ICONS Drop-In (Strange City): Episode 3

SYSTEM: ICONS

A third session of the Drop-In. Only one player, but we had fun. Still working on the same day...

Block Party

Only minutes ago, according to the 911 calls, a city block was lifted forty feet (a dozen meters) into the air, held there for about five minutes, and then dropped down. This of course ruptured gas lines, tore electrical cables, and opened the water mains. Some emergency vehicles were already there as Spectre arrived.

Spectre had three main abilities: the ability to create images, the ability to make those images of hard light, and the ability reflect back attacks. (In order to cover the flexibility of the images power, I required the hard light aspect to be the Servant power, which he uses to animate the images. We've designed a standard Servant who covers most of the powers that he generates with the Images.)

Upon arriving at the scene, Spectre left the rescuing to Blur and took a quick trip around the block...which put him in a place to see the woman floating ten feet off the ground, talking to members of the X Gang. Below her was a man in white wearing a sort of hooded duster, and a gang member kneeling before him, sobbing.

The woman was surrounded by a pink force field, and she had lifted and dropped the block to demonstrate her strength to X Gang and have them follow her. (She also mentioned that she was the Queen of Sorrow, Empress of the Thousand Realms, and the gang would be the start to her regaining her dimensions.

(At later points both the aide who was there and the one who showed up later indicated that they had no choice in following the Queen; they were bound and compelled to do it. Her Bronx accent came out later, leading Spectre to think that perhaps she had been changed by something and the combined entity was acting as Queen of Sorrow.)

One of the gang members shot at her, and the bullet bounced off. She said, "He is the bellwether. Lead him, and the rest will follow. The man in white, Looking Glass, wrapped him in his cape-coat, and when he drew back, the man fell to his knees sobbing.

(At two intervals during the session, Spectre had to stop to fight fires, but all he had do was TK enough water up and drop it on the fire...and both times he managed a massive success immediately, so it was a one roll pyramid test. Very flat pyramid.)

Though the flying woman—Diadem—threw bolts of force at Spectre, he was able to reflect them. The aide, Looking Glass, seemed to have the ability to see Spectre whether he was invisible or not (at one point Looking Glass said, "Only one of the images produces heat") Looking Glass gathered surrounding light and threw it as darts or crescents at Spectre. These were nearly always reflected.

Diadem asked Spectre if he would be her consort. He refused.

She then enclosed him in a tube of force that started closing; he failed to stop it from closing, so he was trapped...but she couldn't come out of her force bubble. He responded by piling heavy rubble on her force globe. It didn't harm her, but it got too heavy to keep flying, so it settled down on the ground. He managed to get out of the force tube by creating a kind of jack that eventually got him out.

Diadem managed to push off the heavy rubble, and Spectre heard Looking Glass (now invisible and somewhere nearby) say, "Pity you turned her down. We could have ruled together as the power behind the throne. I have no choice but to obey the Queen of Sorrow, but you could steer her."

By this point, Blur was unconscious. Spectre's hard-light copies beat up the gang, and later Looking Glass. Spectre enclosed Diadem in a box that couldn't be seen through. She eventually floated up and away, but not before summoning her soldier, Strongarm.

Strongarm was able to absorb slashing attacks, so when Spectre reflected back his sword attacks, Strongarm got stronger sword attacks. The hard light images pummelled him for a couple of turns, but he eventually defeated them, and used his (tiring, ranged) Affliction attack on Spectre. Spectre's attacks felled him, but the Affliction got Spectre a panel or two later....

End result: Strongarm and various gang members in custody; Diadem and Looking Glass (referred to by Strongarm as "the Vizier") free; Spectre determined to get something to see other invisible people. (It's a new power, so it will probably take the biggest kind of advancement, and he's racked up three minor advancements so far. When the costume was removed from Strongarm, they found a ring that looked it was inset with a ruby. It can't be removed; medical imaging shows that it has grown tendrils into the finger.)

Characters introduced: Diadem (at large), Looking Glass (at large), Strongarm (in custody).