Cubist

Hm… good point. This post would seem to indicate that KoS rescued a woman; I take it that's why you edited the post? In any case, that leaves the father & daughter unrescued. In writing my most-recent posts, I was going by the GM's declaration that Jube didn't notice anybody else besides the two heroes. It makes perfect sense that Jube wouldn't hear the cries of the remaining civvies (see also: sounds transposing into the subsonic whilst upshifting), but it's somewhat more problematic that he wouldn't have seen any of them when he was specifically searching for whatever victims might yet remain... So. Options. [*:srqi4yhm]Leave all the posts the way they are now, and just let the father & daughter die in the flames. Pro: It would slap BK3 in the face with cold Reality, and give him some major impetus to buckle down and get serious about this hero business. In a sense, it would be a re-run of Peter Parker letting that criminal go, only to find out later that said perp killed his Uncle Ben… Con: This is BK3's first outing as a hero. Does any of us writers really want BK3's debut to be marred by the death of two of the civilians he was trying to protect? Apart from that, the 'pro' argument may very well not be anywhere near how SpicyWaffle wants BK3's heroic career to develop. If SpicyWaffle wants to run with this, fine; otherwise, I say 'hell, no'. [*:srqi4yhm]Retroactive edits to correct the glitch. Specifically, change the Jube-only-noticed-two-people note to say that Jube was aware of five people remaining, of whom two were civilians; change BK3's last post to indicate that he got himself into deep doo-doo on account of he was focusing more on the safety of the father & daughter than he was on his own safety; change the most-recent posts from Jube & BK3 to indicate that (a) BK3's sacrifice allowed one of the two civvies to get out safely, and ( Jube showed up just in time to carry BK3 and the remaining civilian out of the danger zone. Pro: No casualties for BK3's debut, yay! And it gives Jube more of an excuse to collapse (from exhaustion, of course) when the rescue work is done. Con: A tiny bit of extra work for us writers. Which is pretty much another way of saying "no downside at all', to my way of thinking. [*:srqi4yhm]Some sort of deus ex machina pops out of nowhere to save the two civilians -- maybe Dr. Metropolis shows up or something. Pro: The civvies' safety is assured. Con: Very unsatisfying for multiple reasons, from a storytelling point of view. Not recommended. [*:srqi4yhm]Something else, other than the three options outlined above. Pro: ? Con: ? What do the rest of y'all think?

I don't think so, going by what the GM said: So when Jube swept the building one last time, "the last of the potential victims" he found were King of Suits and Bee-Keeper III. What other people might have been overlooked?

"Not a problem," Jubatus replied. "I'm a speedster—" Here he upshifted, took careful hold of Bee-Boy, and transported them both to safety. "—'fast' is what I do." The feline's timing was perfect; his sentence was punctuated by the impact of large chunks of the Lacrenza Apartments with the ground, amid great gouts of noxious smoke and ear-hurting noise. Now that it was over, and the adrenaline rush was fading, Jubatus was not feeling his best. He fumbled for a protein bar in his vest… Ah. Ate 'em all. Stupid me. "I think I'm going to sit down now," Jube stated, and his legs collapsed under him…

Jubatus considered the situation: Should he follow up on the medical leads, or investigate the cult? There were cogent arguments for either option… but in the end, he chose the former. "Splitting up works for me. Let's be sure we can keep in touch while separated, okay?" Here, Jube pulled a set of compact gadgets from his vest. "Anybody needs a commlink, feel free to grab one of these—that's what I got them for. As for who should do what, I think I'd serve best by looking into the medical end of things, talking to Highfollower and such." To Dr. Philo: "If you can spare any of your crew to accompany me, that'd be great; like I said before, I don't have any formal medical training, so it'd be nice if I was with someone who actually does know what they're talking about." To the group at large: "If the Cult-investigators need help, it may be worth noting that I can hit Mach 4, and probably faster if I really push it, so hopefully I'll be able to respond in time no matter where I am."

Why would the Spirit of France seek vengeance on everyone? Not sure. Another question, perhaps better: Who or what can imprison a nation's spirit -- and what reason would they have for doing so? The answer to this question might provide clues to the original query. Also: When the SoF is doing its vengeance thing, will it hit Frenchmen (and/or people of French descent) as well as Germans & etc?

The rebreather unit felt awkward in Jube's mouth; he continued to ignore that as he blurred through the blazing building in search of overlooked victims. Note to self: Latest reshaping of the mouthpiece still sucks, time for another crack at it. Finding no more civilians in distress, Jubatus then returned to the two people he'd noted on his final sweep through the building -- the King of Suits (whom he'd previously encountered both in costume and in civilian guise), and the presumed Bee-Keeper III. Hmm… looks like Marceau is okay, but I'm not so sure about Bee-Boy? Fine, I can ask… The Fastest Cat Alive downshifted to the common tempo of 1 -- a maneuver which, to the Bee-Keeper's normal-speed vision, probably looked like a bipedal cheetah teleporting in beside him. "My name's Jubatus," the feline shouted, his overdeveloped lungs allowing him to be heard over the omnipresent roar of the flames and incipient collapse. "You and I are currently the only people in this building. Need any help?"

And now that Butterfly is out of immediate harm's way, Jube does the 'amateur paramedic' thing on her. Specifically (and as described earlier), he's gonna perform a pair of Take 20 'rolls' on Medicine (a skill which isn't on Jube's sheet, so he's exploiting his Jack of All Trades feat here) to remove her Stunned and Unconscious conditions in one round.

Jubatus could definitely use some combat training. Being able to move/think/react 40* faster than the rest of the world is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't necessarily go far enough. Part of the reason Jube hasn't acquired any such skill already is, he's terrified of the possibility that his sparring partner might end up a shredded mess; with an honest-to-Centurion superhero as a sparring partner, that fear is rather less of a concern. Jube's baseline level of skill: Pretty much nonexistent. At present, the cheetah depends on his speed advantage; if/when he runs into a situation where that isn't enough, he's toast. Jube's motivation for acquiring combat skill: Evenly split between 'don't want to hurt anybody by mistake' and 'don't want to get hurt myself'.

Jubatus had not heard the grinding noises from the burning apartment complex. As with the earlier cries of the trapped girl, these noises were transposed deep into the inaudible subsonic, as far as his ears were concerned. However, the feline had plenty of experience with a world that operated more than one order of magnitude slower than him, so his eyes were attuned to picking up on the tiny changes in posture which were associated with slow, slow motion -- including, in this case, the near-infinitesimal shifts which foreshadowed the building's incipent collapse. Of course, it wasn't at all common for architecture to move, not even infinitesimally! Jubatus pondered possible explanations, but given the circumstances, there was only one viable candidate: Okay… the place is going down, and nothing short of Dr. Metropolis playing deus ex machina can save the structure, so minor tweak of plan: Start at the first floor, and look for indications of access to a lower level, assuming there is one. Damnit, I wish there'd been time to prepare properly for this! So the Fastest Cat Alive blurred through the first-floor corridors. Every door and cabinet and hatchway he saw, he opened and/or smashed through, as needed. And in every new room, he spent precious fractional clock-seconds looking for indications of as-yet-undiscovered victims…

Not for the first time, Jubatus wondered why the Grue scuzzwad who'd turned him into a feline couldn't have tweaked his metabolism to eliminate the production of fatigue poisons. That would be a biological impossibility, but then his transformation violated several of the known laws of biology in the first place; why couldn't the scuzzwad have gone just a little farther? Eh, Finagle's Law -- "The perversity of the Universe tends towards a maximum." Anyway, this is why I carry beef jerky and energy drinks… The feline allowed himself three clock-seconds for a two-minute break, heavy on snacks. That was long enough for the worst of the exhaustion to fade a little, particularly with the infusion of Red Bull and such into his bloodstream… and then Jubatus blurred into action once more. Okay, there's that noob again. Not sure if she'll be able to get all those civilians out in time? But any civilians still lurking in their apartment are in worse shape than those guys, so let's see who else needs help now. His mental map of the building was still fresh in his mind, so he zipped through the apartments, ignoring those which he'd already checked, as well as those which he'd seen other people extracting civilians from. As it happened, there were three more victims in need of rescue, one of them a morbidly obese person who was evidently unconscious. Idiot. I think I can carry this tub of lard out, but that's all she wrote! The feline draped a heat-reflective space blanket over the person, and installed a rebreather in their mouth. Then he zipped off to rescue the final two victims, a toddler with leg-braces and a woman who was presumably the child's mother -- both of whom, together, weighed about a third as much as the large person. Okay… there's no way in hell I'm going to carry that oversized lump of flesh down to ground-level. Dragging them is a viable option, but they'll need insulation… Obvious solution: Get a mattress under the lump of flesh, so that it can get thrashed by floor-friction. And within less than a clock-second, it was so; Jube found a mattress and sheets, raised the person up a few inches into the air, slipped the mattress underneath them before they had time to hit the floor, and used the sheets as ropes to ensure the person stayed on the mattress. Dragging the large person worked; the worst problem was the trail of smoldering, shredded fragments of cloth that was left in Jube's wake. The feline downshifted for long enough to shpritz the mattress' remains with the hand-sized fire extinguisher he carried in his vest, just to make sure there was no danger of the thing igniting, and then he went back into the inferno. One more sweep for victims, and let's see if that noob with the bow-and-arrows needs any help…

Try thinking of BJ Hunnicutt?

Fair point. I just thought it would be amusing for Blue Jay to fire an arrow at Jube, whereupon he plucks the arrow out of the air and says "Firing at me? Bad idea. Don't do it again." as he hands it back to BJ. And BJ's lack of familiarity with Earth hero-types seemed like a plausible excuse for such a scene… Jube does that, yes (modulo the quibble that he's only fast enough to be an indistinct blur, not fast enough to be actually, you know, invisible). But he also slows down to interact with normal-speed people, which is how BJ could manage to see him in the first place.

Hmmm… Blue Jay has just started to rescue a family on the second floor. Jubatus was already working on the second floor. Wouldn't it be a pity if BJ notices Jube and (being that she's from the Terminus, and very new to this planet) jumps to the conclusion that this feline monster is a threat from which she needs to protect the people she's helping?

Notes on my most-recent post to the thread… [*:hvq0gnwl]"some large patches of flame": Since "An educated guess would deduce that's probably where the fire originated", it seemed logical to presume that there would be actual flames in that room, as well as a whole lot of smoke. [*:hvq0gnwl]"The feline had a number of compact rebreather units in his vest": This is from Jube's Gadgets power. He has 6 Gadget Points to play with, and rebreathers can be had for the low, low cost of 1 point apiece (says the table on pg. 135 of the Core rulebook), so I'm pretty sure this isn't a problem. [*:hvq0gnwl]"So the Fastest Cat Alive returned to the burning building, again and again…" Yes, Jube is doing the rescue thing multiple times. And yes, you can safely assume that he's going to be highly careful/detail-obsessed every time, even tho I declined to write down all those details because I figured that would be really boring to read about. [*:hvq0gnwl]Jubatus is ignoring the little girl's cry for help because he just didn't hear it. When Jube is upshifted to a higher tempo than normal, all sounds get frequency-shifted to a lower pitch; when he's upshifted to his standard operating tempo of 40, that 'lower pitch' is deep in the subsonic, far beneath the low end of the frequency-range Jube's ears are equipped to handle.

Point of view: To anyone operating at the normal tempo of 1 second per second, Jubatus in action was a sand-colored blur. To a speeding Jube, the world was an exquisitely detailed still life. The Fastest Cat Alive zipped up to the second floor again; whereas he'd scanned from a distance the first time around, this time he looked in all the windows for signs of people in need of immediate rescue. Should've done this first, damnit, he cursed himself. Greater good for the greater number trumps individual benefit, if it comes down to being forced to choose between 'em. His survey of the second-floor apartments with windows revealed 7 people in danger and 2 instances of things which might be people, but it just wasn't possible to tell from the outside. Damn smoke. Screws up vision and smell, not that my nose is good enough to catch a scent through a pane of glass. Jubatus also noted the presence of firemen and a smaller woman whose garments looked like they might be some sort of supertype uniform: Another newbie? Weird. File her under 'tentative assumption of Hero', just like Bee-Dude, and get on with business. 7 to 9 victims, plus the necessarily indeterminate number of people who didn't happen to be within line-of-sight of a window when Jubatus was looking. The feline's mind raced, doing mental triage -- who needed to be brought to safety first, and who could afford to wait the single-digit number of clock-seconds it would take Jube to deal with the most-endangered victims? -- and pondering the safest, most-efficient routes to them all. Already got one open window; don't want to open any others if I can help it, as the fire's getting enough air. Then again, the fire's done so much damage already… meh. Time's a-wasting. The feline had a number of compact rebreather units in his vest; he put one of them in his mouth, and carried a second in his left forepaw. Thus prepared, he blurred up to, and through, the rat-lady's window, then re-scanned her apartment, this time opening all drawers and cupboard doors just in case a small person might be hiding behind one… Okay, nothing's changed. Cool. Jubatus blurred on to the smoke-clogged room in which he'd half-seen one person. His progress was unimpeded; when he shoved the charred remains of the door out of his way he was greeted by, among other things, some large patches of flame. Oh, joyous frigging day. The room's occupant turned out to be a man in his early twenties, who (to Jube's accelerated eyes) was frozen in the middle of the process of collapsing to the floor. The feline downshifted momentarily -- just long enough to open the man's mouth without putting dangerous strain on the man's muscles/tendons/jaws, install the rebreather he'd carried in his left hand, and close the man's mouth on said rebreather -- and performed a swift, thorough sweep of the apartment, looking for other at-risk individuals. Jubatus found two other people: An older woman who was curled around what looked like a bundle of clothes, and the young child around whom that bundle of clothes was wrapped. He also found a few goldfish in a small tank. Great. Looks like the three of 'em all together are 300-350 pounds… doable, but it won't be pretty or elegant.A downshift to provide rebreathers for the woman and child, and then pick them both up; then the feline upshifted to his standard operating tempo of 40 and grabbed the fishtank, placing its base flat against his chest, with its open top facing forward. Assuming I do this right, the water in the tank won't have time to spill out. Back in (what he assumed was) the living room, Jubatus put the fishtank in the air. He didn't watch as the tank began its drifting, leisurely descent to the ground, as he was busy with several velcro straps from his vest. These straps were normally intended for restraining uncooperative criminals; they worked just as well as an improvised harness to ensure that a semi-conscious person on Jube's back would, in fact, stay on his back. By the time the feline was satisfied that the teenager was securely fastened, the fishtank was three feet below the level at which Jube had originally released it. He grabbed it out of the air and put it against his chest once again… and within a clock-second or so, he'd reached the paramedics. Jubatus recovered his rebreather units -- since they might well be needed by other people, he wiped them down with disinfectant -- before he went back into the burning building. Knowing the operational limits of his musculature, he knew he couldn't rescue everyone simultaneously; but he could definitely handle one or two at a time, and occasionally more than that. And if he ran into a cluster of more people than he could hope to rescue in one go, well, his rebreather units and heat-reflective 'space blanket' would tide them over for the small amount of clock-time it would take Jube to get to them. So the Fastest Cat Alive returned to the burning building, again and again…

Hmmm… According to the writeup on page 41 of the Freedom City sourcebook, its full name is "the Hunter Museum of Natural History", and it's not an art museum; rather, its areas of interest are "archeology, anthropology, paleontology, and technology". Not sure how Rene feels about the last three of those areas of interest, but a non-trivial chunk of archaeology is devoted to the artworks of ancient cultures, so that could be why 'the Æsthetic Enchanter' is on hand? Jubatus could be present in his capacity as a technological troubleshooter -- if the Hunter Museum is having any problems with their cybernetic infrastructure, like a persistent series of server crashes or something, they might have hired Jay Xavier to find & fix the problems. Or Jubatus could be there because he's a speedster, hence can plausibly show up pretty much anywhere in Freedom City at any time.

As was his habit, Jubatus paid attention to the crowd as he made his entrance. Some heroes might do that because they basked in the adoration of the masses; Jubatus did that because he didn't want to be blindsided by an idiot who thought they could perform a public service by attacking the 'cat-monster'. Fortunately, the number of such idiots was vanishingly small -- media coverage had its benefits -- but it wasn't zero. Jubatus knew very well that he wasn't any tougher than any natural-born cheetah, physically speaking. One thrown-rock-to-the-head which he didn't see coming could seriously ruin his day; therefore, keeping an eye on the crowd was simple prudence. Sgt. Johnson outlined the situation; about what Jube had expected, but independent confirmation was always nice. When Johnson pointed out "that guy", Jubatus frowned. A tin can with a bee-themed paint job, and insectile accessories? What the… Then the penny dropped: There had been another bee-themed supertype. More than one, in fact. Which suggested -- Oh, great. A third, or maybe it's the fourth, Bee-Keeper. Then again, the tin can didn't seem to be doing anything antisocial right now, so maybe the current armor-wearer wasn't a sociopathic nutcase? Regardless, dealing with the apiarist was clearly a lower-priority task than getting the civilians to safety. "Okay, I get the picture," Jubatus said when the Sergeant and Lt. Reddy finished briefing him. "I'm on it." And with those words, the Fastest Cat Alive upshifted and blurred into action! Jube circled the building as he approached, the better to figure out the safest means of egress from the burning building -- and if he saw any other hero-types while he was at it, that would be nice, too. Annnd… that on the second floor looks like the least-hazardous exit. Groovy. It was a window without any discernable glass; Jubatus couldn't tell if the panes were thoroughly broken, or if the window was just open. Not that it mattered, because there was also a panicking woman at the window, whose wide-open mouth suggested she was probably screaming for help. The feline downshifted, clinging to the wall with his claws a foot or so to the right of the window. "Hi there!" he shouted, making sure he could be heard above the roar of the flames. "My name's Jubatus. I'm here to rescue you. Anyone else in your apartment?" Jube's abrupt appearance had obviously surprised the woman, but she recovered herself quickly: "Oh! You -- my babies --" KOFF "-- Duncan and Sheila --" "Duncan and Sheila," Jube repeated. "Got it." Then he upshifted and zipped past the woman, entering the apartment through the top side of the window. No children in this particular room, but there were three doors, each of which Jubatus tried in turn… and it looked like the woman was the only human inhabitant of this apartment. No babies; no children; no teenagers; no spousal units. However, there was a cage containing two large rats… Jube shrugged. Then he picked up the cage and zipped into the living room. "Duncan and Sheila?" he asked, holding the cage up so the woman could see it clearly. "Oh yes --" she began, but Jubatus upshifted before she could say anything else. He let the cage float in midair while he got a good, safe, grip on the woman, then caught the cage's handle in his teeth and blurred on down to the paramedics. "Here you go," Jube said, and he was off again…

Oh, great. Little Miss Bug-Wings got herself clawed -- twice, yet! I just hope this was bad luck and not incompetence, Jubatus thought to himself. Well, whether she was lacking in fortune or finesse, Butterfly Wings didn't deserve to get eaten alive -- and the über-kitties were still a goodly distance away from any civilians, thank Bast. The Fastest Cat Alive blurred up to the winged woman; picked her up, taking care not to put any unnatural stresses on her joints (a harder task than one might think, given that Jube was operating at a tempo 40 times faster than the woman); and blurred off to a few hundred feet away. Then he laid the woman down, extracted bandages and disinfectant and surgical-grade superglue from his vest, and began to perform first aid on her. Damnit, that torso wound doesn't look good… hope that's just an illusion caused by the bleeding…

[seal noises] Arf-arf! [snaps up Hero Point and uses it for the intended purpose, i.e. bringing the wounded Butterfly to safety]

Jubatus blurs in with his customary celerity!

Jay Xavier yawned and stretched as he woke up from a (literal) catnap. The blatantly non-human sleeping patterns that came with his feline body were… annoying, but at the same time, he had to admit that his nonstandard sleep pattern came in handy now and then. Not now, however; not when he woke to a news report of a burning apartment building. Oh, flipping hell, he thought. How long -- never mind. Only good thing is that it couldn't have been more than a few clock-minutes I was sleeping while it burned. Pausing only to fully re-stock all the tools and supplies in his Vest Of Many Things, Jubatus blurred down the streets of Freedom City, straight for the Lacrenza Apartments in the Fens. When he arrived, the Fastest Cat Alive downshifted to the normal tempo of 1 and then looked for whoever was in charge of the firemen. Jubatus had no intention of working at cross-purposes with the firemen's already-existing efforts…

Alas, you are correct about Jube's lack of the Move-By action feat. That is, he ain't got it. Ah, well... After checking the Core Rulebook (which I shoulda done earlier but failed to, my bad), I find that you can do 1 (one) move action and 1 (one) standard action in a round, and it looks like "moving in to Butterfly" is a move action, and "picking up the unconscious Butterfly" is a standard action. So this round, Jube should be able to pick up the Butterfly, but at the same time, he'll end up within claw's reach of the über-kitty that's threatening Butterfly. Sounds like a superheroically appropriate situation to me...

If all else fails, you can write up your own version of a canon NPC, and give them a different name. Regardless of what the specific policies may say about reqriting canon NPCs, I can't imagine that we're forbidden from making characters who are 'inspired by' existing characters?

Jube will rescue the wounded Butterfly -- zip in, grab her unconscious body with care, zip out whilst carrying her to safety. If this takes Jube's full round, fine; if he's still got an action to burn this round, he'll then try to revive her, using the Jack of All Trades feat to make up for the Medicine skill he doesn't actually have on his character sheet. Specifically, Revive to remove the Studden and Unconscious conditions from Butterfly. Whether Jube can or can't do the Revive thing on this round: Since Medicine is an INT-based skill, Jube needs to beat the Revive DC of 15 with his 1d20+4 roll. The writeup of Medicine skill (pg 51 in the Core rulebook) says you can Take 20 on a Revive check, so that's what Jube will do. Taking 20 normally takes 20 times longer than a normal skill check; Revive takes 1 round; Jube's Timeshift lets him bring that back down to 1/2 as long as a normal skill check. Thus, Jube should be able to remove the Stunned and Unconscious conditions in one round. The only question is whether he does it now, or next round, or what.

Not a bad idea. I think I'll give the other players (and/or NPCs, as appropriate?) a chance to respond before I post Jube's next move.