Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Doctor Why: Term Paper (Mutants and Masterminds Hero High)

M&M

  1. Setup
  2. Orientation
  3. Pop-Quiz
  4. Midterm
  5. Term Paper
  6. Final

This is a set of very hasty notes. James' tablet died shortly into the session so he won't be posting anything; I'd rather spend my time making sure that everything's in place for the last session, but here's more or less what went down.

Characters

  • Geodesic (Dana Mehr)
  • Bruiser (Matthew Beady)
  • Tech-Head (Clark Wayne)

Alex's player was away.

This session

Nothing had been destroyed for several weeks. Because term papers are due at the same time as the final exam, the two classes before the final are essentially research and q&a sessions, where students can quiz Dr. Why or use the library.

Before the last class before the final, Geodesic gets another visit from Beech and Hunter. Beech gets to the point. "I'm not going to ask if you have possession of one of the coins of Eris because I don't want you to have to lie to me. And, in fact, I'm going to violate several parts of official secrets policy because you're not old enough to swear an oath of secrecy.

"We think he's amassing the coins. The coins are not a product of Eris, they are Eris. And when you get enough coins together—and we don't know what that critical mass is—they fuse and re-create Eris."

Geodesic is cool and in the "interesting if true" camp.

Beech goes on. "The problem is that the coins are a power source. The Pandora technology can convert magical energy into other energy, usually electrical. One coin, split into eight pieces, powers all of the suits of the Power Corps. A pair of coins of Eris powers Mimicon."

Mimicon is the evolution of Replay: the crazed android bent on taking over the world. (It turns out that the robot does not want to destroy all life, but only destroy all non-normal life, and its view of normality excludes all superhumans, disabled people, and aliens...and a number of regular old humans. People with glasses, for instance.)

The reason that Beech is willing to violate the official secrets act is that Mimicon has copied a duplicator. It can reproduce itself, which means it reproduces the coins of Eris.

Which means that critical mass might not be far away.

Geodesic assures them that the coins are safe and not with him.

They give the same information to Tech-Head (in a coffee shop rather than Tech-Head's home).

Tech-Head examines the power source more closely when he gets home and looks at the results of his last scans. It does in fact contain two coins, embedded in something that keeps them a specific distance apart. Apparently the power generation happens in the dielectric space between the coins.

He resolves to wrap the power source in the finest aluminum foil, pop it in a styrofoam cooler, and take it to Geodesic to have it stored away.

In the meantime, Matthew Brady is served. Apparently there is some suspicion that Doctor Why is in the pockets of Big Reconstruction, causing all this damage so that it can be rebuilt. With the construction company's lawyer present, he is supposed to give information to the lawyers Alkahest and Azoth, an old boutique law firm based in Toronto.

The player characters met at class and moved to the library, where there are coves and crannies they can use unobtrusively. They get caught up on each other's lives. When Bruiser mentions the names of the lawyers to Geodesic, Geodesic is immediately concerned: both are terms for the universal solvent desired by alchemists. Tech-Head's answer is to claim that it's Nicholas Flamel screwing around again.

The characters are making good headway on their term paper (a design for a temporary containment system for supervillains, to be used in police stations) when there is the kind of hubbub that involves screaming and people rushing for the exits.

The known supervillain Mastermind has floated into the library. He homed in on the players and wanted two things:

  • First, the kids should give him the coins of Eris. (Cue Geodesic heading out to dispose of a certain foil-lined styrofoam container.) Bruiser tries to run interference. It's a good thing that Bruiser is tough because he gets thrown aside at least ones. Poor Geodesic has to do some dancing to get around the lieutenant that Mastermind placed just outside the fire exit, Keres.
  • Second, Tech-Head should give the suit back to its intended recipient, Clark Wayne.

Once Tech-Head claims the suit is with its intended recipient, Mastermind is willing to let them go. He'll deal with the coins while they take care of the army of Mimicons descending on the classroom. (The GM might have said “Luke, I am your father.” at one point but that should not be taken as canon.

And in fact, on the way to a sekrit hiding spot on a Thousand Islands,, Geodesic sees four Officer Kit Lawsons out in the parking lot, heading for the classroom.

Tech-Head gets into the classroom first. The "real" Kit Lawson drops his disguise; he's a Mimicon, from the earlier incarnation of the robot. The Mimicon robots have a slight problem with maintaining stable programming, and, well, this one is the duplicate who didn't want to study war no more nor go back and re-joing the collective. So he became a cop who only works PR stuff. Like visiting classrooms. After the Replay thing, he figured everything would be fine, but now the others have come for him.

Dr. Why is still trussed and bound at the front of the room.

Bruiser gets there just before them and blocks the doorway.

By the time the four Kit Lawsons get there, they are a Kit Lawson, an Alex, a Tech-Head, and a Geodesic. Bruiser is not fooled and knocks one down into the stairwell at the far end of the hall. That one never returns.

They switch to their Mimicon forms.

Another Mimicon shows up outside, and Tech-Head began to deal with it while Bruiser was dealing with the three outside.

Fighting and property damage happened.

In the midst of this, Geodesic returns, and ups the amount of property damage.

The Mimicons burst into the classroom.

Tech-Head warns them against the problem of collecting coins in one place. If they keep duplicating and staying in the same place, they could be in danger of being taken over by Eris.

“We already have been,

says one of them, and the floor beneath vanishes, taken apart by the one who got knocked down the stairwell.

Doctor Why and all the Mimicons vanish down the kaleidoscopic tunnel that has appeared there.

The tunnel disappears, leaving only damage.

Cliffhanger.

No comments:

Post a Comment