Zeitgeist Blue

Salvo = 31 posts + 8 posts = 39 posts = 3PP Hammer and Scalpel: City Night Heist (1) Happiness in Slavery (20) Scene: Terrifica and Salvo (7) Stellar School (2) The Tale of Two Trees (1) GM = 4 post = 8 posts Hammer and Scalpel: City Night Heist (3)

Nicole Nicole knew Selena was distracting her from that unpleasant memory but she let herself get distracted anyway. Then Selena started talking about shopping and then Nicole's laughter rang through Selena's ears. "It'd be great to find something I could show my feet with. I could wriggle my toes again. It's crazy." She lapsed into silence, staring at the inky sky above. Right above Seoul, the city lights overpowered the stars in the galaxy. She raised a finger and pointed at a blot of sky. "Crazy to think we'll be travelling there soon," she said, referring to their upcoming field trip to the Xi home system. "Think anything else would let us do that so easily?" She flipped over so that she was facing the city rooftops, watching cars zoom by in the highways. "I've got scholarships with FCU, Hanover Institute, and Emerald City University. I could stay in Freedom with all its heroes and threats but, I don't know, Emerald holds more technology centers and it would be nice to be closer to the Leons." Her thoughts strayed to ArcheTech and the Ochiai-kai and of the flare-up of interdimensional energies she had detected. She frowned. "There are threats there too but so few heroes to go against them." Then she raised her head to look to Selena. "And you? Set on staying in Freedom? Is FCU what you're looking at?"

Well, if Salvo is able to get the map and opens the system specs with her roll then she'll do that herself. Not like she's someone who's patient right now, even if she asked. Maybe Terrifica can give her the map and system specs at the same time as she took them? Salvo didn't roll for or trigger the distress signal either.

So while Nicole is asking Terrifica to give her maps and open the door she'll try and get the maps on and try to see determine what's wrong with the reactor too. Computers: 1d20+15 = 25 with Skill Mastery

Just to clarify but there's only one doorway to and from the room and that doorway is the one with the hull breach?

Salvo She cursed furiously in her head as the signal from the reactor came through, the satellite's crew shown gathered together there. Damn it. Of course the test was to rescue the civilians. It was so obvious she would have hit herself if they weren't on a five minute timer. She nodded, fired her thrusters and with a gout of flame flew to the room's door, bracing against it. "Terrifica," she said, voice hurried as the clock was ticking down. "We can work through the radio if you give me access to the satellite system, but someone needs to go down there in case fixing the reactor from here won't cut it. I can talk while moving, so open the doors and give me a map."

Nicole With a crash, the computer was sent tumbling to the floor as Nicole shoved the terminal at the mouse for all the good that did. She could only hope the message had been sent before the mouse shut the computer down. Then the air duct exploded with mice streaming into the room, crawling across the wall to fill the space, and Nicole joined her screams with Rita's. No no no no no no no. Her eyes locked into the swarm then to the doorway to Rita's office. She realized it was their only exit and her heart started pumping faster as adrenaline surged through her blood. She wasn't going to die here. She wasn't going to turn into food for things that looked like a deranged sculptor had created. She refused it. Her wheels spun around and she sped to the door, grabbing Rita's labcoat as she passed by. "We need to run like right now!"

Salvo "We're fine, Terrifica. I needed to take a look outside." Salvo said as the artificial gravity returned. Her boots thudded on the ground but she did not remain still for long. The large monitor was bolted to the ground and unharmed so her systems went back to work but instead found Terrifica's own systems occupying where her data hooks used to be. It was a small annoyance but this wasn't the time to wrestle for control so she faced Terrifica instead, looking down at the shorter woman. "The hull's been compromised by something large but whatever crashed through is long gone." Then she looked around the room as if expecting something else to happen. "The sudden hull breach and the artificial gravity going haywire and then nothing. If this was an attack on the satellite then they'd just alerted us for no reason." One glance at the monitors reminded her that Terrifica had already accessed the computers. "Did you find anything? Any sign from the onboard cameras or sensors?"

Before I forget, here is the contraption from Nicole. There's a hint of magic in there. Headset (Equipment) - Feature (Can hear clearly) - Feature (Eyes are protected from annoyances) - Communication (Basically a radio. Right now tuned to Bellios)

Nicole Nothing. Nicole's face turned white as she tried to find options but fell flat, and that made her squeeze the lamppost even tighter. "I don't know. I don't know!" She was shaking her head vigorously. Then the scratching in the walls started, a sound that seemed made to unnerve the teenager. But an idea came to her mind and she quickly discarded the lamppost, rushing up to Rita's terminal to message anyone and everyone in the laboratory's systems. Send help. Send security. She hit Enter and then froze, scenarios running through her mind as the bumps and the scratches turned more intense. They were running out of time. In all likelyhood security wouldn't get to them in time and-- and--. The mice could do whatever it planned. So she made a decision and, eyes still glued to the computer screen for replies, very calmly said, "Rita. I need you to trust me and close your eyes. Keep it close until I say so and we will get out of this alright. I promise you." She turned to face Rita to show how serious she was. They needed to summon Bellios.

So when returning to the satellite I'd like to make a Notice check to look for clues about what punctured or compromised the hull. Notice Roll: 1d20+7 = 21

Freedom City - The shining city where superhumans are as common a sight as fancy cars and where super-fights break out in the open though it is flexible with less-powered stories can still be told. - Metropolis. Marvel's New York City. DCAU. Netflix MCU. PL 7-15. Emerald City - Northwestern Gothic, where a retro-futuristic city with small-town vibes hiding strange secrets in the dark woods and conspiracies and danger beneath the gleaming glass. Gravity Falls. Stranger Things. The X-Files. Vancouver. San Francisco. PL 8-12. Bedlam City - Gritty and once-grand city that is dying in hacking coughs, and with everything about it, from its citizens to its infrastructure, rotten to the core. - Gotham. Sin City. Fight Club. Black Lagoon. Detroit. PL 7-10.

Salvo "C'mon c'mon," Salvo muttered under her breath as the switch was flipped and she waited for the airlocks to open. Her speakers did not broadcast them but she turned to Terrifica, signalling her to find something to grab on to. "No, it's fine! The quicker we do this the better we look in Frost's marks and--" The airlocks opened, blwoing away her next words as she was sent careening down the corridor. She managed to brace herself, tucking in her limbs, before she slammed against the wall. Then she was hurled away and slammed again. Then again and again until there were no more walls to slam. Still dizzy from the ride, she exhaled slowly and shut her eyes tight. When she opened them again the entirety of the satellite was in her view and she was getting farther, spinning aimlessly in the void of space. Though she'd been to space before and knew what to do, she was still inexperienced. Her thrusters flared opposite to her rotation but the counter-force proved too much and she spun hard in the other direction. She tried again, puffing small gouts of flame to slow her spin then to arrest her movement away from the satellite. It was farther now, as big as her hand, and she hurried back to it in fits and starts. No use panicking that she'd fly off in the distance, alone in the void for miles and miles around her. She kept to her breathing routine as she neared. The last ush from her thrusters made her crash near the compromised section of the hull, but she wrapped her fingers around the edges of the torn away hull before she could be jostled away from the satellite. She took a few seconds to catch her breath then ducked her head inside the corridor. "Terrifica! Are you okay in there?" For a moment no one answered, then she realized that Terrifica couldn't hear her in space otherwise. Shaking her head, she pushed inward, tiny applications of thrusters helping her correct her movement. Then she waved at the other hero as her systems tried to find a communication device to connect to. With her hand, she mimed a phone call. "We need to inspect what caused the hull breach from the outside."

Reflex Save: 1d20+5 = 15 Toughness Save: 1d20+14 = 31 Reflex Save: 1d20+5 = 11 Bam ow and she's in space.

Salvo One second the pair was talking peacefully and the next the whole station had wanted to crush both of them. Salvo, in her buljy armor, was wasn't able to properly position herself before she met the ceiling with a sickening crunch. And then she did the same with the floor a second later, before she felt herself begin to float, her fingers grasping for the floor to no avail. Amid the broken monitors and tech, she swiveled her head from side to side to find Terrifica with what looked to be a space-ready mask. The other hero seemed to have weathered the gravity shifts better. So this was the test. She was hurting inside her armor but she had felt worse and she pushed it out of mind. Now they needed a way out and to find the cause for the structural damage. Salvo raised up her thumb to Terrifica. "You okay? I'm opening the hatch! We need to get a look at what caused this!" Just as she finished her systems had dug their hooks into the protocol for automatic shutdown. They broke it into pieces and found the switch to reopen the spacelocks. She flipped the switch.

Fort Save: 1d20+12 = 24 I'll open it!

Reflex Save: 1d20+5= 14 Datalink [Computers]: 15 Skill Mastery - 4 = 21 Salvo uses datalink to force the doors to open.

Salvo "So you come to the Freedom League to test yourself even further." Salvo said, a statement as if she had found Terrifica's greatest desire, though it applied just as well to herself. "A chance to fight the biggest threats, solve the world's most pressing problems. I can relate." To be a Freedom League member, even one assigned to the Auxiliary team, represented large boost up the superhero pole. But with the recognition and respect came responsibilities and threats larger than she was used to handling. She had her own crusade against her family's networks and maybe the Auxiliary would pull her away from that. Now, with her own data network down, her investigations into matters had become more pressing. Maybe the League could offer assistance there. And that was saying nothing of her civilian life. Would she have to drop her university studies, when she hadn't even begun? Any prospect to become a woman of science or to engineer the next big thing? How much of her life would the Freedom League cost? She had known two someone's in Claremont who had decided the cost was too much and had shunned the life of a hero even with their immense powers. With the prospect looming, even she could see how comforting, how tempting, such a life absent heroics would be. Then Terrifica explained her relationship with magic and her theory on it, and Salvo responded. "Too bad the Freedom League is anything but mundane." As if for explanation, she made a vague gesture at the doorway where Frost had left. "Even discounting Comrade Frost's role as one of Russia's foremost experts on the mystical. Maybe once we're done with the tests and if we have some free time I can introduce you to my secret world - test yourself against magicians."

Salvo "Even if you factor in the metahumans?" Salvo asked, surprise inflecting her voice. She'd taken down rings before and if none had powers then they rarely put up much of a fight, preferring to flee at the sight of her. A show of force was enough to cow them, and if they were stupid enough not to be then the police came in and she supported them. Bellios was not a weapon to be turned to people without powers. But throw superpowers into the mix and that was when things got complicated fast, and where Salvo was needed to stop them. "Metahumans," Salvo repeated, shaking her head. "Even one is a problem but two or more, especially when you aren't expecting them? Makes a fight so much harder." Then she and Terrifica were left alone in the computer science laboratory. She'd talked herself into a little panic attack, but Terrifica's comment brought her back in the satellite. Salvo turned her head to fully face Terrifica. "And everything else you'd take care of?" she said, her tone light and teasing. Then she suddenly paused, as if trying to form her words carefully, fingers tapping on her arm. Clack clack clack "Do you believe in magic, Terrifica?" Salvo finally said. "I could teach you if you want. You could even call me... competent at it, just like in what I do. It can't be understood by everyone, and even if you did there's no guarantee you could perform it in a practical sense, but maybe a super-mind is different." Salvo shrugged as if it were nothing, but she waited for Terrifica's answer to her offer with bated breath.

What would also help, I think, would be to write up the site's official view on the different cities. Going beyond this, also ask the players about their views and consolidate all of that. What kind of themes, tones, and stories we find? What kind of PCs, antagonists, and conflicts we run? What is the aesthetic? Other stuff. Then do this for Vibora Bay. We'd get to see if it gives anything appreciably different than what we could find in, say, Bedlam or Emerald City. If it does then great! If it doesn't add anything to the site that, say, Emerald City would then maybe we should focus on what we already have?

Nicole "You have a weapons package?" If Nicole was enamoured to Seven like a teenage girl was to a puppy then seeing her now it was as if Seven had transformed into a puppy-baby panda hybrid in front of her eyes. "You'll have to show me them before we leave. I'd love to see how Lor armaments differ from Terran equivalents." She was so enraptured by Seven that she didn't hear Sitara the first time. Then after a few seconds Nicole did a double-take, asking Seven while the other Claremont students did their own thing. "Wait, does she mean Earth, uh, ancient Earth Seven?" Yeah, she had met a Neanderthal before. A magical one at that, but how did someone with from the Indus Valley find herself in space?

I'm with AD and Tiff here. I'd rather focus on the existing settings we already have though if Vibora Bay can give us something sufficiently different then maybe? Even if it does then there could be the same problem we see in EC, with a sparse PC population and relying on one or two GMs to run things there. Bedlam kinda has the same problem going for it but it diverges so wildly from Freedom City and gives such a different flavor that people who really want a "Bedlam-kick" are drawn to create PCs and run games there.

Salvo "Hey Terrifica, is the weapons smuggling deal turning out well for you?" Nicole entered into lockstep beside the supergenius cowl. Among the four Freedom League prospective heroes and Comrade Frost, their footsteps echoed through the empty halls. She and Terrifica in a team together. She couldn't help but look back into how they first met, so engrossed in finding a way to shut down the Terminus portals for good that pleasantries were put aside. Sure, they had corresponded online but even Nicole admitted that was not the same as talking in person. "I'd kept tabs on the FCU case," Nicole continued, nodding to Miracle Girl. "Lots of heroes on that one, Miracle Girl here included. And I'm glad that wrapped up cleanly." They entered what looked like the facility's computer science laboratory. Frost left them alone soon and Nicole moved to an active screen, reading what was on it. "Monitoring signs for natural disasters... Looks like the ring of fire hasn't produced an earthquake in a while." Then she turned to Terrifica and folded her arms across her chest, arms clanking together. "Looks like they're hoping for a repeat performance of the... ASTRO Labs prototyping process." Nicole winced in her mind's eye but pushed forward to continue. "Think if we can do that in all those conditions--," lack of sleep, days of fighting, acute amounts of stress, the threat of producing nothing, the potential of a malfunction during field-use, "--without anything going wrong then I think we can handle this."

Nicole Nicole blinked, taken aback by the announcement. She'd just imagined this gathering to be a social event, a 'Hello, I'm the new Master Mage' from Huang's mom and not the passing on of the Eye of Heshem and all that entailed. She applauded politely as the applause started, along with some really weird sounds from the weirder guests. Beside her, Aquaria's suddenly ululating actually brought a surprised yelp from Nicole. Then when the cheering subsided the various guests began their announcements. Aquaria went first then others and Nicole used the opportunity to lean towards Aquaria. "That's an offer I'd take up, Aquaria," Nicole said. "It'd help me translate the really ancient works and update them into the modern era's sensibilities." After Dead Head's announcement, Nicole took the stage, clearing her throat before raising her hand to get people's attention. "Yeah, I've got an announcement too." She paused to let the assembled guests shuffle awkwardly towards her. Then, suddenly nervous, she adjusted her glasses and raised her eyes to right above everyone's head. "Well, for those who don't know me, I keep tabs up on my old family's assets throughout the country and overseas. The past few months has seen an escalation in the cyber-warfare and even with the risky as hell strategy of sending elementals into the open system to plant self-replicating hexes in the code suceeding and, well, I've still been locked out. Like totally." "No idea where they finally found the resources to kick me out like that." She pressed her pointer fingers together like a student caught doing something idiotic by the principal. "So total no information, blackout style, but I managed to just detect several inter-dimensional signatures flare up around the country right before they booted me out, with the three largest ones concentrated in Freedom City, Emerald City, and Bedlam, sending out data similar to interdimensional anomaly during January." "Buttt I have no idea what happened next and the signatures have gone dark from other sources" She gestured at Doctor Thorne. The occult detectice knows Nicole had set up an account that would credit cash monthly, enough to keep them in a low-key kind of employment under Nicole. Their arrangement also specified that a larger dole-out of cash would be incoming for any danger the detective would encounter, providing something useful came out of it. "I've procured the services of Doctor Thorne indefinitely here to keep an eye out in Bedlam." Then Nicole turned to the Master Mage and her son. "I would have petitioned the Master Mage for her help, both wherever the signatures come out but also in her domain in Freedom City. But with the passing on of the Eye of Heshem guess I should be asking my schoolmate instead." She gave him a wide grin then turned away. "I have yet to find anyone to look into the Emerald Cities but given that is where the greatest flare-up happened, and given my uncomfirmed suspicions, I have several options, including travelling there myself to investigate." She sighed, before continuing to the end of her announcement. "It's primarily a personal matter but if my suspicions are right then I suggest you keep your artifacts close and your knowledge even closer."

Nicole "Yeah, I know what you mean," Nicole replied as she flew on her back, fingers interlocked and resting on her stomach. She arrested the loop she'd been flying and just continued straight forward, drifting farther away from Selena. The skies were less congested with flyers. Sure, South Korea had its own metahumans but it wasn't as populated or as dense as the world's metahuman capital, Freedom City. So if anything Nicole could worry even less about hitting anyone else. So she closed her eyes, drifting. "I'll miss the lower batches. They were fun." She began counting with her fingers as she flew. "Dio and me finding Summer's secret stash, Sara helping out in charity, the whole of Red Team, Alex, Lulu, Pan especially. Veronica helped fix Bellios and Huang even kind of got bearable in the end. Those kind of people? Heard you got into RPGs or something early in the school. Was it good?" "But some of them--" She produced an ughhh sound before resuming. "Rip your hair out annoying." She raised her head to look at Selena, who was either far away or close by. "Have you heard about Corinne going the rounds as if she'll never see anyone from Claremont again? She's such a $%^&# but she fixed my legs and I don't really know what to feel about that."