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League One | 4
Night of the Squidroid
Yet another of my play-throughs of classic superhero RPG scenarios so that I can pontificate. In fact, I did this one months ago and forgot to post it here and pontificate; I have since completed Death Duel with the Destroyers and am halfway through The Island of Dr. Apocalypse. Despite the huge gap, all three feature League One. (They just felt more like a team to deal with a world-shaker like Dr. Apocalypse than Next Flight or Uncanny Justice.)
This adventure is actually “Day of the Octopus” by Bruce Nesmith, for the Marvel Super Heroes roleplaying game (you might know it as FASERIP). I have rewritten it for Icons. The adventure was originally written for Spider-Man, Captain America, Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), and The Thing; I’ve replaced those characters with League One. I’ve also changed character names to match my own world, but the character conversions should be mostly accurate. I think you can figure out the original identities of SciSquid, Fixit, Roach, Whiptail, and Gamma Ghost, though I made some trivial changes to make them suitable opponents for League One. (You'll see a lot of that in The Island of Dr. Apocalypse where I had to invent a whole new opponent for the ghost Palimpsest.)
Characters are of course copyrighted and trademarked by their original owners, but I changed villain names because I might want to do something with Whiptail or Gamma Ghost or something.
If we need Mythic GME to resolve anything, we start at Chaos Factor 7, a good level for adventure stories.
Chapter 2: Ambush on the Avenue
Chapter 4: Garden of SciSquid In-Fights
Scene 1: In the Park
Rae Summers knew that recreation was an important part of maintaining a peak performance, and as Palimpsest, she needed peak performance. That was why she had agreed to a public date with this young man, Bernie Rosenstein, who was sweet but seemed unformed. He’d never attempted to save the world armed only with his wits and the underwire from the bra of a zaftig companion, he’d never failed, and he’d never offered himself as dimensional exile to the alien conquerors.
She thought, In fairness, that’s a unique set of circumstances.
Bernie was talking. “—and when he suggested that the judge was drunk, I knew the case was lost—” He stopped. “Sorry. I thought this was going to be an amusing anecdote but you’re not amused.” He shrugged. “I have been talking about myself too much anyway. What about you? What are you when you’re not being the mysterious woman from 3-C?”
Rae shook her head and laughed. “I’m the second-best in the world. That takes work to maintain.”
“In the world?”
“Well, this one, but yeah.”
“Like, the Olympics?” He ducked his head sheepishly. “I saw you practicing martial arts moves in the central green one morning.”
“Competitive, yeah,” she agreed. It wasn’t a secret that she was a superhero but she didn’t feel comfortable talking about it. This didn’t seem the place or time to admit that she scaled the brownstone for practice, or that her purse contained her wallet and a variety of tools to subvert computers, locks, and mutant giant ice people.
She also didn’t want to admit that she had the other members of her superhero group in the park in case she needed an excuse to get out of this date. People like Charlie Davenport and Dr. Jacob Meyrink, also known as Menagerie and Doc Golem.
#
Dr. Jacob Meyrink was enjoying the walk. He had put on shorts, a T-shirt, and walking shoes, so he hoped he looked like a cardiac patient out for rehab. He looked wistfully at the pretzel cart, but a cardiac patient wouldn’t be supposed to buy a pretzel. Others were by the cart, though. A knot of four young men were approaching. They weren’t interacting like they were a group of friends; they were a group of business partners. Well, they were too young for a business, but they had that look. Maybe they were all part of a boxing society? Several had the malformed ears, noses, and hand damage that spoke of regular fights.
He hoped that Rae’s date would end relatively soon. She had assured him it wouldn’t be long. He had agreed on that basis; he needed to prepare a bit more on tonight’s talk on emergency treatment of parahuman-caused injury. He already had a list of items to be assessed—
He glanced up at the tree with Menagerie in it. Menagerie was currently a blue squirrel, on the edge of the tree, looking past the leaves. Was he daydreaming or chatting with his ghost friend? Young Charlie had a tendency to do both.
A distance away, by the pretzel cart, the old man spat words at the young men. “I told you, I don’t pay you for protection, and I won’t. Nothing. Nothing!”
One of them said, “Hey, you’re going to give yourself a stroke, old man. You should be concerned instead about what happens to your cart.” He stepped in between the old man and his cart and put his hand on the old man’s chest while the other young men swarmed around the cart.
Dr. Meyrink decided that he needed to step in. It was time to rock up, as Menagerie said.
His body grew stony and larger, becoming mottled gray and he was now a head taller than he had been. The walking shoes exploded, as did the T-shirt and shorts, leaving him in his “uniform” of expanding briefs.[1]
“What is that?” asked Bernie.
“What?” asked Rae.
Bernie pointed. “A rock guy.”
(Up above them, Menagerie noticed Doc Golem’s transformation. “That can’t be good,” he said to his ghost companion, Palimpsest, who agreed with him.)
That was the moment that someone else chose to snatch Rae’s purse. The one with the explosives inside.
The last member of the team, League One, was supposed to be watching but she had just spotted a supposedly reformed criminal and her brother in (common) law across the park with someone else.
“Hey!” cried Rae (that being a safe exclamation) and sprinted after the guy.[2] Bernie started running too but he was not as fast. She was, after all, second-best in the world.
Doc Golem picked up a nearby trash bin and threw it in front of the pretzel cart.[3] It landed in the right place and split open, spilling garbage in front of the cart. Half of the bin bounced on, but half stayed there, stopping the cart.
Skyblaze was streaking across the sky, unaware of the commotion below her.
“Uh, Skyblaze? We kinda got a thing, here ,” said Menagerie into his communicator.
“What, Pen doesn’t want to schtup him or she does?” Skyblaze said. “I spotted a guy, he—” She couldn’t admit it. “He owes me money,” she lied.
Doc Golem jogged up to the young men, surprisingly fast for a large rock-man. “I think you guys need to leave him alone,” he said.
One of the young men pulled out a knife and then realized it wasn’t going to have an effect on a guy made of rock. He sprinted away. The remaining four didn’t move.
Rae had caught up to the purse snatcher.[4] She plucked her purse, careful not to accidentally set off the explosives. The purse snatcher tried to grab it back[5] but failed; he looked at her and at Bernie finally catching up, and he took off.
#
Skyblaze landed and suddenly realized that as far as this guy knew, she was dead. She decided to follow him silently. She stepped inside the building he and his friend had entered.
A dozen steps in, the building’s burglar alarm went off. This was entirely in keeping with Vernon but disappointing nonetheless. Ahead, she could see the cause: Vernon had broken a glass display case that contained gauntlets from a Shock Trooper from Brothers of Thunder, and a model of the battery pack. (Other glass display cases held the rest of the suit.) His friend finished fastening the lid on a cardboard tube, like a map tube, and reached in and grabbed the gauntlets.
Which was when she realized that she didn’t look much different from the Before Times. If Vernon saw her, he’d know she was alive. Even though he was a lesser threat, he had to go first.
Secret identities suck, she thought.
Which meant that Vernon had to go first. His friend, who was holding the gauntlets, was a greater physical threat, but Vernon was a greater existential threat.
She blasted.[6] Vernon made a small sound and fell down. The friend looked startled and started frantically checking for the battery pack attachment.[7]
Pity he doesn’t know it’s a fake. Oh well; this might hurt, she thought and took to the air. Fortunately this foyer was high enough that flying made sense.
The man—subVernon, as she thought of him—slipped his hands into the gauntlets and he fired at her.[8] Waves of sound assaulted her and filled her ears.
Those are…powerful gauntlets, she thought. She fired a return blast.[9] His arm moved and his gauntlet absorbed it. He didn’t fire back but instead backed toward the door, keeping an eye on her.
“You’re gonna leave your friend?” she asked him.
He didn’t say anything, turned and ran outside…
…right into the blue dinosaur standing at the doorway.
“I hate you, you hate me,” sang Menagerie, “We’re a dysfunctional family…” He swung his tail[10] and hit the man, who fell unconscious. He cocked his head as if listening to something, and said, “With these arms?”
A crowd had gathered, and they applauded. Menagerie ducked his head in thanks, and then he shimmered and became a gorilla. He plucked the gauntlets off the man. “I guess these should go back inside.” He squeezed past Skyblaze and disappeared inside.
There was the sound of two shots, but small, maybe underloaded .22 caliber. Skyblaze didn’t move from the doorway.
“Get out of here, kid,” she said to a kid in a pied vest and cowboy hat. The kid fired his cap pistol one more time.
The crowd parted for Doc Golem and he trudged up to the others. “Where does a kid even get a cap pistol nowadays?” he asked in general. He held up something. “Pretzel? This guy gave them—”
That was when there was a tremendous blast and the ground disappeared under Doc Golem.
Chapter 2: Ambush on the Avenue
Rae saw the blast and said, “I have to go!”
“Yeah, I don’t think it’s safe. Let me help you home.”
“No, I— I have to join them. “I’ll explain later, but that’s my team. ” She was already running to the villains while the crowd was running away, and many of them were running into the park she was in.
“Which ones?” yelled Bernie.
The leggings were the same color as the legs of her outfit, and she had the top in her bag, so she pulled it on as she dodged people. She pulled her gadget pouch from inside the purse and resigned herself to losing another purse. The pouch snapped to her top. She vaulted over the car at the edge of the battle and suddenly had to catch herself because there was no there on the far side of the car.[11]
A bolt of lightning or something electric hit the car near her. She saw an armored guy fluttering across the hole. The armor looked distinctive—she knew that armor.[12] She had to think a moment.
Right. Roach. He’d had a short career as a thief but the last year or so he’d been hiring out.
Too bad she didn’t have a shield or something to throw at him. But she did have a pouch with explosives.[13] She tossed a grenade at him but he dodged it, and it exploded halfway down the hole.[14]
Someone had ripped the doors off that building there but no one was visible. Presumably the real target was inside.
Inside the building, Menagerie saw he was dealing with Whiptail, a man transformed into a monstrous human scorpion.[15] “It’s the song, isn’t it?” said Menagerie. “The trademark lawyers sent you.” He turned into a hummingbird and darted up out of immediate range.
In the foyer, Skyblaze curved around. “This guy doesn’t understand quips and witticisms,” she said to Menagerie. “Just hit him.” [16] She fired and Whiptail was slammed by the blast into an opposite wall.
The scorpion-outfitted one rose from the dust. “I didn’t like that.”
“Oh, like I care,” said Skyblaze. Whiptail leapt for her[17] but missed and landed on the wall on the opposite side of the rotunda.
Outside, Doc Golem climbed out of the hole. “Do you have unresolved anger issues?” he said to the Gamma Ghost. “Because really, I don’t think I deserved that.”
Roach fired repeatedly at Penultimate, who was leaping from car to car[18] to avoid the blasts.
The Gamma Ghost fired a blast at Doc Golem[19] but the blue Cherenkov radiation splashed harmlessly against Doc’s rocky skin.
Palimpsest looked at Whiptail and decided that he was the kind of threat that should be used.[20] She slipped into his body and took control. “Wow,” she said in his voice. “In control for the moment.”
A man in a black outfit said, “That sounds ominous. Gordon, I shall deal with you once after Skyblaze here.” He tossed a grenade at Skyblaze[21] but barely missed; the grenade burst into a swarm of metal tentacles that closed on nothing and fell to the ground.
“Got it,” said the blue bird, which suddenly became an elephant that dropped onto the man in the black outfit.[22] “Blaze, any idea who this is? I recognize the scorpion guy from my misspent youth.”
Outside, Penultimate gauged the distance between her and Roach; he was hovering over the hole: if she missed, she was in for a long and possibly lethal drop. Still, nothing ventured—
She swung around a tree branch and launched herself at Roach.[23] She grabbed him and hoped those Mylar wings would hold them both up. She got a solid grip on him and squeezed, just to see how effective that armor was. Bad news: she couldn’t hurt him unless she found a weakness.
Doc Golem got closer to the Gamma Ghost, who was standing by the building door, and punched…and suddenly found his fist blocked by a globe of impenetrable force.[24]
Inside the building, Skyblaze said, “I can’t do anything with you lying on top of him.” She spared a glance at Vernon; still out. How will I tell my sister? I’m dead, after all. Think about this. She aimed at Whiptail. “If you lose control, I’m blasting him.”
Pal could feel Whiptail struggling against the domination.[25] She shut him down, and in Whiptail’s voice said, “Nah, I’m good.” She guided Whiptail outside through a second-floor window.
Over the pit outside, Roach put his hands together and grabbed Penultimate’s arm. “You’re not holding me, my dear, I’m holding you!” And he blasted her.[26]
Only years of training let her hold on, and she knew that she couldn’t take another shot like that.[27] He seemed to have to bring his hands together to actually initiate the shock, so if she adjusted her grip…[28]
Whoops. She slipped off, and failed to grab his ankle. Freed of the additional weight, Roach shot up in the air, uncontrolled.
Penultimate fell, trying to figure what, if anything, she could do.
Doc Golem grabbed the Gamma Ghost’s force bubble and threw it (and the Gamma Ghost) at her, hoping to knock her to solid ground.[29]
At that point, Gamma Ghost had to make a decision: turn off the force globe and maybe miss Penultimate, or leave it on and protect himself from the collision and the fall afterward.[30]
Gamma Ghost chose to leave it on, and Penultimate remembered: Like her, he couldn’t fly.
The Ghost’s force bubble hit Penultimate and knocked her away from the hole. She managed to land on the hood of a parked car: it hurt and was ungainly, but she was alive.[31] The force globe landed on the opposite side of the street, with Gamma Ghost upside down.
Inside, Skyblaze said, “Now I’m in a bad mood too,” and she circled around to fire at the man in black.[32] Pen would know who he was; that was the kind of thing she knew.
He was tough to hit under the elephant, but she managed. He screamed in a satisfying way, but her bolt didn’t produce the normal smoke.
Whiptail bounded out. “It’s me; olly-olly-oxen free!” He bounded up and lashed out at Roach with his tail, but missed.
Doc Golem knew what “It’s me, olly-olly-oxen free” meant, so he took the opportunity to take a running leap over the hole and get to the Gamma Ghost.
“You okay?” he asked Penultimate.
“Really embarrassed,” she said. “Time to start using my brain.”
“We’re superheroes,” said Doc Golem. “No thinking, just punching.”
“You’ve been hanging out with Menagerie.”
At that moment, Menagerie had changed into a bear. “The thing is, are they after something in here?” he said to Skyblaze. “Or out there? Because I only know the scorpion loser.”
Skyblaze said, “Jobbers, I think. They go where the money is good.”
“So they’re a diversion?”
“Probably.”
Menagerie said, “Sorry, guy, this is a bear necessity,” and swiped at the man in black with his heavy claws.[33] He hit and shredded the black costume, but there was armor underneath, so he didn’t hurt the man. Much.
“You know what Pen would say,” said Skyblaze.
“No claws. Sorry, guy,” he said to the man.
Penultimate rummaged through her bag, grabbed one of the explosives, realized she was going to have to adjust it. She had made it with an adjustable setting but she hadn’t realized what a pain it was going to be to fix in the middle of a fight.[34]
Doc Golem picked up a car and used it to bat the force globe down the block and into the next. A car alarm started in the distance..
“He’ll get away!” said Pen.
“But not with his objective,” said Doc Golem.
Inside the building, Skyblaze said, “Go outside and see if you can help; I got him.”[35] Her blast hit him in a spot no longer covered by the black suit, and he fell unconscious.
Menagerie said, “But is the real target inside or outside?”
Skyblaze said, “Based on the fact that the battery pack and the tube are gone, I’d say the real target was inside.”
There was a mangled ventilation grating under the place where the tube had been.
Outside, Roach took off for the sky and flew behind a skyscraper, out of sight.
Whiptail looked at them and said, “I don’t think I can knock myself out.”
“I can help with that,” said Doc Golem.
“If you’re going to hit, I’m leaving.”
“Let me get a good grip on him, and I’ll just squeeze him so he can’t breathe,” said Doc Golem. “He’ll fall unconscious pretty fast; I’ve never heard of Whiptail being able to survive without air.”
“All right,” said Palimpsest-as-Whiptail. “But the second you apply pressure, I’m gone.”
“Understood,” said Doc Golem.
Whiptail got into position and Doc Golem closed his arms, and squeezed.
Whiptail suddenly looked at him, shocked. “How did I—uhhhh!—get here?”
“Fugue state. Common enough,” said Doc Golem.[36]
Whiptail’s tail arched up and blasted Doc Golem, who squeezed him again but then fainted.
“Crap,” said Penultimate and threw a grenade at Whiptail; it exploded and did nothing.[37]
Whiptail bounded past them to the far side of the building.
A blue gorilla ambled out carrying an unconscious man in black, just to see Pen chasing past the edge of the building. There was a screeching sound and then the sound of horns.
Finally, Pen came back. “Truck of some kind. He jumped in the back and it took off. I tried to follow but I am not as fast as a car, even in this traffic.”
She slowly walked over to the unconscious Doc Golem. Menagerie had put the three unconscious men next to Doc, and was sitting on him, in bird form. “I wish he changed back when he went unconscious,” Menagerie said. “I don’t think any of us can move him.”
Penultimate said sourly, “Well, that was a good first date. Outed and lost to a bunch of jobbers. Great.”
Chapter 3: SciSquid Search [38]
A uniformed policeman ran up to Penultimate and thrust a smartphone at her. “Look!”
She recognized the person in the photo as King SciSquid. A tragic accident had welded four mechanical tentacles to his body and shredded his social skills.
The policeman increased the sound.
“I’ll make this simple. This city is the site of some of my greatest defeats, so I have no love for this place. If I don’t receive one billion dollars — half in cash, half in Bitcoin — I plan to release a device that will raze it to the ground. City officials should have received the details by now. I don’t intend to go near the physical cash for some time, and the Bitcoin is to be delivered electronically. You have no guarantee that I won’t release the device if you pay….but you can be certain that I will release it if you don’t. I know it takes time to collect the money, so you have until tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.”
One of his tentacles shut off the camera.
“Well, team,” said Penultimate. “Odds that Roach, Gamma Ghost, and the rest were working for Squidward?”
[39] “He calls himself ‘SciSquid,’” said Skyblaze. She rolled her eyes.
“He’s Squidward to me,” said Penultimate. “Thoughts?”
Menagerie flew over. “Smelled like him,” he said. “It was clearly something metallic that swarmed through the ventilation grate and took the parts.”
“Roach had something black smeared over his feet. You knocked somebody unconscious. Let’s talk to him.”
Pen spent a few moments disarming the unconscious Fixit. “Nice black suit; reminds me of Vantablack. It’s clearly bespoke for something, We’ll get that off him. Laser pistol, that’s nice; a couple of grenades of unknown use; a remote to something; assorted batteries, but nothing as good as the stolen ADEPT.”
“Pardon?” said Menagerie.
“Advanced Decay Energy Production and Transmission, I believe. Uses semi-natural fission to create energy. Very high energy density. You use it or something like it for powered armor, like the Shock Trooper armor. They also get used for some extreme-environment stuff, and bad guys steal them for energy-intensive stuff, like robots, interdimensional portals, laser cannons. All the Shock Trooper stuff is from a shipment stolen about six years ago.”
“Fortunately it was a copy. Nobody would put something like that on display in a public…” Her voice trailed off. “It was a copy, right?”
Penultimate said, “That’s not clear.” She fiddled with a gadget, walked into the building and back out again. “Radiation detector,” she said. “Clearly picks up Gamma Ghost, but he never went into the building. There was something else there that was radioactive. It’s not the handman there, because he’s not radioactive. No, there’s a lot of secondary radiation consistent with something radioactive sitting here for days.”
“But if these things are so valuable, why would that be in public?”
“Record keeping error?” Penultimate said, “The real answer is usually money, corruption, or it’s an election year.”
Skyblaze sighed. “ Can you disable these ADEPT things?” asked Skyblaze.
“Not without an environmental effect. There’s a reason they’re not widely used.” She toed the unconscious man. “Look at his boots.”
“Mud,” said Menagerie.
“Red mud. That’s rare. I mean, go look at the hole: brown or black dirt. That’s not from this area.”
“Can’t you check it?”
“I have no lab. Police will have to do it.”
Vernon groaned and started to move, and Skyblaze knocked him out again.
“Skyblaze!”
“He’s not as important as the other guy,” she said. “One issue at a time.”
“But if he was working for SciSquid…”
“Look at him and his friend! Clearly no-account losers who have big schemes and no follow-through. Why, I’ll bet his wife doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”
Pen looked at her for a moment. “That seems awfully specific”
“Significant other. I know the type.”
“I see.” She turned to the police officer. “These two are yours; right away. Give us a moment with…Fixit, I think it is.”
“If you don’t think they’re involved…”
“No idea. I wasn’t inside the building. Skyblaze?”
Skyblaze looked at him for a long time and thought about how her sister would feel when her husband didn’t come home. “Nah, he and his friend aren’t connected with these other guys. Fight started, they got knocked out.”
Menagerie cocked his head but didn’t say anything.
Behind them, Doc Golem sat up. He did a quick self assessment and then walked over to join them.
The uniformed officer said, “We’ll take them down to the precinct, get their statements.”
Penultimate nudged Fixit awake. “Hey, bunkie. Wake up. We just need to know where SciSquid is hiding.”
“Who… Oh. You. I’ll never tell.”
“Any statement you take is inadmissible!” cried a man coming closer to them.
Penultimate looked up and saw Detective Gerrero approaching. The detective threaded his way through the uniforms at the site. “Hey, Second-Best. I guess you didn’t stop anyone important, huh?”
“Hey, Armchair Quarterback,” said Penultimate. “You can check it all yourself but it looks like the ADEPT back inside was real, not a copy. Secondary radiation shows there was a radiation source in there for some days. At a guess, SciSquid hired these guys to steal it or distract people while he stole it. The flour we saw were Gamma Ghost, Whiptail, Roach, and Fixit. This guy, Fixit, has mud on this guy’s boots that’s not from this area. It rained yesterday, so its source might be a clue to where the hideout is. Fixit doesn’t want to talk, so I’m happy to hand him over to the police. I’m going slowly because you can’t think quickly.”
Skyblaze said, “I assume you guys have met before?”
Both Gerrero and Penultimate said, “Yes.”
Gerrero said, “You’re going to have to fill out a statement.”
Penultimate looked at him.[40] “A recorded statement is already in your email. The rest of the team will give their statements after one p.m. tomorrow. We have a blackmailer to stop. We’d appreciate your help but we’d even more appreciate you getting out of our way. You can contact Major Copeland, on assignment with Homeland Security.”
“I can have you arrested.”
“He’ll get us out again, and in the meantime, who’ll stop the destruction of the city?”
“As soon as this is done, you will come to the precinct for statements.”
“Of course, and so nice that you assume we will stop him..” She nodded to Skyblaze. “We need to investigate. Meet in an hour at Copeland’s annex.”
#
Penultimate knocked on the door to 4-D. Bernie answered.
“Oh. Aren’t you…” He flapped a hand. “Busy?”
“I needed proper pants and shoes, and I have to apologize.”
“No, there’s—”
“Yes, there is. We were on a date, and I interrupted it. So I apologize. I like you. I was kind of worried I wouldn’t, that all of that part of me went away when my universe was destroyed.”
“Your what?”
“We can talk about my origin story on a second date, if you’re willing. In the meanwhile, I have to stop a guy from destroying the city.”
“Well, without a city there’s no place for us to go.”
“Exactly.” She kissed Bernie on the cheek and left.[41]
#
Pen finished her glass of orange juice. “We were so lucky there was nothing under you when that blast hit. No sewer, no electricity, no water.”
“No subway,” said Jacob. He was in the robe he kept at the Annex.
“I wonder if that’s significant?” Skyblaze asked. “You seem very…relaxed, Pen.”
She ignored that. “Finding the hideout isn’t the tough part. The tough part is figuring out why you lied about the two guys trying to steal Storm Trooper parts.”
“Why do you think I was lying?”
“Because you were. Menagerie mentioned it to me.” Skyblaze looked at Menagerie, who switched to squirrel and hid behind Penultimate. “As he should have. The reason I wanted to meet here is privacy.”
“This place? It’s monitored out the wazoo.”
Pen smiled. “Officially.” She pulled out a remote and hit a button. “Still, they already know all the background stuff we might want to hide, like real names. So…why?”
“He’s my brother-in-law.”
“Him?” asked Menagerie; Penultimate nodded in understanding.
“Yeah. Before I…I got changed, he was seeing my sister. I mean, he’s scum but I was only a little better before I enlisted, so…. After I, uh, ‘died,’ he married my sister and supposedly reformed. But I saw him sneaking in with that guy who is still active according to my sources, and figured they had a scheme. For Marcy’s sake, I had to stop it.”
Pen said, “I get it. I’m not thrilled you went off on your own, but I understand, and it’s okay. It’s not like this was a mission. I was asking you for a favor because I wasn’t too sure about this dating thing. You get to have your own life, right?”
Skyblaze didn’t say anything, but her eyes started leaking tears.
“On a mission is different, though. You go off script there, and I have to tell Major Copeland. I’m tolerant but I can’t be blind.”
“We all have faults, Blaze,” said Menagerie.
“Really? Pen is someone who saved her universe, Doc has so much goodness in him he should be orange juice, you and your ghost friend are just Raggedy Ann and Andy, and I’m pond scum trying to be better and I don’t make it sometimes.”
Menagerie said, “Do you know why I’m in this group?” He looked down at the floor. “I killed somebody. I didn’t even know it, and I have lots of reasons why it happened but still: I killed somebody and she’s not around to forgive me.”
Skyblaze said, “I didn’t know.”
“Of course not. Why do you think I act like such a doofus? I want to be someone who wouldn’t do that, won’t do that, and I still forget.” He shrugged. “But I remember her every day.”
“We’re all here because we did something,” said Jacob. “My twin brother was a supervillain. I didn’t want to be a superhero. I wanted to stay a doctor. Because I didn’t help, he did some bad stuff—worse than you, Charles, er, Menagerie—so I have to make it better.”
Penultimate said, “And it’s nice of you to think I saved my universe, but I didn’t. I failed. My world is gone. Running this team is about all that keeps me going.”
“Come here, everyone.” Jacob wrapped everyone up in a hug. “Pal, this is for you, too,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re here, but I’m grateful.”
After a long time, Pen cleared her throat. “Um. Now we have to catch a crazy man.”
They broke apart. “Anybody got a tissue?” asked Skyblaze.
Penultimate plucked tissues from her bag and passed them around. Then she said, “I read up on the four crooks we fought and there was something interesting about Gamma Ghost.”
“That he never once turned into a ghost?” asked Jacob.
“That’s not why he’s called that. He leaks gamma radiation. That’s how he was spotted, by the gamma radiation signature—a gamma ghost, if you will.”
“Then we could find him any time.”
“Almost any time. It was stupid luck on our part, but letting the Gamma Ghost escape means we can always find him, and probably their…lair?”
Skyblaze said, “You can call it a lair.”
Pen continued, “SciSquid isn’t stupid. You don’t hire someone like that without a reason.”
“He needs blasts that strong to build whatever he’s building?” asked Jacob.
“Maybe. Try again.”
“Expertise,” said Skyblaze. “Gamma Ghost is an expert in weird physics, isn’t he?”
“I mean, SciSquid is a robotics expert. He hired a brilliant mechanic, Fixit. Roach is not shabby about powered armor either. So I’m guessing powered armor or robots of some kind. But more importantly, this place is likely to be a trap. SciSquid knows that we can find Gamma Ghost any time we want.”
“Where does Whiptail fit in?” asked Jacob.
Menagerie shook his head. “He’s just a loose cannon. Something about the metamorphosis to a scorpion-man undid his brain. He’s powerful, stronger than I am in any form, but he’s got all the planning ability of a puppy who’s seen a squirrel. SciSquid knows that. Whiptail puts the ‘duh’ in diversion.”
“Now, I don’t have a set of satellites that can be tuned to the kind of radiation we need to find[42] but someone does, and they clumsily left their password at an easily-guessable value. In a couple of minutes, assuming I have not been detected, I should have the answer.”
Her tablet beeped. She pulled up the maps application. “Globe building. Used to belong to a newspaper, the Globe, and when that shut down someone else bought it to print flyers and brochures. That wasn’t enough to keep them going so it closed about a year ago.”
“Lots of time to build a city-destroying whatever,” said Menagerie. “I’ve faced him before. Robots. Always robots.” He thought for a minute. “He doesn’t know about Pal but he might suspect. He’ll have it trapped for surface, air, and burrowing, because those are all ways I use.” He nodded. “I get most of the animal-themed ones, but I’ve never faced Roach before.”
“Okay, thinking literally outside the box…teleportation?” asked Skyblaze.
“We don’t have a way to do that,” pointed out Jacob.
“I know somebody who can.” Penultimate jotted a quick message; the reply was almost instant. “Autoreply. He’s in another dimension right now. I’ll check to see who Copeland has on speed dial.”
“Nobody dials any more,” pointed out Menagerie.
“Not relevant at the moment,” said Penultimate. “Other ideas?”
“Sacrificial lamb?” said Jacob. “I go in and set off traps? When I’m good and entangled, you guys show up?”
“Who says you’ll be entangled?”
“I assume he has something set up just for me,” pointed out Jacob.
“Point,” said Penultimate. “But we’ll still make your entrance as not-you as possible. We take you up, drop you over a skylight, you rock up before you hit the glass and then plummet through whatever he has set up. Then there’s a hole for everyone else to use coming in, and we don’t have to worry about, oh, lasers in the ventilation ducts or ghost-catchers in the walls.”
“Are there such a thing as ghost-catchers?” Skyblaze asked Menagerie.
“There must be…yes, there are, says Pal.”
“Pal, since we expect Whiptail to be a distraction, do you mind using him as such? At least until we’ve handled the immediate problem.”
“She will,” said Menagerie.
“The best time for this? It’s already five. Rush hour: hard to escape.”
“One-thirty-seven in the morning,” said Skyblaze. Everyone looked at her. “They know we’re coming, right? They expect us to come on the hour or half-hour for coordination. Watch change is probably on the half-hour, probably half-past four, twelve, and eight. At one-thirty-seven they’ve been waiting for eight hours, they’re tired, midnight came and went and nothing happened. They figure we’ll show up at three or four or six: later in the night or first thing at dawn.”
“That suits me,” said Jacob. “I have an engagement tonight.”
Penultimate acted shocked. “You? A social life?”
Jacob grinned. “I have more of a social life than you do, Rae.”
“Point again,” she said. “Go. Get some rest. Fulfill your ‘engagements.’ No attacking the Globe building; Skyblaze, do a recon but don’t engage.” Her tablet dinged insistently a dozen times. “Maybe we can teleport any— Nope. They’ve found my hack. Gotta take this.”[43]
“I thought you were good enough you wouldn’t get caught,” Skyblaze said.
“I left them a note,” admitted Pen.
Chapter 4: Garden of SciSquid Delights
[44] “Can you drop me on a printing press? I want to spread out the damage so I don’t end up in a hole.” It was cold and Jacob was in his briefs and a hotel bathrobe. Penultimate was on Skyblaze’s back. She wore gloves; it was cool out.
“Sure,” said Skyblaze.
“Say when and I’ll rock up.”
“Mark!”
Skyblaze let go of Jacob but Doc Golem fell, deliberately in the skydiver pose to be as big as possible. The remnants of the bathrobe fluttered over the city as he plunged through the window and down to one of the presses.[45]
Somewhere, an alarm started clanging.
Whiptail looked up from the YouView videos he was watching and spotted the blue bat flying in. From where he was, he couldn’t reach Menagerie so he leapt to the top of the three-storey statue of SciSquid, and then at the bat.[46] He missed and stuck to a wall.
“Hey! It’s Miracle Whiptail!” Men fluttered above the press that Doc was in. “Was that disrespectful? Because it was meant to be disrespectful.”
The press grew…tentacles…that reached for Doc and for Menagerie.[47] They managed to grab Doc loosely but missed Menagerie.
Palimpsest had already possessed SciSquid, and awkwardly moved one tentacle from his gantry by the robot. “Whiptail, protect the robot. That’s what’s important.” (Pal hoped that was what was important. Too bad she couldn’t read minds or she’d know what SciSquid was thinking.)
Skyblaze flew in through the hole, carrying Penultimate; Penultimate leaped off her and onto the head of the robot.
“So, we’re here,” said Penultimate. “Bring out your death traps.”
“He doesn’t banter,” said Skyblaze as she fired at Whiptail.[48] The scorpion-man absorbed the star blast.
Menagerie circled Whiptail’s head.[49]
Meanwhile, Doc grabbed the tentacles holding him and yanked, hard, pulling them free.[50] The press gave off a series of sparks and the remaining tentacles fell limp.
Whiptail, driven to a blind rage by Menagerie’s actions, arched his tail and fired the plasma cannon.[51] It hit the robot, as Menagerie had hoped, but did nothing.
Okay, thought Menagerie, the robot’s tough.
Roach, in armor, stumbled through the door and spotted heroes. “Squid, we’re awake! Shut off the damned alarm!” He took to the air.
The tentacles of the other two presses extended and aimed at Menagerie. One launched a grenade of some kind[52] that exploded near Whiptail into a tangle of metal strands. It fell harmlessly to the floor.
“Whiptail! I insist!” Pal hoped that was right; SciSquid had a kind of fussy way of talking. And he was old to boot: over thirty.
A blast of energy hit Doc Golem, who was trying to get out of the wreckage of the press.[53] It didn’t even knock him down.
Penultimate took the grenade she’d been reserving since the afternoon and threw it.[54] All of Roach’s armor systems suddenly failed, and rebooted. Roach fell out of the air, and immediately tried to glide.[55]
“Blaze! Get him while his systems are rebooting!”
Skyblaze immediately angled over and blasted.[56] She couldn’t get a good shot and the blast splashed against the armor.
Menagerie saw this and used the opportunity to fly close to Roach’s head. “Shame you can’t hit me, Whipit-good. I’m right here…”[57]
Doc Golem picked up the broken printing press and tore it from the floor to throw it at Roach.[58] He hit, while Menagerie flitted up out of the way.
Whiptail jumped up to the robot, as he imagined that SciSquid wanted. “I’ll protect it!”
Protect it? Penultimate thought. I don’t think any of us can mar it, let alone take it apart.
One of the two remaining presses extended long metallic tentacles to Doc Golem[59] but he neatly sidestepped them.
SciSquid[60] reached into his pocket and pulled out a remote, and from the other side a second one. They looked different but both had a handmade look; both had the button covered by a layer of transparent plastic. “I have the remote!” he shouted.
The Gamma Ghost blasted at Doc Golem,[61] but hit one of the presses instead.
Penultimate realized that Gamma Ghost’s force bubble was, in fact, a bubble: that someone right next to Ghost would be enclosed in it…where they could hit him. She bounced off the robot, swung around the gantry and landed in a position running to tackle the Gamma Ghost.[62] Skyblaze blasted Roach, saying, “This doesn’t seem sporting…but I don’t care.”
Menagerie landed and became a rhinoceros; he got his horn under Roach and tossed him across the big room.[63]
Doc Golem looked at Roach hurtling through the air and said, “Really?” to Menagerie. He grabbed the piece of press he had thrown before and tossed it onto Roach. “The armor will protect him.”
Whiptail growled, “I can hit a rhino!” and leaped down to hit Menagerie[64] with his tail.
SciSquid said, “What? That accursed mental control that Menagerie seems to have! But he can’t stop my robot from destroying the city!” He looked at the two remotes, and removed the cover from the button of one of them.
SciSquid pressed the button. The robot began to hum.
Gamma Ghost threw up his force globe, encasing both him and Penultimate. Pen said, “I think you forgot that I’m here.” She swung around and kicked him in the head. He fell unconscious and the force globe disappeared.
Skyblaze looked at the giant robot and cried, “Doc! Give me a hand! Let’s see if it can get up when it falls down!” She flew to one wall then charged at its center of mass at top speed.[65]
Menagerie switched to gorilla form and grabbed at Whiptail[66] but missed.
Palimpsest settled into Whiptail[67] but failed to take control: Whiptail’s fury defeated her this time.
Doc saw the robot reeling: He ran[68] to grab one leg and yanked it to topple the robot. The robot landed on its side in one of the remaining presses.[69]
“It’s not a fugue state!” Whiptail snarled aloud and leapt for Menagerie.[70] “You’re doing it! Somehow!”[71] He tried to smash Menagerie, currently in gorilla form. Menagerie managed to twist and catch the blow on his heavily muscled forearm, but it hurt a lot.
“The robot can get up, fools! Did you not realize I would think of that?” SciSquid said. The gantry began to lower.
Penultimate sprinted and parkoured up the gantry arms to grab[72] one of SciSquid’s tentacles, and used it to vault onto the platform. Keep him busy, she thought. Find out how to turn it off.
Skyblaze fired another shot at the robot. It bounced off the thing. “I can’t damage it!”
“Of course, you can’t, fool! I made it to destroy this city; what good would it be if one of you could damage it?”
Menagerie prepared to block Whiptail’s next attack.[73] Palimpsest desperately tried to get control of Whiptail[74] but the man-scorpion was too angry.
Doc Golem kept hold of the one foot and braced himself to keep the robot from getting up.[75]
Whiptail lashed at Menagerie,[76] but Menagerie managed to block his tail.
SciSquid laughed. “That robot can’t be turned off! It won’t stop until it has destroyed the city!” His tentacles[77] grabbed Penultimate and threw her off the platform into a printing press. She managed to land safely but it started extruding its own tentacles. SciSquid lifted himself on his remaining arms and moved swiftly to the door.
Pen reached into her bag[78] and pulled out her last grenade, but it hadn’t been set. She fiddled with the settings. Next model has a damned dial I can twist.
Skyblaze twisted and changed targets,[79] firing a blast at SciSquid and knocking him down.
Menagerie grabbed at Whiptail[80] and missed. Palimpsest knew that Menagerie couldn’t take another shot and tried again[81] and finally managed to get control.
Doc said, “I’ve got it, but can’t do anything else—”
Whiptail suddenly bounded over to SciSquid and[82] knocked him unconscious.
Palimpsest managed to avoid the press’ tentacles as she got out. “Clear! I’m going to EMP the robot!” She tossed the grenade at the robot.[83]
Whiptail said, “Whiptail’s tail weapon thing is still online.”
“Focused blast. Hope there’s no Faraday cage.”
The robot[84] moved a leg to get up; Doc was dragged along.
“Looks like there is. Any access hatch? Machine like that requires a lot of fiddling,” said Skyblaze.
“Good idea — Men, got any special senses that might help?”
“A single cockroach is not going to help.”[85]
“There’s a discolored area on the sole of this foot,” said Doc. “Maybe big enough for a door or hatch.”
“I think that’s it,” said Skyblaze.
“Doc, hold up the foot to let Pen get up there.”
“Oh, most of us are going in,” said Penultimate. “Doc? Terrible job, but can you keep knocking it down as it tries to get up? We don’t want it to get out of the building. Blaze, you blast the hatch so we can get in.”
“What about Whiptail?” asked Whiptail.
“Come on in. Rather have Whiptail inside the robot under control than scarpering off to parts unknown.”
Penultimate nodded at Doc, who had been yanked across the floor as the robot tried to get up. The tentacles flailed against the floor but the robot did not push with them.[86]
Doc twisted and yanked on the foot.[87]
Skyblaze fired[88] and the hatch cracked; a human-width piece fell off. Menagerie was in first, as a bat, followed Whiptail, then Pen. “Sure, let me go last,” Skyblaze muttered as she flew in. The robot began the slow process of standing again; Doc got a better grip, but the machine was stronger than he was.
From way ahead, they heard, “Obvious computer in the head!”
“Pen,” said Whiptail, “you go first.”
“Done.” She expected the computer to be shielded but hackable, but then she got up and saw the tiny display screen. She read what was on it. “Crap. SciSquid had somebody write a new OS. This isn’t anything I know.”[89]
She dropped back to the body. “Palimpsest, take Whiptail up there and give him back control.”
“But Charlie will get hurt!”
“He’ll get away,” Penultimate said, “and you’ll be there to take control if needed.” There was another jerk. “The robot is almost on its feet!”[90]
Whiptail paused and then headed up, leaving handprints in the armored walls where he crawled up. Penultimate called the plan up to Menagerie in the head.
Menagerie was relieved that there was a plan; he had turned to a gorilla to penetrate the armor but with no success. He changed back to a bat to make room for Whiptail; the head was that crowded.
Pal-as-Whiptail looked at him and said, “I can’t.”[91]
“You have to.”
“I can just punch the wall,” Whiptail said.
The robot jerked again. Muffled they heard, “Couldn’t stop it! Almost to the wall!”
“Do it!” Penultimate yelled.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Skyblaze said. She fired into the head[92] and hit Whiptail.
Whiptail roared and swung at Menagerie,[93] but missed. Whiptail’s tail hit the armored wall and cracked it.
“Oh, boy,” said Menagerie.
The Squidroid looked around. It had been damaged; the nearest hero was Doc Golem. The obvious solution was to punch Doc.[94] Its tentacle slammed into the floor near Doc, opening a hole to a blue-painted basement. Doc scrambled away from the edge and to the other foot. He punched the foot to no effect. If it breaks the floor, at least it’s stuck down there for a moment…
Whiptail attacked again.[95] His tail slammed into the computer again, as he missed Menagerie.[96]
Penultimate said, “Whiptail’s gone berserk. Pal can’t control him. Skyblaze, can you take him down?” She searched her gadget bag, saw that the cracks had broken the Faraday cage around the computer, but dammit, she was out of EMP grenades.
“I can try. Watch out, Menagerie! Fire in the hole!” She fired[97] and missed. “I’m trying not to hit him!”
Doc avoided the tentacle again so it slammed into the floor. There was a crumbling sound, and suddenly the robot dropped three storeys. Doc fell, too.
Inside the robot, Menagerie and Skyblaze got jerked up; Pen was steady because she was holding the ladder, and Whiptail because he had made handholds in the walls. Skyblaze cursed as she bumped against Whiptail. Menagerie tried to position himself, but the robot was teetering and even with echolocation he couldn’t tell where he was supposed to be; he dove what he hoped was down.[98]
Whiptail just missed hammering at him with his tail.[99] [100] The armor around the computer shattered and fell down in pieces.
Penultimate grabbed a hypodermic autoinjector from her gadget bag.[101] She maneuvered closer to Whiptail[102] and stabbed him with it in the neck, avoiding the rough thick suit that covered most of him. It appeared to have no effect.
Skyblaze said, “Get out of the way! I can’t blast him with you in the way!”
“I can’t move— you might not have noticed the robot’s moving like a drunk!”
Menagerie said, “Hey, Whipped Cream, you’re not even aiming in the right place,” and headed back into the body, squeezing past Penultimate and Skyblaze.
Whiptail pushed the two women out of the way in his attempt to get to Menagerie.[103] This tail strike missed too.[104] He wobbled and then fell unconscious; he dropped to the floor of the body space.
Doc got up from falling. Water started pouring into the room. Broken water main? Or a deathtrap SciSquid never got to use? He was too far from one of the feet to punch it, and that was the moment a living tentacle wrapped around his leg.
Ah. Unused deathtrap. He looked at the tentacle. Well, to work.
Penultimate had time to exhale as she scrambled up the ladder to the head space and the computer.
She had very little left to work with—not even a brassiere underwire. She had nothing left but brute force, but fortunately this wasn’t the armored part of the robot.[105] One kick removed the connectors from the computer and the robot froze.
Off-balance, the robot fell over. Water started to flow in, through the hole in its foot.
Doc looked at the squid tentacle and sighed. “Sorry,” he muttered, and physically tore the tentacle off his leg. The water suddenly darkened with squid ink, and then Doc wasn’t bothered by the squid any more. “I hope I didn’t hurt you too much.”
Once the water had stopped rushing in, he plodded over to the leg of the robot and called up the hole. “Need help?”
Menagerie shouted back, “Nah, being inside a falling robot is a day at the park, even more than the day in the park was.”
Starblaze appeared, carrying an unconscious Whiptail. “Pen’s coming. She’s fine.”
A blue bottle nose dolphin appeared and stood on its tail. “How come nobody asks if I’m okay?”
Skyblaze said, “As long as you’re talking, we know you’re fine.”
Penultimate appeared from inside the robot. “Derideo, ergo sum. That’s your style.”
“Gotta put that on a crest,” Menagerie said. “Give it to my mom.”
Villains
Gamma Ghost
Origin: Transformed
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 4 | 6 | 5 | 3 | 3 | 9 |
Specialties: Powers Master (+3) Science Expert (+2)
Powers:
- Amazing (8) Blast
-
Great (6) Blast
- Extra: Burst
- Limit: 1/day
-
Fantastic (9) Force Construct
- Limit: Cannot attack
Qualities:
- Leaks radiation
- Brilliant physicist
- Desire for revenge outweighs his smarts
- Can redirect (poorly) with Force Construct
Whiptail
Origin: Transformed
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 7 | 7 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 11 |
Specialties: —
Powers:
- Average (3) Wall-crawling
- Good (5) Damage Resistance
- Amazing (8) Extra Limb (Tail)
- Great (6) Blast (Plasma Projector)
Qualities:
- Hatred For (name of hero)
- Ot-nay Oo-tay Ight-Bray When Angry
- Hooked On Suit Upgrades
- Former Private Investigator (activate for Stealth and following)
Roach
Origin: Gimmick
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 9 |
Specialties: Technology Master (+3)
Powers:
- Good (5) Damage Resistance
-
Great (6) Ability Increase Prowess
- Extra: Coordination
- Limit: Only vs named foe, change only between battles
-
Amazing (8) Danger Sense
- Limit: only vs named foe
- Poor (2) Wall-crawling
- Good (5) Blast Limit: Performance (must bring hands together)
- Good (5) Flight
Qualities:
- Average Strength without armor
- Secret ID: Abner Jenkins
- Tactically sound
Fixit (Fixer)
Origin: Gimmick
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 3 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 7 |
Specialties: Weapons: Gadgets Master (+3)
Powers:
- Average (3) Damage Resistance
- Incredible (7) Flight
- Weak (1) Life Support (No breathing)
-
Incredible (7) Gadgets
- Extra: Instant
- Extra: Armory
- Web bombs: Incredible (7) Binding (x2)
- Laser pistol: Great Blast
-
Good Binding
- Extra: Good Affliction
- Limit: Temporary
-
Incredible Dazzle
- Limit: Temporary
-
Fantastic (9) damage resistance
- Limit: Energy only
Qualities:
- Brilliant inventor
- Jobber
- He might have altered anything mechanical to be a trap
SciSquid (Dr. Octopus)
Origin: Transformed
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 12 |
Specialties: Technology (Robotics) Expert (+2)
Powers:
-
Incredible (7) Extra Body Parts (Tentacles) Strength
- Extra: Elongation
- Average (3) Wall-crawling
- Poor (2) Leaping
Qualities:
- Robotics Genius
- Got a lifetime of misery to make up for
- Often soft spot for normals but none for heroes
Though he can leap, the actual special effect is usually a rapid scuttling along his tentacles.
Converted presses
The three presses are something of a plot device: they have “dozens” of tentacles and can attack any nearby hero once per page, and can attack multiple heroes on the same page. No off switch. Attack anyone without the protective disk.
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 2 | - | 10 |
Specialty: Wrestling (+1)
Powers:
- Good (5) Extra Body Parts
- Extra: Fast Attack
Giant Squid
Origin: Animal
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 7 |
Specialties: —
Powers:
- Poor (2) Aquatic
- Average (3) Fast Attack
- Average (3) Ink Cloud (automatic “Dark” quality with free activation to Increase Difficulty for vision)
- Tentacles 1 (Elongation)
Qualities:
- Large
- Squid
This animal doesn't exactly match a squid created from the rules in Icons Menagerie. It’s a combination of that writeup and a straight conversion of the adventure’s writeup.
Squidroid
Origin: Artificial
| P | C | S | I | A | W | Stamina |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 4 | 10 | 3 | 1 | - | 20 |
Specialties: —
Powers:
- Fantastic (9) Damage Resistance
- Size: +3
- Supreme (10) Life Support
- Disruptor Cannon: Amazing (8) Blast (2 shots per tentacle)
-
Tentacles: Supreme (10)
- Extra Body Parts (Tentacles) Fast Attack
- Limit: No fine control or stunts with tentacles; they grab or destroy
Qualities:
- Engine of destruction
- Just a machine
- Can’t be turned off
- Access hatches in its feet of only Great (6) material
- Double damage from attacks to the main computer
Each body part is an area (left leg, right leg, body, left arm, right arm, head) and the mechanisms are protected by Great (6) armor. The computer system and sensors are in the head; make up whatever else you need that makes sense (for instance, there might be electronic gyroscopes in the body that can be destroyed and keep it from getting up after being knocked down). For my purposes, I determined that it would take Strength 8 to lift, but it will of course be fighting back.
Game Mechanics
[1] Icons: Who notices? Say it’s difficulty 5 if you’re looking in that general direction. Penultimate does not notice (5-1<5), Menagerie barely notices (4+1=5), and Doc Golem totally sees it (4+4>5). Skyblaze spots something else.
[2] Icons: Let’s say it’s an Average Athletics roll to catch up with this guy. She manages to just make an average roll (Coordination 6+1-3) but that’s her panel.
[3] Icons: If he throws it at the youths, he’s going to hurt the old man or the cart, so he’s going to throw it in front of the cart so it can’t move, and hope the noise gets their attention; say difficulty 3. Coordination 5+2>3, so it works.
[4] Icons: The thug is Prowess 3+2 because she’s grabbing, she’s Prowess 6: 6+1>3+2; she gets it.
[5] Icons: 3+0<6+2
[6] Icons: Coordination 6-1>3; major success.
[7] Mythic: Does he find it? Mythic (Likely) 94% No.
[8] Icons: He manages 3+3<6+1. GM says, “Here’s a determination point; let him hit you with this one.” Skyblaze’s player says, “Okay, a moderate hit.” (That is, a +2 to his attack roll.) 12-6=6.
[9] Icons: 6-2>3; does he block? Yes: 6+1>6. (The gauntlets are Strength 6, sonic cannon 6…but don’t have much in the batteries.
[10] Icons: 5+0>3; strength 6
[11] Icons: She’d be defense 6+1 (acrobatics) but I’m going to lower it by 2 because of the sudden change. However, Roach rolls as badly as he can: 6-5<5.
[12] Icons: Does she remember? Difficulty 3. 5-1>3.
[13] Icons: She spends a Determination point to get the extra Instant (because we’ve already said she has explosives). Does she hit him? No: 6-4<6
[14] Icons: Let’s do Initiative: Men 12 Pen: 11 Doc Golem 11 Skyblaze 10 Whiptail 10 Roach 8 Gamma Ghost 5 Pal 5 Fixit 4
[15] Icons: Did Whiptail hit? Yes, so he’s down to 3 Stamina, but he turned into a hummingbird to fly away (+2 do defense)
[16] Icons: She fires: 6+4>7, major hit. For slam, 8+3>7, so Whiptail suffers.
[17] Icons: 6-2<6
[18] Icons: 6-3<6+1
[19] Icons: 4+3>5, moderate hit
[20] Icons: 7+3>4, so she hits. 7-1>4, so he’s controlled for the next phase.
[21] Icons: 4+2<6+1, so he misses.
[22] Icons: Well, we’ll use his Prowess (6-1>3); hits; damage is 7, but damage resistance helps Fixer (7-3=4)
[23] Icons: Going to activate Trained in Everything for +2, because she kinda needs to grab him. 6+2+1>6. Major success, so full hold.
[24] Icons: Like an interpose, Radioactive Man/Gamma Ghost aborts everything to put up his force field, which is Fantastic (9).
[25] Icons: 4-4 versus her 7…she’s got him. I’ll be doing the actions on her initiative.
[26] Icons: Willpower test to see if she lets go; she’s still over a hole, so she activates Trained In Everything again 5+2-2=5
[27] Icons: Did she notice the Performance bit? Difficulty 4, Awareness 5: 5+2>4
[28] Icons: Not so lucky: 6-3<5, but it only reduces her hold to partial, if I remember rightly
[29] Icons: Not gonna roll for that; it’s in the fiction. But does he hit? Coordination 5+0>
[30] Icons: Coordination, 5-1=4; I’m going to let her try an Athletics roll to make it easier, call it Difficulty 4 because that’s the damage…6+1-3=4, so Stamina 4. I’ll make 4 the damage of landing because it was marginal.
[31] Icons: Given that? She’s going to tag “Sensitive about being second best” and recover: +5 Stamina.
[32] Icons: 6-2 does hit Coordination 3, but unknown to her, his suit soaks it up.
[33] Icons: Prowess 4+3>3; hits with slashing 4. No bleeding out (1-3<3) Say the energy armor is Unreliable now.
[34] Icons: Int roll + Technology to fix it: 5+1=6, so she gets it…barely. Next turn she’ll have a Nullify (EMP) grenade that will immobilize much of his armor.
[35] Icons: Skyblaze hits (6+2>3) but the armor fails (a 1). Fixit (Fixer) takes 5 Stamina and is out.
[36] Icons: Whiptail is going to stunt Affliction for the plasma cannon. That means Doc Golem gets an additional determination point. And 8+2>8 for the affliction roll, so Doc Golem loses 8 stamina.
[37] Icons: Well, it disables the plasma cannon, but since Whiptail has used the two shots it has…effectively nothing.
[38] Icons: In the original game system, at this point, they get health back (which I’ll do: a free recovery) and to simulate the ongoing Karma, everybody gets back a Determination Point (if missing any) and if they meet their other obligations, they get one more.
[39] Icons: Did she notice the ink? 5+1>3; yes, she did.
[40] Icons: Let’s spend a DP for a retcon. Activating “Trained in Everything”
[41] Icons: She gets a determination point back for being honest.
[42] Icons: “But I do have a heck of a gadgeteering roll.” 5+1+1>6
[43] Icons: This is Trouble, so she gets a Determination Point, and it will cost a Determination Point to use the satellites ever again. Doc goes to his appointment, so he gets a DP. Everyone who confessed gets a DP.
[44] Icons: A story wouldn’t say it, but here we do: Palimpsest settles into Squid, and spends a Determination Point for +2 on the control, activating “Ghost”.
[45] Icons: Let’s say the breaking skylight makes the press a difficulty 1 target; Skyblaze is still Coordination 6. She can’t miss. (6-2>1). We’ll call it a rushing attack, so it does 9 Stamina to that press.
[46] Icons: The bat is tiny (let’s say -3 to attack) and Whiptail rolled a -2: 7-2<4+3
[47] Icons: For Doc, it succeeds because he’s lying still: 4+1-5=0; misses Men 4+1-5<2+2
[48] Icons: 6+5>7. Whiptail has 5 damage resistance, so only 3 gets through. 8-4<7 No slam, though.
[49] Icons: He’s trying to create “Blind rage” by activating Whiptail’s Hatred, which he knows about from prior encounters. He’s using Intellect, and the difficulty is Whiptail’s Willpower; he’s going to activate his Quality “Showboat” for +2 on the roll: 4+0+2>4; he has one activation, which he uses.
[50] Icons: Strength test. 8+3>5, and I’ll say he breaks the press.
[51] Icons: Say Prowess 6-2-1<4+3
[52] Icons: Which misses both Menagerie and Whiptail: 4-1<7-2, 4-1<4+3.
[53] Icons: 4-1+3=6, but I’m going to upgrade it to a moderate attack and give Doc a DP.
[54] Icons: She really wants to hit, so “Trained in everything” is activated. 6+1+2-2>4. It works.
[55] Icons: 4+5>7, but he gives up his next panel to try and land. The Nullify lasts 6 pages.
[56] Icons: 6-4=4-2 (the Trouble of no power) but the armor absorbs it.
[57] Icons: Whiptail makes a Willpower roll. He was just berserk, so he’s got -2 on the roll. 4+3-2>4 He manages to remember what he’s supposed to do.
[58] Icons: Coordination 6+3>4; and he does 8 damage, 5 of which are soaked by the armor.
[59] Icons: 4+1-1<5; miss.
[60] Icons: Tries to get free: 5+0<7, fails
[61] Icons: What a terrible roll: 4+3-5<6. Presumably the blast hits something else; 1-2: press; 3-4: robot; 5-6: gantry. 1: Press.
[62] Icons: 6-1-1>3; she does 5 stamina.
[63] Icons: Rhino prowess is 3, 3+2>0. Strength 7
[64] Icons: 6+1>3; no slam (7-4<7) 7-1 Stamina:
[65] Icons: Rather than a strength test, this is a Prowess test to create the Quality “Off-Balance” She gets 6+1 versus its 6-3 (for growth), so a major success. There are two activations, and she leaves one to be used by Doc Golem. I read through the adventure while running these, so I didn’t know about the hatch when I decided this.
[66] Icons: 3-2<6
[67] Icons: Does she hit? 7-4<4…nope.
[68] Icons: Using one of the activations of “Off-Balance”
[69] Icons: Doing 8 Stamina damage, because I’ve determined that’s how much strength it takes to lift when it’s inert. Once it’s fully activated, it will have its full balance and will be harder to knock over.
[70] Icons: Menagerie’s player suddenly says, “Did I say I had recovered? I recovered,” and pushes a DP at the GM while activating “Public ID.” Menagerie has 10 Stamina now.
[71] Icons: 6-2>3: moderate success, so 7 Stamina damage
[72] Icons: Well, does she? It’s Prowess: 6+2>6: yes
[73] Icons: And he recovers again, bringing him up to 9 stamina.
[74] Icons: I was prepared to offer a determination point, but she rolled badly: 7-5<4+2
[75] Icons: But although Doc is strength 8, the robot is strength 10, so he’s not going to succeed for long.
[76] Icons: 6-2<6, so Menagerie manages to block.
[77] Icons: And succeed: 6+3>6+1
[78] Icons: Int test for gadgets: 5+3>6.
[79] Icons: 6+3>5. Major means a slam check: 8+1>7
[80] Icons: As a gorilla, his Prowess is 3-2<6. sigh
[81] Icons: 7+3>4 Yay! She’s got control until the end of the chapter
[82] Icons: 6+2>6
[83] Icons: 6+2>1
[84] Icons: We’re out of strict initiative now. Strength test, robot vs Doc: 10-1>8
[85] Icons: Did Pen see it? 5-1<5 Nope. Doc? 4+2>5 Yup. Skyblaze? 3+3>5. Yup.
[86] Icons: We’re going to use the same initiative order.
[87] Icons: He’s using the second activation of “Off-balance” so he doesn’t have to roll.
[88] Icons: Let’s say Difficulty 4 to hit; she gets 6+1>4, a major success. I’ll rule that destroys the hatch enough that anyone can pull it off.
[89] Icons: The GM slides a Determination Point over to Penultimate’s player.
[90] Icons: She doesn’t want to do this, so Willpower test against herself: 7+2>7, so she goes up.
[91] Icons: Okay, as GM I pushed a DP to each of them and said, “Menagerie, find some way to make her release Whiptail.”
[92] Icons: Whiptail is difficulty 0 to hit, which is good: 6-5>0. The 3 stamina means that Palimpsest has to make a Concentration roll to keep the possession, which she fails: 7-3<7
[93] Icons: Aborted to dodge by becoming a bat again. His defense is thus 4+3+2, which is better than Whiptail’s 6+1…but it’s close.
[94] Icons: Prowess 6-3<Doc’s 6.
[95] Icons: Okay, tougher: 6+2<4+3+2+1. The robot takes 2 more.
[96] Icons: Menagerie decided to recover again. Just in case.
[97] Icons: 6+0<7
[98] Icons: Is it down? 74% It is not.
[99] Icons: 6+1 to hit vs 4+3+1, because I figured the dodginess went away.
[100] Icons: Penultimate’s player pushes a DP at the GM and says, “The armor protecting the computer falls away. I’ll take Trouble for it.” The trouble is a -2 on her next roll.
[101] Icons: She stunts Instant on Gadgets, activating the “Trained in everything” quality.She gets 5+1 (her Medicine)+3-2, for a success and has a level 6 Affliction.
[102] Icons: In this case, I’m going to let Acrobatics add to her Prowess roll. 6+1+1>6. Affliction is 6+1=7, so 3 Stamina damage.
[103] Icons: 6-1<4+3+2+1
[104] Icons: The Affliction roll is 6+3>7…and Whiptail takes enough in the way of Affliction and falls down.
[105] Icons: Fortunately, the computer is only difficulty 3 to hit. 6-2>3; 5 stamina doubled.
