Zeitgeist Blue

Intimidate: 1d20+12+5 = 21

Diplomacy Roll: 1d20+6 = 23

Fortitude Saving Throw: 1d20+10 = 25

Nice, @angrydurf. Can you build the spell you used to create those items? Get a +10PP to your VP as you invariably use the magic from the ritual used to make Nicole's armor vulnerable to the creation of magical things. Also, sounds like a Diplomacy skill Ouroboros is doing. Can you roll that? I'll oppose both by their Magic Sense and Sense Motive/the skill used to oppose Diplomacy.

"Argh!" Salvo launched herself forward to try to grab Mike but she was left grasping air as he teleported away at the last second. Her fingers flexed, still held where his throat would have been, and she stood glowering there, her visor pulsing angrily in a dark purple glow. Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid to believe someone as shifty as Mike. As if his way was any better than Gauss' or her sense of direcrion. She didn't want to admit it but she'd been duped by a fifth-rate, no promise, noob of a practitioner . Stupid! "Wait," she said in reply to her companions' questions. She dropped her hand and turned to stare at the wall. Gauss' way would take another half hour to get back to where they started and who knew how long until they could figure out the map and traverse their way to Baal. No, there had to be another way. She racked her brain for something, immediately dismissing twenty rituals for taking too long, another thirty for their immediate cost. She needed to mix and match. Take a component of one and add it to another, the principles of tradition and transplant it to work on the surface level of an ad hoc set of symbols. She took different traditions and philosophies from over the world and distilled them into something unified. Hebrew gnosticism as the base. Islamic alchemy turned into writing. Japanese ofuda using the glass of her visor as paper. A Chinese pentagram to take advantage of the Earth around them. Norse runes etched to evoke other realms. It gave her a headache to even think about how it all worked yet it did. In her mind. Yet she still needed to carry it into reality. She pointed at her visor and a thin laser-like beam began to trace an unseen array of ideograms and symbols, a metapjorical path connecting each one into a proper goal. She chanted as she worked on her visor. Then after half a minute she said, louder, "Ba'al, Ruled of the East, First and Principal king of Hell, Duke of Sixty-Six Legions. Reveal yourself." Her visor shifted in color, from a dark purple light into black, flickering and blood red at the edges. She paused, then after a second turned her laser to the wall, carving a what looked to be a doorway. Then she began to carve inside the door's frame and when she was done she stepped back and sent out a puff of fire into the center. It radiated outwards, filling where her laser had created grooves into the stone until the doorway was lined in fire and her ritual was lined in fire. She looked at Gauss and Pan, her expression hidden behind armour and helmet but she was panting, surprised it had worked as it did. "Come on," she said with barely contained emotion, fingers twitching. "The fire won't burn you." Then she pushed at the door and it swung outwards, where there was once stone now was fire, all fire burning on darkness. There was a price to pay for all of this but she had delayed it. They had more pressing issues on hand.

What do you guys think? Should I use my 2 HP and feats now or maybe save it in case we need it for when we're at Ba'al? I think I can use it now.

Spending an HP to Jury-Rig a Ritual. Teleport 3 (300-1,000 feet, Extras: Portal [+2]; Flaws: Long-Range [-1], Medium [Stone] [-1]; Feats: Progression [10x10 feet Portal] [+1]) {7} + Super-Senses (Accurate, Acute, Ranged, [Ba'al] Awareness [+1], Counters Concealment [+2], Counters Illusion [+2], Counters Obscure [Visual] [+2], Extended 2 [1,000 feet] [+2], Penetrates Concealment [+4], Radius [+1]) {14} = {19PP} Jury-Rigged Knowledge (Arcane Lore) DC: 10 + 5 + 19 = 34. Spending about 2 minutes on this. Spending an HP for Ultimate Skill (Arcane Lore). Salvo has no HP left.

I'd say so. At least until the wyrm had appeared Veronica was being held loosely enough to use her hands.

And there's a thing up, Thev. A minor note, but I'll assume Veronica's got Immunity (Suffocation) up from her VP array.

Veronica All alone with something that could only be described as your reflection. It wears the same things as you and even seems to be using them, though only for strength to enhance its body you note. It does nothing else but swim, you in its grip. It does not assault you anew or batter you with some power. It does not even bother to look at you or acknowledge you and perhaps it does not even have sapience enough for it to bother. A few seconds pass and before you could wonder whether all it will do is to swim forever, you catch sight of a large shadow from the direction you had been pulled from. It swims closer, large enough to be rival a blue whale you reckon and perhaps it could have been Masque and her illusions coming to the rescue but that is easily dismissed as you feel the the liquid shift in response, pushing you back with the force. Your reflection stops swimming and faces the thing coming at you. It is a great wyrm-like creature but instead of blood, scales, and flesh it is a creature of steel, glass, and ice. Serpentine, it surges forward, head rearing and teeth flashing, only for its maw to stop a few feet from you. An aftershock current comes a moment later but your reflection paddles its legs against the current, keeping the both of you in place. Then the wyrm's body curls through the liquid around you, almost swaddling you and your reflection in its crystalline body. Bellios Bearer. You hear it pounding in your mind, just enough not to be painful. But the voice is booming and uncomfortable just the same, and the source can only come from the creature before you. Its eyes are like glacial ice and it turns its head to center you against one. It is not in any language you know but its meaning is clear. I request you listen for I have been found wanting in my role as guardian of this realm and those adjacent. The Sphere has seen two actors perform unchallenged for too long, carrying their malice wherever they tread. But you and your companions seek to merge the Selves into one once more. Accept my aid and perhaps you may rectify my failures.

Give me a Notice Check. DC 25.

Combat Simulator, Sub-Level Four, The Subbasement Jamin Summers Administration Building, Claremont Academy Bayview, Freedom City, New Jersey Thursday, January 31, 2019 12:12:30 PM Reina found herself in Freedom City. What struck her first was that it wasn't snowing. The sun shone pleasantly in the bright blue sky, not a cloud in sight, and most of the pedestrians she could see wore light clothes fit for summer. Bright dresses and shirts, shorts and caps to ward off the sun. She alone had winter attire, what she wore this morning, but she did not feel overly warm even under the sunlight. She could see some cars had their roofs down, bathing the passengers with sunlight. Nearby yellow taxis waited in line for passengers. She was beside what looked to be a main road, four lanes in total, but traffic was light and cars coasted by. The traffic light signaled red and the cars stopped, allowing pedestrians to cross the road. People glanced at Reina, standing still by the pedestrian lane, but paid her no mind after that, walking around her on their way to whatever business they had. She could see a boy on a skateboard deftly wave through the crowd pass by her. A man wearing a gray suit and carrying a suitcase bumped into her and did not look back, too occupied with his phone call to apologize. The buildings rose above and around her, a mixture of residential high-rises and brick establishments, ranging from a few stories tall to dozens. An Italian place was open behind her and she could hear the ringing of cutlery as diners ate their lunch, smell the pizza and the pasta wafting from the open windows and the outside area. Tangy on her nose, with generous heapings of baked cheese and herbs in their dishes. 'Mama Lou's Kitchen' the sign said in green letters over the brownstone that made up the rest of the building, a half dozen or so story affair that sat contentedly amid the highrises. "You're in Midtown, Freedom City during the Summer of 2017." Nicole's voice came through a speaker, hidden beneath the lifelike simulation. "Beyond fighting criminals and beyond working against hostile forces, those with powers have a responsibility to their fellow people. It isn't unlike people having a responsibility to their fellows. We respect each other, we value their rights as human beings, we respond to their needs when they call for help. This is a common factor between those with powers and without, something that makes us all human. To ignore it is to cheapen yourself." She pauses for a few seconds and the simulation goes on as if nothing has happened. "And sometimes, that call to humanity happens in the most unexpected of times."

Salvo She did not growl at Pan but her armor did as much for her, its engine thrumming low and menacing. She did not miss Pan's pointed accusation at her. "No, you can't," she said, her head turning a fraction to bring Pan into the corner of her vision. She scoffed. "But tutting like a prude won't do anything will it? This will." She gave the book only for it to be snatched away from Mike's grip. Unlike Pan, Gauss had a valid point and Salvo nodded her agreement. Idiots shouldn't be trusted to even look at their instruments of messing up. Like Mike and the tome. It was safer in Gauss' hands. "Fine," Salvo said, gesturing at Mike to move on. "Lead the way. My radar would go haywire if that's happening."

Salvo Two hours and nothing. She stood up, straightening to her full height, and ground the pair of sunglasses under her armored boot. She heard a hiss, as if in annoyance, and the air filled with smoke as the spirit roused from its feast back to find more suitable food. A warren of rats or maybe a warehouse of smuggled goods, wherever hiding could be found. Then she trudged back through the path she had taken to get into position, following the walkway slick with sewer water. She needed to get back before her presence in Claremont would be missed. Almost walking on autopilot, she focused her attention elsewhere, pulling up a screen where she browsed the net. She saw Terrifica had answered. "She had always made Boston difficult to penetrate." Her father had appeared behind her, reading the online text. "In the end the cost was too great and I gave up on that project." Nicole turned so that the screen wasn't visible to her father. "And why not give up on Freedom City?" She asked with a frown, though she was genuinely curious. "There're so many more heroes than just her here." "Which creates opportunity and exponentially provides more factors which prove just as much a hindrance to the heroes as it does the underworld." "And opportunities." "Very much so my dear daughter, very much so. Boston did not give either with its dearth." "Huh," was all she could say to that. Instead of thinking she began to type. She paused typing. She was just about to talk about Gabriel Marquez, Claremont's head counselor, but realized how easily it would be to divulge personal information then. Then she resumed, more careful. She knew a few current Claremont students who had participated in the invasion but they did not feel as she did about it. Perhaps it was her memory that was the cause for the difference, how easily anything could stick with her for the rest of her life. A convenient lie.

Sense Motive Roll: 1d20+7 = 19