Ari

Marceau dashed upstairs after Mr. Thievery, an incoherent feeling of unease gradually moving to the front of his mind. After around eight minutes of running up single staircase, Marceau turned to look back down it, only to see a dark, long, long, LONG, hallway stretching out for what seemed half a mile, with the only indication of its size being the shadows cast by a blue orb hanging from the ceiling directly above. The King of Suits slowly turned towards the sounds of his quarry's retreating feet, seeing that the hallway appeared to have taken the place of the entire house. Deciding that he could do little now that both he and his prey were caught by some magical force, Suvou began examining his new surroundings.

They were not unhandsome. A rich, well-varnished mahogany floor supported his feet, with narrow silver designs of Celtic knots providing endless fascination to an idle eye. The walls were brick, hung with tapestry's depicting valiant lords and daring ladies besting evil creatures of all sorts, with especial care done for two, one of a golden-clad knight driving back a monstrous skeleton clad in red armor, the other of an unclear figure wielding a blazing spear of light striking down what looked for all the world like a mans shadow sprung out of the ground.

Shaking himself out of his curiosity, which had become acutely aroused by the clearly semi-symbolic wall-hangings, Marceau turned back to the business at hand. He drew out a razor-edged card, ran halfway up the closest wall and struck out at the blue orb. It connected with a blast of air, dust and a brief vision of a fury-filled brown eye before the world snapped back into being around him. He landed lightly on his left hand and crashed heavily into the suddenly narrowed wall opposite the one he had jumped from.

He leapt to his feet, finding himself face-to-face with his adversary, a shortish man with a a dark, brooding air about him, and a curious smell like a burned flower.

The man jumped toward Marceau with a wild yell of "You ruined it!", grabbed him by the mask and they went tumbling down the stairs in a heap. The strange man slowly gained his feet, glaring down at Marceau and raised his right hand, a thin blade coalescing into being between his fingers.

"Too good for you" The man spat, "But desperate times and all. You'll be a good warning to nail to the door.".

A razor card whipped into the wall next to the man's upraised arm, tearing off a few shreds of cloth as he leaped to the side, aiming a blow at his enemy's head. It slid smoothly into the floor vacated only milliseconds before by Marceau, who jumped ungainly to his feet, shaken by the suddenness of the attack,

Marceau's Attempts a Ranged Pin.

(11,5) = (16)

Stranger's Reflex,

(18,1) = (19)

Stranger's Attack,

(18,2) = (20)

Marceau's Defense,

(17,4) = (21)

End of Round One.

Yes, sorry it took so long to reply, Knowledge(Physical Sciences).

Done by Sneerg

For combat purposes, the Foe is a taken from the 'Thug' archetype in the Core Book.

Changes: Removed Feat 'Equipment', replaced it with the power Strike 2(Magic Sword), Knowledge(Magic) 4, +5 to INT.

Intiative:

King of Suits : 17

Stranger : 9

Combat begins.

Marceau moved with utter silence, his feet scarcely disturbing the fallen snow inside the door that had mingled with the welcome mat. His eyes strained in the dark, making out dimly a hallway all but filled with purses, wallets and handbags of such diversity they beggared description. He passed noiselessly from the hall to a room from which a faint light emitted, a pale blue radiance that illuminated exactly nothing. Creeping to the edge of the doorway, Marceau began slipping his gloved hands over the frame, noticing too late which side of the frame the hinges were.

The soft whumnk of the door hitting Marceau's gloved fingers seemed to the two who heard it to magnify beyond all reason, filling the house with its quiet, accusatory voice. The muffled curse from within the blue-lighted room was much less restrained, as were the panicky footsteps that followed them in a dead run deeper into the house, raising forlorn echoes as they went.

Extricating himself from his embarrassing snare, Marceau slipped into the room his quarry had just left with what speed and dignity he could come up with on such short notice, grumbling to himself about the need to get back into his groove.

For the trouble that it had caused, the room was not much to look at. Its dimensions were 12 ft. in width, 8 in height and 9 in length and with a small window placed high on the left-hand wall. Some furniture lay piled in a corner, dusty and long out of use, with pale green wallpaper of some checkered design, a white ceiling and a hardwood floor. The light came from a floating ball in the middle of the aforesaid ceiling. Admittedly, Marceau was rather uncertain as to how accurate his judgments were, due to the ball of lights annoying habit of seeming to draw all light into itself.

Scattered across the floor was littered the thief's spoils. A woman's purse, three wallets and a small moneybag. Sweeping them into some of the manifold pockets covering the inside of his cape, the King of Suits sprang back into action, dashing once again off after his quarry, with a vague irritation at the unprofitable direction the day was heading.

Notice Check, DC 18.

(1,7) = (8)

Dang, well, Marceau closes the door on his fingers(thank Heaven for gloves, eh?), alerting Mr. Larceny of his presence.

Stealth Check to sneak into the house undetected, DC 20,

(11,10) = (21)

Superb, Marcy isn't noticed.

Notice Check for any routes a moderately athletic human could use to get to higher ground, DC 16.

(20+7)=27

Brilliant.

He sees the flagpole lacking snow above him.

Marceau sped past deserted diners, movie-houses that you wouldn't want to bring anyone under the age of thirty to, warehouses that had never been owned or operated under any legal reason, soup kitchens and homeless shelters that were always full, and all lit by the blazing, imperious moon.

Marceau took a moment by a small chapel to observe a moment of silent prayer.

On a and on he ran, for a little under an hour, through alleys and side streets and deserted apartments, until at last he arrived at the place that the footprints stopped. They stopped abruptly, in the middle of a sidewalk halfway along the second block of houses that faced the ancient restaurant 'Nite Wings'. A place well sheltered from the wind.

Marceau took a moment to mop his slightly sweating forehead. And his much sweatier hands, clammy with excitement.

Then he made a long, careful appraisal of all available escape routes.

His attention was arrested by a flagpole, only ten or so feet above his head, with most of the snow brushed off its. Mr. Suvou gave a sigh of relief and slipped into the dark house, hoping fervently that whoever was inside wasn't in a fighting spirit.

His cursory scan of the adjacent alleys being unfruitful, Marceau hopped lightly down into the one running directly behind the bookshop and noticed immediately that a few tracks(all of roughly equal age and weight) lay right against the walls of the alley. Someone had been there, perhaps waiting for the thief? a hand-off of the stolen goods to another person was a common trick, Marceau knew, but it was just as possible that the other person had been a decoy, to provide a merry chase for people operating under just such an assumption. To follow both was impossible, and to follow one left open the chance of escape for the other.

Pondering this dilemma, Marceau shook himself out of his indecision by deciding that the thief should be caught first, as they had stolen, and might bring in their accomplice to keep all the blame from falling on themselves.

Dashing off after the(he gauged) later footprints, Marceau sped off into the night, his grinning mask gleaming in the moons glare.

Wisdom Check, DC 18.

(20+7) = (27)

Great!

Marceau will track the original thief, rather than the maybe-accomplice, and as the check was successful, his choice will be the right one.

Another Notice check, DC 20.

(9+7) = (16)

Darn.

Swiveling about sharply, Marceau unfortunately missed seeing the thief in flight, and was instead met with the sight of a huddle of scarves, hats, coats and mittens pointing in a roughly eastern direction. Darting into a side-alley and behind a convenient dumpster, Marceau shed his everyday disguise and emerged onto the street as the masked and hooded King of Suits!

A costumed crime-fighter was a common sight, and several of the bystanders around the origin of the theft had already been grumbling about tardy heroes when Marceau leaped onto the scene. His arrival still warranted a cheer from the band, ragged and muted in some places though it was.

With a bow, Marceau clambered up the side of a building adjacent to him, and swiftly went looking for a sign of the thief's presence.

Activating Boost.

Climb Check, DC 20,

(17+7) = (24)

Outstanding!

DC20 Notice Check,

(6+2) = (8)

Eh.

OOC thread for (how not)To Catch a Thief.

GM

(how not)To Catch a Thief

King of Suits

(how not)To Catch a Thief 5 Posts.

At quarter to 5 o'clock, in a hallway of the third floor of the Monkey Towers apartment complex, William 'Will Sulky' Mainsly adjusted his weary head on the rolled-up and only slightly ragged sleeping bag. He let the peace and silence that covered the early morning of the usually restless bedlam that was his home. As he drifted into sleep, he caught a vague glimpse of a narrow figure slipping quickly in his direction. Feeling the slight disturbance of the air as the figure passed, William consoled himself with the thought: "Well, t'aint my business, is for sure".

William Mainsly was a former shipping clerk, formerly a punctual, efficient man, whose own sterling qualities had led him into a conflict with the two-bit imitation of the Mob that ran small smuggling operations along a few dozen miles of New England coastline. He was a charity case of a small band of more kindhearted-than-average business owners, who payed the gloomy miser who ran Monkey Towers to keep them in his apartments and off the street.

Marceau 'King of Suits' Suvou turning this over in his head, musing on the possible advantages in selling off his collection of fine statuary and wood carvings, he stepped smoothly over the usual riff-raff cluttering the dark, musty halls of the Towers; lying in various states of peace and insomnia on their futons, sleeping bags and blankets. He had briefly been among their number himself, as he had arrived in America two years ago with hardly a pound to his name. It took over eight months of near-constant searching before he found an employer, an accounting offices janitorial staff.

A blast of icy air as he exited through the back door quickly pushed himself back to reality. A moonlit reality of snow(which he barely noticed) flying through the air and turning to slush under the wheels of the lazily-directed cars and freight trucks, and hurrying miniature crowds bustling along the streets all raising a low roar as they went. Vivid neon signs, all wearily familiar and repugnant to Marceaus' eyes, burned jaunty holes in the otherwise dark, bitter morning.

Raising the collar of his coveralls, Souvo walked in his accustomed style, one leg up, forward, down, up, forward, down. With heron-like strides, he walked dingy alleys and crooked streets unseen on any city map. His travels were halted when, passing a bookshop that Marceau would have sworn was haunted, he heard a loud and furious cry.

STOP, THIEF!!

Not complete, clarification and query on page 3 of topic

EDIT: Now it's done

I would like to remove the feat Leadership, buy 4 ranks in the skill Knowledge(Chemistry), and the feat Startle, and make a few additions/subtractions to his 'Personality' section, please.

For the 'Personality' section, I'd like to remove the bit about his LOUD VOICE(due to redundancy, which I overlooked for Heaven only knows why), and put in it's place that : Marceau is by upbringing and nature deeply religious, and by attendance a believer in Greek Orthodoxy. Despite that, he sees himself as a practical man(all evidence to the contrary aside), with a hard-headed and skeptical outlook on life, which has led him to undertake a study of chemistry, so as to better understand the reason for the physical phenomena he would otherwise spend sleepless nights fretting about, such as how poison is dangerous.

Not to nag, but is this over?

Marceau struck in immediately after Volcano and Glowstar said their piece. "well, ladyship, at around 10.15 P.M., I, the glowing man, the man made of rock and the man made of some delicious-smelling jelly all converged" his lips moved soundlessly as he checked if that was the right word "at this location, being informed by our respective informants and confederates that three factions hostile to each other would be meeting at this spot. We introduced ourselves, and at about 10.17, we heard the sound of battle erupt fromt he restauraunt, and the loud viking inside the jelly-man came crashing through the wall of the 'Wok' we presume he was flung by a the woman in the second tier of my pyramid there, at which point I decided, after a cursory look-over of this same man, that it would be best to blanket the area immediately around us with some fog. I did so, and after a brief attempt to subdue the barbarian, myself and the Glowstar assaulted the sundry bikers, mobsters and Southside C's still fighting inside the 'Bamboo'. Glowstar quickly proved me to be superfluous in this task, taking them all down in about eighteen seconds. I 'cuffed them, and brought them outside here, by which point the Jelly character and the semi-molten human rock had bashed the helmed horror into near-insensibility. I had asked one of the servers in the 'Wok' to call for the police(which in hindsight I guess we ought to have done as soon as the fighting started), and when I heard your sirens approach, I cleared the fog and ensconced myself inside yonder waste pail".

Marceau breathed heavily after his speech and nonchalantly removed a slightly decayed half of a yam from his back.

In a garbage can next to the battlefield, Marceau held off counting his cards in time to hear Glowstars' defense, he leaped to the obvious(to him) conclusion that they were being held responsible for the damage to the 'Wok'. Realizing that remaining silent would be many things, none of them heroic, he jumped out of the garbage can with a resounding clatter and sprang to his fellow's side. Idly flinging a chicken skeleton off his shoulder, he addressed Jao with what he thought a properly deferential mode: "Ma'am, I can say with utter honesty that we were all in it, and he", Marceau pointed to Glowstar , "defeated most all of the blokes in the joint, who might've otherwise caused great harm to the life and limb of its innocent patrons". He bowed quickly "So ladyship, you see, this is probably the best possible ending. The thugs are down, nobody else was hurt, and if we must be arraigned in court, you can get our names right now. I'm the King of Suits, or Marssoo An-Sallah, we hope for your clemency, ladyship".

Marceau staggered out of the 'Wok', arms filled with their previous adversaries, and dumped them down on the sidewalk. His ears pricked up at the sound of the approaching fuzz, and he jumped into action.

Jumping over the pile of slumbering criminals, he raced over to the Volcano, Glowstar and Jello-Man, shook their hands hurriedly while profusely thanking them for being around to keep anything really bad from happening. "Hopefully, we will meet again, I earnestly wish that our next meeting will see me acting ina more useful capacity".

Turning to the large cloud of dissipating fog, he squared his shoulders and ran into it, disappearing from sight. Though he could be heard fumbling in his cape pockets for the 'Remove Inconvenient Cloud of Fog' card.

Inside, Marceau piled the fallen enemy on top of each other, stooped under them, and lifted them up, aiming to take them outside, where they'd be more easily taken away. While lifting, he turned to the patrons shyly watching their blazing savior and called out "Pardon me, but if anyone has a phone or something, could they please call the police to this place, if you haven't already?".

Switching from Boost to Super-Strength, Strength check to carry the unconscious baddies out of the Wok.

1d20+12=23