In Dreams to Come

[Born]

At last the witch was out of the picture. Without her flinging ice every which way and laying down cover, this fight would be much easier. It was also a huge relief to hear Simon moving around again. The old soldier sure was resilient to have survived that. This battle was quickly turning in the team's favor. It wasn't over yet, though. That knight could hit very hard.

The ectoplasm the summons dissolved into when they were defeated was a bit disturbing, but Mandragora didn't have time to hesitate with the knight on his way over. He reached out to Josh and called out "Healing here! Hold still for just a second!" so that the speedster wouldn't instinctively jolt away from the vines. Even in the dim light, Mandragora could see how badly Josh had been bruised and burned by the summons - especially the wyvern.

Spoiler: Actions

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Standard: Embrace of the Woods on Josh. Healing: (1d20+10)[29]

[Dorni]

Simon felt himself falling as the ice pinning him to the wall abruptly vanished. His eyes snapped open, taking in the scene. The ectoplasm splatters on the wall and floor explained the missing Witch and Rainbow Bird. No one on the team was attacking the Wyvern. The team converging on the Knight.

Simon hit the ground a heartbeat later and flew into motion, charging the Knight. He couldn't let the rookies do all the work. Taking down such a heavily armored target wouldn't be easy, but it was a summoned creature from the same source as the Knight he'd fought earlier. That meant he knew its movements - and it's weakness.

"Where's your honor, attacking a kid!? Or are you just a coward!?"

Spoiler: Actions

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Move: move to melee range with the Knight.
Standard: Defense action. New Defense (+2 Improved Defense: (1d10+27)[34]. If Knight attacks and misses, Feint at Deception 30 (taking 10).

[Quellian-dyrae]

Round 5

Josh's footwork left the knight confounded, momentarily open to attack.

Well, physical attack anyway. Finally freed of Checkmate's power, its will was marshalled, and it did not succumb again.

The same could not be said for the dragon, which spat another burning glob at the knight, still beholden to Gestalt's command, the willful certainty of the past matching and bettering the potential power of the future.

Mandragora's potent healing rolled through Josh like the force of nature that it was. When the power had ablated, Josh was again in peak physical health, the injuries of the battle nothing but unpleasant memories.

The knight, badly outnumbered and with its only remaining ally under enemy control, still did not back down, still did not abandon its task. Whether this was a summon's single-minded purpose, a knight's uncompromising honor, or sheerest personal stupidity was unknown. But it could not ignore Simon's challenge, and hewed at him with a brutal chop of its mighty blade, matching his skillful footwork with focused aggression.

Spoiler

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Red Wyvern:
Move: No.
Standard: Burning Blast on the Knight, All Out Attack for 5, Power Attack for 5, at (1d20+12)[22]. On a hit, Toughness DC 34 vs. Damage (-1 for Bruise) at (1d20+16)[26]. The Secondary Effect is pushed out another round. Hit. Bruised and Dazed.

Iron Knight:
Move: Nah.
Standard: Attack Simon with Zweihander, All Out Attack for 5, Accurate Attack for 2, at (1d20+20)[23], critting on 16+. On a hit, Toughness DC 26 vs. Damage, and if it fails to beat DC 21, also lose Toughness equal to the difference, to a max of 11. On a miss, Insight at (1d20+9)[23] vs. DC 30 Feint. Miss. Feinted.

Current Status:
Mandragora: 1 Bruise.
Gestalt: Normal.
Simon: 1 Bruise, Staggered.
Josh: Normal.
Checkmate: 1 Bruise.

Iron Knight: 2 Bruises, Dazed, Vulnerable to Simon's, Gestalt's, Josh's, and Mandragora's next attacks, -5 Defense this turn, SE 34.
Ice Witch: INCAPACITATED!
Rainbow Bird: INCAPACITATED!
Red Wyvern: -5 Defense this turn.

All PCs are on turn.

[manwithaplan]

Josh disengaged as Simon moved in, taking a moment to admire his unwounded body. Grinning, he looked over to where his friend was duelling the summon and moved back in.

"Stealing your kill, buddy!" He appeared in the air and sideways between Simon and the knight, his legs tucked in. With untold finesse he unleashed a barrage of kicks, chambering one leg as he launched the other a dozen times over in rapid succession.

Spoiler: Action

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Move Action: Staying adjacent to the Knight, I suppose.
Standard Action: Flurry of Blows with full Power Attack against Iron Knight. Attack (1d20+8)[25] (target vulnerable) for DC 25 Multiattack Damage.
Free Action: Extra Effort for another Action, turning my Fatigue to Exhaustion.
Standard Action: Flurry of Blows with full Power Attack against Iron Knight. Attack (1d20+6)[18] for DC 25 Multiattack Damage.

[Llyarden]

Things finally seemed to be handled; Simon was free of those ice spears, Mandagora was healing people, the Wyvern was still under Gestalt's control and the Knight was being hammered on by Josh and Simon. Out in the corridor, Checkmate took a moment to catch his breath and look around, making sure no-one else had been hurt by the attacking summons.

Spoiler: OOC

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Move: Just having a look around. (1d20+4)[8]
Standard: Recovering from exhaustion.

Status: 1 bruise, fatigued, concealed from all senses.

[Born]

Josh was back in peak condition, most of the crew was still doing fine (though it was quite surprising to see Simon still in such good condition after being pinned to the wall), and the knight was completely off-guard. This was the time to strike. Mandragora put everything he had behind his next attack. Even if the knight somehow survived this strike, the vines would probably be able to keep it from doing anything anyway.

Spoiler: Actions

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Standard: Full power on the knight (Power Attack 5)! (1d20+5)[10]. On a hit, Toughness DC 30 + Multiattack. Then, DC 25 Strength or Dodge vs. grab.

[DukeGod]

Damnit. The silence in his mind now was weird. Was his future self planning something? Everyone else seemed to be calming down. That wasn't actually good. He still didn't know how long he could keep control.

He uses the same tactic as before. The Knight was trapped by Mandragora's vines, so summons his own, dismissing Bruja in the process

"Craftiezel! Attack him!"

Maybe it'd work better this time. He might also need to protect someone

Spoiler

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Move: Close in on Knight
Standard: Finishing Attack. Routine check for the instant hit, so Toughness vs DC 25
Extra Effort: Control Dragon. Again. Last of my
(1d20)[18] He's going to try to order the dragon to unsummon himself. If that doesn't work, blast the knight again

[Quellian-dyrae]

If it weren't for the fact that Josh was a speedster, and thus used to his feet impacting something implacable at obscene speeds, his kicks might have hurt him more than the knight. He didn't even dent its armor. Mandragora, however, caught it firmly, crushing its mail beneath the inexorable force of his vines and binding its limbs.

Craftiezel stalked over to the enemy knight on his master's orders. The two knights met stares, the enemy bound and helpless, but defiant, Craftiezel stalwart, uncompromising. He gave a nod in proper respect for a worthy opponent, and drove his sword home under the knight's helm while Mandragora held the enemy summon steadily. It immediately degraded into ectoplasm.

Then there was just the wyvern, held in Gestalt's thrall. Gestalt gave the order, dismissing it from existence.

His demand hit a wall.

~NO! NO YOU FOOL! YOU UTTER FOOL! YOU CAN'T! YOU CAN'T LET THIS HAPPEN AGAIN!~

Power. There was so much power there, so much raw energy, sheer force of spirit. Power against power, strength against strength, there was no way Gestalt could oppose the raw might of his future self. He was older, more skilled, more experienced, and had who knew how big a boost from his rituals and conquests.

~I CAN SAVE THEM! YOU HAVE TO STOP IT! YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO LIVE!~

But this was not about power. It was not about strength. This was a matter of will, of sheer conviction, pure determination to enforce one's desire upon the world, to command the ferocity of the Red Wyvern, to be the Master.

~YOU CAN'T LET THEM DIE AGAIN! YOU CAN'T LET THEM NOT BE BORN!~

The Gestalt of the future had conquered the country, and possibly the world, to get the power he needed. He had punched a hole in time to achieve his ends.

~DON'T DON'T DON'T!~

And yet his was the weaker will. The Red Wyvern flared with light and sound and heat.

~How could you?~

And. Was. Gone!

Spoiler

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Battle over. Everybody gains a Hero Point!

Some of you might be wondering why you got a Hero Point when they're going to reset shortly anyway. Some of you might already know why and be wondering why I'm not just coming out and saying it immediately like I did in the other game. But we'll get to that later.

There is, of course, various epilogue and similar role playing to do, but as far as scenes with any particular mechanical impact is concerned, this adventure is over. It was a long one. We're about half a month away from this game's one-year mark. We've lost and gained and in some cases lost again several players over that time. But not you guys! I consider it kinda a big deal. As such, everybody take 10 Power Points, with my compliments.

In addition to spending your new PP, you may again freely make changes to your character sheets at this time. If you have any traits that you haven't really used, feel free to swap them out for something else. If you have anything that hasn't worked out as well in play as you expected, feel free to change or exchange it. Deadline for sheet changes is the moment initiative is rolled for the first battle of the next adventure.

If you wish to save some PP rather than spending them immediately, you may do so. Any unspent PP can be spent freely during downtime. You may also spend any or all of them during combat or another significant scene by spending a Hero Point.

Finally, although this stuff is always welcome, now's an especially convenient time to let me know if there's anything you'd like to see changed or see more of. Did any particular rulings rub you the wrong way? Were the battles too hard or too easy? Would you like to see more or less spotlight time for certain mechanics/abilities/complications? Does the entire time travel plot still make absolutely no sense whatsoever? Whatever. I will say that the next adventure is probably going to be a lot more "episodic" in nature, rather than a single big story arc.

[manwithaplan]

Josh stood and watched as the last summon disappeared, and they were once again alone in the meeting room.

Or what was left of it.

"So, uh...I think I'm gonna go and find Lorelei now."

He stumbled a bit on his way to the closest exit before dashing off as fast as he could, which was admittedly not nearly as fast as his unfatigued speed. He was headed again for Lorelei's house.

[Llyarden]

Checkmate allowed his mental occlusion to drop as he slumped down to the ground, leaning back against a convenient piece of rubble. He had made it through that battle in reasonable state, but his mental exhaustion was greater than his physical.

A sudden thought caused him to grab for his - mercifully still functional - phone and pull up the Hero App. Last time the Master had attacked he had sent maybe hundreds of summons. If he'd done the same with these stronger versions...Checkmate wasn't entirely sure what could be done.

Which was both unusual and terrifying to the lawyer.

[Born]

With all of the summons gone from the immediate vicinity, Mandragora took a quick look and listen around for any signs of other dangers. Seeing none, he relaxed slightly and took to the task of healing his comrades. He quietly thanked the Promise of Life that everyone turned out okay (after a bit of healing). Nonetheless, he was bothered by the fact that the summons had been destroyed.

Above all, he wondered what would happen to the people who had been made into the summons. If the information Leviath and Simon had obtained from the knights could be trusted, and they really were people who had been taken in the Disappearance, what would destroying them do? Would it release them somehow, or... Mandragora decided to say another prayer to the Promise in the hopes that they would have to fight as few of those summons as possible.

[DukeGod]

It was hard to push through the words. To have the willpower he needed to be sure of his actions, and for that he had to swallow away all his doubts. Everytime future Leviath pleaded and asked for him to stop, and it got him thinking on who might die because of that, and leading to horrible conclusion about wether he was killing those who Disappeared... It'd cause him to waver, and he'd again shut all of that away.

It had meant he had taken upon himself to decide what was best. He had all but enslaved the wyvern, the person who was the wyvern and not for a single second thought he was in the wrong doing it. To have his will act upon reality was like saying he could decide better than reality itself

It was no wonder his future self had turned into a villain...and right now he had defeated the Master, at least where it counted. More than just physically, he had proven that his will was the stronger one. And in doing so, he had also stepped a bit closer to becoming The Master himself. Even those thoughts were shut away

"It seems this was it. Hey, Master, why don't you come yourself?"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Josh found Lorelei easily enough - still hard at work despite the hour, working on something on her computer. His perceptions were fast enough to notice her start at his arrival, but only for the briefest moment before her own power-enhanced speed of thought let her determine what was going on. She turned to face him. "Ah...Josh, right? Can I...help you?" she asked, a bit befuddled.

Checkmate's scan of the Hero App fortunately revealed no further attacks. Although apparently someone on Dream Street had noticed the fight and put in details for it beneath Simon's previous message. And sure enough, not twenty seconds later, Phoenix came flying in with a blade of flame blazing in her hand, Burner and Reynold Hans swooping in behind her. A couple seconds after they touched down, Treetop landed behind them from one of her prodigious leaps. All four looked ready for combat, although they relaxed shortly when they saw no hostiles present. Burner actually looked a little disappointed.

"What happened?" Phoenix asked, eyeing the hole in the wall pointedly before sweeping her gaze over the group. "Are you guys alright?"

[manwithaplan]

Josh realised as he addressed Lorelei that he hardly looked presentable. Although Mandragora's healing had removed the boiling bile from him, his clothes were still ripped and torn in places where he'd been struck. Trying his best to ignore his own state of dress, he spoke to her.

"Hey. This is really important information. Like...super crazy versions of Leviath's summons just appeared and nearly killed me and the rest of Simon's team, and I'm pretty sure Future Leviath sent them to stop me from getting this information to you. So...alright. You know how you keep getting cryptic messages? This is the big one. In...oh, damnit, hang on."

He vanished for the slightest moment, and then reappeared again.

"Right! In five months, two weeks, and four days, the fifth possibility is the correct one. Future You seemed pretty confident that this would help speed up the whole time machine thing."

[Quellian-dyrae]

Lorelei looked a little taken aback. "Oh. I mean, I got the text, I wasn't really- Wait, you talked to my future self?"

[manwithaplan]

The Speedster nodded.

"I had a vision from the future, thanks to Jenny Cade. It was basically just you, talking about Leviath's rituals and how that one piece of information would speed your production up enough to save us."

[Quellian-dyrae]

"Save us? From...the one responsible for the Disappearance? My invention is supposed to do that? Did she tell you how? What am I supposed to do, once it's complete? Will this bring the people who Disappeared back? I should work harder, shouldn't I? Faster! No1 If I work faster, the timing may be altered. Or would the message have accounted for an increase in my productivity? Did she say anything to indicate how much I should get done in the intervening five months, two weeks, and four days to ensure the relevant choice is made at the correct time?" Sometimes super-intelligence was kinda a pain.

[manwithaplan]

"...yeah, figured this would happen. To be honest, I've forgotten half of what you just said already, and the other half I don't know the answer to."

He was gone again, and then back with an envelope dated for five months, two weeks and four days from now.

"Here's what I would do, if it's going to stress you out. This envelope says 'the fifth possibility is the correct one' inside. Go and find a Dreamer or some tech or something that you can use to erase your memories. Delete the text you got, and then make them force you to forget about this whole thing. Tell them beforehand to remind you to open the envelope on the date it has printed on it. Then you'll get the information at the exact perfect moment, and the preceding five months won't be affected. Genius, right?"

[Llyarden]

"After a fashion, I think so," Checkmate replied, looking up at them from his seated position. "More summons. Stronger ones than the ones that attacked...well, everything," he explained, before remembering that they probably had no idea who he was or what he was doing here. "Micky Winston," he introduced himself, almost reaching into his pocket for a business card before catching himself. "I...kinda got caught up in this a bit."

[Dorni]

"Situation is under control," Simon replied. "4 hostiles, each based on the creatures that attacked yesterday but significantly stronger. Hostiles materialized simultaneously in the hallway, room, and outside the wall. That positioning suggests the attack was non-random and we were the targets. All hostiles down, no casualties." Simon didn't lower his gun or his fighting stance throughout his assessment.

"I have an idea what their objective was. Phoenix, any other alerts go out? The Rainbow Bird fried our electronics. Again."

[DukeGod]

"I wonder what it is that he is doing with those things. My EMPs are pretty weak

You can relax Simon, those were all he sent. I can feel it"

[Quellian-dyrae]

Josh

"That is genius! ...Unless the the time was calculated based on me being informed of the information beforehand. Hmm... Although, looked at from another angle, one could theorize that whichever course I take is the one that my future self prepared for, by virtue of the fact that I took that course. Maybe. Well, I suppose I shall figure it out. Is there anything else?"

Everyone Else

"No other alerts," Phoenix confirmed.

Spoiler: OOC

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Anyone have anything further they want to do this evening? I'm about out of material, so if not I can skip ahead and start up the next adventure.

[manwithaplan]

"...Right, that's all I have for you. I'm gonna go find a shirt with a number of holes in it that I can count on my fingers. Have fun with the science thing." He tossed the envelope to her right before disappearing, the typical whoosh of his movement echoing throughout the room.

Spoiler: OOC

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I'm all done here!

[Quellian-dyrae]

The rest of the night passed without incident, and the ACC even sent someone by to patch the hole in the wall.

The next day dawned bright and clear and one of the first things that our heroes would notice is that their phones, emails, and any other method of communication they possessed were absolutely inundated with messages. Messages from friends, family, coworkers, bosses; all going back since the day of the Disappearance. Asking where they were. Telling them to call. Expressing worry first, going to fear and then to panic as the days went by.

But you know what? It was still good news.

Because some of those messages were from people who had Disappeared. Mandragora's and Checkmate's fathers (and Mandragora's grandfather). Simon's buddy Aaron. Josh's girlfriend Cathy. All were among the people who had been sending desperate messages for the past four days. They were back.

It was...about the only good news there was.

News feeds reported a shocking disaster. On the day of the Disappearance, the city of Verdania had experienced something thought impossible - a breakout from their SIDE prison. SIDE agents and Heroes from all over the country were rushing to Verdania to try to curtail the biggest wave of Dreamer crimes the nation had ever seen. Adaros was no exception, which had unfortunately left their standing forces rather short-staffed (particularly when compounded by the fact that you guys, as best as you can tell, simply didn't exist for the past four days).

As a result, Adaros had seen its own uptick in Dreamer crimes - the most significant being an actual bank robbery two days ago. Now, on Aranth, money isn't slips of paper and numbers in a computer. It certainly isn't metal coins. It's energy, and the Ilessian National Bank in Adaros stores billions of credits worth of energy in its vault. According to the news, the bank's defenses were penetrated and the robbers took those within hostage. Hero Corps and SIDE responded to find their way stymied by a powerful forcefield, likely powered using the bank's tremendous stores of energy. Hero Corps' elite team, Vanguard IV, was somehow able to force their way past the barrier, but have not come out since and are presumed captured...or worse. SIDE and Adaros PD have the bank surrounded, but none of the other Heroes on scene have a way past the forcefield with their powers (Arcanis has been requested to aid, but he is understandably focusing his divination magic on trying to assist Verdania). SIDE does have weaponry that they feel can penetrate the forcefield, but they're concerned that such powerful weaponry will at the very least kill the hostages, and may even trigger a catastrophic detonation of the bank's energy stores. Still, the city is burning millions of credits every hour as its bank's energy reserves are being spent to power the very forcefield keeping law enforcement at bay.

It is, in short, a situation that requires immediate attention.

Spoiler: OOC

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Okay! The new adventure begins! Welcome to the real timeline!

Hero Points reset to 1. However, until we roll initiative for the first battle, you can still spend your previous Hero Points. You may not do so to influence the course of this adventure directly. What you can do is use them to make changes to the setting (a function of Edit Scene) or ask questions (a function of Inspiration). So if there's something from the past adventure you want to know more about, a certain NPC you want to exist somewhere, a setting detail you want to incorporate, and so on, you can use your prior Hero Points to do it. These don't have to be for personal advantage. If you have just a cool idea you want to put in, that's even better.

As you've seen, the lack of a Disappearance is not the only difference to this timeline, because temporal shenanigans. You may also use these forms of Edit Scene and Inspiration to declare or learn about differences between this timeline and the previous one, provided they don't completely mess up the plot (in this or other games; no arbitrarily knowing who caused the SIDE breakout in Verdania). There may be certain plot-relevant things that I don't want you to know are plot-relevant. In that case, I'll take your Hero Point normally, but you'll get it back when it becomes apparent that your Edit didn't take or your Inspiration was untrue. (You may need to remind me of this though). By default, you guys and Lorelei Winters are the only people who remember the alternate events of the past four days, but an acceptable use of these Hero Points is to designate additional NPCs who also remember them.

Current Hero Point totals:
Mandragora: 4.
Leviath: 1.
Simon: 2.
Josh: 2.
Checkmate: 6.

Also:

Technically, now that Simon has the message out, Josh has lost his Plot Armour. He isn't guaranteed to be alive in the future anymore.

You know, there's actually something kinda funny about that. I'll tell you after the encounter .

The critical goal of the encounter was actually getting that message out. Once that happened, the timeline reset was going to occur one way or the other (admittedly, had you lost the encounter, things may have gone even worse ). I just found it funny, because really, the message going out gave you plot armor.

[manwithaplan]

"Hey, that's not right."

Josh sat up, inspecting his clothes. The shirt was right, but these weren't the jeans he'd gone to bed in. He reached over to the bedside table, groping about for his Active Crystal Computer Station. Nope, not there. Looking over, the Speedster found the whole desk was in disarray. His stuff was all there, just not where he'd left it.

He disappeared from the bed and went throughout his entire apartment before reappearing in the same spot, shaking his head. He had been planning on getting it repaired today, and now he'd lost his device. In one last effort he checked his pockets, in case he'd slept with it on his person. The device wasn't in his right pocket where he normally left it, but something else was. Drawing it out, he raised an eyebrow. His Hero Corps ID. That card he hadn't bothered to register over the last four days was in his hand now, registered four months ago. Something was very wrong.

It wouldn't be a problem to check his messages on his cheap home computer, but first he checked the news to see what was going on. That was when he found out about the bank robbery, and realised messages would have to wait.

--

Josh Miles appeared outside the Ilessian National Bank a second later, inspecting the force field without bothering to communicate with SIDE or the Police Department. He had no idea where his group was, but as usual he assumed he'd be fine without them. He stepped towards the field, vibrating his molecules to try and slide through.

Spoiler: Actions

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Insubstantial Check? (1d20+4)[24]

[Llyarden]

Fire washes past, burning the entire room to an unrecognizable charred black as spears of ice fly. A prismatic screeching beast hurtles towards him, claws outstretched. Bilious, incandescent bile soars at him, only narrowly missing and splattering on the wall.

Checkmate's return to this timeline was an unceremonious one as he fell out of bed. "Arch damn it!"

His phone was beeping and buzzing away like mad. As he fumbled it out of the drawer he kept it in, his expression went from a mildly aggrieved but on the whole cheerful one to one that was a lot sadder. I've been gone for four days? How...and why me?

The possibility that it was all some kind of convoluted prank was considered and dismissed within a few seconds, especially as Checkmate got through to the more recent messages. Various people who had a lot of money in the bank wanting to see if they would have a case against the bank for not protecting their money well enough. Even before the events of the past four days, Checkmate would never have considered taking such a case. Now his eyes had been opened to the truth of the danger that everyone lived in. He seriously considered writing a sharp reply to them, but paused. Despicable, grasping, materialistic people...but they could be useful.

A few minutes later, he was at the bank, pushing his way through the crowds with the feigned authority of someone who knew exactly where they were going and was supposed to be there, waving an ID card around like it was something important, even though it was actually just the one that showed him to be a member of the Adaros Bar. Which, considering that he was officially here as a lawyer, actually made more sense than it might have first appeared, though he had no intention of letting anyone actually look at the thing for long enough to realise what it was.

"Excuse me...coming through...thank you there..."

He took a quick glance around for somewhere likely-looking for SIDE to have set up a command location and headed there, still waving his card around. Once he got there (or was stopped by someone with the common sense to not immediately step aside), he stuffed the card back in his pocket and gave a warm smile to those nearby. "Micky Winston. I represent Mr S Talbet, Ms A Quinn and Mrs J Donovan," he introduced himself, rattling off the names as if he hadn't been hurriedly memorising the pertinent information on the way here. "My clients are...worried, shall we say...about the lack of progress that has been made thus far in stopping our money being frittered away. I wonder if you would care to bring me up to speed on exactly what you have tried thus far, at the very least?"

Spoiler: OOC

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New and improved (but still not all that good) Deception: (1d20+12)[26]

[DukeGod]

Leviath hadn't really slept that night. Oh, he had taken something of a nap. Ever since waking up from that though,l it seemed his phone was going off like crazy. He just assumed it was Hero Corps and simply ignored...it wasn't a very heroic thing to do, which left him annoyed at himself

Finally, as the sun rose, he went and decided to do it. Touching the crystal screen...he notices a truly absurd number of messages.

This was not from Hero Corps

The messages came from a bunch of familiar names, Cary Fray, Seymour Handman, Jennifer Ghol...the old crew he was part of? But he had practically severed ties with them. They asked why he had disappeared...

Something was afoul here. He'd check the other messages later.

This time he doesn't bother with the car. He goes to a window, and simply jumps through it summoning Cinder Two. It takes the skies quickly lest it bump into a building and turn the entire walls into ashes

From the skies, he sees a bright green bubble...

Well, seemed a good idea to go there...

[Dorni]

Simon took a break from devouring every report he could find on the events of the last 4 days to reassure his friends and family that he was alright. It was a short list. Daimon's parents thought him long dead and didn't know how to reach him in any case. While Simon had cultivated plenty of work-friends over the years, he had few true friends.

He was staring at Aaron's name when the Hero alert came. He grimaced as he read the alert. Aaron wouldn't be happy at being neglected but the man was a soldier too. He understood duty. A quick message would have to do for now. He'd make it up later.

5 minutes later Simon was on the scene looking for the officer in charge. "What's the sitrep?"

[Born]

Lately, Eric had been waking up to the song of a finch that had fortuitously decided to nest very close to Eric's bedroom window. Today, however, that same song was almost drowned out by the sound of his phone buzzing with activity. He quickly snatched it up and fumbled with it to see his messages - a task that had been becoming more and more difficult since his Dream. Alarm was replaced with surprise as he saw that the messages had come not from Simon and the team, but from his family. It seemed time had mended itself of its own accord. Now HE was the one who had disappeared.

Rather than check the news, the first thing Eric wanted to do after the last few days was see his family. In spite of his somewhat rocky relationship with his father, he still wanted to see him again. He also needed to reassure his mother that he was okay. The team would have to wait until he checked in with his distraught family. Would the others even remember?

[Quellian-dyrae]

Josh's vibration did seem to allow him to pass the forcefield...until he contacted the projection blocker on the other end. It was one of the good ones, blocking projections outright, but oddly, something in how Josh was vibrating, the projection blocker, and the energy flow of the forcefield interacted somehow, and the field flashed and rippled weirdly for a moment, drawing surprised reactions from the surrounding police.

Spoiler: OOC

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Since you rolled a 20 on that, I'd feel bad just saying lolimmune. The forcefield takes a -2 penalty on future Toughness saves.

The SIDE officer that Checkmate approached kinda rolled his eyes, but he didn't question the psychic's cover. "You can tell your clients that we're doing everything we can to get the hostages out safely as quickly as possible. We've already tried conventional weapons, super-powered hits, energy attacks, energy jammers, power nullifiers, and laser weaponry to no effect. We have requests out for Dreamers who might have powers that can help, but unless you do, back off and let us do our job. You can do yours once we apprehend these people."

As Simon made his way towards the unit commander, he was intercepted by a power-armored agent, his helmet visor sliding back to reveal the rugged face of Aaron Burke. "Candler! Flame-blast, where have you been? I thought for sure our guys in Verdania had pulled you out of retirement or something!" his voice was a perfect balance of exasperated relief currently at a solid 700 millidrillsergeants of volume, and the only reason he didn't catch Simon in a back-thumping hug was the powered armor.

And yes, Aaron considered leaving OUT-SIDE to join Hero Corps to be "retirement". Unlike leaving OUT-SIDE to join FIRE-SIDE, which was merely "pacing himself".

Spoiler: OOC

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Gestalt, you arrive on scene fine, but since you didn't interact with anything I don't have anything specific for you.

Mandragora, if you're going to prioritize visiting with your family over the scene at the bank, there's a Hero Point in it for you for the Complication. Your post didn't really say for certain where you were headed though so I'm holding off on you as well.