Oh I can just see the trauma the eventual reunion is going to do.
Anyway... if a confrontation with Stockpile and RSG isnt going to be Immediate... that does open who gets Throned a bit more open...
So Handyman and either LL/MW/Chatelet.
What do you guys/gals/ Non binary pals think?
[ ] Oh God, Who's in Charge Now?
- [ ] Lady Leizi
- [ ] Châtelet
Black Swan and Valiant Gold desperately trying to keep things afloat (all while insisting that the other is better suited to be the interim leader), also leaving Doctor Silver as the most senior member of the team which means even more potential chaos during the Flamez mission as he might not be inclined to follow the orders of two teenagers.
This sounds hilarious. Dunno how good an idea it is, but at some point Mona and Ellie need some more leadership training, why not on the heels of a major disaster /j
[ ] Oh God, Who's in Charge Now?
- [ ] Lady Leizi
- [ ] Châtelet
Black Swan and Valiant Gold desperately trying to keep things afloat (all while insisting that the other is better suited to be the interim leader), also leaving Doctor Silver as the most senior member of the team which means even more potential chaos during the Flamez mission as he might not be inclined to follow the orders of two teenagers.
Oh gods DS would be left without suppervision... in the turn where we are going for the Demon Flamez...
How would that look in universe or in a potential comic AU from the readers perspective!?
Comic Reader that just finished the Eidolon series of issues: *Sees LL and Chatelet in the FT*
Haha... oh things are gonna go to hell So quickly...
Oh I can just see the trauma the eventual reunion is going to do.
Anyway... if a confrontation with Stockpile and RSG isnt going to be Immediate... that does open who gets Throned a bit more open...
So Handyman and either LL/MW/Chatelet.
What do you guys/gals/ Non binary pals think?
As much as the VG + BS rom com leadership would be funny, its Handyman + 1. He covers the Hit and Esp ends of things very well for us, leaving only someone who covers Ops properly. But more importantly, as a direct fighter he is arguably our most temporarily replaceable in a lot of ways given how streamlined he is? Belle joined up while being a 8 Hit hero with Invuln and we are likely Prometheusing Song as another frontliner.
Where on top of that he doesn't remove much from Ops or Rep, and I think we need to make at least one big investment into Esp for them. I'd say Chatelet is probably the best in terms of keeping the Frozen Throne group safe while letting MW help on Third Person, but I think reversing them and doing Abarimon for ODI control instead is also valid.
Lady Leizi should stay since frankly we need to get her hit online as fast as possible.
My headspace is we need to send Menagerie to the FT.
Our witch gets to meet another, older, more experienced witch. Win.
She gets to hang with Baba Yaga who has fun therapist vibes which will help with the Trauma. Win.
And she gets to train young Yara in how to use her powers so she can have another path forwards that is not Socialite Butterfly, because as she said herself, they have similar powers. WIN.
No way that does not do good things for her own development!
So I'm all for sending MW to the Frozen Throne. I don't have much opinion on who goes with her however.
nd she gets to train young Yara in how to use her powers so she can have another path forwards that is not Socialite Butterfly, because as she said herself, they have similar powers. WIN.
Correction, Katie, not Yara.
I kind of want to build that school Soraia talked about way back because she's obviously not joining JU once she returns from the Frozen Throne and Katie should have the happy childhood SB should have had.
What if we if we restored Automne's brain and then used an Ambrosia to put her psychic imprint back into her? or some other method of getting her psychic imprint into the Stage? Would that revive her?
Also let me see if I got this straight here?
We have Horae Guard doing something, Silvio going rogue with Ete Guts expy and Radiant Silvergirl, Demon Flamez are figuratively coming apart, Yara and "Katie" are in the Frozen Throne, Lethal Anodyne has Golden Skull's brother and Homer turns out to be a good guy and .... automne is Brain dead.
Umm.... Well at least we have multiple ins. Ronin with Crusade, Sunlight Knight with Horae guard, maybe Ete and Guts expy with Silvio's rogue Group, Jorogumo and Sparksurfer with Demon Flamez, and Trilogy at least appears to be offering us cooperation.
Well something is happening withI think we might have to consider ditching Making the rounds and Pest Control to maybe do that mission with Trilogy early so we can... You know get everything done and get Homer.
Idea we can use Project Prometheus.
First we can empower a candidate as a stopgap measure.
Second we can bring an Ambrosia dose to Yara and empower her there
I recommend Cain. We are kind of desperate . Go with all the Sugar we can get and give him a Zombie regeneration build involving Deadman and every other regeneration we can fit in .
Still I wonder if the personal actions are negated
Part 2 I'm skipping over some of the things that happened. And a slight reorganisation of time-line to make things make sense in this world.
FalseProphet said:
Well that was far less terrifying than I feared. Handyman is down and out. Black Swan has a major injury.
Lady Leizi is still squishy. Hiver is only being annoying, and Menagerie Witch has a far more limited range than
we thought.
Not really ShadowThief- you're missing the three advantages Scarlet Maturity has. His experience and ruthlessness. That's only two, you say. The third is Black Swan's genuine goodness.
The quest is called Faustian Bargains, since all super-teams have made one. It's not just due to your contracts. As False Prophet guessed Project Prometheus is Justice Unlimited's Faustian Bargain and Black Swan is the first and terrifying result. Or would be, if she wasn't so nice.
Also since it didn't become obvious – The (?????) was the contracts never worked on Hiver. Which means Justice Unlimited know Scarlet Maturity's base power but not any of the Faustian aspects.
Were not out of it yet rolling for hit d20 =1 . Oh come on! We're already hitting her core Why would we need a roll to continue...... Oh. We're hitting the wrong place. We're not hitting the weak point, We're putting ourselves in range. And her core is too black to see with a purple edge. PuzzlePieces, I thought you said her name was horrifically apt. I just don't see how Black Swan relates to a Black Hole.
Worked it out, have you? Her original name was going to be Singularity. But my beta-reader pointed out there was a less obvious name that Mona, Dr Mammoth Ibis and Lady Leizi would all love for different reasons.
Lady Leizi loves the obscuring nature of the name and the reference to an intelligence term. A Black Swan Event. A singular unrepeatable fluke that has an effect that is obvious in hindsight.
Mona loves the magical-girl like name.
Dr Mammoth Ibis he likes the astronomical reference to Cygnus X-1 in the Swan constellation. The first black hole actually discovered.
Not what you expected was it, PuzzlePieces. He expected us to win the battle. But why the rep roll?
d20 =15 Oh great! It would be a pass except, remember the hated and despised negatives. And with
the ridiculously good backstory Black Swan likely has another negative on this roll.
REP 15 -5(hated) -5 (Black swan's reputation) Result 5 failure.
As BroadHead worked out I expected you to win the battle. The Rep roll was a way to save Black Swan. Instead you get two critical failures and are now unexpectedly in mortal danger Let's see how bad it is..
Black Swan releases her constraints – recovers one injury level. On the Elysium Station, an engineer named Cynthia Laronto was coming to the end of an eighteen-hour shift. She had already taken the maximum safe dosage of stimulants, and the synthetic coffee tasted like dirt. She was already booking her shuttle back to the planet-side when she got an emergency alert on her console.
Stat Check: OPERATIONS 5. ??? ??? has OPERATIONS 12.
They rolled: 14.
14 + 3 + 10 (Fuck You.) = 27. Critical Success!
Then another thirty.
"Hey, Bill?"
"Yeah, Cindy?"
"You know those giant floating mirrors we have that redirect sunlight onto the solar panels that power the Ladder?"
"Yeah . . .?"
"Why are they all repositioning themselves to point at the same random spot in space?"
". . . I don't fucking know. All I know is that Rhys had the right idea getting a new job and the hell out of here."
* * *
"Hello, hello! You've reached Rad Rick's Twenty-Four Hour Raging Raveapaloza! The place where the party don't stop because we're contractually obligated! How can I help you?!"
Stat Check: OPERATIONS 3. ??? ??? has OPERATIONS 12.
"What's that? All of the lights for our Ludacris Laser Light-showevganza are all pointing at the same place in the sky at maximum power? That's gonna hurt our electric bills, baby! No, I don't know why! All I know is that if I drop the act for a second, they'll void my contract, daddy-o! Now let's party!!!"
* * *
In space, there floats a satellite whose existence would be denied by every major government on the globe.
It points at a patch of unoccupied sky, fires a high-intensity pulse of gamma radiation, and then returns to rest.
Many highly-ranked government officials would spend that night in meetings demanding the same thing.
"Why?"
* * *
"Hey, Cindy?"
"What is it Bill?"
Stat Check: OPERATIONS 5. ??? ??? has OPERATIONS 12.
They rolled: 13.
13 + 3 + 10 (Rest in Piss, Lil' Johnny Murder Pee-Pants.) = 26. Critical Success!
"All of the station's communication equipment has been hijacked. They've somehow been altered to emit high-frequency radiation to that space spot in the sky."
"So?"
"Shouldn't we . . . tell someone?"
"With what comms, Bill? Look, my shift is over in ten minutes. If they wanted me to care, they should have given me dental."
* * *
Suddenly, energy like you never felt surges into Black Swan.
Black Swan recovers one injury level! Superficial Injury!
Black Swan recovers one injury level! No Injury!
Black Swan recovers one injury level! Shielded!
Energy crackles over her skin and then she starts to glow like a star. No, like a hypernova.
Black Swan has become Overcharged! Hypernovae Mode! +5 to next HIT Check!
I should have investigated the only one official member survived claim rather than assuming it was just Dr Mammoth Ibis. Justice Unlimited claimed they have an AI -Eve. The bad news is that their technopath has found Justice Unlimited. The good news might be that Justice Unlimited haven't found their technopath.
Congratulation Mr T. And now you know why Justice Unlimited will attack Elysium. To rescue their teammate. And yes Scarlet Maturity would know this so if Mr T. hadn't worked it out I'd have told you. And so now you're in a race against time.
Uh, I don't think I'll have the time to give out a whole quote reaction… @daedalus725, you ok? I'm pretty sure that was your candidate getting his ass kicked in that LA segment.
I was wondering if we should send a second person at all in the first place, but since Bitterman mentioned that the next issue is set up so that most of the big time threats are looking away from us at the moment I don't think we'll actually lack for firepower in any of the missions we take outside Reality Check. With Crusade gutted, even with two people down current JU should be the strongest group in Horizon.
That also means I don't think we need to go for a stopgap emergency empowerment.
I love the glimpses we get of outside powers. I find it fun, and exhilarating, and exciting. It does make me think of post-credit scenes or the moments at the back of a comic book where we get "Meanwhile... [cut to foe]" scenes.
I guess the flash-outs could be done as an interlude instead, rather than at chapter end? I can see the argument, to give a victory the chance to breathe. But I think it would be cutting out some of what makes the story so compelling! I can still remember finishing Faustian, and I really knew I should put the story down then, it was 3:00 AM already... but damn if I wanted to stop there!
Yeah, I have to agree with what SpiderHellian just said. Yes, there's more threats, and yes, maybe some of the other snippets would have been better off as a Back Issue… but, we still won.Unequivocally. And the things on the horizon are closer to promises of more adventures in this case.
I think that some of you people are way too attached, way too anxious. At the end of the day, this is a work of fiction— the world will not end if Horizon does. The world will not end if Justice Unlimited does. Yes, we help make decisions, but at the end of the day, we should all have fun.
Don't be a fool. We need the money: Pest Control and Making the Rounds can make us.
[]Plan: Needs Must (9th edition)
-[] Puella Magi Justice Unlimited Magica (2 AP)
-[] Smoke on the Water (1 AP)
-[] Reality Check (1 AP)
-[] Train Kept a Rollin' (2 AP)
-[] Grand Theft Person (1 AP)
-[] Pest Control (1 AP)
-[] Making the Rounds (1 AP)
Plus. Pest Control helps with Train Kept a Rollin'.
We can do The Fellowship next turn alongside Long Shadows of the Night. By then we will be less busy, I hope.
If we are going to do any 2AP mission instead of Pest Control (Income +2000, Chance of +1 to HIT, R-Train diplomancing) and Making the Rounds (1500+ income, +1 global REP boost, Random Bonus), it should be He's Got a Gun! (Chance of alliance with QUICK GORILLA, Chance to expand Madeline's menagerie, Chance of +3000 income, Chance of +2 global REP)
So my temptation for FT visitors is something vaguely like this:
[ ] Plan: Time to sit and think
- [ ] Handyman
- [ ] Chatelet
Handyman covers esp and hit, Chatelet covers ops. Handyman shapeshifting lets him do a lot of funny things and Chatelet lets people not 'touch ground' if there's a circumstance where that would be valuable. Plus, Chatelet's got some feelings things to work out about Sunlight Knight and Rhys has some experience in figuring out one's feelings and what to do about that. Plus he's gonna know about what sorts of things cause people to change sides so we can consider her taking an angle on those to flip SK.
It's also worth noting that for who goes to the Frozen Throne with Yara and Katie, that'll be Katie's first Buddies— much lower OPS and REP, but similar HIT. We want at least one heavy-ish hitter to go there. So maybe not Handyman? His power relies too much on creativity.
"C-captain? Captain, is that you? H-how?!" Valiant Justice calls, "I-I don't know what . . . I'm trying, but it's so hard . . . what have I been doing? Please. Tell me. What should I do? What am I?"
Why does he ask you questions to which he always knows the answer? You pronounce your judgement.
I suspect this is what made Stockpile decide to fuck up in a new and interesting way instead of doubling down on Crusade.
Which wouldn't have happened if we had not included Justiciar.
It's also worth noting that for who goes to the Frozen Throne with Yara and Katie, that'll be Katie's first Buddies— much lower OPS and REP, but similar HIT. We want at least one heavy-ish hitter to go there. So maybe not Handyman? His power relies too much on creativity.
Could always actually learn creativity and learn adding new things to instructions. Let Katie develop the sort of contingency-focused mind programmers end up with.
