olopi

GM 2nd of May, 2016 Early Morning AEGIS Headquarters, Freedom City The Plagues of Egypt, the Makot Mitzrayim were over. Various heroes, all around the world had dealt with them. The public had been affected. The media were full of reports about the plagues, details, reports, conspiracy theories. And so was the public’s attention, still entirely focused on the destruction and mystery surrounding them. In all this talk of biblical horrors, many had forgotten an event that made the headlines just days before the first plague. The assault on Neutron Industries, with the following destruction of not only their primary reactor, but also the temporary shutdown of most nuclear reactors along the east coast. The attack had been spear-headed by a small-time newcomer to the super-scene, a pyrokinetic calling himself Bonfire. Large parts of the public immediately reacted, calling him a terrorist and calling for his arrest. Meanwhile, others, among them a few people with positions of power, called him a hero for fighting corruption and the pollution of nature. AEGIS sub-commander Vincent Clarkson didn’t care either way. Bonfire had done enough good to build up a bit of protection, and truth be told, Clarkson had never been a fan of the nuclear industry. He had, probably deliberately, been left very vague assignments. It fell on him to assemble a team to go out and tell this hero-gone-rogue that he was going down a bad path, to convince him not to continue with actions like these, one way or another. Not arrest him, no. That would just cause the entire discussion, which had fortunately been interrupted by something much more threatening, to continue. It was best if all of this would just be forgotten, less political efforts from either side, less heroes thinking they can act like him too. This was about a show of force. Show him what AEGIS was capable of. Show him what would happen if he decided to go completely rogue. The agents were not permitted to use any kind of violence outside of facing aggression, but the threat of it was something that remained open for them to use. And so, the briefing had concluded. Ethan “Upgrade” Stone and James “Adept” Warner were to be accompanied by a local team of AEGIS field agents, and do what had been specified. They could call upon a, for AEGIS purposes, medium amount of supplies and backup, and had all been handed a file on Bonfire, specifying both known powers (very easy to find thanks to him having a blog), areas he frequented (more difficult to find since he wasn’t really tied down to any place), as well as heroic contacts (very few), and more miscellaneous information. “Well then, Gentlemen. Any remaining questions?”

Now that was an interesting question. Cass had spent a fair bit of time working on a story exactly in case this question would be asked. The actual story wasn’t all that heroic, it needed a few touches. But also, it should still not contradict anything that happened publically, the bar. He’d told Marie about what he’d thought of on the way to Lantern Hill, so she had some idea of it too. Now it was time to talk. This was what Cass was good at. He took a deep breath, and started talking, slowly so Casey could not everything down. “Well, it’s a bit of a complicated one. I’ll just go through the entire thing as a summary, then we can discuss things in more detail. It all started off … yesterday, actually. It didn’t really take too long to get to us going to Neutron’s. But I’m skipping ahead of myself here. So I just got finished dealing with a hostage situation, you might have already heard of that one. Then I got a call. Somebody, Marie here, was in serious danger. And she was down in the sewers. I didn’t really hear more than that before heading to the sewers. It’s pretty easy to do so when you’re made of smoke. So I’m down there, when I hear some running. And its Marie, being chased by a bunch of mercenaries. And they fortunately didn’t get to use them, but let’s just say they had some mean-looking guns. Not ones you’d want to have pointed at you, for sure. We managed to escape through some creative application of my powers. Apparently there was a briefcase of Uranium stored away in some bar, I didn’t ask why, but went to go fetch it instead. Once I was in there I noticed that something was wrong with the two clients in there. Both fainted and had blood foaming from their mouths, they must’ve not known about the Uranium. I quickly got them out of the building before calling an ambulance, I’m a hero, I won’t let anybody die! And then, the first act of defying the law. The police had arrived and apparently knew of dangerous materials being in there. Now, this was important enough, I decided to just escape. Wasn’t that difficult, and we went back to the sewers. There, we talked for a while. Apparently Neutron was simply disposing of their radiated goods by dumping them into the sewers. And as we got closer to their Headquarters, more and more of the sewer Rats started being incredibly tall, or having 5 legs, you get the idea. We also almost got overrun by a stampede of human-child sized rats. Not that fun, let me tell you. By now I knew that this entire thing had to be stopped for sure. Think about it, what would happen If those rats managed to attack a sewer worker? Or even get out? The rest of it should be very well documented by the cameras, but I can talk about it either way. So we met up with two of Marie’s allies, and went in. Not that difficult, I’ve sneaked into the bases of hostage-takers and small-time terrorists before, this was a cakewalk. Obviously, we did get spotted in the end, so I will say that I might’ve gotten a bit overconfident. But we had to stop them from polluting more. So we went in, and while Marie used her old work-outfit, yes, she worked there before, to deal with the reactor, I dealt with the local security, a few robots. Then, while being held at gun-point, for a good reason, but still, I went to superheat the reactor. That would take them out of the game, and if it meant I’d get seriously injured in the process, so what? We’d have accomplished our goal. Fortunately enough I managed to avoid getting shot. I’m still not sure what the resulting blast of radiation did, but I should probably find a hospital once the entire thing’s blown over. Then it was just a matter of getting out before more security arrived. Something I’m also fairly skilled in. And, by the way, here’s all the data we’ve got on them, and some pictures of all the rats down in the sewers. At this point I doubt any rat can still freak me out. “ Bonfire quickly pulled a flash drive from a non-existent pocket on his pants, and handed it to Casey. “So, what should we go into details about first?”

1d20 + 20 = 26 Eh, good enough. The post itself will probably have to wait until tomorrow, I'm already a bit too tired to write

There had been a bit of a delay. As it had turned out, some of the sewers had been blocked off due to a recent super-battle. So, a different route had to be taken. And it took a bit longer. Fortunately, not too long. A few minutes of delay, bad, but not terrible. Still enough time for an interview. And so, Bonfire and Marie arrived at Lantern Hill. Fortunately enough it was remote enough. Getting out of the sewers unseen was easy enough. Walking to the actually meet-up spot was done under the cover of invisibility, just for safety. Better to be safe than sorry. Casey stood out, so actually finding her was easy enough. Hey, Bonfire was invisible, why not make a bit of an entrance? And so, he spoke, like back at Neutron’s Reactor when he was trying to interrupt a few robots. A bit more quiet and all, but still with a booming voice. “And coming up on stage now, Freedom’s HOTTEST newcomer; Booooooonfire!” And with a poof of smoke, he and Marie appeared before Casey. Cass didn’t have any clothes at all on him, it was all illusions of smoke. He’d stayed up the last 24 hours to keep up his smoke, both his clothes, and his head. He didn’t really want to be seen as Cassidy Bauer, even down in a sewer hideout. “Hey! Here we are! Hope you don’t mind the smell too much, there’s only so much one can do against the sewer’s influence. And those still are the safest way to get around when everybody’s after your smoky, barely existing head. “ It was time to get this interview started. There’d probably be a lot of explanation and other things before it, so starting immediately was a good idea. Sure, Cass had time, but that didn't mean he had to take really long for everything.

“That, my friend, is the plan.” Which, by itself, was more or less correct. The whole “using” part not so much, but the rest. Cass was a photography student. He still knew most his classmates. Most of them went on to work in the news industry. So he had some ties to it, and certainly wasn’t going to mis-trust a journalist too much. Especially not somebody known for being in a legal grey-area. If the police would show up, both him and Casey were in trouble. Sure, the data wasn’t complete. But, this was one big leak. Casey wouldn’t be the first person to see it, Bonfire had already sent most of the files to some other contacts. But, they also had to go through everything, he simply gave them a head start. Maybe the people’s eye would be quicker, and they’d be the ones to break the news. Maybe it’d be somebody else. Maybe they’d all work together, since they generally were aware of each other also working on dissecting it. “So, whaddya say? You coming too? Or should I head up there myself? Casey’s probably interested in you too. And this is a much simpler way of advocating shutting down nuclear power plants. “

okay, a few posts with marie sound good, then a travel thing there / skip to the graveyard!

okay, feel free to have some dialogue between bonfire and marie, or just cut to the graveyard, whatever you feel works better

Marie had proven to be a bit more ambitious than Cass had hoped. He’d expected it, but not hoped. One wasn’t enough. Ten weren’t enough. It was about each and every one now. And while yes, he wasn’t a fan of nuclear power either, this was going a bit too far. He was thinking about how to tell Marie to maybe relax a bit, but it felt like it probably was a bad idea, and her glowing eyes didn’t help with that either. Well, at least he’d had cooled down and managed to refuel enough. The last 15 or so hours had been spent making sure his web-pages didn’t get bombarded. A few quick statements here and there, a longer one on his main blog, and a few hints at some more upcoming information in the news. By now most of the west coast probably knew who Bonfire was. And most of them classified him as a super-villain, probably. And then, the E-Mail. Casey was good people. Cass usually watched the people’s eye when he had nothing else to do, it was quite interesting. And caused a lot of debates on the internet, like most things. This was a good opportunity to set some things straight. Sure, some people would read his blog-posts, but in order to reach the public, an interview felt like a really good idea. EMAIL: FreedomsHottest@HeroHouseBlogs.com >>Oh yeah. Totally up for it! I’ve got enough to talk about! Send me an address and a time and I’ll meet you there. I’m laying low right now, so I’ve got time whenever. Might bring the person that got me into the whole thing, if she feels up for it. Her story’s probably more interesting. So, plan for 2 interviews. It might just be one still, but bring enough. And the next part of his lay-low phase had begun. Start being active outside of the internet too. And for now, maybe he could convince Marie to accompany him. Her story would probably be more interesting, even if Cass still didn’t know all, even barely any, of it.

GM Blue Jay didn’t have the best of luck today. While hitting the dinosaurs themselves was hardly a problem, actually damaging them turned out to be more difficult. The skeletons moved fairly clunky, their movements simple and predictable. But as it turned out, damaging something made mostly of empty space was a bit more difficult. Most arrows passed through the empty space between bones, hitting the ground underneath the raptor-like dinosaurs. Some arrows still found their target, one small raptor got hit right in the skull, collapsing immediately. Meanwhile, the two bigger raptors proved to be easier to damage too. Both got hit into their chests, the arrows making them fall over, but not taking them out of the fight completely. Once again, screeching, like the sound of bones grinding on each other. This was a pretty unpleasant sound. Meanwhile, the motorcyclist did their best to avoid all the dinosaurs, fortunately enough they seemed not to care about him too much. Many of them just stood around destroying pieces of furniture. The Motorcycle wasn’t out of the threatened area yet, but it was getting there.

okay, since i missed it earlier: Bonfire's going to act at Initiative 0, to make things simpler. Now, for the raptors: I'll say she managed to hit two groups, one at 21 Ini and one at 8. And no, they're pretty bad at dodging, so they all get hit. Since I'm not sure which descriptor you're using here, I assume penetrating, due to arrows. They're skeletons which gives them half-immunity towards, amongst othr things, piercing, meaning it's a DC 17 Various rolls In an incredible feat of luck, all but one minions resist! Well, there go all my good rolls. And now for the two big 'uns: more rolls The first one's Staggered and stunned, the second one stunned and bruised. 23 Blue Jay - Unharmed - 3HP 22 Silver Spider - Unharmed - 5HP 22 Raptor Swarm - Unharmed 21 Raptor Swarm - One Minion down, Leader staggered, stunned 17 - The Speaker . Unharmed - 2HP 16 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed 16 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed 15 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed 12 - Raptor Swarm - Unharmed 10 - Raptor Swarm - Unharmed 8 - Raptor Swarm - Leader stunned, bruised 1 0 - Bonfire - Unharmed - 2HP Silver Spider's up!

Okay Intiative order then is: Raptors Ankylos 23 Blue Jay - Unharmed - 3HP 22 Silver Spider - Unharmed - 5HP 22 Raptor Swarm (4 Minions + 1 Bigger one) - Unharmed 21 Raptor Swarm - Unharmed 17 - The Speaker . Unharmed - 2HP 16 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed 16 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed 15 - Ankylosaur - Unharmed And more raptor swarsm at 12, 10, 8. If I've made any mistakes with the HP counting, call me out on it! Also, feel free to narrate some stuff that happened before your character got to the street, how your characters have already been fighting, and so on. Blue Jay is up!

“Well, I’ve got a friend who loooooooves stories like these. And she’s got enough people covering her back that getting it out there is only a matter of time. And well, I’ve got me. I’m south of the law already, antagonizing a company isn’t going to change that much. I’ll take the responsibility. I’m sure there’s enough people out there that are also upset at what they’ve done. With a bit of PR-Magic, not literal mind you, we can get a pretty big business affair going here. The industry’s gonna have some explaining to do after this. So, what I need is you to send all these files you have, pictures of some of these …. Rats, if you can still call them that, to her. Everything you’ve got. The more complete the entire thing is, the quicker it’s out there. And if you feel like being public too, we can add in your own story, which will definitely make people be more upset at what they’ve done. But, that part’s up to you. It’s probably involved with some danger, then again, you already seem to have company hitmen running you down.. Maybe even record a video or two, so they can’t call it manipulated. And then, we wait and see how it develops. And rack in a payday probably, all this info has to be worth some cash. So, whaddya say, do we finish them off for good?”

No, it wasn’t victory quite yet. Some things had to be done still. No, not further destruction or anything, it was time for some higher arts. The arts of Public Relations. It was time to be charismatic …. Or well, it would’ve been if it hadn’t been for all this fire. Cass would have to have the others do all the work, and couldn’t access his own files. Not too great, but still salvageable. “Not quite. Now comes the interesting part. Now we bust ‘em. We’ve got all this data, we have to use it. And I might know just the person. Do you have internet access down here? I can’t really use my own gear for … a few hours, probably. But, if we get all this data, and maybe even your personal story out there, the networks are going to pick it up like free icecream on a summer day. We’ve got a headline that’s not going to be topped for days right here. It’s time to do something with it.”

okay, so Bonfire's flight in fire-form has a full power flaw. If this makes it more difficult for him to get out in time, feel free to narrate so! Otherwise I just assume he's gotten good enough at aiming and launching himself like he's playing minigolf ON FIRE

Phew. She didn’t overstay her welcome. That was actually great. Cass could easily get out of here together with Marie and … one of the soldiers, he’d forgotten his name. This place was going to be in ruins in just a bit. It was time to get out, yes. The place wouldn’t collapse at least, but that also meant Bonfire was now a known Terrorist. Huh, this all had turned out differently than Cass had expected just a few hours ago. And these must’ve been the most intense few hours he’s ever had. Anyways, there was no reason to stay here any longer. Time to run. And probably hide and lay low for a while. Times like these having a secret identity was great. Would Save both Cass and Bonfire a lot of trouble. “No need to. I’ll deal with the attention. And you will have to too. I’ve already got a plan! But, we can discuss that later, we gotta bail. The place isn’t going to break down, but I have a feeling there’s going to be some heavy security in here pretty soon. And I'd hate to deal with them.” Well, it was the fire-form now. No way of getting around slowly. He’d have to aim, accelerate for just a fraction of a second, and hope he wouldn’t hit a wall. He left the others go before him, so they could open the various doors, and then, like in a bad minigame, took aim.

Sounds good! A hero to some, a villain to others - I like the sound of that! He has enough ways to escape the police if you want to have them show up too, or they can just show up after he already left. There's enough things showing he was involved in this, feel free to make something up! Well, neither Bonfire or Cass probably were planning to work as nuclear scientists, so I doubt he'd care

Terrifica had an air of authority around her. Cass wasn’t sure how to put it, he didn’t feel like this often, but something about her felt like she was a natural. She had an idea what was going on. And her suggestion felt right. Maybe it was something mind-related, maybe she just had an experience with being in a position of authority. Well, she’d suggested he and the Shrike go look around the river. And he felt like she had some idea of something going on. He raised his hand and saluted, the smoke forming his head turning to form a gigantic grin. This was more of a joke than anything, but, Cass liked having some fun every once in a while. And something suggested it wouldn’t be happening later this evening. “Yes, Ma’am!” But he wasn’t leaving yet. There was still information to be found in here, maybe Kirkpatrick would tell them more. He waited around some more, the more information the better. In the meantime, he took a closer look at the communicator. Not all that useful, no way of plugging it into his ear, considering he didn’t have one most of the time.

Okay, so relationships with various people/agencies coming from the consequences: We've not palyed through everything so some of this might change, but: The Police: Depends on how some stuff concludes, but I imagine they will, at the very least, not be on good terms with Bonfire for a while. Depending on how it goes maybe even try to arrest him and bring in STAR/AEGIS, but that should remain unlikely since Bonfire is still emant to be a hero, even if he's a bit south of the law right now. AEGIS/The Government: Talked about this a bit before above. He's certainly got their attention now. Even if it turns out he did the right thing, I imagine he's certainly somebody they'll keep a closer eye on, more likely to maybe go fully rogue and the like. They'd probably not be public about it, but track him more closely. Various Corporations: Once again, depends on how everything concludes, but yeah, I highly doubt any of them will trust Bonfire at all after this, at least for a while. And even if it turns out everything he did is totally fine and he just avoided some bigger problem, they'd still be wary of him. Maybe some, especially more dubious ones, would also invest in better fire-protection. Marie: Depends quite a lot on her actions across the next few posts, so I'll keep this one open for now. Fans: Oh boy. He'll probably gain a lot, loose a lot. Probably some split down the fan-base and the internet in general, and lots of toxic discussion about what he did. The Public: Oh he's gonna be on the news, that's for sure. Depending on how it all turns out and gets covered, some people will like him for doing it, others might call for him to be arrested and locked away. He definitely managed his goal of getting public attention! Himself: He'll be fairly torn up about this either way, and I might play around with some radiation based effects to add onto his power-set when I do his next update.

Now that was a hit. Bonfire hadn’t set somebody on fire in a while. It felt … strangely pleasing, kind of good? No, bad thoughts. This was a pretty bad thing to do. Something inside Cass’s head made him feel like attacking the Chief of Security, lying on the floor, again. Put him out of service properly. He had no idea what this was, he’d never felt like this before. And it certainly wasn’t pleasant. Maybe something with all the radiation? Maybe it had just screwed with his brain. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe a combination of both. Either way, that was not the right thing to do. It was time to cool off a bit, take it easy. Talk it out. Make sure nobody died. Hero Business. And probably evacuate too. This place hardly was safe to stay in. For now it was time to talk however. “Should’a interrupted us before we were up here. I don’t really care about what this facility had to do with it, but all this Uranium business is too unsafe. Probably a good thing this place is gone for now. “ Then, a quick glance over to Marie, not that it was something anybody could tell, considering Cass’s Body was just a flame at this point. “So, what now? Do we just get out of here? “ He had a suspicion of what her next move would be, and hopefully that wouldn’t be the case. Hopefully she’d suggest just getting out.

Well, this … stretcher? Probably? Certainly had a sense of humor. He seemed pretty cool from what Cass had gathered so far. Maybe he’d figure out more once he went internet diving, he didn’t really seem like somebody that wouldn’t make it into the news at least a few times. Maybe some idea what his powers actually were too. Bonfire was fixed on Doctor Warp for a few seconds, before speaking in deadpan, much like the doctor before. His smoke head flickering a bit in the wind, but otherwise not moving a single bit. “Uuuh, actually, I don’t have the slightest clue. I don’t even know what kind of building that was. I just heard alarms and came flying in.I usually figure things like that out afterwards, when the crime's dealt with. “ Now this was an interesting situation. At least they knew where to go after the criminals, but not who to go after, or why.

Wooooosh. It had been a while since Cass had been this high over the city. He preferred to fly low, due to the amount of wind at higher altitudes. Generally, being this high meant he was blazing, made of fire, and barely able to control his movement speed. At that point, flying high was a good idea, to not crash into any buildings and leave some nasty burn marks on them. Finding a black van wasn’t that easy this late at night, no luck with that one. At least with just normal human vision. Considering the martial artist also wore black… yeah, good luck. No way to find somebody here. And then, a bit of movement. Okay, that might’ve been him. Must’ve gotten shaken off the van. Then again, it might’ve been somebody else, it was hard to tell from a distance and with the Fens’ all so great street lights. There was a reason this place was full of crime, and the street-lights certainly amplified it. “Well, I see something moving down there. Might be him, might not be. You’ve probably got a better eye than …eye do. “

1d20 + 7 = 26 Bonfire seems to have gained nuclear protection! And then, another Autofire, this time at green only. 1d20 + 8 = 16 So, if that hits it's DC 27, and if it exceeds his defense by 2 or more the DC rises further. Actually, scratch that last result, I'm gonna spend my last HP to reroll it. 1d20 + 8 = 22 Much better!

Ouch. The radiation itself did not hurt. But what would come from it probably would. Best case, nothing. Maybe a hospital stay. Maybe he’d get some fancy new power, which might be a positive? But then again, maybe he’d get some disease or something from all this radiation. Being this close to a superheating reactor had to be bad for the body, even if it was made of smoke, or in this case, fire. Green wasn’t the best at aiming, that was good. That gun looked rather nasty, even in fire-form. The less chances he’d get to use it the better. But the soldier also shot him with a gun. …this wasn’t good. Bonfire still was a hero, having somebody die wasn’t part of his MO at all. Maybe if he’d knock him out quickly it wouldn’t be a problem, and it looked like the soldier had to reload either way. Marie … well, she had powers, so much was proven. For now, it was time to finish this fight. There was enough fuel left for a bit, but after that Bonfire would burn out. And that generally was something to be avoided. Especially while in combat. The glowing orb, which had lost most of its light suddenly flared up again, and various fireballs of all sizes flew towards the chief of security. This was a matter of making sure the others didn’t kill him, even if it meant giving him some high-degree burns.

That's actually what inspired me to actually go ahead and do it! I found it a few days ago while archive-diving, as I tend to do. It's a bit outdated, so I decided to just start completely new, but for completion, here's the link http://www.freedomplaybypost.com/topic/2319-the-chart/#comment-70193

A solid hit! The robot was out good. There was something about the thrill of seeing an enemy go down for real that was incredibly exciting to Cass. Not just go unconscious, but properly break down. Whatever these thoughts were, he’d have to supress them later on. For now? Probably not too bad to have them. And it was time to end this. If this wouldn’t be done there’d be a lot more than this room missing in just a few seconds. And, as he’d thought before, Cass didn’t want to be known as the guy who turned Freedom into a nuclear wasteland. So he got ready to unleash all this heat, send a few fireballs that way. And then security arrived. This was the guy that had sent the robots after them. And he was wearing a radiation suit. Well, he’d be protected from the heat, but what about the fire? Bonfire was no longer in a mood for playing, not after everything that had happened today. This was about more than a terrorist, maybe Marie was one, maybe not. He could always fight her later if that was necessary. This was about not destroying all of Freedom. Cass had grown to like the city, for all its problems. And this man was indirectly trying to make him turn it into a nuclear wasteland. Not today. Nuclear reactors were dangerous anyways, so shutting them down did have its good aspects. And honestly? Ass had never been a fan of the whole “God Bless the USA” thing. Sure, he was an American citizen too and for the most part liked his country, but all this patriotism didn’t help Green’s argument. “Too late.” There was no time to waste. It was time for more fire. He channelled all the heat he could get from inside the room, the temperature quickly dropping to outside levels, before rising again a second later, with a massive blast of fire engulfing the reactor. He’d never put out this much heat before, it was definitely draining him a bit. But it was time to make sure there’d be no blaster poking a hole through him.