facsimile of what it appeared, one eye looking at Floral. "...Enhanced smell? As part of a flora-faunal hybridization transformation? Augmented by your own talents, of course! Fascinating!" the pigeon head nods, turning to give Nope a cheery "Wonderful! I'll hold you to that!" before turning back towards the three who expressed doubts.

"All right, then, I'll--I believe the current slang is 'level with you.' Before that, though--I promise to all of you, with the utmost sincerity, that I mean you no harm, at this point or in the foreseeable future. I genuinely support your efforts against the League, and am in fact only here to help you streamline and focus those efforts--okay, that's not completely true, I'm also incredibly excited to meet actual, living superheroes! I was hoping, but--there's nothing like hope realized, is there?" a shine comes to the pigeon's eyes, which... might be a camera. It's hard to tell how expressive this thing really is. "This conversation, and any subsequent conversations, will never reach the members of the League through me, and I am honestly on your side as much as I possibly can be."

Spoiler: Ariadne, Helios, and Floral

Show

As far as you can tell, the person behind the pigeon is telling you the complete truth.

"All right? Am I in the clear so far?" The pigeon waits for a second, then gathers its feathers, almost seeming to brace itself. The mechanical eyes look to either side, making sure that none of the various henchmen or botanical creatures have regained consciousness yet. "I'm Watcher. And I have enough birds to thoroughly annoy you before you get them all, and can make more, so can we talk? Or am I going to need to send another bird?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

"...Well, no teacups, so I've got nothing," Lily said after looking through the containers and such. Lily was more book-smart than street-smart, and lacking any particular hypothesis to start from, she didn't really have any priors for the evidence at hand to adjust. Giving up on that effort quickly, she headed over to Kal, laying her hands lightly on her injuries. Kal would feel a momentary damp warmth as Lily covered the injuries with her nectar, but it would evaporate away in a couple seconds, as the stored energy within it both unlocked and heightened its medicinal properties and boiled it away, taking pain and trauma along with it.

She nodded along as the pigeon explained itself (as the person speaking through the robotic pigeon explained himself, whatever, it was more fun this way). That was...a non-trivial amount of clarification and hedging, but not so much that it cancelled out the general point, and the pigeon did seem to be sincere, best she could tell. She wouldn't begrudge someone being precise with their wording. And...you know, she'd be honest, it was kinda refreshing to see someone else appreciate what her powers were capable of. All told, she was feeling fairly positively disposed.

And then the pigeon introduced itself.

And anger ignited in Lily's heart.

"You're on our side!?" she spat back ven- venomously? But venom's from animals so...toxinous...toxically! She spat back toxically! "You're the entire reason the League is here in the first place! You're their freaking leader! You- You gave them their powers!"

Okay, to be fair, the evidence was...kinda unclear on all of that. Like, there was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to it, sure, and some kinda wink-wink-nudge-nudge suggestive statements on the subject, if you could even take the words of supervillains at face value in the first place. There were reasonable arguments to be made that the observed facts were not sufficient to confirm that Watcher bore full personal responsibility for the evils perpetrated by the rest of the League.

Lily Woods was a scientist. She did not deny the state of the evidence. But neither did she think she needed a p < 0.05 randomly controlled study to make judgments under uncertainty. It was still the most reasonable conclusion to draw from the evidence at hand.

And even if it wasn't correct... "The obelisk is yours! The dome is yours! You trapped an entire town - thousands of innocent people! - with a super-powered street thug, a magic-wielding anarchist with delusions of grandeur, a mind-raping psychopath, and a civilization-destroying dryad! You trapped us here with no way to call to help! With no way to escape! With no way to fight back when they decide they want to do things to us!" Lily's voice...may have gotten a little wild there, as her condemnation kinda slipped into her own personal experiences, and her eyes took on a faintly golden hue as tears of nectar came to them unbidden. Lily had come to appreciate her new powers...but she also hadn't forgotten the horror of Manchineel's attack on her lab, of those first few days living in a body that was not her own. And she was the lucky one. The others working in that lab had all come out of it strictly worse than she had. That trauma was not even close to fully healed.

"So go ahead, Watcher! Tell us again how you're on our SIDE! Give me one good reason I shouldn't go straight to the media with everything you've said, reveal your opposition to the League to the rest of them, and then chalk up every one of you monsters that the others kill in the infighting as a victory!"

Somewhere in the back of Lily's head, a calm, rational voice was telling her that that wasn't how heroes worked. But right now, facing the man she felt was fundamentally responsible for everything she and her family and her friends and her neighbors had been through over the past month, the voice of rage and vengeance was orders of magnitude louder.

[Abracadangit]

"Thank you," Kal said to Floral, looking on in wonder as the strange nectar washed away the pain as well as the scratch itself, like a soothing balm. "I hope to return the favor -- unwise for a sorceress to collect too many debts."

"Ah yes -- the 'Watcher'," Kal said, her dissonant voice cool with contempt. "You must see a great many things while you 'watch,' I imagine. Were you 'watching' when your pet sorcerer visited a school?"

While Kal spoke, the red threads hanging limply in the air suddenly went taut, as if pulled tightly by invisible hands. It took every shred of Kal's patience to not whip every strand around and crush the robot pigeon into a lump of sparking metal.

"And what is it you hope to learn by 'watching' us, hm? How do I know your toy bird isn't sending pictures to all your wicked little friends? Looking for weaknesses? You'll find nothing," Kal hissed, her voice distortion intensifying with her spite.

[Ridai]

Nope looks at the piece of material he found. He... could try to restore that bit? Not sure if it's too far gone. You know, reality's engine marking it as destroyed or... whatever it is reality decides. He's just pushing buttons of a blackbox, really.

He is about to tell the others, when a pigeon begins talking.

"Wait what,"

The Watcher is a pigeon. And here. No. Wait. Not pigeon. Pigeon bot?

After a moment of processing, Nope tries to speak, but then Floral has a probably justified meltdown. Followed by Ariadne also not being happy to be speaking to Watcher-birb.

It is an intensely awkward situation for Nope at the moment.

"So, uh..." he begins, part not knowing how to really begin, part to check if someone else will talk over him. When the latter doesn't seem to be the case, the indistinct figure just... kind of puts his hands together, pointing up in front of his chest, not knowing what else to do with them right now. Just kind of occupying them. "okay, there are superheroes now... mission accomplished, right? Can you now tell your friends to just..." Hands turning to have his fingers kind of pointing forward. "...not? Can they just not?"

A beat.

"Not gonna happen, is it?" It is like asking why people can't just get along. Basically a question doomed to fail.

[Dorni]

Helios frowned at the scrap of plastic that Nope had pulled from the wreckage. It looked like there might have been something stamped on it but it was too damaged to tell. It seemed like a strange prize for a man with technology from the future to be after. Whatever had been written on there was apparently a important enough for the AKuma to choose to destroy itself to make sure it didn't fall into their hands judging by how it had positioned itself in the middle of the other bots before detonating. So it was important enough to try and figure out what was on there.

That was going to be trickier than it sounded. He'd designed his healing spell for living creatures, not inanimate objects. Crafting a repair spell might not be a bad idea, but there was a world of difference between collecting the pieces of the broken object and reforging them back into a likeness of the thing and trying to reverse damage on something without even knowing what the original form had been. There might be a way to do it but it was beyond Flint's current understanding. He glanced over at Nope. Flint wasn't sure of the principle behind Nope's abilities, but there was a chance he could do it. He'd have to ask later.

For now, his attention settled on the pigeon. On Watcher. Floral had been absolutely right. This whole situation was his doing, and now he was here to, what? Have them to clean up his own mess? The guy had placed an impenetrable miles-wide dome over the entire town. He'd given most of the League their powers. Well, except Proxy and perhaps Apophis, but the point was Watcher certainly had the power to clean up his own mess. And instead what, he was just going to watch from the sidelines? Like Helios and the rest of them trying to resist were just gladiators fighting for his amusement while he Watched? It would cast a different light on his periodic descents from his obelisk to repair damaged infrastructure less as an act of generosity and as more cleaning the arena for the next bout. Even if he was entirely sincere about being on 'their side', he could have a disastrously different idea what being on 'their side' meant and what was an acceptable externality, and 'as much as he could be' was a qualifier with infinite wiggle room.

But while Floral was right about Watcher, Flint had dealt with insurance companies. He'd handled self-centered ghouls before. However much you wanted to, you didn't start the first email or phone call screaming and raging at them. "Alright everyone, lets calm down a minute. If he wanted to ambush us he'd hardly need a prepared location to do it. He could have just shown up here with all his friends instead of sending a bird."

"That being said," he rounded on the bird, "I share their same concerns. This entire situation is one you caused. Why should we trust anything you have to say?"

[Zelphas]

The pigeon on the ground responds to Floral's outburst with a jump and a flutter of wings, before landing once again slightly farther away. It simply listens to the various responses, hopping from foot to foot, its head tilting first one way, then the other as each person speaks. The ruffled greyish feathers, wide amber eyes, and short beak are difficult to read, even before taking into account the fact that the bird was robotic in nature.

Spoiler: Deep within the Obelisk--Story Purposes Only

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Watcher leans back from his desk for a moment, sighing. "You're the one who styled yourself as a villain, hoping to salvage things. What did you expect?"

There is a beat of silence after everyone speaks, and then the pigeon opens its beak again. "At 4:37 PM on July 1st, Koro Hariot made a deal with a small-time crime boss to get passage on a freighter heading to Canada. From there, he would have made his way to Europe, awakened his powers there, and taken over several small countries with his Chain Gang. He would eventually die, but the resulting war for who would rule his empire would kill countless more people.

"At 6:44 PM on July 1st, Apophis, still looking like Frank Smith, was driving a stolen car south out of Forester's Bay. He would have seeded Suneater Cults throughout the southern US and Central and South America, and eventually made his way to Africa, apparently living there full-time. Others like him would have shown up, most likely due to his influence. The ritualistic death and destruction was still happening when I came back.

"Manchineel... was a gamble. The entire northern US and Canada would have been engulfed in a supernatural forest, and this seemed to be the source. By everything I could find, Manchineel would have awoken within the next three years, and there would have been nothing even resembling humanity left in her anymore. She was already here.

"So yes, I locked everyone in here with them. Because then they wouldn't be global threats. And because even these three are minor from my future. My goal isn't to stop them. It's to stop that." The pigeon pauses for a long breath, then the voice continues. "I messed up, and Lockdown awakened his powers. I thought he would be weaker now--and he is! But I'm still too weak. And I need to stay alive, if my future is going to be prevented. I'm the only one--genetically," he says, the pigeon looking at Floral for a second, "Who has a shot at stopping things right now. So I made a deal.

"I tried to find Manchineel, and I screwed up again. She woke up, and she is too strong for me too. I made another deal." Frustration is building in the voice on the other end. "Apophis as too strong. Doctor Proxy... it took a long time to convince them that going to the past was worthwhile, but now they are too committed. They won't stop unless it's obvious they aren't needed, and their methods are... more extreme than I'd like. They seem terrible, but they are better than they seem, I promise. And they'll... 'just not'--" a glance at Nope, one that somehow conveys confusion even through the medium of pigeon "--Once the other League members are stopped; I should be able to convince them then.

"Yes, I was 'watching' when Apophis turned the parking lot to sand. That's all I--" the pigeon's beak abruptly shuts, and it hops around the concrete floor for a few seconds, pecking at bits of detritus. It seems to take sudden notice of Helios and spook, flapping up with a burst of wings towards what remains of the rafters; mid-flight, it changes course again and lands on the ground, uncannily still, the beak opening again. "We're out of time; Saplings are popping out of the trees nearby, probably moving to check the status, and you should be able to hear police sirens soon." Sure enough, if you strain your ears the wail of a siren is just barely audible, coming from south and east. "You have no reason to believe me; all I can do is assure you this is true. I'm asking you to fix my mistakes. That isn't fair. But you haven't seen my future. And I'm doing everything I can to make sure you never have to."

Spoiler: Everyone's Earlier Evaluates

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Once again, it seems like everything that Watcher is saying here is the truth--or at the very least, what he believes to be the truth.

The siren gets louder. The pigeon flutters to the doors. "My bird will be at Food Fast, if you want my help. If not, well... you're the heroes. And you obviously hate the League. Things will probably work out." The pigeon flies away.

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lily listened with her arms crossed before her, her face still tense with anger. One might notice that the smell wafting off of her was stronger than normal, and rather than her typical flowery scent it was more like...well, oddly, like fresh-baked bread.

...But she did listen. Watcher giving them additional information did mollify her slightly, and perhaps more importantly, it gave the analytical, reasonable part of her a bit more to work with, shifter her somewhat out of Traumatized Victim mode and into Dispassionate Scientist mode.

She could admit, grudgingly, that if the three of them would have developed their powers anyway, if Watcher wasn't responsible for that...then containing them and trying to make deals to constrain the amount of damage they did was...probably the least wrong option. It sucked for them, sure, but it was different than if he had indeed been the one to give them their powers.

The indication that the future he had come back to prevent was something worse than the league made little impression on Lily. But the idea of a Manchineel with no trace of humanity - suggesting of course that the current one did have some - was mildly terrifying, to a woman who had faced the wrath of the mad dryad.

She didn't actually answer the pigeon, just continuing to fix it with her steely glare. She could understand the Watcher's choices, could even admit - in her own head at least - that she might have made them herself, given the same circumstances (though she would like to think she could have come up with a better option, given more information and time to think about it, but she was self-aware enough to know that that may well have just been pride speaking). But that still didn't mean she approved.

But once the bird was gone...she kinda deflated, dropping her arms slack at her sides and sagging a bit. The scent coming off of her changed to jasmine as she said, "Well...I suppose it would be stupid not to go there and learn whatever we can, huh?"

She sounded resigned. The question wasn't entirely rhetorical. There was a part of her that was kinda hoping one of the others could present a good argument that it wouldn't.

[Ridai]

Oh good. Things are getting even worse. Watcher not actually in charge. Just beat the four megavillains.

Nope is experiencing this sinking feeling alongside feeling the energy momentarily seep out of his body as he gives the longest sigh. Proxy being allegedly not as bad as it could be didn't help much. It is hard enough to face a small subsection of the current problems, but looking at the whole picture with additional information makes Nope kind of want to just curl up in bed for a while. Though, of course, that is not going to happen, conscience kind of just telling the rest to shut up and suck it up.

Naturally, it might also be the case that Watcher is just generally telling them a whole bunch of crap. Same with the invitation being some trap. Or what-have-you. No way for him to tell. He'll just... have to take the plunge and find out as he goes. As he has to with every confrontation. It's not getting easier to do so yet.

Seeing how hard Floral is taking things, Nope can't help but feel bad for her. There is this urge to somehow try to say something. But he learned across many years that peopleing is hard and he never really learned how to people. Some words come out, never really delivered the right way, frequently misunderstood, and just generally missing the mark. So, as he has learned to do when he isn't forced to respond, he tells himself to shut up.

Blurry Nope responds with the longest shrug, all "I don't know, but can't think of anything better either", but body language gets lost to some degree with how he looks. He trusts that the roughest gist of it is understood. Maybe.

"I'll, uh, I'll get us out of here," he quietly says, moving closer to the others. The next thing people know is that they are standing on a rooftop one or two miles from the warehouse, vaguely visible where they were in said warehouse. For Nope, it was a bit of a trip, as are most "instant" journeys across town, but at least he is getting better at this sort of thing, and handling three other people in zero time. But man, the concept of personal time is slippery, moreso when needing to remove that of more people than himself. Thus, when they reach the rooftop, there is a bit of a tremor in his hands, just glad the journey went mostly well... but he really should have asked and explained beforehand. Ugh. Damn it.

"I-I'll try to see if I can do... something about this." He holds up the piece of material found in the warehouse and just... sits down on the ground, trying to figure out if he can even conceptualize what the undamaged or less damaged state of thing might have been. And whether there is anything to be removed. Without removing the piece. Or his fingers. Once is enough.

"Oh, um. Hi. I'm Nope, I guess." Whether or not they met before or he may be known about somehow, Nope habitually reintroduces himself. And of course that "I guess" just had to slip out, too, as if he was still trying to decide on a "hero" name. Next, even through the hard to fully pinpoint appearance, there is definitely a furrowed brow on display as he tries to get anything about of the material.

Spoiler: Actions

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Nope uses Remove Travel Time to move everyone out of the warehouse. Note that he can't bring unwilling people and in this one instance, I'm stretching the range a little (in terms of Nope just being close to the others, but not touching all of them at the time of activation) for convenience in a no stakes moment.

On the roof, Nope tries to see whether Remove Harm with Remove Second Guessing might restore the piece of material
Healing Check (1d20+10)[11]

[Dorni]

Helios listened with rapt focus. It took no time at all to realize that Watcher was being more open than he'd ever expected. Apophis already had his powers before Watcher showed up. Flint shuddered at how easy it was for Apophis to find followers. Sure, Dante was going through rough times, but to throw in with the likes of the Suneaters... he shook his head before he went further down that road right now. Apophis already had his powers before Watcher's appearance. The idea that the others would have awakened eventually wasn't far fetched. And that being the case...

The chains of logic held up. Imprisoning everyone in the dome was a terrible injustice to everyone caught here, but it would contain the damage here. If the world of the future was as dire as Watcher described... he'd been at the hospital for too long to cling to notions that there was always an option that solved a problem without side effects.

"Agreed," Helios answered Floral, "We should see what he has to say. Even if we put aside any predictions he has about the future, he can tell us more about the League. Even if its unproductive, meeting him does not automatically mean we're working with him."

He nodded his assent at the indistinct man's offer. A moment later he found himself blinking at simply standing on a nearby rooftop. A useful trick. He needed to study the principle this man's powers worked on.

"Ah, good that you salvaged that. I'm curious to see what was so important that the AKuma would prefer to self-destruct than risk it falling into our hands."