Shofet

Mia's eye twitched. "N... Eira, I am creating things from the atomic level! I am literally rearranging the charge of atoms, I am capable of inverting the charge and turning it into anti-matter! And I am doing it all consciously! I am better than nano-scale manufacture. And more than that, you know what? I can do it precisely. I could make something more advanced... Dyoohhhh" Mia said furiously. How dare she? It was one thing to crap on her, but to crap on the actual miracle of her powers? This overgrown toaster had been learn to show some respect! Didn't see her able to create weapons-grade plutonium with a twitch of her fingers. No, she was just a flying brick running on Windows 95! No! Millenium Edition. Mia fumed, and it was clear for anyone to see that she was fuming, despite her efforts to hide it. She didn't know how, but Eira always managed to get exactly under her skin in the worst way possible.

Starlok The Countess pored over the other crates, only to find more weapons. She sighed to herself. What good was a weapon she could not use? She silently cursed her species for being without any psychic potential. Yet, she did have to admit, they won the cosmic game of chance in many other respects. Long-lived, strong, intelligent… beautiful… She was roused from her musings to herself by the prattering of Doktor Archeville. She stared and listened to him, holding one of the psi-rifles in her hands as he spoke. Her eyes flicked around the room, following the signs as he gestured to them, a frown spreading across her face. She felt a brief chill run down her spine, and her eyes went to her sword. Self-inflicted? Was having a weapon on her dangerous? No, she couldn’t think like that. “Very well,” she boomed. “I shall use my own innate intellect to aid you in you analysis.” Dr. Ea’Po peeped up. “Actually, as the scientist, I probably should go with hi--” ”Are you challenging me?” Starlok asked. “I made my pronouncement, and you will--” Ea’Po frowned. “This isn’t how you talk to friends. If you want to go in, fine, but don’t talk to me like that.” Starlok stared, clearly taken aback. “…Friends?” “Aren’t we?” Ea’Po said. “...I… Hmn,” Starlok said, clearly lost.

Excellent.

Starlok Starlok smirked at Doktor Archeville. “Yes, it is as Ea’Po says. This ship has the power to level most anything. As for the question of any Atchpa still aboard… It has been 1200 years, and few species have been graced with the sheer longevity my species possess. Now, if this were an ancient Noktoni ship, that would warrant your concern.” She threw her cape back dismissively, and then began to pore over the ruins of the hangar. However, she was more or less uninterested in the cause, and instead in finding salvage for her purposes. She scoured the area, only for her eyes to settle on a series of stone crates that seemed to have been neglected by the carnage of the previous millenia. She grinned to herself, and walked over to the crate, and tried to open it, only to find it was exceptionally heavy. Grunting, she felt the muscle stimulators activate as she continued to lift, pulling the crate lid free and tossing it aside. When it hit the ground, it shook the area around her. She frowned, looking back at it. “Why would the Atchpa make something so heavy if they wanted to access it later?” she asked to no one in particular. Ea’Po felt compelled to answer anyway. “The Atchpa were telekinetic. It probably wasn’t that heavy to them,” she offered up. Starlok looked over the contents of the crate. She produced a few things. Many just seemed to be simple works of art, but then she retrieved what was clearly a weapon of some kind. It was a long, thin crystal not dissimilar to quartz in appearance, but with a trigger and the butt of a rifle attached. She looked to Ea’Po, a quizzical eyebrow raised as she gestured to the weapon. “Oh, that’s a psi-rifle. It… Well, it attacks people psychically. I don’t know if anyone here could fire it, honestly.” Starlok frowned, then looked to Dirge. “Dirge! I require your aid!”

Starlok will also search, but instead look for something that could be of use to her materially. That's a 24. Quite good! Dok's search results are in the GM post I put in the IC thread, and so will Starlok's. For Dirge, if he does choose to help, the crate lids are about 500 lbs.

GM Dr. Ea'Po giggled awkwardly. "Haha, well, actually, for reasons I don't know... This ship is definitely armed. It could probably match most galactic capital ships in terms of firepower... As for getting it operational for the Countess... That is part of our agreement. Sorry, you weren't here when I briefed them on this," she said, before sending out her AEDDs to help search the hangar. Yet what they could do was little in comparison to the Doktor. Time and time again, he came across injuries that were all definitely self-inflicted. Arms with deep bite marks inside them that matched the dental patterns of their owner. Jagged pieces of rock shoved into chest cavities at angles that suggested the owner did it. Not all of them, though. Sometimes, he would come across skeletons permanently locked in the moment of their death, hands wrapped around each others throats. In a part of the hangar with a low ceiling, he found a body crumpled as though it had been suspended and then dropped, its neck broken. Ancient flecks of blood and gore stained everywhere in the form of handprints and dried out pools. But at times it had been deliberately scrawled into runes and scenes. Following a trail, he was able to find a great wheel of sanguine runes, a perfect circle. And at the dead centre was a simple bloody bloody hand print. Beneath it, another skeleton. It should have been more or less impossible to make a circle like this without tools. The Doktor became aware of a sound, somewhere in the distance. It was impossible to place where the sound was coming from, no obvious source. At first, it was strange mumbling, but after a while, it almost sounded like it was saying "don't let them die" in a voice not unlike his own.

Mia thought about Leroy's hair. It seemed nice enough to her. But Judy was pretty conventional. Despite being one of the least conventional people Mia knew. She wasn't going to make Leroy cut his hair, was she? That'd be Not Cool. She had to say something. "Eh, I mean, I happen to like long hair," Mia said, gesturing to her own locks, which fell down all the way past her bottom. "But uh, that's just me, y'know? Still, it fits like... The style he's got. Also, hey, Samson didn't cut his hair, yeah? He's your Samson and you could be his Delilah." Mia, you're a genius.

The Meta-Naut shall maintain the grapple with a free action, then fly 500 feet in the air. She will then rotate her friend so that he is upside down. Would this incur a bonus to intimidate?

Soliton Soliton smirked as the ball surrounded Gabe, and then teleported over to join Ben and his captured quarry. "Caught myself a Koffing," she said with a grin. Then gestured at Octoman, like 'yeah? yeah?' Whatever. She knew she was funny. Pokemon jokes. Yeah. She looked at Angela, then at how tightly her companion had her around the neck. "So, she was one of my friends in high school, so maybe we should..." "Not give her brain damage? Ooh! Oh! I can make an interrogation room!"

GM Both teenagers gawped at Octoman with a mixture of horror and confusion. Despite her being suffocated, Angela tried to talk. "Ach! I-it's n-guh-ot like th-hhh-at! H-ugh is u-u-under a l-guh-ot of stress!" Gabe had something more eloquent to say. "You little rodent, you have no idea what our relationship is like! How dare you imply I am abusive, you little... You... I am not like my old man! I am gonna... I'm gonna... I am gonna waste you!" At the very end, he almost jerked forward, but he gave Soliton too much time, and a giant poke-ball enveloped him. It hit the ground with a 'thunk', inducing a low moan of pain from inside. Then, silence. It seemed as though Gabe had been captured.

Gabe's counter bluff is 14, which means he is dazed. Angela struggles but mostly just does nothing. Soliton will attempt another enclosing of Gabe in a big old tube. Gabe attempts reflex, and... 13. Since that was a DC20, Gabe is now stuck in the giant tube with only his fumes to keep him company.

Mia smiled weakly at Lulu's mental message. She appreciated that Lulu was there to give her support, but she wasn't so sure just being able to make stuff brought her into competition with a super genius who was also friends with the Praetorians. However, Lulu calling herself dumb stirred something in Mia. You're not dumb, Mia insisted in her brain. You're just not checked into all this weird crap. Which, like, me neither. When Davyd asked his question, Mia didn't have to think hard. "Not really. Not all at once, anyway. Too many big pieces, too many electronics. Would have to do it in portions. Could probably do it faster than a construction crew though."

Starlok "Oh my, no," Ea'Po said with a giggle. "My AEDDs were custom made for me. It's often hard to get fellow archaeologists to go out into the more wild parts of the galaxy, and since I needed help, these little cuties were an obvious solution!" Starlok had almost ignored Doktor Archeville as she walked towards the exit, freeing her crimson blade from its sheathe and twirling it in her hand. However, at the last moment, she turned back to Archeville with a serious expression. "Ea'Po will get to examine this ship, and when she is done, I shall use it to strike back at my brother Ven-Ruth, who slew our parents and made me an exile! For now, he has an army behind him, but even that cannot stand an orbital barrage against their supply depots and armouries. Once they see the power of this vessel, all my brother's allies will surrender on the spot! Then Ven-Ruth shall answer for his crimes." She stared at Archeville for a hot second, before turning to Dirge. "Let's go, if there is anything out there that could kill us, it is probably getting impatient," she said with a dark smile. The she turned and headed into the hangar. As Ea'Po had pointed out, there was a chill in the air. She visually scanned the room, not hindered by the darkness. She could see many signs of chaos. Skeletons in huddled positions, some missing limbs. Some of them even seemed to have teeth marks. Other signs were shattered floor and claw marks everywhere. She narrowed her eyes. "Ea'Po," Starlok said. "...Were the Atchpa warlike?" Ea'Po had already exited the ship, and was now examining the writing. "I mean, as much as any culture has to be to conquer a planet and make their name synonymous with their species. But no more than any normal space-faring species." "So no berserker rages common to their kind, then?" Starlok asked. "Nope," Ea'Po said, staring at the writing. "The writing seems to say something like... 'save me.'"

Soliton Mia looked down at the scrap of paper, and nodded. "Well, you know what's better than flying? Teleportation," she said as she took Pan by the arm and suddenly, they were in two places at once. One consciousness share between both locations. Then, as quickly as it happened, they were where they were meant to be. She turned to Pan, smirking. "See, that's way better," Mia said. "Can go anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds. Anywhere in the Americas if I'm bringing someone with me. Like you." She thought about the story, though. "Yeah, seems like Halloween just sucks in Freedom City. Too much actual magic and stuff going on, you could totally die doing something pretty normal because it turns out the jack'o'lantern has been possessed by a dybbuk or the candies turn you into your costume or something."

The Meta-Naut The Meta-Naut gawped at this display, watching the imp leap at her and then get his own teeth fed to him by Justice. She stared as the imp twitched, then looked up at Justice, frowning. "Well, I gotta say, pretty sure all these people are being mind-controlled," she said. "Was talking about how some guy named the Master told them not to let people enter the ruins, then he had like this weird mental struggle, and then he tries to take my face off." "...So, you wanna go check stuff out, or... Like go back? I mean, this is probably going to come back around to you at some point since your base is so close by so we should probably do something?" "Also you know probably gotta free these little jerks from mind control," she said. "...Feel kinda bad about shooting one of the guys in the nards now that I know they're probably mind-controlled."

Starlok Starlok looked at Dirge through the corner of her eyes. “Proceed,” she said. She wasn’t happy about the idea of him using the chair as a weapon, but he was going to be returning it, so it was better to have him armed. Her focus then shifted to all the technology being brought out. Ea’Po reminded her of a little girl happy to show off her new toys. That thought made her smirk to herself. Still, all of this would be highly useful to her. Walking over to the chest, she took one of the communicators, a small square thing, and attached it to her leotard, nodding to herself. Then, she walked over to the command console, and lowered the walkway for them to head out when they were ready. “Well then, I am ready to proceed,” she said aloud to the room. “I look forward to taking command of this vessel.”

So, @Dr Archeville, these machines (AEDDs) are capable of interfacing with you through your Datalink, and the Dok senses that he could get their data without taking anything away from Dr. Ea'Po. At least for 100 feet. He also hears them already chattering between themselves and Ea'Po's datapad. Connected to device ID 4T72AA. Port 1921 active. Sophont created structure. Low light levels. Ambient temperature 289.2 Kelvin. 4 lifeforms within sensor range. All conform to list 4. High electro-magnetic activity detected. All systems optimal. Behaviour pattern: Cautious. Standby mode active.

GM Dr. Ea’Po, meanwhile, was fiddling with some more equipment. Pressing a button on a little box, a beam of light seemed to sweep around the world outside, and then Dr. Ea’Po got a little chirp on her data pad. Looking at it, she nodded. “Alright, no pathogens either. We are clear to walk around the ship without hazard suits…” she said, before she started strapping some gizmos to herself, including what looked like a communicator and a pair of high-tech looking goggles. Then she pulled out a chest, and opened it up, before pressing some buttons on her data-pad. Three small spheres rose from the chest and into into the air, turning to face everyone to reveal lenses that contracted and expanded, the faces of the crew reflected in the glass. “And now we have Autonomous Exploratory and Diagnostic Drones. Aydies for short. These little babies will be sending images back to my HUD as they scout out ahead of us. Will give us a good idea of where to go. I’ve also got communicators for us, all EMP-hardened though… Honestly we’ll see how it does with Dirge’s… natural aura, which could be a complicating factor… Uh… Anyway, it should at least work for everyone else. And lucky for you, Doktor, I brought back-ups! So you can have one too.” Standing, Ea’Po then toyed with her data pad some more, casting an image up onto the screen. It was a cross-section of a ship that looked similar to the Stigmata. “Alright, so what you’re looking at is a layout of a typical Atchpa capital ship. We are…” she stopped as she tapped at her datapad’s screen, creating a little red dot at the base of the ship layout. “Here… And if the Stigmata follows standard Atchpa ship design, we should be able to follow this path…” she said as a zig-zagging line ascending about 7 floors appeared on the layout. “We should hit everywhere I need to see, with the last stop being the command centre.” ”First place we will hit is the security station, which… hopefully… will be just a level above us,” she said. “However, if you don’t mind, I’d really like to take a look at what some of the people wrote here. It looks like Atchpan Demotic, sort of a… More casual alternative to the logograms we’ve been seeing on the outside, and we don’t have many examples of it, so it might take me a second to figure out, but it might give us an idea of what happened here." "Anyway, that good with everyone?"

Starlok Starlok ground her teeth together. How dare the Fryxian speak to her in such a manner? Was she not the mistress of this ship, the Countess of Lugo, the woman who wore the legendary mantle of Starlok? And here he was, casually talking to her however it pleased him! She was about to bark out a response when Ea'Po tapped her on the shoulder. She wheeled around and hissed, her teeth bared. "What do you want?" she growled. Ea'Po recoiled for a moment, before regaining her composure. "The Doktor is right, we should head down before anyone else gets there. I happen to know a lot of salvagers know about this place too, and they're going to take everything they can fit on their ships. Ancient tech goes for a very high price." Starlok exhaled sharply through her nose. "Very well. All of you, buckle yourselves in! Starlok shall bring you to the belly of the beast!" With that, Starlok went to her pilot's chair and waited less than a minute for people to get ready before pulling the Pale Rider down towards the Atchpa structure. The Rider moved smoothly with Starlok at the helm, descending gracefully towards what appeared to be the entry to the ship at its base, though guarded by a pair of great doors covered in ancient logograms. Dr. Ea'Po smiled to herself, before plugging a device of hers into the console and inputting a few signals. Within moments, the doorway opened, revealing the dark interior. Starlok took that as her cue, and guided the ship inside. For a time, all that they could see was what was illuminated by the Pale Rider's running lights as they ascended a small tunnel. Occasionally, the lights would pick up something floating in the anti-gravity of the tunnel, sometimes a piece of floating ceramic, sometimes a piece of what looked like organic material. The vacuum around them meant that the trip was very silent, except for the occasional ding of material against their ship's hull. Finally, there was a hiss as they passed through another doorway that closed behind him, the sound of oxygen rushing into the void. Then, another door opened, and they were in the hangar. There was a brief drop in everyone's stomach as the artificial gravity of the Atchpa vessel tool hold of them. Visible through the Pale Rider's video display in the bridge was a great chamber, bedecked in all the pomp one would expect more of a temple than a space ship. Bas reliefs and mosaics of three-eyed men and women stretched across the walls of the hangar, visible only thanks to the strobing red light that was given off by floating crystals that hovered above pedestals covered in more logograms. Around them, the ruins of what appeared to be escape pods made of the same material as the ship lay shattered on the floor, holding ancient skeletal remains of three-eyed beings that were forever frozen in poses of panic. Occasionally, one of the escape pods would bear hastily scratched in writing on the side, dappled with ancient brown blood as though someone had scratched it in with their fingers. Dr. Ea'Po, however, was more focused on her data reader. "Alright. Air is breathable to most sophonts, gravity is at 1.1 standard units, and temperature is a little chilly at 14 degrees above freezing, but nothing unmanageable. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Stigmata."

Starlok Dr. Ea'Po puffed up her cheeks, ready to say something to the Fryxian about how he was treating their Terran guest, but to her surprise, Doktor Archeville stood up for himself in GalStandard. Her eyes went wide, and all she managed was an "ohhhhh." Starlok's reaction was more to the use of GalStandard rather than the content. On one hand, she was pleased she would not have to play the role of translator on this little excursion, but on the other hand... "There are those that consider lies by omission to be less severe a transgression as to simply lie outright. I am not one of them. Make no mistake Archeville, while I am willing to forgive this insult in particular because I suspect you shall be useful to me, you shall not deceive me in the future by feigning ignorance of our tongue," she said sternly. She then looked to Dirge, expecting he also had a response to all this, but she wanted to ensure that no fight happened on her bridge. "As for you, it seems our guest can understand us, so it seems prudent to avoid future complications."

Ohnoshesaidyes Mia slowly got up from her chair, and moved over to Eira. Awkwardly, she wrapped her arms around the Swedish Supermind, and hugged her. The whole time, she was wondering why she even asked Eira, but now that she was committed to it, better to just ride it out and hope that it had some sort of positive effect on their relationship. Awkwardly, she patted Eira on the back. “It’s gonna be okay,” she said quietly. “I get it. You’re not gonna be a supervillain and you’re gonna make it through this.” Was that good enough? Please, let it be good enough.

Mia’s eyes darted back and forth. What? Was this just “throw Mia a curveball” day? Answering that was just a veritable minefield. She toyed anxiously with her hair, staring off into the distance as she waited for her brain to reboot. Was she in distress? Did Mia need to do something here? What was going to fix this situation? Then, something came to her. “D… Do you need a hug?” she asked. Probably shouldn't have gone with the first thing that came to mind.

Mia nodded quietly. What was there to say to that? 'Yeah but it felt like you felt that?' That would be counterproductive. They had just made common ground here. So what about 'glad to hear it?' That also sounded waaay too catty. She mulled it over for a second, then just decided to commiserate. "Look, I wasn't super jazzed about coming here myself, but you know what? I found a lot of friends who make it easier. You already got Lulu, I think you'll find a lot more people who are able to make this easier. I know I'm not the best example but most of the people here are really nice," she said quietly. "Doesn't mean you have to be cool with it or anything, I am still not like, jumping for joy at this whole thing, but... Y'know. It's survivable."

As she watched Eira’s little display, Mia’s face faltered. Only now did what she had said back in the library come back to her, and she instantly understood what she had done wrong. She frowned, looking at what were obviously Eira’s parents, and the fight went out of Mia immediately. Looking down at the desk, she rubbed the back of her neck. “Jeez, look… I’m sorry. No one should ever hafta hear that from their parents,” Mia said quietly. “I was just… I shouldn’t have said what I said. I said it because I felt like I was losing the argument and I was just so… angry that I wanted to do anything that could do damage. It was wrong to do and I… I’m really sorry. I know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of that.” She frowned at Eira. “Look, Lulu likes you so you can’t be all bad. But… I just… I can’t take it when someone acts like they’re better than me.”

“What? That my mom was Revolt and that I stole stuff? Sure, I know you remember. Just don’t care Whole school knows that first thing. Or are you talking about how I told you to get over yourself? Because I’m gonna stand by that. You aren’t better than me, and I’m not gonna let you treat me like I’m not good enough just because I don’t have all the power of IBM in my skull, or because I’m not related to a hot shot space super team,” she said, arms folded. “You get rid of that second thing and we’re gonna get along fine,” she said huffily. “Seriously, everyone will like you more if you don’t immediately act like they’re worthless.”