Magical Girl Escalation Taylor (Worm/Nanoha)

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Coil has been able to hide from a great many people in the past but we have angles to pursue that others cannot reasonably follow due to a lack of computing power.
-[ ] look for large scale money movement. A villain must have a money trail somewhere and Coil is known to employ mercenaries. As part of this look into particularly profitable companies that could be involved with money laundering.
-[ ] try and find from where the mercenaries are being hired and track probable recruits (until they can be definitively removed as a candidate).
-[ ] he is known to use tinkertech which would need continuous repairs. If his supplier could be found (through known seller websites) then supply shipments could be tracked.
-[ ] look into records of known escape vehicles and where they vanish from the surveillance network. At the very least this should tell us where to start to look for his base.
-[ ] track his calls when he talks to Danny. Encourage the work relationship. See if we can get enough voice recordings from these conversations to identify him by.

First Impact 2.9

"Of course," you continue, your enthusiasm ebbing away slightly as the immensity of the task reasserts itself in your mind, "those ideas won't do much unless we can actually get to him. From what the PRT knows – or what they're willing to release on PHO, to be more accurate – Coil is a small fry. He is involved in a number of crimes, but not to the extent of the Empire and the ABB. And yet, he can afford to hire mercenaries and Tinkertech? How big is his organization, really?"

"You think we need to move cautiously, then."

You turn to look at Samantha. "Don't you think we need to be careful?"

"Yes, but there is a time for caution and a time for action." The Guardian Beast frowns. "But, in the interest of fairness, combat is what my body and magic were quite literally designed for. I might be more biased towards physical confrontations than I realize." Shaking her head, she says, "I go where you lead. If you think we need to move slowly and carefully, that is what we shall do."

That display of complete trust is jarring, and it takes you a moment to regain your equilibrium. You have never had anyone who would follow you like this before, and now you have Samantha and Perfect Storm and even the Privateers. Once more, you decide that the day you found your Intelligent Device is without a doubt the happiest in your life. "Okay. Let's start with the mercenaries. They have to come from somewhere, and if we can find how he's recruiting them, it should give us a hint of where they're going and maybe how many of them there are. Storm, do you think you could figure any of that out?"

«There are numerous sites on the Internet that are not immediately available. Many of them are involved with the sale and purchase of illegal items or services. Discovery of which the target frequents will be time-consuming but not overly difficult.»

"Excellent. While you're at it, maybe look for large sums of money moving into Brockton Bay. He's paying them somehow, and I don't think his criminal enterprises would bring in enough to keep all of them employed. Not unless he's hitting some of the gangs like the Privateers are," you add almost to yourself. "I'm not giving you too much to do, am I?"

«A list is being prepared.»

"The Tinkertech." You glance at your animal partner. She furrows her eyebrows and slowly nods. "Coil said they don't need a whole lot of maintenance but that they do need power cells, which he has to buy from the same Tinker he got the guns from. Pyrotechnical, that's the name. Maybe he has a website you could break into and look for shipping manifests?"

"It would probably be less defended than the Protectorate was."

"That's almost a given."

"Since he is conducting crime, he or his men have to get there. Maybe you could look up any security videos they have saved to the web and see if you can find license plate numbers." An idea sparks, and your eyes widen. "Oh, and if you do, let me know. We might be able to follow them. They might not lead us directly to Coil's base, but it should give us a rough idea of where it is."

Samantha shakes her head. "Why go through all that trouble when we have his phone number? Or Danny does, at least. We can just ask him for it."

"That would mean telling him about Coil being a villain, though."

One grey eyebrow rises. "Weren't you going to do that anyway? If you're looking for allies, your own team sounds like the obvious place to start."

"I will, I will. Just… not yet." Her skeptical look remains, and after a moment you look away. "He seems happier, don't you think? The Privateers are cleaning up the Docks, the Merchants have lost a ton of money, none of the dockworkers have to worry about when the next payday is going to be, not when we're so flushed with cash…. If I tell him about Coil, that happiness is going to be over, and I know he'll blame himself for not realizing that we were being played. When we actually move against Coil, I'll tell him, promise. Just not right now."

"While I'm sure he'd appreciate your concern for his happiness, I think he'd like it even more if you treated him like a responsible adult."

That rebuke stings, which you suppose is the point. The front door opening prevents anyone from saying anything, and you walk out of the living room to greet your dad as he comes inside. "How'd things go today?"

"So so." He shucks off the heavy rain coat and hangs it up in the hallway to dry. "That depot I told you about? Mush was guarding it today. We settled in to watch for a little longer, and now it's pretty clear that it's a major distribution hub. We'll have to be clever about when we make a move, but if we can capture it, that should take out a huge chunk of their finances, and we'll be able to destroy what David expects is literally hundreds of pounds of drugs. The only downside is that it will piss the Merchants off something fierce."

"Do you think you'll need to use the laser?"

"…I hope not." You narrow your eyes at the hesitant tone of his voice, and he notices. "Carl trained some of the guys on how to use it, but the lower the setting, the more temperamental it is. For it to be dependable, the beam has to be set high enough to burn through somebody."

"A bullet can be just as lethal, can't it?"

"Yes, if it hits the right place. Shoot somebody in the leg, and they won't be able to walk, but unless they bleed out, they won't die from it. After he used it on a pig he bought, Carl said that a big area around the hole was burned, too. When the total area you damage is the size of a football rather than a little bullet hole, you have to be a lot more careful aiming. That takes time, and that time could be the difference between one Merchant getting hurt and one of us getting hurt and the rest of the thugs thinking they can pull the same trick."

"Can you call Coil? Maybe he has some advice on how to make it less lethal," you suggest in a forcefully neutral voice. You just had a wonderful idea. «Can you trace Dad's call? Maybe even record Coil's voice? If we can identify who he really is, that gives another way to capture him.»

«It will be done.»

«This is a bad idea.» You look over to find Samantha shaking her head. «If you push him into greater contact with Coil, it's only going to make things worse when he finds out what you're planning.»

Your dad's unhappy groan interrupts your building argument. "I suppose you're right. I just don't like talking to him. I know he's a lot like us, but…. There's just something off-putting about him. I can't put my finger on it, but he gives me the creeps." He shakes his head and walks into the kitchen.

Well, now you feel even guiltier about encouraging his relationship with Coil. You especially don't need the 'I told you so' expression on Samantha's face. «How long do think it will take you to handle everything we talked about?»

Your Device buzzes quietly. «Time for completion unknown. Current estimate: seven to ten days minimum.»

"That's nothing we need to worry about right now, though," your dad calls back to you. "Calling him can wait till Monday. I thought we could make some burgers tonight, maybe rent a movie. Not how most teenagers want to spend a Friday night, I'm sure, and if you have other plans—"

"No, Dad. That… That sounds great."


Choose one additional activity to pursue next week

[ ] Light in the Darkness – Purity is one of the strongest Blasters in the country, and more than once you've heard her be referred to as "evil Legend". This is not someone you can afford to let go unchallenged, even if she hasn't been seen in Nazi company for a while.

[ ] Endangered Species – You asked for powers with which to eliminate the gangs. You even received the powers of someone who apparently had made it her life's work to do the same. It's long past time you got started on fulfilling that promise. Find a gang and wipe it off the map.

-[ ] Write-in

[ ] Eye of the Tiger – Spend your free time in the training simulator.

-[ ] Write-in for which spell to practice

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Light in the Darkness – Purity is one of the strongest Blasters in the country, and more than once you've heard her be referred to as "evil Legend". This is not someone you can afford to let go unchallenged, even if she hasn't been seen in Nazi company for a while.
[ ] You've been keeping a lot from Danny, now and for a long time. You need to stop it, and this info on Coil can't stay secret.


First Impact 2.10

Monday, February 21
The front door barely has time to close before you are in the hall. "Dad, we need to talk."

He is understandably startled by your sudden declaration, and he follows you back into the kitchen. "Okay, I'm listening," he says, pulling out a chair. "What do we need to talk about?"

"Well…. Um…." And you had a speech all planned out, too! "You see…. It's about Coil. He isn't a hero at all. He really is a villain."

Your father sighs and rubs his face with one hand. "I wish I could say that surprises me more than it does. And we were so eager for his help that we jumped into bed with him as soon as he made an offer." Looking up, he asks, "You're sure about this? No doubts whatsoever?"

"I had Perfect Storm look into it. He's involved in several criminal enterprises, both here and out of town."

«Distribution of illicit substances. Bribery. Contractual killing. Additional income is the result of involvement with various illegal gambling venues in other locations such as canine combat circuits, stock market manipulation, pre-arranged athletic competitions—»

"You get the picture," you cut in. "About the only way it seems like he isn't making money is off us. That laser rifle he sold us costs between ten and twelve thousand dollars a pop buying them from Pyrotechnical directly."

"Damn it." It takes a moment, but the pinched expression on his face shifts to a confused one. "When did you find out all of this? I mean, it sounds like you know quite a bit about what he's up to, but what made you start looking in the first place?"

You had hoped he wouldn't ask that, and now you have a choice to make. It is tempting to lie your way out of this, tell him that you started digging shortly after the meeting with Coil or something, but it is lies that got you into the mess. Lies of omission, admittedly, but still lies. It was lies that worsened the gulf between you that you are only starting to repair, too. 'I'm fine', 'I can take care of it', 'It's okay that you're always gone'.

You are done lying to your dad, you decide. All lying to him has done is cause the both of you more pain than either of you deserved.

"A villain named Tattletale contacted me on PHO the same day as our meeting. She and the rest of the Undersiders work for him, but her he hired basically at gunpoint, and she wants me to take him down." You shrug. "It took me a while to verify what she told me."

He gives you a small smile and a good-natured chuckle. "And you didn't believe her until you proved her right. It's a good thing I didn't think to call him today until I was already on my way home. Getting even closer to him under the assumption that he was who he said he was? That would have been egg on both our faces."

"Yeah, about that. I… kinda already knew he was a villain when I told you to call him."

"You knew all this before you told me to call him."

You wince at the flat delivery. That is not a good sign. Your father has a temper, and though he has never directed it at you, you still have seen him blow up a few times. It wasn't pretty. "Yes."

"Taylor, just…." He shakes his head. "You're the one who suggested I call him. You're the one who practically encouraged me to tie us even tighter to him. And you did all that even though you knew he is exactly the kind of person we formed the Privateers to fight? Why?!"

"Perfect Storm could trace the call to find out where his lair is, but I was worried ifyou knew before talking to him, he would have realized that something was up. And," you add quietly, "you seemed happy to have a partner, someone else you could count on for help. I didn't want to take that away until I had to."

"So instead of being angry that I was played like a fiddle by a supervillain, I get to be furious that I was played by a supervillain and my own daughter. Yes, that definitely sounds like the better option!"

"I made a mistake! I get that! But I was just trying to protect you!"

"I'm a grown man, Taylor. I don't need to be protected from my own mistakes. And I definitely don't need or want to be pushed even deeper into them!" he shouts back. "What were you going to do if, after being encouraged to associate with Coil, I sent the guys on a job that wound up breaking the law? If we became criminals on your advice? How would you have protected—"

Clamping his jaw shut, he closes his eyes and takes several deep breaths. You can practically see him count to ten in his head, though from how long it takes him, fifty is probably a more accurate number. When he opens his eyes again, the anger has been banked. Not extinguished, only hidden. "Just, go to your room."

"Dad, I—"

"Go. To. Your room."

Unwilling to push back, not when you were legitimately in the wrong, you silently leave the kitchen and walk up the stairs.

That could have gone better.

xxxxxxxxxxxxx​

Tuesday, February 22
Partly in deference to your unofficial grounding – which, unknown to your father, was enforced by your traitorous Guardian Beast – and partly because you are still nervous about tangling with a flying artillery cape with a decade's worth of practice under her belt, you wait until the next night before you go looking for Purity.

As you fly downtown, you mentally review what you know about your current quarry. A powerful Blaster, Purity shoots lasers that do an incredibly amount of damage to whatever it is they hit. You've seen video clips from several years earlier of her demolishing a building with a single massive blow, and despite the protection you receive from your Barrier Jacket, you really don't want to try taking one of those hits on the chin. Even if you cast Strong Shield, you are still likely to be knocked out at the very least. You have magic bullets that curve around and follow their targets, but while she is not as flexible in her abilities as you are, she is far stronger, and only a fool would assume that the difference in experience won't tilt things in her favor.

Defense you aren't quite so sure about. On the one hand, her thread on PHO, her page on the wiki, and the myriad of sources Perfect Storm dug into showed no hint that she has any protective abilities, so it's entirely possible that one well-placed Flare Shooter could be the end of the fight. On the other, she has made the ABB her primary target, and between a teleporting suicide bomber and an ever-strengthening rage dragon who can throw fireballs, it isn't as if she has an unbeatable range advantage. Yet somehow, she has reportedly sent Oni Lee packing once and even fought Lung to a standstill for several minutes three different times before either the Protectorate arrived, his goal became impossible, or something else happened that no one besides the two of them know about.

The people discussing those fights saw them from a safe distance, and while you cannot blame them for that sensible decision, it does not yield much in the way of actionable intel.

Regardless of what exactly took place during that fight, the fact remains that she has survived fights with cold-blooded killers who have ways of hitting her back, so clearly she has some way of defending herself. If it isn't some natural toughness like Glory Girl's or a forcefield like yours, then maybe she has some other power that makes her impossible to hurt, like how Legend can turn himself into light. The worst-case scenario is that it is pure skill, because that means your chances of winning any confrontation with her are falling fast—

An eye-searing beam of white light catches your attention, and taking a fortifying breath, you and Samantha zip in that direction. You stay low to the rooftops, your dark outfits letting you blend in with the unlit rooftops. It also lets you search for whomever Purity is shooting with your mask's night vision mode.

Green and red bandanas hanging from their necks and arms. Asian facial structures. And that guy just pulled out a gun and is shooting back at their attacker. Looks like you found some ABB grunts.

Three Flare Shooters form in front of you and speed towards the gang members, and all of them collapse. You learned from your mistake with the E88 thugs: pack a little more power into the bullets than you had, and whomever you shoot with them will stay down longer. Unfortunately, that little light show highlighted your position, and their original pursuer cruises down to your level. A Flare Shooter forms in your left hand, your right tightening around Perfect Storm's shaft.

"Thank you," the Nazi powerhouse says in a voice of total sincerity. "I've been chasing them for the last ten minutes. I thought once their car was totaled, they would stop, but as you can see, that wasn't the case."

Well, that's a surprise. Of all the things you thought would happen, a villain thanking you was nowhere on that list. You can't see if her expression mirrors the emotion of her words since she is too bright to look at— And as if commanded by your thought, which is far from an impossibility, your vision distorts, darkening and brightening at random, until both your opponent and the rest of the night are equally visible.

Rather than the blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan ideal you are half-expecting, the glowing woman floating in front of you is actually rather plain-looking, unremarkable brown hair and eyes set in a cute but by no means beautiful face. She looks more like some random soccer mom than the second or third most powerful cape the Empire has in their ranks. She also isn't wearing a mask, which you suppose would be unnecessary if no one else can look directly at her without going blind.

"You're welcome?" you finally reply, still not sure just what you should say in a situation like that. "I can't let you kill them."

Purity's shoulders slump. "I wasn't going to kill them," she says. Her entire body, from her voice to her posture, radiates resignation. "I wasn't even going to hurt them. All I was going to do was knock them out and call the police to come pick them up."

"Really."

"Yes, really. You can put the fireball away. I don't want to fight another hero tonight."

Another hero. Now that is an interesting turn of phrase. It could mean that she's referring to a fight she's already had, but it is still early, so she would have had to had this fight basically right at sunset. Not to mention, her tone does not sound especially threatening. But the next explanation you think of makes even less sense. "What do you mean, another hero?" you finally ask.

If you thought she was unhappy before, it is nothing compared to now. "I left the villain life over a year ago. I've been working as a hero ever since. I'm on your side."

"You are?" you ask with raised eyebrows. Chancing a look over at Samantha to see what she thinks of all this, you find her floating beside and just behind you with her eyes narrowed to slits. Apparently the forcefield she has from being your Guardian Beast does not come with adjustable night vision. "Then why haven't you told anyone?"

"I have been. You can thank the PRT and New Wave"—that name she spits out with significant venom—"for making sure no one believes me."

There's not much you can say to that. She did spend ten years with the Empire; anyone would doubt her when they hear that she is a hero now. You still have your own reservations, and you heard it from her own mouth!

But if she's being honest? If she really has turned away from the Empire and is interested in helping people for a change? That is a major coup for the good guys. If she can be believed. "If you want to change people's minds about you, why are you targeting the ABB and not the Empire? As it is, everyone still thinks you're a Nazi."

"Attack the gang that knows what I look like, where I live, what my weaknesses are?" she asks in a dry voice. "That is reason enough to leave them alone all by itself. Besides, the Empire commits crime, but they still aren't as bad as the ABB." Your doubt must be visible on your face, because she continues, "I know the ins and outs of their organization, so I can tell you for a fact that they don't ambush people in cars and mutilate them or kidnap girls to sell as sex slaves. They're criminals, but at least they're civilized about it, which is more than I can say about the ch— about the ABB. After they're gone, then—"

Whatever she intends for the future is cut off when a man wearing a leering red demon mask appears in front of you without warning. And then he blows up.


Well, that was a surprise. Not what I had planned, but Oni Lee just popped into the scene and demanded a good showing. At least it means you don't have to fight Purity?

Anyway, how are you going to fight him? (Stunts/subvotes are recommended!)
[ ] Stay where you are and fire whenever he appears. Thanks to Homing Bullet, your shots will chase down whomever you aim them at.
[ ] Run him down yourself. Ignore the duplicates and always fly after the newest copy of Oni Lee, shooting as fast as you can.
[ ] Encircle yourself with Flare Shooters and wait for him to come to you. Against a close-combat fighter, turtling up is the best strategy.

Because Samantha has so many options available, I'll leave the decision about how best to use her to you. Stunts are the name of the game here!

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Run him down yourself. Ignore the duplicates and always fly after the newest copy of Oni Lee, shooting as fast as you can.
-[ ]You, Purity, and Samantha stay above the rooftops and keep moving. Less likely to get blown up that way.
-[ ]Throw down Wide Area Search immediately. You need to keep find and lock onto the real Oni Lee.
-[ ]When Samantha can ID and hit the real Oni Lee before he teleports again, she teleports in and goes for the takedown.


First Impact 2.11

The blast feels like a sledgehammer wielded by an angry giant slamming into you, and you are flung backwards uncontrollably until you smash into and almost through a brick wall.

"Ow."

You try little movements to see just how badly you're injured. You did not feel this bad after Squealer shot you with her tank, but that was getting shot. This is the first time you've had a grenade go off in your face. On the plus side, it seems that other than being incredibly sore, you aren't too terribly hurt. Chalk another one up for the awesomeness that is the Barrier Jacket.

Looking out from the divot your body made, you scowl. Several more of the masked bomber have appeared, and even with pure white beams of light tearing them apart, they are still popping up faster than Purity can put them down. Each one has a bandolier full of grenades, and to make things worse, the pins are apparently tied together in some way that lets Oni Lee pull them all out with one motion and blow up all his grenades in a single explosion. That strategy would be wasteful in the extreme were it not for the fact that each time he teleported, he left behind another fully loaded clone.

Yet another Oni Lee appears, but this one is right in front of you. He reaches for his pins.

A hand, glowing silver like light off a pool of mercury, shoves itself through the cape's chest. Oni Lee barely has time to glance down before he bursts into a cloud of ash. "This villain," Samantha growls, "is starting to get on my nerves."

"No kidding." You grab her offered hand and let her pull you out of the Taylor-shaped hole. A short distance away, a wide beam from the allegedly former Nazi spirals down to obliterate a building, along with the four or five suicide bombers who had been standing on top of it. "The cloning is bad enough on its own. Throwing in teleportation is just adding insult to injury." You gasp and press your left hand against your right side from where a sudden jab of pain just came. You don't know for sure, but you'd put down money that the explosion had cracked a couple of ribs. "Literally, in this case."

"I'll cover you. My Inherent Forcefield is tougher than your Barrier Jacket."

You shake your head. "That won't solve anything. We need to take Lee down and fast. You can teleport!" you say as you realize the obvious. "You can keep up with him."

"Unlikely. I did some research into other teleporters shortly after you created me," the Guardian Beast explains. "Oni Lee is only limited by line of sight, and while no one knows exactly how long he needs to wait between teleports, it sounds like he needs about a second. I need twice that long. By the time I reach him, he will have already moved to a new position. I would need to know where he is as soon as he gets there to even have a chance of reaching him before he's gone again."

That does sound more difficult. Samantha would need some kind of high-tech tracking system, but even with Perfect Storm's hacking abilities, it isn't that kind of—

Wait. Real-time tracking and locating. There's a spell for that.

"Keep him off me for a little. I have something I want to try." A nod is all you get from your ally, but you are already focusing on the code sprawling out across your mind's eye. You've only used this spell a couple of times, and that was inside your Device's simulator immediately after you learned it, but now is no time for playing it safe. A bubbling sphere swells into existence at the end of your staff, larger than your Flare Shots and red rather than orange. "Here goes nothing. Wide Area Search!"

The orb shudders for just a moment before it explodes, and hundreds of sparks the size of your thumbnail streak off like cinnabar comets. A blank screen appears off to your left side; still inside your field of vision, but not so much that Oni Lee can sneak up on you from your blindspot.

…Okay, he still can, but no easier than he could before now. Fucking teleporters.

The next twenty seconds are the longest of your life, but Samantha only has to kill five more attacking clones before a faint ding rings in your ears. The screen comes to life, showing you everything within a six block radius. A shadow of a thought, and the dots representing you, Samantha, and Purity are green. A swarm of red dots appear when you select Oni Lee as your opponent. After a second, a new dot pops up, and you look over to find the ABB villain standing there.

"Gotcha."

"Keep him busy!" Samantha orders while your casting symbol appears below her. A flick of her hand conjures a copy of your search spell's screen to her side. "Make him focus on the bullets, and I'll see if I can catch him by surprise. If I hold the rest of the spell steady, I might be able to input the coordinates at the last second and get to him before he can copy himself again."

"Okay."

"And stay above the rooftops! You can fly; he can't. If he has to worry about falling, he'll be less likely to try that trick again now that you're expecting it."

"Okay! I got it!" Leaving your Guardian Beast to her task, you rise into the sky and head towards the latest dot on your screen. An idea springs to mind, and a quick change in the code turns all the other dots a darker red. The one you're chasing changes, too, as soon as a new bright red spot shows up. "I have you now. Flare Shooter!"

Twelve bullets, as many as you can easily handle at one time, fly ahead and suddenly swerve to the left, their homing properties tied to Wide Area Search leading them to the real Oni Lee. You stay on their tail, tilting left and right when they do and squeezing every last drop of speed you can find out of your flight spell just to keep up.

A blob of white light settles next to you. Purity's presence is greatly appreciated when a streak of light blasts a clone you had ignored into ash. "I don't know how you're tracking him, but keep doing it! I'll keep the clones off you!"

A clone that was left on one building taller than the rest jumps off and hits several of the bullets. A grunt is all that crosses your lips when you replace them; it seems like Oni Lee has finally figured out that your shots will just keep following him. The bullets swerve to race at a spot just above you, and your heart pounds for that brief moment before Purity's attack destroys that clone, too. Then it is her turn to be surprised when the bullets streak between you and her. Glancing back and forth between the bullets and you, she switches direction and mutters, "Neat trick."

"Oh, you haven't seen anything yet." Dismissing half of the bullets, you fire behind you and command them to split up before chasing Oni Lee. He moves too fast for your first set of bullets to catch up, but if you can catch him in a pincer maneuver….

A light shines from the corner of your eye, and then a dot appears in that area of the map. Did Samantha just predict where the villain was headed?! You look over to find the last few motes of golden light solidifying into the form of your Guardian Beast with one hand over Oni Lee's eyes, and then she spears her hand through his chest again. "Tag. You're it."

He turns to ash yet again.

"Oh, come on!"

The brightest red dot winks again and again and again, but this time, it is moving in a straight line away from you. The distances between the dots gets longer, and after only a few seconds, the dot no longer reappears. Oni Lee is out of your range.

You sigh and dismiss the bullets and the search spell as the last visible clone crumbles away. "And I hoped we would get him, too." Turning to Purity, you are surprised to find her watching you somewhat apprehensively. Now that you think about it, you never nailed down just whether you believe her about being a hero; if she thinks you'll target her now, it would explain her caution. It would be crass in the extreme to turn on somewhat who just saved your life, though. She's done bad things in the past, no denying that, but you owe her the benefit of the doubt. "Thank you," you tell her, amused despite yourself at the confused blink she sends at you. "If it weren't for you, that probably would have ended badly."

A moment passes, her gaze evaluating you. "Since I was here first," she finally replies, a small smile metaphorically brightening her face, "I should be the one thanking you. Oni Lee is… difficult to fight, to say the least. The last time we fought, I could not keep up with him at all and only drove him off through blind luck. Well," she adds with a self-deprecating chuckle, "blind luck and destroying more than a few buildings. Thank goodness that block was condemned, or I would have been in trouble."

"More trouble," Samantha points out gently.

"…Yes. More trouble."

"About that," you begin. She looks at you in curiosity. "Maybe this doesn't have to be a one-time thing? My team—" Wait, bad idea. You don't know how your dad will react to you inviting an ex-Nazi onto the team, let alone all the other Privateers, but 'not well' is probably a good guess. "—Anyway, I could come out and patrol with you a few times if you wanted. The Protectorate knows I'm a hero, and if they see me working alongside you, they might believe you when you tell them that you turned over a new leaf."

This idea is half-baked at best, but you're running with it nonetheless. Thanks to Perfect Storm and Samantha, you know how powerful the simple fact of having someone who believes in you can be. You never would have done any of the things you've done since becoming a mage if you didn't have your Device backing you up. If she truly wants to leave her past behind and become a better person, she'll need all the support she can get.

Purity doesn't even think it over before she shakes her head. "Absolutely not."

"Why?"

She opens her mouth, then closes it with a conflicted expression. When she does speak, her voice is soft. "I didn't always work alone. Three months ago, I picked up a new cape. Disco, he called himself. He hated the ABB. They conscripted his brother, and when he refused to be a thug, they killed him and left his head on the doorstep with a note about death being better than dishonor or something. It didn't even matter to him that I used to be with the Empire; as soon as he found out I was going after them, he tagged along and refused to let me leave him behind." Her lips tremble. "He made me feel like I really could make it as a hero."

"What happened to him?" you ask just as quietly. From the past tense and the fact that you've never heard of Disco, you have a good guess, but you want to know for sure.

"Lung. Lung happened."

Oh.

"You're new, and you're already good," she continues. "Once you figure out all the things you can do with your powers, I can tell that you're going to be great. But that takes time, experience, and you won't get them if you die. Leave Lung, and Oni Lee, and the ABB alone. Focus on the Merchants. Hell, focus on the Empire. You're white, which means they'll be gentler with you. But don't get involved with this."

"I'm tougher than you are," you challenge.

"Maybe you are, but if we fought, I'd win. Never underestimate how much of an advantage experience can be. And I'm a cake walk compared to Lung. Unless you can prove to me that you'd survive against him, I don't want to see you around this part of town again." She drifts away, but then she turns back to you for just a moment. "There aren't many heroes who are willing to give me a chance. You've got a good heart, kid. Don't throw it away for someone who doesn't deserve it."

A streak of light is all that she leaves behind.


Choose a spell to learn
[ ] Solar Wrath – Powerful bombardment spell. Unleash a beam of fiery destruction that is capable of destroying multiple barriers or walls before being stopped.
[ ] Temporal Sludge – Slow the flow of time within an circle of 20 meter diameter to a third of its normal rate. Area does not have to be centered on caster. Spell effect currently lasts 20 seconds per casting.
[ ] Ring Bind – Conjure rings of magic that wrap around target's limbs to lock them in place. The binds last one hour unless broken or dismissed. Currently, only one target can be affected at a time.

 

[Silently Watches]

First Impact 2.x

Thursday, February 24
Those who were not part of the Protectorate would probably expect the Brockton Bay team's monthly debriefing to be an organized and staid affair. Patrol schedules projected onto multiple computer screens, contingency plans for the independents discussed and updated, Assault trying his best to behave himself for fear of Director Piggot's displeasure, everyone sitting stiffly upright while still in uniform.

Well, that last one was half right, Hannah supposed as she looked at the rest of her team, but they were still in their costumes only because they were waiting until they were done before they changed into their streets clothes and went home.

This was much later than normal for their debriefs. Normally they turned it into a working dinner, with some sort of takeout and a six-pack to split up amongst those who weren't on duty that night, but thanks to Skidmark and Mush lashing out late that afternoon after losing yet another drug depot to the Privateers, they had been forced to push it back until the wee hours of the morning. It made them all thankful for the late-night pizzeria sitting only a few blocks from the shoreline and Robin's superspeed.

"Hey, Hannah," Ethan called, his left arm around Stephanie's shoulders and his right hand occupied with his beer, "you still haven't mentioned anything about your new project."

"My new project?"

"Yeah, your independent hero friend. The Witch or something."

"You have been kinda tight-lipped about her," Benny agreed. He and Rory were the only ones not drinking, the latter because he was only eighteen and Dauntless because he was on call for any parahuman disasters occurring that night. "Who is she?"

Setting her slice of pepperoni pizza on her plate, she wiped the grease off her hands and started typing on the digital keyboard integrated into the table of their meeting room. Kid Win had emailed the video from his helmet to her, and she had downloaded the files… there. A few more clicks brought the wall-mounted monitor to life, and she loaded the first several clips onto the screen. "Calamity Witch. Blaster 6 to 7, Mover 5, Shaker 3. Possible Brute, at least from Robin's meeting with her"—Velocity nodded—"with rating estimated to be between 1 and 3. Part of the independent hero group named the Brockton Bay Privateers, though from what she's told me and our interactions with the group, it sounds more like it's a loose affiliation than actual membership."

"The Privateers is the group of enhanced normals that's had Piggot so riled up, right?" Stephanie asked.

"That's right. I'd estimate Calamity Witch's age to be in the seventeen to twenty range. Word choice indicates an educated household." And that was as far as she was going to go into personal information that could be used to find out her civilian identity. "Her specific powers, as you can see from the footage Chris recorded when she joined him and Missy on patrol, include fireballs that pursue specific targets, flight, and a forcefield of some kind. When Robin talked to her, she was bruised after defeating Squealer, and the remains of high-caliber cannons were found not far away, hence the potential Brute classification."

Ethan chuckled. "She's like the lovechild of Lady Photon and Legend."

Hannah smiled at that. It was not the strangest thing she had heard about Calamity's identity; in the email, Chris had told her that Dennis had suggested Calamity was another Pelham, one who had been hidden away from the world because she wasn't blonde. The similarity to the Pelhams' powers was striking, particularly to Laserdream's, and combined with her age, it had been very tempting to look into Crystal Pelham's friends to find which, if any, of them had long, dark hair.

Nudging her husband with a pointy elbow, Stephanie asked, "She's supposedly part of the Privateers, but she's working alone? Why?"

"We really don't know why. She was the one who took care of all the registration paperwork, but besides Squealer, Rune, and the drug dealers she called in on Monday, she really has not gotten into many fights. At least, not that we know of," she corrected. She hoped Calamity had not been causing trouble that they didn't know about. When a vigilante started keeping her fights quiet, that was usually a sign that she was going overboard. "It might be that she has been waiting to back her team up and they haven't needed any help, or she might have occupied herself with something else. A lot of her time might also be taken up caring for her partner."

The pictures and video clips on the screen vanished, and she put up the footage of the younger heroine's well-dressed accomplice. "This is Samantha, no cape name. She complements Calamity Witch beautifully power-wise. Mover 9, Brute 7, Changer 3, Stranger 1, with an unknown Striker rating. Teleportation, high-speed flight, and enhanced strength and durability. Kid Win suggested that she has some additional ability based on the glowing around her hands, but the effect was not apparent at the time, and she refused to disclose it when she and Calamity Witch came in to register. She has two alternate forms: the first is a garden-variety raccoon, and the other is a larger, bear-sized raccoon.

"With her taking melee combat and Calamity Witch staying at range, they would be a nightmare to fight for just about any lone cape. Throw in their mobility, and I'm glad they're on our side."

"She's a Case 53," Colin guessed, looking at the tail on display in the video.

Hannah frowned. "I don't know. She said she wasn't; the physical changes are relatively minor, she claims to have memories of her life before becoming a cape, and she didn't notice the hints I dropped about the tattoo. She did admit that those memories are fragmented, though. If I didn't know better, I would say that she is a step between normal capes and Case 53s."

"You're talking about the extreme necessity theory of Case 53s." The team as a whole turned to stare at Rory, who looked slightly embarrassed at having the room's entire attention on him. "There's a theory that the powers we get are based on what we need at the time of our triggers. If that's the case, then some experts think that Case 53s had triggers so traumatic that their physical alterations are the result of their bodies being optimized for their powers. It would mean that the memory loss would be them suppressing the memories of their trigger events and going too far."

"You think she had a worse then normal trigger event, but not bad enough to block out everything?" asked Benny.

"Increased strength would let her fight off someone attacking her," Colin thought out loud. "Teleportation and flight; both let her escape, particularly if she were being held captive somewhere. The raccoon form would let her hide from anyone chasing her."

An awkward silence descended on the room, everyone thinking about the horrible scenario Colin had suggested despite their better judgement. Robin was the one who spoke first and changed the subject. "So that's, what, three capes the Privateers have?"

"Three? Who's the third one?"

"Captain, the Privateer's leader," Hannah said in response to Ethan's question. "All we know about him is what Calamity Witch put on his form and a few things we've gleaned from the Privateers themselves. He's a Trump, exact rating unknown but currently listed as a 4, who can give the members of his team a Thinker power that apparently improves their ability to work as a unit. Some of the Privateers mentioned that he knows what they're doing while they are under his power, so he is also listed as a Thinker 2 with a provisional classification as a Master. That isn't part of his official file, though." She took a swig of her own beer. "I felt, and Piggot agreed, that drawing connections between an ally to Teacher would only hurt our working relationship if it ever got out."

"It would be nice if we could meet with him in person—" An uncharacteristically happy tune came from Colin's pocket, and he pulled out his phone and tapped the screen. "Dragon, can I— What? Repeat that— Dragon! Slow down and say that again. It sounded like you said—"

The rest of his conversation was cut off by the wail of the Endbringer sirens.

Temporal Sludge learned.

 

[Silently Watches]

After-Action Report for Arc 2: First Impact

You guys didn't do too badly this time around. You didn't finish all the quests, or even start all of them, but I intended for this to be a pick-and-choose arc where you couldn't go down all the possible rabbit trails in the time allotted.

Light in the Darkness

• It took you until week 4 to start this quest, which did not give you the chance to do much. You did get to fight alongside Purity against Oni Lee, though, so that's something.
• Had you done Part 2, you would have dueled Purity to show her that you have just as a good a chance against Lung as she does (better, actually, since you have a fireproof Barrier Jacket). Once you defeated her, she would have told you the story about how she left the Empire, and you would have had the chance to let her continue on her own, arrest her and hand her over to the Protectorate if you were truly heartless, or recruit her into the Privateers.
• Part 3…. You don't need to know all the details about Part 3 yet. For now, suffice it to say that New Wave would not have been happy to see a nominal heroine patrolling alongside an evil Nazi, particularly one with whom they bear a special grudge.
• There were two opportunities to gain new spells in this quest, with the first guaranteed to offer your Divine Buster–level bombardment spell as one of the choices. Aaaaand the subsequent discussion was about whether Ring Bind or Temporal Sludge was the better crowd control spell. *shakes head* Never change, guys. Never change.

Big Game Hunting

• You changed your minds and chose to get a random GB as your first activity of this arc. All six classes are useful, but I do believe Sword is the best complement to the Calamity Witch skill set for next couple of arcs, and they fit well together, anyway. You then went and helped Vista and Kid Win take down Rune along with some Empire thugs who were collecting protection money.
• You also chose to register Samantha with the Protectorate, which wasn't actually essential since she was seen fighting alongside a registered hero. When asked if she was a Case 53, you gave a half-way answer that caused the local heroes to make some rather interesting assumptions.
• There was one opportunity to gain a new spell in this quest, and you chose Wide Area Search. And the less said about the debacle that followed that decision, the better.

Strange Bedfellows

• You immediately followed up on Danny looking for heavy weaponry and, as a result, found out about Coil's interest in the Privateers at the outset. When Tattletale revealed what she discovered about his true intentions, you agreed to help in the most antagonistic way possible (though to be fair, she did kind of deserve it). Because of that, you lost the chance for the Undersiders to provide firing support during a fight with Coil, and Danny's opportunity to maybe recruit Grue onto the team was lost forever. And then you chose to monitor Coil rather than capture him, which basically wasted that activity.
• Had you chosen to ignore Tattletale's warning, you would have warned Danny that there were villains on your new ally's payroll and that at least one of them couldn't be trusted. That would have made its way back to Coil, and he would have asked you and the Privateers to capture them after they "went rogue". Anywhere from just one to all four Undersiders would have died as a result. It also would have created a new enemy, whom you should be extremely glad you don't have targeting you now.
• As I said after one of the votes, I kind of wish you had decided to stick with Coil over Tattletale just because it would be something different from most other Worm stories/quests.
• There was one opportunity to gain a new spell in this quest, but since you balked at the last minute, you lost that chance.
• Spoiler: Since I mentioned one of many possible plans for dealing with Coil

  1. Coil gave Danny a phone number with which to contact him all the way back in 2.3, as several people remembered. You knew already that Perfect Storm can hack computer systems, and I made clear in 2.7 that it could also get into the phone system. Tell Danny about Coil being a villain, and you could ask for the number and have your Device trace it.
  2. After the fight with Rune, you picked Wide Area Search as your spell. That makes things very easy. Go to the address PS said was where Coil's phone was located and use WAS in that area, which is… six block radius, A=pi*r^2… 113 square blocks? Yeah, you would find Coil's base. Of course, per canon Coil is only there in one of his timelines at night, so you have to attack during the day when he is guaranteed to be around.
  3. There are two Guardian Beast classes that come with teleportation. The Sword is one of them, and Samantha showed that skill off in 2.4. With WAS active, you have the coordinates of Coil's office with him inside it, so all Samantha has to do is teleport on top of him and apply roundhouse-kick-to-the-face until he stops moving. She teleports back to you with Coil over her shoulder.
  4. If you wanted to make a thorough job of it, have the Privateers and maybe some of the Protectorate heroes at the front door. They burst through with forewarning of the mercenaries, and Samantha teleports you to Coil's office so you can flank the mercenaries with homing Flare Shooters. Riskier for your allies, obviously, but it would have let you crush all of Coil's operations in one fell swoop. Even without this, though, you still would have cut off the head of the snake.

Endangered Species

• You chose to ignore this quest. The first Calamity Witch would be so disappointed with you. (I'm kidding!)
• If you focused on the Merchants, you would have spent significantly more time with the Privateers, and since you provide direct combat support, they would have been more aggressive than the hit-and-run tactics they chose in your absence. By the end of the arc, you would have successfully eliminated one of the Brockton Bay gangs.
• This was the only quest that came with the chance of you dying, specifically if you chose to target the ABB all four weeks. This would have led to a fight with Lung, and… yeah, you're not ready for that yet.
• Working on the Empire would have been somewhere between the Merchants and the ABB. The Nazis don't have the ferocious rage dragon, but they have a lot more capes, and with just yourself and Samantha, you would have been outgunned fairly quickly.
• Thinking about it, you could have focused on Coil in this quest, too. If you didn't do Strange Bedfellows and so didn't know that the Privateers were working with him…. That could have been interesting. I'm almost glad you didn't choose this now, to be honest.
• Had you not chosen Strange Bedfellows by week 3 but fought the Merchants, you would have been surprised when one of the guys came in carrying a laser rifle.
• There were three opportunities to gain new spells in this quest, four if you chose to focus on the Merchants.

Eye of the Tiger

• This was a throwaway option for anyone who disliked the quests I had provided. You chose not to do this.

I don't know exactly when Arc 3 will start, but it will be as soon as I can find the time. Just have a little patience.

 

[Silently Watches]

Psychic Smasher 3.1

Thursday, February 24
Your alarm rings in your ear, and you sluggishly reach out to hit the snooze button. Normally you are ready to get up, but right now, you are just so tired. It's like you didn't get more than a few hours' sleep. Your hand finds the alarm, but swatting at it with your eyes closed isn't making the sound stop. If you could just make it shut up….

"Taylor. Taylor. Taylor!"

"Whaa?!" you demand, your eyes opening as you rub your ear. Why is she shouting at you?!

"What is that noise?"

"It's my…." You trail off because no, that sound isn't your alarm. It's coming from outside. A long, loud wailing, one that is vaguely recogniz—

Your eyes widen in sudden terror. The Endbringer sirens!

You jump out of bed and run to the dresser for some clothes, eschewing your underwear drawer as the irrelevance it is in this situation. There's no way this is just the six-month test of the system. That is always announced on the evening and nightly news days in advance, and it happens precisely at noon so everyone can see that there isn't really a giant city-destroying monster wandering around. They never happen in the early hours of the morning. This is for real. You need to go, get to a shelter and wait the attack out.

WHIIIIIR. WHIIIIIR. WHUUUUR.

Ice fills your veins, and your hands slow to a stop. No. No, no, no. You misheard that. You must have misheard it.

WHIIIIIR. WHIIIIIR. WHUUUUR.

"Taylor," Samantha asks, catching on to your obvious fear, "what does that mean?"

"The third siren was different." Your voice is a whisper, the significance obvious. It has been pounded into your head for the last nine years. If the third siren is the same as the others, you get to a shelter. If the third siren is different, you run. You run for your life and you run for your sanity, because that means…. "The Simurgh's here. In Brockton Bay."

Your movements now are even faster as you throw on an old, too-small t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and move to the closet for a couple of old suitcases. You can't help but remember that the last time you used them was when your mom was still alive and your parents had taken you to Disney World for a week. Tossing one to Samantha, you shout, "Stuff everything you can in there! We need to get out of here now!" Whole cities were quarantined after the Simurgh visited them, the people inside eventually allowed to leave but treated like criminals for the rest of their lives. No, not criminals; they were treated like ticking time bombs. Time bombs that could go off at any moment and wreck chaos wherever they were.

Because that was exactly what they were. Ordinary people turned into weapons that would go off when and where and why the Simurgh wanted them to. The only way not to become one was to get out of town as quickly as you could.

You grab clothes with both hands and shove them into the suitcase without reason or order. Clothes for the next few days ahead, check. You don't have a driver's license or a credit card. You don't have a phone. You don't have anything you can think of with special sentimental value. That's all the things you need to worry about grabbing with the angel of crazy at your doorstep. Everything else can be replaced.

Zipping up the suitcase, you hear Samantha do the same. "Taylor," she calls out, "catch!"

Perfect Storm falls into your hands, and then it's around your neck and you and your Guardian Beast are literally flying down the stairs. "Dad! Dad, where are you?!"

"Kitchen!" You dash to that room, expecting him to be packing up the few things he and you truly can't do without. Instead, you find him standing half-naked in the room, a cell phone – something he purchased after forming the Privateers and with extreme reluctance – sitting on the counter and the pants of his Captain outfit already on. The bag with the rest of his costume is open on the table. "This is why we made those lists in the first place, Alexander, for if we needed to get info out as fast as we possibly could. Dover's too close. Manchester should be big enough and far away enough, but it's not much farther to Boston, and that's even better. Tell them to get on 95 and haul ass. Grab only what they can't do without; against this bitch, every minute counts."

He stabs a button on the phone and looks over at you. "What are you doing?" you all but demand. He looks like he's…. Surely he's not that stupid. "This is the Simurgh!"

"I know. That's why I can't leave. Lima can't happen again."

That makes you go silent. Much as you want to deny it, he has a point. By the Simurgh's third appearance, people already knew that she drove her victims insane. After their battle plans fell apart in the first few minutes of that fight, many of the capes who had gathered to face her turned tail and ran, deciding to leave Peru's capital to its fate. That wasn't what happened, though. After enough were gone, the Simurgh abandoned her attack, as well, and started flying over a major highway, exposing the fleeing populace to her song until the capes who were still around and some of the runaways chased after her and reengaged. They finally drove her back into the sky, but only after she had ranged back and forth over a total of fifty miles. Over the next year, so many 'Ziz-bombs' went off that the total bodycount was in the millions. Capes never abandoned a Simurgh fight again, and neither had the youngest Endbringer wandered away from her original target.

"I might be the one who tips the balance," he continues, knowing where your train of thought has gone. "If I don't show up, she might decide to go wandering again. And maybe I can make a difference. Storm somehow makes you immune to my power, but the rest of the capes shouldn't be. If they work together as well as the Privateers do, we might be able to stop her before she does too much damage."

"They'll still put the city under quarantine." He nods, and you blurt out, "Capes die fighting the Endbringers, Dad. You could die!"

He looks away from you and pulls on the puffy shirt. "I know that, Taylor. Trust me, do I know that. But I got these powers for a reason. It wasn't just random chance; I can feel it in my gut. And if I can make a difference, I should. 'With—"

"If you quote that old comic at me, I swear I'll hit you."

"I'm scared, kiddo," he confesses. "I won't lie about that. But I have to do this. I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mirror if I didn't help when I knew I could keep people alive." Looking up at you again, he continues, "But you don't have to stay. I don't want you to stay. Kurt and Lacey are already on their way here to pick you up before heading to Boston. I'll meet up with you when it's all over."

If he's still alive. He'll come back only if he doesn't die. "I have a better chance of surviving her than you do," you tell him. You almost can't believe that you're saying this. The Simurgh scares you, just like she does everyone else with a hint of common sense. Behemoth is the hero-killer. Leviathan is the city-killer. But the Simurgh? She's the hope-killer. If she targets you, you aren't the same person you were the day before. You're her puppet, her weapon.

But, and this is an important but, you have powers now, too. If you run when your powers could make a difference, if you run and your dad dies, you know you'll blame yourself for it for the rest of your life just as he would if he ran. And you're not lying when you say that your Barrier Jacket gives you protection your squishy father lacks. "If you're staying to fight… then so am I."

"No, you're not." When he sees your hardening expression, he looks to Samantha. "Tell her she's not staying!"

The raccoon woman looks back and forth at the two of you for a moment before she replies, "This is a question with no good answer. All I will say is that where you go, Taylor, so do I. The decision of whether we fight or flee I leave to you."


Fair warning: depending on how busy work gets, I can't promise prompt responses to your questions. But I will answer them eventually.

Because so many people suggested it on SV, and because how you vote here will greatly influence how this and at least the next arc go, I have to ask….

What will you do now?
[ ] Stay and stand against the Simurgh
[ ] Flee with the rest of the Privateers

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Stay and stand against the Simurgh


Psychic Smasher 3.2

The cool night air whips past you as you fly towards the PRT headquarters, and as a result towards the explosions and lasers and flying chunks of debris that whirl around the third Endbringer. Being the youngest of the three monstrosities doesn't mean that she is any less forbidding, though. A naked woman standing fifteen feet tall, twenty or so wings of all sizes sprouting from her back. Her skin and hair and feathers are all the same pure, snowy white, and the shape of her body is something models across the world would envy if it weren't attached to an omnicidal engine of terror and destruction. Beams of white light, almost blinding in their intensity even from this distance, spread around her before abruptly turning ninety degrees in an attempt to hit her from all sides. Legend, it has to be; his powers are unmistakable, and after getting spells that work in a similar vein to his abilities, you did some research on the man the whole world agreed was the ultimate flying artillery cape.

Whatever he is trying doesn't work. The Simurgh's wings drift in what seems like an idle adjustment, but the end result is that they are all right where they need to be to block the attacks.

"Ugh," your dad grunts. He is being cradled in Samantha's arms, almost in a bridal carry, and though your Guardian Beast seems pleased with the arrangement, the leader of the team does not. Then again, it might not be the position that he has a problem with. "How can you just ignore that? It's enough to make me wish I was deaf."

"Blame Perfect Storm. You're still holding out against the Scream okay, right?" you say to your Device.

"Telepathic frequencies are shifting at random intervals, but total bandwidth appears fixed. Intrusive signal can be resisted without difficulties."

"I'm good, too," Samantha adds. "Storm's covering me."

Your dad harrumphs. "Consider yourselves lucky."

Oh, you do. You most certainly do. If the Scream is the vector for the Simurgh's mind-raping, a theory no one has definitively proved but is still nonetheless the predominant explanation, the fact that you can't hear it can only mean good things. Immunity from being turned into an Endbringer's plaything? Yes, absolutely, thank you very much. If your Device had told you it could do this, you wouldn't have complained about your costume the first few days after your promotion to hero. Hell, you would have accepted a sling bikini or something equally absurd.

The PRT base of operations comes into view. The six-story tall building stands all alone on a hill, and the parking lot that surrounds it is completely empty. Empty until a crack of thunder deposits a group of people near the door, that is, and the heroes rush into the building while the dark-clad figure remaining vanishes once more. This is definitely the place.

The three of you run inside, too, only to find the lobby nearly deserted. A circle of capes sit and lie in one corner, some of them cradling their heads or washing down pills with bottles of water while others watch a set of TV screens or talk into matching armbands. Precogs and other Thinkers, maybe? Over on the other side is a smaller number of parahumans, but their purpose is made obvious by the girl in a white robe, red crosses stamped on her front and back. If Panacea is there, that can only be the first aid station. The only other people around are those who are running either to the healers or back into the fray.

Panacea pulls her hands away from the hero she was fixing, and the man gives her a single nod. You, meanwhile, can't help but stare at the iconic blue-green bodysuit and the green hooded cape. Eidolon. That's Eidolon! Widely considered one of the most powerful heroes around, he was the leader of the Houston Protectorate before he retired two years ago. Nowadays, he only shows up for Endbringer fights, but even knowing that, he is still immensely respected by heroes and civilians alike.

Your distracted musings are cut short when a teenager in a bright red dress with a blockish red-and-black fringe runs up to you with three armbands. "Dragon will tell you where your groups are. Hurry up! The clock's already ticking!"

"Groups?" you ask even as you slide the armband over your left hand and tighten it around your wrist. It isn't much to look at, just a screen with a grid pattern, a bunch of dots, and a bunch of numbers that are slowly increasing, and two buttons sitting below that.

The heroine's voice is borderline disparaging when she mutters, "Newbies. Push the left button and say your name. Screen shows where the Simurgh is compared to you. Left button is radio, right is an S.O.S. ping. Hold both and say where you are if you need help but aren't dying. Counter's your exposure to the Scream. Closer you get to her, the faster it rises. It starts beeping at 180, and if it hits 200? You're a Ziz bomb, and the band explodes. Can't have another Mannequin or Blockbuster running around." She looks directly at you, and you barely keep from flinching. This girl is only a couple of years your junior, but her eyes are hard and cold. "My advice? The beeping is your signal to get the hell out. If you can't, hold it up to your neck so you die quick instead of bleeding out on the street.

"Think you can punch the Simurgh's lights out or tank her hits? Find Alexandria; she leads the impact group. Legend and Eidolon run the Blasters. If you want search and rescue, Dragon will send you where you need to go, her or Ursa Aurora. Got some teleportation power? Dragon again. We're about half our normal numbers right now, and most of them are locals like you who don't know what they're doing. We need the veterans yesterday. If you have some kind of support power, especially if you're a Thinker, the strategy group is over here. Healers go there with Infusion."

Clearing his throat, your dad says, "I'm a power-giver. Team works better together and shares senses. Captain."

"Neat," the heroine says, looking impressed despite herself. "Roulette. I'll call in some of the Brutes and Blasters and have them switch in. Got a limit?"

"Thirty minutes."

"More than enough. Follow me. You two," she says, looking at you and Samantha, "get a move on."


Roulette is a semi-canon character, a precog Wildbow created for his quest, though I never played it and couldn't be bothered reading through just to find out what her personality is really like.

Anyway, where are you going? You and Samantha will stick together unless you explicitly tell me otherwise.
[ ] Impact group – You have your Barrier Jacket and Strong Shield, though you don't know how much good they'll be if you play battering ram. Still, every little bit helps.
[ ] Blaster group – You may not be the most powerful of Blasters yet, but with Rust Shooter, you can break apart the debris the Simurgh likes to throw around.
[ ] Search and rescue – With Wide Area Search, you should be able to keep up with everyone and provide better directions to the rescuers or fly there yourself.
[ ] Strategy group – Maybe Perfect Storm's Internet access could help out here? Something to test out, at least.
[ ] Transport group – The Simurgh hit so unexpectedly that only the fastest capes are here to fight her. Get coordinates from Dragon and work with Samantha to grab more capes.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Search and rescue – With Wide Area Search, you should be able to keep up with everyone and provide better directions to the rescuers or fly there yourself.
[ ] Stick a sensor sphere on Danny, just to be safe.
[ ] Give the Thinkers all you know about Simurgh's scream. Your immunity to it and how it works. Everything Perfect Storm knows about telepathy, the physical principles, the limitations, the effects, the ways to block it.


Psychic Smasher 3.3.1

You look at Samantha. "Search and rescue?"

"Search and rescue."

The two of you fiddle with your armbands for a moment, giving your names to Dragon's tracking program. It's funny, really; once upon a time, getting to use a gadget made by the world's preeminent Tinker would have been the highlight of your day, but now? It kind of pales to the staff you hold in your hand. The armband is just a bomb and a tracker while your Device taught you how to fly and gave you Samantha and made you immune to the Simurgh….

Come to think of it, that is really important information. You do not intend to die fighting the Simurgh, but there is no way to know for sure. If you do fall, you want the information Perfect Storm has about combating the Simurgh's telepathy to continue on without you. "Actually," you say as you follow Roulette and your dad, "I already have some intel that's really important. Can you point to—"

"See that woman?" You follow Roulette's finger to a slightly dumpy-looking woman sitting in front of three computers. "Talk to Switchboard if you think it's that important."

That was a rather rude brush-off, but you suppose you should cut her a little slack. This is an Endbringer battle, for crying out loud! Everyone's on edge.

Your first impression of the cape's gear is slightly wrong, you decide when you approach. It is not three computers, just one with three fold-out screens and keyboards. It actually makes her 50's style costume look even stranger. While you frame your proposal, Samantha blurts out, "What sort of cape calls herself Switchboard?"

"Someone whose powers let them figure out where information will best be used. You have something for me?"

"A pretty comprehensive document on how the Simurgh's telepathy works, for starters." «You do have something like that, right?»

«Indeed, Mistress.»

"Got it on you?" You shake your head. "Won't be much good to me if I don't have it."

One of the few things Perfect Storm doesn't have is a built-in printer, nor paper to print the information out on. And that's assuming that its knowledge isn't too much to comfortably print. Thankfully for you and the other capes both, the age of the Internet has provided you with a different medium of communication. "Do you have an email address?"

Switchboard finally looks up at you, her blue eyes assessing. "I have one for sensitive documents, sure. Grab some paper and write it down."

"Don't bother. My staff can record it."

"If you're sure." She rattles off a long series of numbers and letters as easily as if she does it every day. She then lifts an eyebrow at you, as if she's surprised that you haven't scurried away with your tale between your legs. She doesn't believe you can do what you said you could do, does she? "Got that, or do I need to repeat it for you?"

Perfect Storm chimes. "We got it. We'll be in touch." You walk out of the building in the direction of the battlefield, Samantha dogging your steps. "Give them what you have on telepathy, Storm."

«How much does Mistress wish relayed?»

"All of it. If this information could make future Simurgh fights easier, it's worth the loss of secrecy." You think for a moment. "Well, maybe not all of it. Science it up a little bit. They won't believe me if I just tell them that I'm doing magic, but if it at least sounds scientific-ish, they should take it more seriously. We can tell them the truth about magic later if we want."

Leaping into the air, you fly for only a few seconds before you start worrying about leaving your dad behind. It wasn't too bad when he had the Privateers backing him up, but they were fighting the Merchants, not an Endbringer, and those other times he was well away from the battle. What if the Simurgh decided to attack the PRT headquarters? You would need to know exactly where he was so Samantha could teleport to him and get him to safety. It's a good thing there's a spell for that, isn't it?

The irregular red orb of Wide Area Search grows at the end of your staff before splitting apart, and now you and your Guardian Beast fly towards the battlefield. You won't be able to use that spell to find anyone nearer the Simurgh, but thankfully you and Samantha can cast it independently and work off the other's mapping data.

Hitting the left hand button, you say, "Dragon, this Calamity Witch. Samantha and I are both coming on S and R. Where do you need us?"

"Welcome to the party!" a woman's voice says after a few second's pause. It doesn't have the accent you would have expected from a Canadian, though, being just a little more Midwestern. "Ursa Aurora. Bird bitch is just toying with us right now, but there's a bunch of civvies hanging around. Get 'em outta here before she fucks 'em up even more."

What?! There are people who are still here?! Didn't they hear the sirens…. Unless the Simurgh landed basically right here, so they never had a chance to run. Not idiotic spectators, then, but families who are by and large helpless. Since you can't drive off the Simurgh, you need to get them away from the battlefield before they're slaughtered like animals.
"…We'll hold the Belks back! Just get the Princess off-world! You know what they'll do to her…"
Even if it does make you the best target.

"Sam, drop W.A.S. I'll take left side of the street, you take right." The Guardian Beast just gives you a nod, her serious expression a perfect complement to your tone. The red globule of Wide Area Search grows between her hands, but you are already flying towards the first apartment building, one with its roof caved in. With the Simurgh in town, you know that Brockton Bay is all but guaranteed to be written off, so surely the owners won't mind that you just blew the door and a good portion of the wall into the living room. Sounds of crying come from down a short hallway and behind a door. Walking over, you slowly open the door.

Bang.

The man holding the gun watches you pull the smushed bullet out from between your shirt and chest with a sheepish look. "Sorry."

Flicking the crumpled slug at him actually causes him to flinch, which you suppose should make you feel a little better. "Why did you think shooting whomever came through the door was a good idea?"

"It's the Simurgh?"

You try hard not roll your eyes at that and instead focus on the three young children huddled in fear behind their father. "How about we get you away from the Endbringer instead of staying right next to her?"

"We can't. Tyrone broke his leg when the ceiling came down. We're stuck."

«Samantha! Need some help.»

It takes a minute for your Guardian Beast to arrive, but once she does, the plan to get the family out is simple. "Everyone have a good grip?" she asks, checking that the family of four are all holding onto her. The two daughters stare back at her with wide eyes, two hands on her legs and two brushing her bushy tail; the man and his son, on the other hand, are securely latched onto her arms. "Here we go. Three, two…" The familiar spinning triangle appears below her, and then she and her passengers break apart in motes of light.

Good. You lift off the ground just in time for something huge and white to pass overhead, and then the building collapses on top of you.


+2 training to Rust Shooter (2/2 Master).
+1 training to Wide Area Search (2/2 Master).

You can thank zero_traveler for the training points. There are now several "what if" omake on the first post.

No choice this update. Maybe part 2 will get you to a decision point.

 

[Silently Watches]

Psychic Smasher 3.3.2

Calamity Witch down, B1.

You grunt and try to shift some of the rubble around as best you can with all your limbs pinned in place. A building, you've come to realize, is heavy, even if it's just one story that's sitting on top of you. An alert pops up just inside your vision, warning that the stress is too much for your Barrier Jacket to bear and that the personal forcefield will soon lose the integrity that is the only thing keeping you alive. «Samantha», you send, «can you teleport me out of here?»

«"No. I can't.» The Guardian Beast's mental voice cracks, and you can almost hear tears falling. She's angry, too, more than you've ever heard her be before. «I'm digging down right now. Just hang on! I'll get to— Hey, what are you—!»

That last message worries you, but not as much as the newest alert. The collapse of your Barrier Jacket is now imminent, too-cheerful pink letters counting down the thirty seconds you have left.

Your mask has adjusted to the minuscule amount of light leaking through the cracks; that is the only reason you can see what looks like incredibly dense black smoke pouring from between the chunks of building. No, not smoke. Solid black in the shape of a hand, and it isn't going around the rubble so much as through it. The hand feels around blindly for several seconds before the wide-splayed fingers brush over your face.

A massive wrench, and you're out. Well, maybe 'out' is the wrong word. You drop several feet and land heavily on your back. White smoke has gathered into shapes reminiscent of the crumbled walls, but they offer not even a whisper of resistance when you float through them.

What greets you is not Brockton Bay, and yet it is. The buildings around you are those you saw just a couple of minutes before, but wide gaps dot the walls and everything is crumbling and faded. It reminds you of a TV special you watched years ago with your mom, some mockumentary thing where mankind vanished overnight and the narrator showed how animals would evolve in the next five thousand years or so. You remember that the view of the cities looked a lot like this.

"Looks pretty awful, doesn't it?" You turn to look at the speaker, whom you can only assume is the one who did whatever this is. For all that she is a cape, she doesn't dress the part, clad as she is in a jacket and jeans. The lack of costume, however, can't hide the fact that she is blurry, parts of her body going in and out of focus without any discernible pattern. What's more, you would swear that the parts that do come back are different than those that disappeared. "Only way I could get you out of there." Glancing over, you are a little confused when you can no longer see the pile of smoky rubble. "Feeling okay?"

"Better than I would have if you hadn't pulled me out. My forcefield was about to fail when you got there."

"Glad to hear I could help. Now let's get you back to the real world. You won't do much good stuck in here with me."

You aim a glare in the Simurgh's direction only to freeze at what you see. The Simurgh is the smallest of the Endbringers and looks like an eldritch angel, but what is visible over the rooftops before you is neither of those. Instead there is a gigantic white tree stretching up, up, up into the sky. Branches sprawl overhead with leaves shaped like wings; rather than fruit, the limbs are heavy with eyeballs the size of buses. While you stare in shock, the tree slides soundlessly around another building. "What. The hell. Is that?" you finally manage to ask.

"That's what the Simurgh looks like here," the cape tells you. You look over to find her watching the moving tree. "I can see what she looks like in the real world, and she and that have moved together the entire fight. I think I saw a couple of leaves shrink a little bit when Eidolon hit her with some glowing-buzzsaw-thing, but I can't be sure about that. It may have just been how it moved."

"Still good to know." And you still don't know this woman's name. Stretching out your hand, you tell her, "Wish it were under better circumstances, but it's nice to meet another hero. And thanks for saving my life. Seriously. If you ever need anything from me, just give me a call. I'm Calamity Witch."

The distorted cape gives you an uncertain once-over, but then she grabs your hand and pumps it once. "Phantasm."

The world cramps again, and you're back in the real Brockton Bay. Phantasm is gone, all that's left of her a silhouette with ragged edges that flutter and flicker like flame. The outline twists in what might be a nod, maybe, and then she slips through you like a ghost to run deeper into the city.

"So glad he's gone." You look over your shoulder at Samantha and Vista, who was the one who spoke. "There's villains, then there's creepy villains, and then there's him. But," she sighs, "he did save your life, so I suppose there's that. Doesn't make him any less disturbing."

You take to the sky, your focus on the next building with people in it, and Vista appears on a nearby rooftop, stepping from building to building. "She didn't seem that creepy to me."

"She? Okay, whatever. You don't have to feel how space twists around her. I can feel people, even if I can't move well around them, but with her, it's like there's just a hole." Speaking of twisting space, your dozen Flare Shooters split into two groups, blowing apart the doors on opposite sides of the street. Evacuating these families takes less time than the last one did, and just like before, Samantha gathers them all up around her and vanishes back to the PRT headquarters so they can get on the bus waiting outside to take them to Boston.

Young Buck down, D8, the armband states, the first words you have heard it speak since announcing that you were trapped. Breakdown down, D8. Young Buck deceased. Breakdown recovered. Shielder down, D8. Breakdown down, D8.

Breakdown, the cape who single-handedly wiped out the Slaughterhouse Nine. You can see why the Simurgh would focus on him. If he's as dangerous to her as he was to—

Something rumbles, the sound increasing steadily.

Intrepid deceased. Brandish deceased. Breakdown recovered. Velocity deceased. Shielder recovered. Hallow deceased. Chubster deceased. Kid Win deceased. Woebegone deceased. Piledriver deceased. Alexandria down, C5. Legend down, E8. Menja deceased. Krieg deceased.

What the hell is going on over there?!

You shoot upwards, followed quickly by Vista, and what you see leaves you in shock for the second time in far too short a span. The Simurgh has changed strategies, and rather than dodge the blasts everyone throws at her, she has uprooted five different skyscrapers and ripped them apart into rubble. That rubble is swirling around her in a spherical shell so thick that the Endbringer within can barely be seen. The brief glimpses you do get show her to have something big and shiny in her hands.

"That can't be good," Vista says in a voice of flat horror.

The curtain of debris falls, revealing the device the Simurgh was working on. Five chunks of glossy grey metal, some of the irregular sides with holes or posts in the middle, are fitted together in a shape something like a sideways Y. Motes of glowing green light appear nearby the shapes and coalesce around the edges to give them a haunting glow. Multicolored beams of light come from somewhere on the ground, undoubtedly where Legend is. The Simurgh pulls the gadget close to her chest and wraps her wings around it, taking the attack on her feathers; once it is over, she shoves the now even more brightly glowing device into the air and twists something internal with an alabaster hand.

A translucent green bubble explodes into existence and sweeps through the air like a nuclear blast.


+1 training to Strong Shield (4/4 Master).
+2 training to Temporal Sludge (2/4 Adept).

Can I just mention that I hate Endbringer battles? I wasn't a fan of them in canon, and they are hard as hell to write. Unfortunately for me, the ramifications of this arc are kind of important for the plot. And now, the important question:

What do you do about this newest curveball?
[ ] Fly straight up and outrun it.
[ ] Throw up Strong Shield and tank it.
[ ] Drop down and take shelter behind a building.
[ ] Grab Vista and protect her with your Barrier Jacket.
[ ] Write in.

 

[Silently Watches]

[ ] Grab Vista and protect her with your Barrier Jacket.
-[ ] Throw up Strong Shield and tank it.


Psychic Smasher 3.4

As soon as you see that green bubble, you know you do not want to get hit by it. Even if it isn't inflicting any damage at all to the buildings it passes, that doesn't mean that it will have the same courtesy towards flesh. Watching the dragon-shaped plane that was previously hovering in the sky plummet into a skyscraper only reinforces that decision.

You are about to leap off the building and fly away when you notice that Vista is still staring at the blast. Whereas your fear is pushing you to run away as fast as you can, hers must have paralyzed her. She snaps out of it and starts turning around, but you can see that she won't have time to get out of ground zero before it reaches her. She vanishes from the nearby rooftop to one on the other side of the road.

You are already there. "Grab on!" Wrapping your left arm around her, you position your body between her and the blast. Your Barrier Jacket makes you immune to fire and radiation; Perfect Storm told you that during your virtual training session. Hopefully that will give you some protection against whatever this is. And if doesn't work? "Strong Shield!"

The orange triangle appears in front of you, but it by itself won't be enough. Focusing on the code in the back of your mind, you push. A second shield appears in front of the first, and then a third, a fourth. The fifth is slower, and your head is starting to hurt from holding these spells up at the same time. The sixth fades into view. You're at your limit.

The blast arrives.

You have seen your shield break before, when Rune pushed against it with her boulder. You saw the cracks develop as even your strength wore out. But there is none of that when green meets orange. The far shield doesn't break so much as it falls apart into motes of light. So does the next, and the one after that. You scream in defiance as each barrier is swept away like so much dust. The verdant wave washes over you, and you stagger and fall, your strength abandoning you. Vista is likewise affected, dropping onto the rooftop a moment before you do the same.

The lethargy lasts only for a moment. Pushing yourself to your knees, you frown when you feel the bits of gravel digging into your palms. That's… strange. You lift one up and stare wide-eyed at your hand when you see the tiny indentations where rock pressed into skin.

Your Barrier Jacket has protected you from bullets and grenades. For it to fail to stop nothing more than gravel? Something is dreadfully wrong.

"Storm? What's going on?"

There is no response. You look down at your staff in your hand in horror. The blood-red orb in the middle of the staff's head has gone dark, like a Christmas light with a burned-out filament. A chill grips your heart, and then a whine from behind you makes you turn around to see Samantha curled up on the ground in her pet form. She blurs into her more human shape. "Ugh. That was awful. Should have left when we could."

The staff trembles. The gem is still dark, but a spot of red flashes in the middle. It blinks again, then a third time, each time coming closer on the heels of the previous flash. Finally, it lights back up fully, the red glow highlighting the fine cracks that cover the surface like spiderwebs. «Rebooting. Hardened mode engaged.»

You sigh and sit up, pulling your Device close to your chest. It's okay. You're weak, Samantha's hurt, Perfect Storm's hurt, but you're all still alive. "What happened?" you ask.

«Uncertain. Interface functions disrupted. Code segments corrupted. Current hypothesis: anti-telepathic pulse with secondary anti-magilink effects.»

An anti-telepathic pulse? How the hell would the Simurgh even build a machine capable of doing something like that? The anti-magi-whatever you'll get an explanation for later.

"What the crap?" Vista demands. You watch her stare around in confused panic. "I can't feel anything. I can't pull anything. It's all just gone."

"What's gone?"

"My powers. My powers are gone."

Ear-rattling thunks distract you from that revelation and refocus your attention on the Endbringer still floating in the middle of your town. She is actually leaning to one side, and her movements lack the preternatural grace she is known for. Her weapon must have messed her up, too. Good. It isn't enough to stop her, though. The strange device disassembles itself into five pieces, and she rearranges them: three form a rough triangle while the other two stack on top of each other and fit onto the middle of the triangle. The shapes shift slightly, becoming more cohesive and streamlined.

Pushing the left button on your wristband, you ask, "Is anyone still able to fight out there?" A few seconds pass, and there is no answer. Examining the screen, you grimace at the blank screen. A dead wristband means no communications. No tracker. No SOS beacon.

«Revised hypothesis: electro-psychic pulse. Parahumans primary targets. Parahuman magic telepathy-based. Anti-magilink effects incidental.»

A ball of purple light gathers at the end of the cannon-looking thing. The Simurgh reaches up and twists something on the gadget. The ball bursts into hundreds of sparks, the effect not totally dissimilar to Wide Area Search, and those sparks streak away. One approaches you only to swerve downwards and into a nearby apartment that you hadn't reached before getting stuck under the fallen building.

You don't have to wait long to see the effect. One window shatters, and an oddly proportioned woman in a ragged shirt flies out. She grows when she hits the ground, her clothes stretching and ripping apart around arms and legs the size of tree trunks. Hair falls to the ground. The woman-turned-creature staggers around drunkenly, gigantic bald head holding equally gigantic eyes that stare around as though her entire world has just been turned upside-down. Her lost, mournful whine breaks your heart.

The demonic angel disassembles her machine and rearranges it once more. This time the pieces get stacked up in a column, and then they stretch and thin out into a staff or a baton. The Simurgh flips something on the side with a twitch of her fingers. A bright blue light shines from the top end.

Vista screams and falls to the ground clutching her head, as does the transformed woman. Only one of them immediately gets back up, though, and her eyes are now filled with a feral hatred. Vista is slower climbing to her feet, and her face shows you just how painful the Scream must have become. Even if she had her powers, she wouldn't be much help in this state.

"Storm, Sam? Can we still fight?"

"I think so, but transforming feels weird. I don't know if I can teleport, either."

«I assist spellcasting for both Mistress and Samantha. Interface damaged. Less assistance available. Spells more difficult.»

"Can we fix you or something?" you ask worriedly. "Anything?"

You've spent the last four weeks relying on your magic supercomputer to do all the heavy lifting. You can't do the calculations yourself, you know that, but this situation is showing the weakness of that dependence. You make a mental note to learn how to cast at least one Flare Shooter all on your own. Flight, too, just to be on the safe side.

«Self-repair process active. Estimated time to completion: three hours.»

Three hours. Okay, that's workable. Just three hours that you and Samantha are fighting at half power. While possibly hundreds of people have been turned into rabid monsters. And, if Vista is any example, while you two are effectively the only capes in town.

Some days, your life really sucks.

"Mommy!"

The monstrous woman looks up at the broken window, and this time, her rumble isn't quite so sympathetic. Digging claws the size of steak knives into the brick wall, she starts climbing upwards.


All spells are decreased one skill level until Perfect Storm repairs itself. Which is honestly not as bad as things could have been. Gah, this arc is dark. Can we stop soon?

What are you going to do now?
[ ] Attack the monster – It isn't this woman's fault that the Simurgh did this to her, but it's clear what she's going to do. You know if she could talk to you, she'd beg you to keep her from hurting her children.
[ ] Be a diversion – You don't know how well you can fight right now, but you should still be able to fly. Draw her away from the area while Samantha gets Vista and the kids to safety.
[ ] Return to headquarters – There's no telling how many monsters there are, and if all capes are powerless, that's a recipe for disaster. You need to protect your dad, even if it means leaving others behind.
[ ] Attack the Simurgh – That staff is the reason this woman is acting like she is. If you can destroy the Simurgh's staff, maybe she'll stop. All it takes is fighting an Endbringer solo.

I've had a chance to think more about the skill learning situation, and now it's time for a vote. I have three halfway-decent ideas so far, one of which was inspired by a suggestion by Always Late. Vote for which one you want, or propose another that you think is better. (Full disclosure: I can and will veto any proposal that I think would be too difficult or time-consuming to implement and maintain.)

Skill tree. I will arrange your skills into trees with multiple branches, and you choose which branch to progress down each time you have an opportunity to learn a spell. You will see the next available spell on each branch so you know what you're voting for. Each spell has at least one prerequisite. Slow progression to the powerful spells, but you get a lot of control over how your character develops.
Skill lottery. We continue as we've been doing. I randomly draw a spell from each spell pool, and you pick which of the three you want. Only a few spells have prerequisites. Medium progression to the powerful spells, but your development is at the will of the dice.
Skill shop. Instead of giving you spells outright, I will give you spell points that you can save, spend, and reclaim by consensus. All spells are on display, as are their prices. No prerequisites whatsoever. Fast progression to the powerful spells and complete customization, but getting everyone on board with a single plan might be difficult.