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"My grati, Pat," Fi chirped with relief, rolling her shoulders at the easing pain. She gave the mechanical spider a grateful pat on his carapace. Seeing that Korroth and Aazea - or at least, the sorceress' pet - seemed to have the sorcerer well in hand for the moment, she turned her eyes back to the cage and the girl sagging limply within. She grinned and clapped her hands in anticipation. "Now, girl, we try again. No booms... probably." With renewed vigor and will, Firanis went at the damnable, wizardly lock, knife prying at the casing so she could get at the arcane innards. She pried and twisted and manipulated the metallic worms inside, cursing when one bit her with an electric spark. But then there was a click and a kerchunk, and the lock disengaged, the cage creaking open. The tall, wiry young woman slipped inside the cage and caught the girl before she slumped to the ground. She ducked low and got the girl's arm over her shoulder and wrapped an arm around her waist to support her. "Me, I got you, girl."

Ryan looked at the ball, and his words slipped out. "Well, Someone saw Temple of Doom." Before anyone else could act, he reached out to touch the ball, and an opening appeared beside his hand, large enough for them to enter, and revealing that the sphere was indeed hollow. He looked back at the other two, and nodded. With that, he climbed inside. "Come on in, I think it wants to show us something." In the face of his curiosity, and the fact it hadn't disintegrated him, Deezy and Temple followed suit. The opening vanished, sealing them inside, and the sphere began to move. if it wasn't for his own unique senses, he'd have missed it, but they were moving quite fast, though there was no real sense of motion someone without his senses could measure. When they came to a stop, the sphere opened again, and before anyone stepped out, he motioned for them to wait. "Just for the sake of reference, We're now 275 miles inland of where we were, and five miles down. That would put us beneath Richat Structure. Given that we just traveled that distance in a minute, we reached a speed of about 16 thousand miles per hour. That's astounding in and of itself, but There was no sense of movement whatsoever, which I find even more amazing." It was a staggering achievement, and something he knew would intrigue Deezy. He stepped outside the sphere, and found himself at the center of a vast Machine. He had no idea what it was, and he let out a chuckle. "The Hidden wonders of the world, buried beneath our feet, unknown until now. The time has come to awaken, and reveal to Man, that which he does not know." For the first time in a very long time, Ryan couldn't remember where the words came from. A comic from his youth, or any number of novels. It was strange but he couldn't tell, that was how in awe he was.

Temple's brow furrowed at Deezy's suggestion as she looked past the older woman into the dark corridor beyond. and just wear would I be keeping sunglasses, she thought, in this get up. Trusting that the suit would give her whatever protection she needed she raised the helmet back in place and followed the two novas into the corridor beyond. Almost immediately after stepping into the corridor they heard a high pitched humans the floor vibrated slightly. The humming was rising in volume and as they each took defensive stances and drew on their powers incase of an attack, when an off white ball roughly the diameter, or actually a little smaller, of the corridor, hurtled down toward them to stop with swoosh at their feet!

Deezy lifted her left arm and did a sweep of the revealed passageway. Lights on the cuff blinked, then turned solid, and the results of the scan started appearing over her HUD; words and some charts that described what was being detected. She read it over and with a gesture and some haptic feedback, 'pushed' the HUD elements to one side so she could see down the passage, then set her view to display with computer-augmented coloring. "Okay guys, we have some unusual EM radiation in the passageway up there. UV wavelength...not too bad on intensity...but it's got some kind of funky modulation on it. Also, it's...bouncing all over inside there, even though the wall material doesn't look like it should be reflective. All that reflection and refraction is making some weird interference patterns." After another moment she nodded. "Doesn't look dangerous. Temple, you may wanna wear sunglasses if you got 'em. Wrap something around your face. Might get a sunburn if we're in there too long."

Damn it, she had almost gotten clear of the scene without being spotted. Last thing Atalanta wanted was to get caught in the middle of this mess as it exploded with more media and police search parties. Grrrgh. The amazonian speedster came to a reluctant halt instead of vaulting through the clearing and away. She turned to face the Park Police woman, cloak settling to cover her jumpsuit. While her bow remained collapsed and securely stowed against her quiver and her trusty batons remained out of sight, this was clearly a Super on her guard. Green eyes danced from shadow to shadow alertly from above her mask. It took a great deal of energy to not throw a laconic phrase and keep going anyway, heeding the siren song of her bed. "Yes, I am," she stated dryly, pointing back the way she'd come from with one well-muscled arm, "And the crime scene is that way. You have 30 seconds or one picture before I leave to let you get back to your job, Officer."

TPU MOVEMENT POWERS I do not like the way certain things were done in the S5E rules. I did not do my homework when selecting it as our system. However, since y’all wanted to keep it we have, but this is one thing I find glaringly inexcusable in the rules. Flying. And to a lesser extent speedster and other powers therefore I have decided to house rule traveling powers into existence. Now I am not going to go through and make an exhaustive accounting of all the spell/powers that are part of the movement system in RAW. Just assume that if a power/spell in game is used to give you movement powers for traveling that it is no longer applicable. This mainly applies to the flying spells and some of the haste type spells. If the spell just applies the movement increases to combat it can still be taken and used to do this. Spells that modify the basic fly, running, or whatever, such as flight mastery are no longer allowed. What follows below is the replacement system for Travel Powers. Travel Powers are abilities that allow players to move around much quicker than on foot. There are a wide variety of these in the game, allowing players to choose the travel powers that suit their character. You can obtain two travel powers, one at level 3 and another at level 8, but only one can be activated at any given time. Travel Powers are ranked Basic at 3rd level, improved at 9th Level, Enhanced at 15th Level and Paragon at 18th level. At each rank you become faster and more proficient at your travel mode. A second power ranks up at 14th and 20th and is limited to Enhanced rank. Travel Powers are Narrative in nature if used during combat rounds assume that they double your normal movement per rank. But it also gives disadvantage unless you have the Combat Movement Feat. Flight – Flying; basic flying can as fast as jet liner (around 600mph) Superspeed - Fastest travel power; restricted to ground movement. Can be as fast as a race car (120-160 mph) Teleportation - Only inertia-free travel power; Line of sight restriction Swinging - Least precise, most engaging; requires constant vigilence. Only a bit faster than normal traffic. Super Jump - Slow walking, fast and high jumping; can't reach all rooftops. Acrobatics – Super Parkour! Run fast, jump high; not as fast or as high as Super Speed or Super Jump but will get you where you are going like swinging it is only a bit faster than normal traffic Ice Slide - leaves a trail, as fast as traffic sinks downwards. Tunneling - Avoid enemies - and lofty places. As movement only a bit faster than running about 10-15 mph Hover Disk – Same as flying but relies on a device or item that the paragon uses to fly. Jetpack, Broom, Silver Surfboard, etc. Vehicle – Cars, Trucks, Motorcycles, Boats, etc Ground or Water only

Unit 3675445AF couldn't believe its luck; the target it had been sent to seek out, across hundreds of years of time and millions of light years of space, was right in its sights. But what now? Its orders were very clear, but there was an internal conflict that caused the infiltrator to hesitate. What do I do now? Propelled more by instinct than programing, if such a thing was possible, the US Park Police officer quickly made her way closer to the Paragon. Once within earshot, she called out to her, softly but insistently, while doing her best to be unseen by anyone else. "Hey, are you Atalanta? I've heard about you!"

Ardan took his own seat quietly, Not pulling one for Meara because he knew she didn't like it when he did. His father had instilled certain values, but he and his friends stood as equals, so they were exceptions to the normal conventions. "if Lodo was amenable he'd order drinks for the four of them.

Artoria could read, but she had no idea that the answer to her rhetorical joking question had been a treasure trove of books so big it had its own building. As spooky in its own way as the elven ruins. This. This was better. Artoria flashed a smile of gratitude the serving boy's way before she focused on Lodo, the big blonde tip of their little formation. "Master Lodo," she offered respectfully to the elder, not quite believing that there was no such thing as even an informal stone mason's guild in a city built of so much well-crafted stone, "My name is Artoria, and these are my friends Ardan and Meara. I'm told you helped build the castle, and we'd love to hear about it over a pint or two if you're willing to share, maybe answer a question or two." She took preemptive action, pulling out a chair across from him and sitting down, all smiles and sparkling interest in her eyes, confident.

The Detective had come back over to where Cameron was, as he was getting ready to go back on the air. He didn't look happy, and grumbled. "Goddamn Shockjocks." He scowled. Cameron looked up at him, and nodded. "Yeah, so much for decency. I mean we don't know if he had a life beyond this, He could have a wife and kids, and they just found out the gruesome details of his death. I just got off the phone with my boss, who at least understood why I didn't report that initially." "Anything for fifteen minutes of fame, no matter how much it hurts someone else." The Detective sighed. "At least you and your crew have Decency, and that's been noticed. I got a directive from my supervisor that when we have any further information, It goes through you, since you got it on the air first." Cameron nodded. Thanks, Detective Lind. If I'm not here, give it to Gina, and she'll get it to me. We'll report the facts, respectfully." Lind let the tiniest ghost of a smile curl his lips, and turned to walk back. "Expect something in the next ten minutes, we should have a preliminary report for you." With that, he left to head back to where forensics was doing their work. Gina looked at him. "You see, you are the right person for the job, Cameron. All the others are having to bribe and cajole, and you don't even have to ask. The cops are going to give you everything on a platter." Cameron looked back at her, but he wasn't smiling. "Yeah."

Lady Luck, you fickle bitch! The classic mustang screeched to a stop, narrowly missing a parked car, as Jack slammed on the breaks, his heart - at least for now - hammering in his chest. Cars behind honked, and he could make out the curses and comments about his parentage through the buzzing in his ears. Sure, it was possible it was pure coincidence that the toughest Paragon in the world had his heart literally ripped from his chest the same day Jack came home to find an unrotting heart mystically anchored to his living room floor, with the exhortation to bring some nefarious someones the head of another Paragon if he ever wanted to see his daughter again. But didn't believe in coincidence that far. Why does trouble never find me in a fine looking dame, showing off legs that go all the way up? This also meant trouble wasn't only finding him and Atalanta, if whoever was coercing him could do this to Mr. Invincible. They might not even have anything to do with his daughter. It was hardly unknown to many that he had been looking for Sam for years. Now, he couldn't ignore Mr. Invincible's plight for his own immediate concern, as they seemed to be inextricably linked. Cars had been passing him on the tight road, but when he found a gap, Jack slammed on the gas, spun the wheel, whipping the mustang around back the way he came, and sped off to the scene of the other part of a crime he was being thrust into. He was friendly enough with SFPD, his own investigations helping them close cases on occaion, even if he'd been cited by them more than once for being someplace he shouldn't be. He might be able to sweet talk them into letting him take a look around, as a courtesy. And if not them, there more be a dog, cat, rat, or pigeon around who might have seen something and were willing to trade for a bit of food. ... And, other Paragons would likely be nosing about the death of a preeminent one of their own. He might catch a hint of Atalanta about. Might be handy before trying to contact her through the PHS first. The PHS would have to wait for the moment.

626 paused, gel injector half-way retracted back into it's carapace as the girl enacted her revenge against her captor. The mechanical arachnid was aware of enough prisoners escaping to be wary of the fury of the desperate, the measures needed to retake them alive. Neglect of self was common in these cases, even barring the limit surpassing stress magic users could place on themselves. It's data banks hummed fruitlessly towards the urgency of care versus the certainty of harm the flailing Scientist-Lord might inflict on his way out given a chance to recover. Solution? Shoot the threat until it stopped moving or anyone else showed signs of urgent triage.

As she passed within arm's reach of the man, Apex felt herself get scooped up ever-so-seamlessly by a field of gravity contrary to what held for the rest of the world, dragged along at breakneck pace above the streets with him. She had enough experience with Sean's own fields to not freeze at the odd sensation, cool-headed certainty flowing through her thoughts as she went for a grapple. Armored or not, Apex's inhuman strength and practical experience punching monsters in the face had the man's right arm quite firmly in her grip, legs wrapped around his waist in a few kaleidoscopic moments of grappling. "Down," the blonde juggernaut insisted, "Or we see what gives first: your armor or your ability to steer."

Despite Centerpoint's intent or desires, it was much too late for the men, the gravitic stresses too much for them to endure. Painful, but mercifully quick deaths. Full lips tightened faintly, the only evidence of the gorgeous Nova's frustration. There would be no answers from that corner. Feet bare inches above the ground, she 'fell' or perhaps was pulled towards the strengthening gravity well. As yet, it was more a matter of delicacy, intricacy, than pure brutal power to constrain the growing singularity, her lavender eyes lambent with their own light and pinpricks of blue-white. Through the deepening haze, she could make out the cause of the incipient black hole, more from her inherent awareness of gravitational effects than from her actual vision. Tiny bits of metal, machinery - presumably ripped from the armour of the men - were spinning around with each other, forming an intricate latticework, a multi-faceted sphere. It looked like a D20, an icosahedron, in fact. A very dangerous one. The gravity sources were in the bits making up the vertices and the energy fields around each one was collapsing. As the fields collapsed what were in them producing the gravity wells were trying to join together, amalgamating. Centerpoint was handling them individually at the moment, but if they compacted into a single source, the strength of the well would increase exponentially. It wasn't through scientific knowledge or working out the mathematics, it was simple, certain, intuition. Her luminous eyes widened as she grew closer, just know realizing how small the technological black hole actually was. She needed to get it out of the city, in case she could unravel the individual gravity wells before they reached a critical mass and formed a catastrophic singularity. The idea of forming a warp portal was there for just an instant before she discarded it. It took direct focus for her to spin one open, a focus she couldn't split from the disastrous D20 before her. Plus, she wasn't sure what would happen if she passed it through the event horizon of the portal, the clashing gravitic forces being unpredictable. Dauntless came around the building, hands still alight with crackling blue-red energy, and almost skidded to a stop at the sight. Before Centerpoint was a deptless black sphere a little bigger than a fist, limned by a phantasmal accretion disk of incandescent reds, oranges, pinks, and yellows. It eerily mirrored the design on the front of Centerpoint's glossy white bodysuit encasing her extravagant, hourglass figure. Centerpoint's eyes flicked from the black hole to Dauntless for a moment, the ominous sphere swelling perceptibly bigger. "Seems like we have a little problem, D, that's growing into a big problem." She rose higher above the ground, easing the fluctuating gravity wells with her. Her long, rose-gold streamed over her shoulders towards the black hole in space-time. "And I need to get it out of the city in case I can't solve the problem without a catastrophic solution. I think..." There was an uncharacteristic pause, something that Brigit didn't recall from Sean since she'd become a woman and a nova. "I'm going to try to bring it up and over the lake."

As the robot fell, Korroth moved quickly, standing within easy reach of the glass bubble. While he would never claim to be the strongest of the Barbarians, he was not weak, and his Rage was enough to keep up with the the greatest warriors. He brought his sword down on the glass with all his might. The blow was indeed mighty, and shattered the glass at once. There was the hint of a satisfied smile curling his lips, and he knew this sorceror wasn't long for this world.

Rochelle cracked a grin at that and said, "Okay, just one second though. This is crazy what happened right here." She stepped in close to Ben's locker and leaned down to get a closer look at the lock. It didn't look cut, which was what you'd normally think would happen with a break in. You'd get some heavy bolt-cutters and, well, cut the bolts. That made a distinctive 'pinched' shear though, and...this wasn't that. Then Roach looked into the locker itself. She had no idea what Ben had in there most of the time, but she definitely didn't think there was anything in there anyone else should want badly enough to break into it. MC was right though, the break-in would have made noise. That might mean that whoever did it was nervous, feeling rushed. Nervous, rushed people made mistakes. Left things behind, maybe. Gingerly she pushed whatever books and papers that were left in the locker around, looking for any kind of clue about who did this and what they were after. Wonder if this happened to any of those other people that disappeared. Home break-ins maybe. Might be something I can check on. Then she nodded and looked back at MC. "Dunno if we still have time. After class?"

Meara smiles "There is a Library, a place where books are stored to be copied and read, we can look there..." Hours later and dozens of books gone through the travelers form the north are just as clueless as before. A kindly old man in a brown homespun approaches. "It is very nice to see young folk interested in books, most seem not to have the time to read. But seems to me you are looking for something and not finding it. Prehaps I can help. My name is Del, and I am the book keeper here." Meara looks at her companions, "We are looking for anything about tunnels or cellars, or underground buildings." "Cellars?" The book keeper looks startled and maybe a little afraid but the look passes quickly. "We do not dig them here, the water underground is too near the surface, all of our storage is above ground. The only underground construction would be at the castle, up on the hill. But i don't know anything about that." The old man rubs his chin, "I don't know anything but there is one who may. His name is Lodo, he is very old, in his time he was a stone mason. I have heard him talk about working on the castle in his youth when he is in his cups. you can find him at the Tilted Cup, that is where he stays, day and night." After taking directions to the Tilted Cup the three walk to distance. The tavern is old in the oldest part of the city, easily marked by the difference in style and construction. to say the place was rundown was understatement. The inside of the tavern was the same as the outside, it had seen better days and those days were many many years int he past. The three drew a few looks but most soon returned to their cups. they asked the serving boy after Lodo. The boy scrutinized them but eventually pointed to a table close by the big fire place. Lodo was old, scrawny, wiry, his weather beaten face a mass of wrinkles but his hand on his mug was steady and his eyes were bright as he looked at their approach.

ok losing this one down if players return we will think about rebooting. u thanks for the effort

The girl in the cage scowls and shakes her head to clear it as the heavy fog caused by the energy filed which had run through the bars of the cage fade after the fight disrupted the power. "Attack the glass!" She yells as she gestures forcefully at the robot with her open hand, then twists her arm and slashes down! The robot tottered as if a heavy force had hit it, unbalancing precariously on its one leg then all of the sudden the robot flips onto its side and smashes to the floor with a resounding crash! The girl in the cage slumps against he bars blood running from her nose.

MC gave Roach a sideways look but led her into he main hallway and toward where Ben's locker was when the arrived she pointed at the twisted lock. "Thats gonna cost a bit to fix." Roach narrowed her eyes, "How did you know this was Ben's locker?" MC smirked and just turned and opened the locker next to Ben's using the combination. "It wasn't busted before last period, I saw the lock like that when i was putting my books up after we got out, so it had to happen while we were in class. I'm surprised no one heard anything." Sh looks around then pulls alittle plastic box out of her locker, the kind that dental floss comes in. She shows it to Roach, "We got about twenty minutes, you wanna?"

Jack flipped on the car radio "... new details just coming out in the unexpected death or the famous Paragon Mr Invincible, we go to Lucy Hale our KRRS reporter on the spot, what do you have Lucy?" A husky female voice perfectly suited for radio comes through the speaker, "Thank you Todd. Unexplained death is now suspected murder. An unnamed source has revealed that not only was Mr Invincible killed while in the act of defending the city but that his murderer took his heart! That's right Mr Invincible, the toughest Paragon in the world, had his heart literally ripped form his chest. More details to come as they are made available..." Shift scanned the surroundings and noticed an anomalous heat source down near the beach. It zoomed in with its electric photo receptors and could just make out a fleeting glimpse of a cloaked figure, the cloak effectively camouflaging her movements. ATALANTA!

They had beat the racist murderer. It had taken all of them, Renata, Evo, V and the hockey girl who turned out to be Beckett, not a Stormer as far as they could tell but still possessing extraordinary skill and luck. The cost had been heavy. A historic frat house destroyed, a dorm building nearly burned down multiple injuries, luckily no more deaths. They were hero's with Evo and V catching most of the attention while the two masked vigilantes faded into the background. In the end the attention proved to much. Evo found it impossible to return to his studies and decided to move to the big city to capitalize on his Nova status, while Velma who had come to escape her fame, realized she had simply been running away from a different challenge. After a call to her ex she decided to return home to try to work things out with him. And that left the two masked vigilantes, they continued to patrol the city masquerading as a collage. Students needed protecting crimes the police missed needed solving and the two hero's were on the job. But even hero's need a day off. Beckett stirred her coffee, and leaned across the table toward Renata, “I'm just saying it's not going to take much for the media or the police to come looking for me. I mean come on I'm wearing a freaking Hockey mask and using a stick for a weapon. And you in a ski mask? I just think we should look more, professional.” She picked up her coffee and took a test sip, grimaced and added another heaping spoon of sugar, “I'm just saying, is all.” It was Saturday morning and the two met for breakfast and would probably spend most of the day together doing something, after all it was hard to lead a normal social life when you were masked vigilantes. But it was also another Carlyle dinner party night and that was a good source of socializing and dare they say it fun.

Just as Apex lept, twin beams of energy from right below blasted the corner of the building, looking down as she glimpsed Dauntless, hands crackling with energy, as two more beams erupted from her fists at an armored man flying rapidly toward her! The beams missed, and Apex twisted changing her trajectory the man and the Nova crashed together and flew around the corner out of Dauntless' view. Dauntless with a curse, watched her quary vanish around the corner of the building, was that Grace? Brigit spun on her heel, and raced back to where she had left Centerpoint, fists still alive with energy!

The attentive observer might have picked up the faint boom of thunder on a rainless night, and spotted a small speck flinging itself upward from the Chicago skyline in an arc towards the embattled bank and it's no-longer-quite-micro-singularity. A controlled arc by something roughly the size and shape of a human being. This hypothetical observer wouldn't have had much time to process this as the shape crashed onto the roof of a building across the street from the bank. They hit with a faint upwelling of dust, at the center of a spiderweb of cracks, landing in a perfect three-point landing, the so-called super hero landing. The figure, blonde-haired, female, and quite-unscathed from her dramatic arrival, exhaled and straightened. Grace "Apex" Williams was on scene, dressed in a blue t-shirt, leggings, and sneakers as if she was out for a jog and not a potential Stormer fight. There were a lot of reasons she'd been making news on the Society pages rather than the front pages. Meetings helping Karen Gayle put together the organization behind the trio of Stormers. Charity fundraisers to turn her fame into something good for her adopted city and beyond that may or may not have her running across a certain pryokinetic criminal. Learning first hand just how much time it took to settle and take care of a child, let alone a child Stormer with a rougher start than most. She'd have to apologize to her parents for all the bad things she'd thought about them someday. A phone alert from Karen had brought her into the loop that the other two had ran into an escalating problem, and a second message to, a blessedly-free, Temple, had Konami in the best hands she knew of. So Apex was here, and a glance over the edge of the building to the chaos below lent her more urgency, vaulting over the edge to the street several stories straight down.

"I will help," said Aelia crossing her arms under her breasts, "I have no stake in the dwarfs affairs, but if the pirates are involved, I have score to settle with them and those who would ally with them."