Cleveland Lumina Arc 21 01

21:38 Antioch → ~Antioch|GM
21:58 <~Antioch|GM> Lumina works in the PRT headquarters lab, mind elsewhere -- it would be more accurate to say that her power works, her suit operating in tandem, arms moving as the onboard data module anticipates her power's intentions. She dwells on Longinus's broadcast.
21:58 <~Antioch|GM> The projector core embedded in her suit's chestpiece displays a semitranslucent hologram superimposed on the framework of her current project, hard light fastening smaller components in place as the delicate, spider-like limbs of her auxiliary set of arms adjust and refocus an array of Tinker-synthesized crystals.
21:58 <~Antioch|GM> Her latest batch of crystal lies suspended motionlessly in a clear vat. She's experimented with the notion of different catalysts, some that would /definitely/ require oversight and permission. For now, her designs have been seeded with crushed diamond, and the vat's circular photonic bombardment array nudge the gel-submerged superfine crystals into any number of configuration - custom microscale refracting matrices.
22:02 <~Antioch|GM> The origin of powers... the source of the energy that powers consume, the source of the knowledge that lets her, a high school girl who hadn't even taken the optics section of physics, build all of this technology surrounding her. It's an interesting topic, albeit something of a frightening one. Like staring into a yawning abyss in search for answers, simultaneously hoping and fearing something stares back.
22:05 <~Antioch|GM> But she knows something that Longinus doesn't, more than likely.
22:07 <~Antioch|GM> She knows the people that bottle up powers and handed one to her in an omega-stamped metal canister.
22:10 <~Antioch|GM> Her power suit hums as it moves, sweeping arrays of lasers filling the room with the scent of ionized air, while a dull fuzzy static emanates from Sentinel's abandoned workbench, still online but receiving no signal. ||
22:20 <+Thalia|Lumina> Now, in a weird way, she could sort of understand the people that said they couldn't control her powers. In moments like this, she felt more like a puppet than a Ward or person. Sure, she picked what the puppet did like the director of the puppet show, but her power did all the motions. There was no way she could do any of this without the power. All of this was beyond her understanding, but she felt even more curious how some other
22:20 <+Thalia|Lumina> capes felt when using their power. How did thinkers see the world? Did brute bodies feel different to them? Changers... well she didn't want to think about how THAT would feel. Then again, her power was telling her it was a good idea to do an eye transplant, so who was she to talk? In a way, she was nervous and thinking on the nature of powers was a great distraction. The city was falling apart and it would likely be her first time
22:20 <+Thalia|Lumina> in the field. How much of that was because of the unanswered questions she was thinking on and how much was because of everything else? There was no way Longinus knew the secret she did. She was chosen for her stability, and well, what she saw of the man and heard of what he did? He was the least stable of the low. It was just like they told her. Annemarie tries hard to NOT think of what her body is doing right now. She remembers
22:20 <+Thalia|Lumina> hearing a joke about asking a centipede how it walked with all those legs, then it thought about it and couldn't. She really hoped tinkering wasn't the same way.||
22:55 <~Antioch|GM> Much the opposite, it feels - as her body and mech-frame act, her power feeds her knowledge on what it's accomplishing.
22:55 <~Antioch|GM> She's been given permission to scavenge the leftover materials and discarded projects from Sentinel's stockpile, and one of the motorcycle helmet-looking devices has been gutted and refitted as part of her ongoing project, designing a suite of countermeasures for one of the PRT's priority threats, Caitiff.
22:55 <~Antioch|GM> Augmented-vision projectors that slot into PRT squad masks, nanolayer hologlass plating that artificially adds depth to images projected on it. Navigation beacons across a shared, digitized mesh-grid of the surroundings, auto-targeting and threat designation, anti-Stranger tech... virtual reality overlaid upon the actual.
22:55 <~Antioch|GM> The work is immersive, but it's her power doing the heavy lifting - she's left thinking about Longinus's speech, and her gaze occasionally drifts to Sentinel's workbench, where the broadcast was recorded. Left thinking about his monolithic Tinker machine, the center of all the chaos, what it might be capable of. ||
23:12 <+Thalia|Lumina> And how it was a danger. She might want to use the thing on herself to sate her growing curiosity, but... she had to look at what it was doing to the city. Her city. Was the PRT going to have her destroy it? They better. It was too much of a danger to even keep around. It would make this entire city a target for random tinkers that think they could do take it. Not to mention, with things as the are now, she couldn't maintain it. Then
23:12 <+Thalia|Lumina> again, maybe she could if she used the damned thing... would it be worth it? It wasn't her choice to make, though. Lumina would be given orders when the time came. Even if she thought totaling the machine was the best choice, if someone wanted it recovered, she had no choice.||
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> Dimensional transduction. Hijacking powers.
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> She recalls the incident at the hospital; Antithesis's attack. One of Longinus's cohorts?
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> A Tinker masquerading with facsimile of a dead Trump's powers. A power-copying Trump, no less.
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> If it was anything related to what the device is capable of, it's clear how much of a danger it poses.
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> She, too, realizes... her power has its own inklings. The concept of generator cores, fueled by parahuman biomass. A means to replicate their power, or derive technology from it. The heart, in most cases... the eye, in another? Why? She's learned enough, studying on her own time, that the corona pollentia is located in the brain. Is it a question of DNA encoding, imprinting? Is it as arbitrary as the powers she and others were
23:31 <~Antioch|GM> handed?
23:34 <~Antioch|GM> The insane Tinker had said something in his rambling monologue, a guiding hand distributing powers. What does that make Cauldron? ||
23:46 <+Thalia|Lumina> Maybe she needed to study parahuman science when she went to college. There hardly seemed to be a reason to go with computer science now. She could already make things way cooler than she ever could before. What would be the point of going that route now? Though, when the craziness is done, she wonders if she could program simple games on her hologram projectors. That would be a fun PR thing... might make her more popular which would
23:46 <+Thalia|Lumina> help Cauldron's plan for her as well as what she wanted. Just like 3D hologram pong. It's a brief thought she can put off until later, she needed to focus on more pressing concerns. On the concept of cores and the fake Lilith... she wonders if she could find her heart for a power source. It would be poetic in a way. But the insane tinker had mentioned about a hand distributing powers and Cauldron mentioned to her that most people
23:46 <+Thalia|Lumina> that got powers the normal route would be unstable... two hands with opposite approaches? The Cauldron people had to be a lot less common, but they were pushing stability? Whatever chose the normal people with powers was pushing the opposite, weren't they? They were making people like him. They were making the world like this.||
Sunday, January 21st, 2018

00:01 <~Antioch|GM> ((Give me a moment. I am driving.))
00:43 <~Antioch|GM> The mad dogs, the patient zeroes for exponentially cascading explosions of chaos... is it that corrupt are granted power, or that the power corrupts?
00:43 <~Antioch|GM> A prerequisite for the others unlike her, to endure trauma past the breaking limit for their parahuman abilities. To think that she's now surrounded by such broken people.
00:43 <~Antioch|GM> Even though the situation in her hometown is worse than ever, Cleveland starting to press the limits of its own breaking strain, she continues working, preparing for a confrontation that will set things right. It's something she can do... for one city full of broken people in a world with countless more.
00:43 <~Antioch|GM> What comes next? ||
00:52 <+Thalia|Lumina> There would be new people with powers after all this. Might be one crisis before moving straight into the next with a gigantic baby boom of capes. New gangs, new people in gangs. The never-ending struggle, but at least she could do something about it. It was better than sitting and waiting. Maybe she could be stable enough to support the Wards here, at least. How much weight could she hold on her shoulders? One family was exhausting,
00:52 <+Thalia|Lumina> but now she had the power to hold onto much more. And a team to help. Hopefully knowing the capes from her own following will be enough to allow them to coordinate. She didn't have time to train with them, so it would be hard to work together perfectly, but was there enough knowledge of their moves to not get in their way?||
01:01 <~Antioch|GM> It takes her a moment to recognize, above the buzz and spark of her equipment, the ambient buzz of Sentinel's workstation, and most of all, her own thoughts, a gentle but insistent rapping at her lab's double doors. The knock reverberates through the metal, echoing just slightly. ||
01:05 <+Thalia|Lumina> Lumina shakes herself out of the focus she was in. It almost felt like switching from an autopilot to having to do everything manually again. She gets up, stretches, and walks over to open the door. Was it time for her to test all this equipment?||
01:07 <~Antioch|GM> "Hey," Fleetfoot says, slouched outside the door as he gives her a small wave. In her frame, she's taller than him by a handful of inches.
01:07 <~Antioch|GM> He peers past her into the lab, then whistles, running his hand through his hair.
01:07 <~Antioch|GM> "You've really made yourself at home in that place, huh?" ||
01:12 <+Thalia|Lumina> It might be, so she's still a bit tense. There's a knot in her stomach, just waiting for her to go out. She might seem nervous to him, but she forces a smile. "Hey..." Then she pauses for a moment, letting him take in the lab for a second. "Yeah, I've just been diving into work." She had to be ready and she had so little time to prepare.||
01:18 <~Antioch|GM> "Looks a whole heck of a lot different from when I was in here last." He smiles slightly.
01:18 <~Antioch|GM> "I was dropping by to give you an update on how the situation is unfolding, checking to see if you needed anything." ||
01:23 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Yeah, I've been sort of... going through everything on the side." She has the bench working, kind of, and she's taking apart everything she can for ideas. "I think I'm doing alright for now, so... what is going on outside, then?"||
01:36 <~Antioch|GM> "The city is quietening down. We've all but dealt with the capes coming in from out of town, thanks to Protectorate Critical. Vorpal was able to talk the Synod Tinkers into triangulating on Longinus's broadcast and disrupting it, so we should be seeing new capes coming in less and less. I'm hoping the signal didn't get as far as Detroit or Pittsburgh, but it doesn't seem like it. There's still chaos, some rioting from the
01:36 <~Antioch|GM> established parties in town - some of the squads and the Wards are working with Primus and the People to get that sorted."
01:36 <~Antioch|GM> "Still," he sighs, "there's gonna be a whole lotta pieces to pick up when this is all said and done." ||
01:41 <+Thalia|Lumina> An idle thought makes her wonder what part of Fleetfoot would be useful for her power. There was the eye replacement, but it was mostly hearts... "Yeah..." Sounds like she was right on that front. This would be the start of a longer cleanup. "And that still leaves the tinkers fighting over the Longinus base right now? Going after whatever device is in there and who knows what they can come out with..."||
01:47 <~Antioch|GM> "Right," he says. "There are few groups down there that we've accounted for. Russian Roulette and her mercenaries, Mortal Lock and Blackjack's other Tinker - I forget the name, G.G.'s gang, and... well, we haven't accounted for him, but it's best to assume that Caitiff is there."
01:47 <~Antioch|GM> "As might be Forgemaster," he adds, grimacing. ||
01:53 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Caitiff might be the one I'm most ready for. I was reading about him before." If she had more time, the tech might be a mirror match between the two of them. Their specialties seem similar enough. She only wishes she had more time. Most of them had been going for years and she's operating on days, but... she heard the expression that it's not the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog. It wasn't the armor, it was the person
01:53 <+Thalia|Lumina> inside. "I was told not to touch Forgemaster's stuff..."||
01:56 <~Antioch|GM> "I don't know how much use you'd get out of it anyways. I can get you the documentation on the inventions he has on record here and you can ask for access clearance if you think it's relevant, I figure, and I was also here to bring you up to speed on any of the Tinkers that you didn't already know about." ||
02:02 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Probably not too much. If I have to go against him, it would be rather odd." She answers honestly. She'd get more out of hearts and eyes, but -he- doesn't need to know about that.  Battlefield control for Forgemaster. She doubted his metal would give him a lot of options for manipulating things, then she could slowly shut him down. "I don't know too much about any of the new ones. Want to come in?" Kind of odd just standing out in
02:02 <+Thalia|Lumina> the hall.||
02:04 <~Antioch|GM> "Yeah, sure." He glances around the clutter in the room. "Anything I shouldn't touch? My power's giving me general scope of it, but that's not really what it's for. Better I ask than not." ||
02:04 <~Antioch|GM> * giving me the
02:06 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Most of my stuff isn't too dangerous. Might want to keep away from the power cores, especially the one I have rigged in Sentinel's bench. I'm not sure how stable that setup is, but it's how I caught the broadcast." She pauses for a second. "And there's a laser pistol around here, might want to avoid that too."||
02:12 <~Antioch|GM> "You got it," he says, following Annemarie's lead as she navigates through a floor strewn with laser-etched metals and glass. "Anyone you'd particularly like to hear about first? Ah - actually, I forget... do you know why Forgemaster left? I want to say you weren't with us when he did, but it's been... a really hectic couple of days. I'm losing track, and I don't do so well with time in the first place." ||
02:17 <+Thalia|Lumina> Fidler shakes her head. "I wasn't. That was the same night as the fund-raising dinner when I made my little interruption, I think. Why he left might be a good place to start." Of course, seems like there would be a good reason not to tell her. If it got one tinker to leave, it might get the other.||
02:19 <~Antioch|GM> "Here," he says, handing over his phone. "I have the transcript pulled up here. It tells you some about Caitiff, too."
02:19 <~Antioch|GM> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Qw-Qo_k-FfVpVQTaj-4HlemIdBNnrtLruphmk_JXq5Y/edit
02:19 <~Antioch|GM> ||
02:27 <+Thalia|Lumina> Annemarie reads over the transcript. Wow, that was a lot of swearing. Nothing she didn't already know on the Caitiff information reveal front, though. Between Longinus and Cauldron, she had the data she wanted. Lumina hands the phone back. "Alright, and then some quick rundowns? I sort of know Mortal Lock... what about G.G. and Russian Roulette?"||
02:28 <~Antioch|GM> "By 'sort of know', what d'you mean? We picked up some intel on him that might help fill in the blanks." ||
02:29 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Just what I've read on PHO. About his drones and stuff." Then again, she had access to classified intel now. She may as well use it. "What did we learn?"||
02:37 <~Antioch|GM> "His Tinkerings have a bent to the biological. You remember when he 'died', right? Was another guy in the suit of power armor, control array stuck through his spine and the suit doing the rest. He branched out, switched to more covert methods once he was playing dead, collecting vermin and using them as puppets for his drones. The string of robberies caused by a bunch of rats and raccoons was him. On record, we have his
02:37 <~Antioch|GM> specialty as neural and muscular impulse generation with an emphasis on remote control, and there's enough spillover that he's capable of making the more run-of-the-mill electricity-based weapons." ||
02:44 <+Thalia|Lumina> So like an electric version of her? In a way, it seemed like that. And kind of backwards, her stuff focused on herself, his seemed to focus more on others. She wonders if she could use her computer access module to try and take control of his drones. "Alright, I kind of get that... if we had anything here and more time, I might ask to take a look. Russian Roulette?"||
02:50 <~Antioch|GM> "We got his power armor back from Columbus after the autopsy a bit ago. You'll probably need someone to sign off, but it's there if you think it'll help."
02:50 <~Antioch|GM> "Roulette's one of those Tinkers with a signature weapon. Long range firearm, extremely modular. The notes say 'multivariable long range blast focus', which is good enough for the field, I guess, but I don't really know how it works. There's videos of her hotswapping out pieces of her barrel, so it's lenses, or filters, or something."
02:50 <~Antioch|GM> Though Fleetfoot claims he's citing the notes, he's not checking his phone or perusing any papers, simply peering around the room with an intent curiosity. ||
02:57 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Sounds like my laser pistol, actually..." Changing the frequency of the thing, but RR's was probably much better. Looking for a weakness, she has to hotswap pieces... that would be when she would be vulnerable if you took the rifle out of the fight, she might be helpless. A bit like WWII, actually. She remembered watching something about a machine gun where they had to switch out the barrels before they overheated. That was when
02:57 <+Thalia|Lumina> they attacked. Barrels would change functions, maybe. Fleetfoot probably was studying these religiously, getting ready. "So, what about G.G.? Who is that?"
02:58 <~Antioch|GM> ((Did you mean to || there, or am I just jumping the gun?))
02:59 <+Thalia|Lumina> ||
02:59 <+Thalia|Lumina> ((You were correct, sir.))
03:09 <~Antioch|GM> "G.G. doesn't stand for anything, first of all. I think that's mostly if he went around calling himself Grey Goo everyone'd be looking for an excuse to S-class him. He does work with grey goo, just not the nanomachine death horror kind. He's a Tinker like Forgemaster, in that all of his stuff is centered around this liquid metal he makes. He can control it, shape it, use it as armor, weapons, projectiles. There's interplay
03:09 <~Antioch|GM> between electromagnetics and electricity -- he can use his metal creations as lightning rods or relays for conducting electricity, which he's also capable of producing."
03:09 <~Antioch|GM> He passes his phone over to her again. "There's some amount of dashcam footage of his power in play, from when Feral and Gigawatt's negotiations with him went sour, but a lot of it is obscured by his teammate Greaser's smoke." ||
03:14 <+Thalia|Lumina> She can't but help but feel slightly superior to these lowtech tinkers. Then again, simple solutions usually won wars. Lumina takes the phone again and looks at the footage. Maybe she would need to see about blocking his signals or something...  easier said than done, but if she could, she might be able to shut him down. "And what about Greaser?"||
03:21 <~Antioch|GM> "Less tricks up his sleeve than Caitiff, but more in terms of raw offense. Pyrotech, but with a lot more battlefield control and misdirection - he has a lot of tools that generate flammable substances like extremely adhesive tar, slick grease, and the smoke isn't something you can see through or breathe in."
03:21 <~Antioch|GM> "Some of the samples we grabbed from that same fight were tested," he says, rewinding the video to focus more on Greaser and his initial confrontation with Gigawatt, "and there's vapor and residue in the smoke that's pretty caustic. Not something you want in your eyes, lungs, or on your bare skin, but there's some overlap here with the stuff we're prepping for Caitiff."
03:21 <~Antioch|GM> "Really glad the Director decided to shell out for a squad set of hazmat gear back when," he adds, smiling briefly. ||
03:25 <+Thalia|Lumina> She doubted he was immune to it. Make him deal with it in a confined space and he might manage to take himself out. Not to mention, she could probably use her light walls to trap the flames and maybe suffocate the fire and him. "Alright, I might have some ideas for all the tinkers... my tech is most like Caitiff's, but I have a few ideas if I need to face any of them. Going to be a heck of a first day for me..."||
03:27 <~Antioch|GM> ((The video footage of Greaser shows a gas mask as a prominent portion of his costume, in case that changes your prior post any.))
03:27 <+Thalia|Lumina> ((Supports it, actually. It was the same assumption I was making for Caitiff.))
03:29 <~Antioch|GM> ((Ah, I see what you mean now. I was thinking backwards - must be the late hour.))
03:31 <~Antioch|GM> "There's also - ah, right, he's going by High Roller now - Blackjack's other Tinker. And Monkeywrench, the other Tinker in G.G.'s group... and the Synod are near but not in, as is Magnus's Army."
03:31 <~Antioch|GM> He runs his hand through the back of his head, face making a strange apologetic half-smile half-frown. "You sure picked a great time to join up." ||
03:37 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Any information on those two? I sort of have ideas of how I should deal with the others based on what information I have." She doubted it was that simple,but if you failed to plan, you planned to fail. Annemarie just tried to give him a genuine smile back. "I feel it's better to think that my timing for joining up was to help with this."||
03:38 <~Antioch|GM> "The two groups, or the two Tinkers we think are down in the base?" Fleetfoot asks. "And believe me, I'm as glad as anyone for the extra pair of hands."
03:38 <~Antioch|GM> "Pairs," he corrects himself. ||
03:41 <+Thalia|Lumina> "The two tinkers." If the groups weren't making moves now, it was doubful they would. The time for the initial push was over, the only reason to stick behind was that they wanted to make s big push later when the others already took down the defenses.||
03:47 <~Antioch|GM> "Monkeywrench does minions. They're small, yea high, those little guys you saw trying to steal the tires off of the undercover car in that video. They're autonomous and weak as hell, but he has damn near an army's worth of them. Back before the Tinkers actually made a coordinated assault on the base, they were set up in this sort of camp that basically sprung up out of nowhere. His work, for the most part."
03:47 <~Antioch|GM> "There's no details on his power in a fight, but he has a lot of expendable nuisances, and he can fortify positions really fast." Fleetfoot frowns, then continues, "Vorpal's been trying to get in touch with High-Spec to see if he has any intel to trade, but he can't get in touch with him." ||
03:52 <+Thalia|Lumina> "That sounds annoying..." Dealing with him or Mortal Lock would be harder than any of the others. If she couldn't find a way to deal with the minions in bulk, she would have to deal with them in groups. It would just be a waste of time. "Thanks for the info, gives me a bit to think about in terms of planning."||
03:57 <~Antioch|GM> "High Roller is new to Blackjack, but he used to work out of Akron. Called himself ROFLcopter. Say what you will about Blackjack, at least they made him change his name. He does aerial vehicles - not sure how useful it'll be underground - but they transform into these oversized weapons that propel themselves with the same turbines. The things look damn scary. I'm not sure how he hasn't meatgrinder'd anyone with them yet." ||
04:01 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Which might be a bigger issue if we're in close quarters..." Then again, she could probably shove something in there and total the thing. Like a big hard light wall. "Well, yeah, they have the whole theme naming going. You'd need to be like "Let It Ride" or something where I might be Queen of Hearts or... " Actually, that one was pretty good. "It's hard to come up with good card themed names."||
04:08 <~Antioch|GM> "I want to say the Suits have prior claim to Queen of Hearts. Let It Ride is good, though." He shakes his head. "Sorry, getting off track."
04:08 <~Antioch|GM> "We're still coordinating the who and the when of the operation itself, but you'll get a a couple hours' notice. Liar's Dice says we have some leeway on the timing, so we're going to go into this with as much prep as we can." ||
04:12 <+Thalia|Lumina> She nods again. "That's good, at least." Give her time to finish up here, maybe she should figure out how to use her other power core. Lumina freezes for a brief second when thinking about the heart. It meant they were real and had something to do in all this. "Nothing like field testing equipment, I guess."||
04:16 <~Antioch|GM> "It'll be field tested. There's usually a lot of paperwork you have to go through on your Tinkering before it's field-approved, but the A-class alert means you can fast track things a good deal under an expedited review. On top of that, we have Critical members here to vouch for it, and Vorpal should be able to help you get a handle on any vulnerabilities or points of failure that might crop up."
04:16 <~Antioch|GM> "Speaking of which, have you met the Critical capes yet? Like, met-them-met-them?" ||
04:21 <+Thalia|Lumina> Annemarie didn't know much about Protectorate Critical, but... well, they would help with that? How? And she can't help but think how she's going to get her power core approved in the long-term. It's not like she can put the heart back. "No, I haven't yet." She's mostly been in here.||
04:23 <~Antioch|GM> "If you've got some time to spare, they're in one of the planning rooms upstairs. I know for a fact they'll be hitting Longinus's base with you. Just as important to know the people you're fighting with as against." ||
04:25 <+Thalia|Lumina> Is now a good time to take a break? Just because she would love to know who she was going in with. She had already stopped. "Now seems like a decent time... I would want to know who I'll be going in with."||
04:28 <~Antioch|GM> "Let's head up, then," Fleetfoot says. Leaving her work isn't the most pleasant feeling, but the eyepieces are simple enough that the Spider frame can handle the rest, repeating the actions it took to make the first one.
04:30 <~Antioch|GM> As the elevator door slides open, he adds, "Oh, I guess I never mentioned Forgemaster outside of him leaving. While your mind's in the gear of thinking up solutions and approaches to all those Tinkers down there...?"
04:30 <~Antioch|GM> He trails off, tilting his head uncertainly. ||
04:33 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Mostly, I know the basics of the whole dealing with metal thing. Part of the reason why I wanted to raid his stuff early on to see if I could upgrade my own armor. But if he's an enemy for the time being, that could add a crucial weakness." Especially since that feels like it would be totally out of her understanding. Caitiff and some of the others have something in common with her, his specialty just seems alien. "We probably have
04:33 <+Thalia|Lumina> the most detail on his equipment. It's not likely he made much new if he was having tinker block problems before leaving."||
04:37 <~Antioch|GM> "You're right. I don't know if he'll have made anything since he left. Caitiff was implying that Longinus's thing fixes Tinker block, right? I didn't really follow a lot of it." ||
04:44 <+Thalia|Lumina> "It must make more sense to tinkers... sort of like..." She had a minute to try and describe what this was. "I get ideas from odd sources. When I met Cwn, I new idea for some equipment. Building things gave me other ideas as well. New armors, new power sources, new modules. That sort of thing. I guess, at a certain point, the ideas stop coming in unless you do something to keep the juices flowing. Caitiff said he was 'fucking around
04:44 <+Thalia|Lumina> getting up to shit'" which she enunciates fully, almost like she feels weird saying it. "And that's how he kept things up."||
04:47 <~Antioch|GM> "Well..." Fleetfoot shrugs, "I guess I kinda get it. One of the old Wards from here, Kickflip, dealt with a lot of Tinker block too. His sister was worse in her own way."
04:47 <~Antioch|GM> "The big thing you have to know about Forgemaster's stuff is, uh, well... first, do you know about the Manton effect?" ||
04:49 <+Thalia|Lumina> "A bit. Something about powers affecting biological stuff or not-biological stuff, rarely both?" She asks more of a question than a statement. Some reading on PHO was probably way different than the PRT teaching you about it.||
04:54 <~Antioch|GM> "There's some more, but you know the stuff that matters with respect to Forgemaster's work. His stuff registers as organic and inorganic, when it comes to the Manton effect. What that means is that powers that only work on one or the other don't work on his kit at all. Holds true for everything he's made that we know of. The PRT guys down at San Antonio would buy a crazy amount every month."
04:54 <~Antioch|GM> The elevator door lets out on the Protectorate floor, leaving them free to take the skybridge across to the PRT tower and to the meeting.
04:54 <~Antioch|GM> It's empty in the Protectorate lounge, and the patrol schedule is a mess of black and red ink. Busy times. ||
04:57 <+Thalia|Lumina> "That's... really interesting." Might make her sidearm harder to use since specific settings were for specific materials and the like. "Most of my stuff appears to be for sneaking and battlefield control, anyway. I'm not sure if I have to worry about Manton effects yet... minus maybe the sidearm." A few tricks and the like to go with the rest of her kit.||
05:03 <~Antioch|GM> "The main weapon he used when he was with us and out in the field, which was basically never, was this rocket-launcher sized thing that fired these balls of metal that would unravel themselves, hit something, and then snap back into place, restraining the target. Kind of like those slap bracelets that were really popular in middle school. The other thing you should know is that the suit of armor he took with him repairs
05:03 <~Antioch|GM> itself. Like, it bleeds, sort of, this mercury-looking stuff, and it hardens back into place."
05:03 <~Antioch|GM> As they traverse the skybridge, she can see most of Downtown and a little ways past it. There's still multiple plumes of smoke rising from different locations. The fight isn't over yet.
05:03 <~Antioch|GM> She checks the other side of the bridge, looking over the lake. The red color has faded, for the most part, though there's still a pinkish tinge to it, most evident where the water meets the shoreline, staining the snow-dusted rocks. ||
05:08 <+Thalia|Lumina> That's where her father's killer is resting... it's weird to think about. "Don't worry about damaging the armor, find some other way to restrain him. Got it." Weirdly, what if she was able to get the mercury stuff onto the joints... she might be able to use his own armor to immobilize him. It would be a long shot, but it might be a thing that could happen. ||
05:11 <~Antioch|GM> After ascending a flight of stairs, Fleetfoot indicates a closed wooden door, the glass in the middle of it darkly tinted. "They're in there. I sent the word up that you were coming by."
05:11 <~Antioch|GM> He hesitates. "I can stick around, if you want. Since they're all kinda a lot older than you. Might be weird. I dunno." ||
05:15 <+Thalia|Lumina> "Actually, I was going to ask if you could because I was worried it might be weird." Annemarie says with a smile. It's good to know the two of them were on the same page there. She goes to open the door and see who made up Critical.||
05:19 <~Antioch|GM> There are five people in the planning room. They're clustered around a table overloaded with clutter. Three open laptops, a messy stack of papers, a large printed map mounted on corkboard, and a projector displaying twelve different CCTV feeds -- eight of various city streets and intersections, four of an aerial view of Longinus's base.
05:21 <~Antioch|GM> The man shifting his glance between camera feeds and map is dressed in a simple PRT Watchdog suit and an unassuming mask. Occasionally, he rattles off the name of a street intersection or location into his earpiece, simultaneously dotting the map with a red, orange, or yellow highlighter. Lumina recalls him from Valiant's briefing - this man is Liar's Dice.
05:25 <~Antioch|GM> Next to him, pushing pins into the map every so often, is a tall, lanky man - nearly as tall as the doorframe - who's foregone the top half of his costume, wearing a sleeveless undershirt and sweating profusely. The sleek, futuristic-looking sword at his hip places him as Vorpal, more than likely. He checks the computer furiously, tapping at the touchpad with vehemence every handful of seconds.
05:26 <~Antioch|GM> There's also Captain Buchanan, the captain of all of the PRT squads here, who turns as she enters, looking pleased to see her, if more than a little haggard. He nods in salutation.
05:28 <~Antioch|GM> Across from him is a woman in a bodysuit with evenly placed slashes in the fabric along her arms, leg, and back. Annemarie can see a lot of skin, and what she does see is awfully scarred, raised ridges and indentations into the flesh as well. The woman's prosthetic leg rests against the wall. Topaz, certainly. The amber crystal jutting out from her chest pretty much seals it.
05:31 <~Antioch|GM> And behind her, almost as tall as Vorpal but nearly twice as wide, is a short-haired, dark-skinned man in reading glasses. He wears a white costume, the only nod to ornamentation being a winged aegis in black on his chest. The PRT's logo sans the text, she realizes. By process of elimination, Indomitable.
05:32 <~Antioch|GM> He turns to face Lumina as well, walking closer to her to offer a handshake while Fleetfoot sidles past her, craning his neck to take a look at the map. ||
05:42 <+Thalia|Lumina> So this was Critical... four members? Liar's Dice would be back here while the rest of those here would be joining her on the assault. This would be her first time out in the field. This would have to be just one of innumerable crises for them. Any of them. She was the only tinker, but just the weight of the experience in this room when compared to her was extremely heavy. She was the baby. It was kind of intimidating. Some of the
05:42 <+Thalia|Lumina> best the Protectorate had to offer... and this was her first assignment as a Ward. She nods back to Captain Buchanan, then she meets Indomitable partway to shake his hand. "Hi, I'm Lumina, nice to meet you." On the upside, if she did good here, that would definitely help her Ward career path.||
05:42 <~Antioch|GM> |||