Taylor Hebert and Her Rather Sad Life: ECL 1.5
Taylor awoke to a note on her bedside table. Her dad had gone into work, and let her sleep in. She leapt out of bed, got changed - she was going to need some new clothes soon - and showered quickly. After eating a huge breakfast, simply to quell her hunger, she threw on a hoodie she'd found lying around the house. It just barely fit her, but it should let her buy some new clothes and thus let her go to the library without attracting that much attention. She hadn't taken the muggers' stuff last night, and even though she was going to have spend a significant amount of money today, she didn't regret it.
She managed to buy some new clothes that fit, eventually. Not a lot of places stocked clothes for women as tall as her, but she did eventually manage to clothe herself using something other than some clothes she'd found in a locker room. After that was done, she headed for the library. She got a few looks as she stooped to enter, but she got a computer that faced a corner soon enough. First, since she'd probably be doing the solo hero thing for a least a little while - she wanted to get at least a level or two in both the casting classes she wanted to take before going to the PRT, now that she'd had time to think about it and to pour over her sourcebooks.
She logged on to the computer and typed 'cape law' into the search engine. A bevy of results came up, and she decided to start by checking some of the more official looking ones. Eventually, after a few false starts, she came to a government website that had a list of 'dos and don'ts' for Independant capes. She still planned to look up the actual law, but they way it was laid out on the website seemed fairly straightforward. Essentially, it worked kind of like prize money in the age of sail - Independant capes were paid a sum of money for any illegal property they turned in, such as unregistered guns, drugs, dirty money or other simmilar items. She couldn't just take cash, at least legally - though there were no convictions of any independant hero for looting villains on record. Thanks to the Identity and Privacy Protection Act of 1990, a cape's masked persona was a separate legal identity, like a corporation. She'd have to submit a form and have two legal witnesses to a demonstration of some kind of parahuman ability if she wanted to be an independant hero, because then the money could be payed to her cape identity.
Her second avenue of inquiry was what restrictions were placed on the Wards. That information was much easier to find than the looting thing. Youth Guard was certainly eager to tell her all the measures they took to try to ensure the safety of the Wards. She'd have to attend school, which was a downside, but apart from a nebulous restriction on 'undue risk' which seemed to imply something more than fighting parahumans or showing up for Endbringer fights - the impression she got from it was that the PRT couldn't order her to take on a mission that was too much for her, and that they were supposed to stop her from doing the same. The rest were things like 'The child must not be subjected to overly harsh discipline' and 'The child should not be placed in action for prolonged periods of time' and stuff about costumes, which mostly boiled down to them not being able to make her wear a bikini into battle, and that they had to comply with the gender she identified with when making the costume and other such things. There was a general theme of 'Wards should be allowed to make their own decisions'.
Taylor searched around some more, and got the general impression that the Wards were allowed to fight super villains, though they were not the first choice in an emergency. Which made sense, really. She wouldn't send in the teenagers if she had a team of fully trained adults to send in instead, but if they were needed they were called. One could look up plenty of parahuman fights involving Wards on the internet, including several gory ones involving the one she'd met yesterday, Aegis. Though the effect was slightly diminished by him standing up and waving at the camera with a hole in him.
Her research done, she decided to look around the various rundown neighbourhoods of Brockton Bay for some kind of base of operations. She obviously couldn't pay for one, but she couldn't train at her house and if she wanted to be an independant hero and pay for spell research, she'd need some place to stash her money. Upon a closer reading of the rules, it turned out that the components themselves didn't matter, they just had to be worth $20,000. So she just planned to use the money itself, if she went the independent route.
She found two run down places she could use for a base. The first was a two story building that had once been a dance studio or something. The first floor was very run down and had been used by squatters at one point, but the second floor was pretty much intact and untouched. The staircase was broken, but obviously that wasn't a problem for her. She could prepare her manoeuvres here easily, as well as space for research and storage. She'd have to install her own security however. The second was a disused top floor of an office building. Apparently, funding for the construction had run out before it was done. Nobody had come up here for years, and the elevators stopped at the level below. She could only reach it by flight, which meant that she couldn't get to it in the day without flying up an elevator shaft.
Later that night, she scoped out the boat graveyard for base locations. She found one, in a long unused ship. It was large and tall enough that she could only reach it by flight, but the other ships would hide her from view. It was the most remote, and the longest commute, but it was the most secure and the largest. She returned home and contemplated which she would go with. All had their positives, though she was drawn to the isolation of the boat graveyard.
Choose a Lair:
[x] Rundown two story building. Easiest to get too, least secure and remote.
[x] Disused floor of office building. Somewhat hard to get too, somewhat secure and remote.
[x] Ship in the Boat Graveyard. Hardest to get too, most secure and remote.
What will Taylor do tomorrow? You can choose up to three actions and have $200.
[x] Research
[x] Local Cape Scene
[x] Cape Law
[x] Restrictions on Wards
[x] Cape 'Shopping'
[x] For a base of operations that isn't currently occupied.
[x] Basic costume. Costs $125 and offers no protection, but is easier to fight in and conceals your face.
[x] Basic weapons. Examples include baseball bats. Does not deal nonlethal damage. Costs $30
[x] Basic lair supplies. Storage space, simple furniture and locks. Costs $200
[x] Patrol/Look For Encounters
[x] ABB Territory
[x] E88 Territory
[x] Near the Boardwalk
[x] Call Protectorate
[x] Join Wards
[x] Register as an Independent Cape
