by Louis IX
Check first chapter for disclaimer and global warnings.
PlayersChapter's pitch: How we deal with grief can impact everyone around us. Getting closer to others can breach the walls of isolation that denial tends to build. And if you find temporary escape from a situation by playing a game with friends, in which you act as someone else… all the better.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Impossible LossI just spent two hours staring at this blank page.
It was empty. Much like my life is, now.
Annette is dead. She was everything to me.
And, like that, some cosmic entity pulled the plug and emptied life of everything it had. Every waking moment is bleak. Every decision I take is meaningless. Everything I eat tastes like ashes.
Annette was my light, my colours, my music, and my humanity. With her gone, I'm a ghost of myself. Even sleep has lost its meaning: it's not rest anymore, rather an unending string of nightmares.
The accident had been horrible, and I can't stop thinking about it. The sound of tearing metals. And plastics. And… flesh.
The bastards in the police department had a grudge against a Dockworkers Union rally for civil rights, and they didn't warn me when they pulled the sheet, when I went to identify her. I threw up. On her. On me. I was blinded by sorrow. I passed out. They realized that they might have done a grievous error, but I was way past caring.
Hence the nightmares. With what remained of my wife accusing me, even. See, I knew the noises of the accident very well: I had been on the phone with her. Of course I felt guilty. Since then, I have crushed my phone under the heaviest maul I had in my basement, until it was nothing but powder. And my colleagues have learned not to have their private calls in my office.
The only ray of sunlight, in my dreary life, is our daughter Taylor. If everything, she has taken it even worse than I had. She, too, has acquired an avoidance of cell phones, and it wasn't helping her social life at all.
Thankfully, she had her friend Emma.
Alan Barnes and I were friends, from way back in college. I covered for him numerous times, and he did for me too. He was there when I met Annette the first time, she and Lustrum vociferous in their opposition to some morals of the times, while we tried to get to our Law course. As such, despite having followed different paths in life, we were still good acquaintances.
And the girls had been friends all their life. Taylor was a tall girl, and had protected Emma when she was bullied. Now that my daughter was down, Emma took it upon herself to help her.
Alan has seen my state (and Zoe Taylor's) and invited us to his home after the funeral. It was big enough to host us with no difficulty. And, in fact, we don't return home for quite a while. We are still there.
There is a brief talk to send Taylor to summer camp, for her to get some fresh air and some physical activities with other girls… and for me to get through a bender with Alan so that I could advance on my restrained anger at the world. Grief process was tedious like that, and that step couldn't be done alone, couldn't be done in public either, and could especially not be done with my grieving daughter.
"I don't want to go." Taylor almost wails, holding on Emma for dear life, and the adults in the room understand that the redhead is her anchor, for the time being. Emma concurs, of course.
I'm off with Alan, then, leaving the girls with Zoe.
The man drives me home and stays with me. We drink, of course. And, of course, as soon as I'm inebriated, the moral restraints lift a little and I'm able to yell at the injustice of this world. To smash things. I seldom do this, you know, because I realized quite early that I was channelling my brute of a father, when doing so. But Alan was no slouch himself, despite the beginning of a paunch. We exchange heated words, but he knows it's grief and alcohol speaking, and me trying to get out of my depression. We exchange a few blows, too, but I'm too uncoordinated to do any kind of real damage. To him, or to the punching ball in my basement – and let me tell you that going down that set of stairs is quite an adventure, when drunk. I end up sleeping there, the stairwell too difficult to navigate back up.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Second ShoeThe next day, we are called by the police. But not because of what we did. Our girls had been attacked.
And their time together had started quite well, too: while Alan was helping me deal with my grief in a manly fashion, Taylor was surrounded with almost-family females who did the same to support her. It included the usual strappings of women everywhere (according to Hollywood anyways): ice cream, romantic movies, a night of trying makeup and trading stories, and hours of crying and hugging.
However, Emma had a modelling gig the next day – and others later, which had been the reason she wouldn't have been able to join Taylor should she have gone to that summer camp.
Alan had money, and Emma's activities showed it: violin and piano, martial arts, and modelling. According to Zoe, who had done that herself, it would work wonders for her self-esteem. Thankfully for the redhead, it had, and that was only because she was well-perceived by the professionals and the other models – in that world, you could be skewered in minutes, your self-esteem retreating until you ended up an empty shell, too.
Emma tried to beg it off, on account of not having had her beauty sleep, but Zoe was adamant that the two of them go anyway, and drove the car herself. Thankfully, the gig was geared towards the emo/goth community, and their tired appearance and sad expressions worked wonders.
It was eye-opening, for Taylor: herself quite tall and thin, she was exactly what modelling agencies searched. Still, with Zoe and Emma, she felt informed and confident enough not to accept anything before having a proper contract.
They were ambushed on their way back, their expensive-looking car blocked by dumpsters and themselves pulled out by Asian-looking gangsters from the ABB.
Knowing about the gang's practice of enslaving teens in their brothels, Zoe feared not for her life but for the girls', and she became quite violent. And that's where Emma got a confirmation that her mother had, like her, taken courses in martial arts: she weaved around the thug holding her hostage and dropped him on the ground.
Inspired, she concentrated on what she had learned herself and succeeded in disarming her own assailant. Taylor hadn't participated in elaborate courses, but her father had, years ago, told her of two important things: how to deliver a punch, and how to kick someone in the groin. And she did both.
Thankfully, for them, the remaining thugs were prevented from using their own martial arts or their weapons, because of crossbow bolts striking them from the side. Shadow Stalker, a known vigilante, had come to save the day.
Taylor would later confide in Emma, who repeated it to her parents, that she had noticed the masked cape on a rooftop nearby, while they were in the car. Apparently, she had waited to see what would happen, only intervening after they had already proven themselves able to defend themselves. Not really hero material.
That limits Alan's benevolence in reaction to learning that the vigilante had saved the three of them. He offers a bit of money as well as his phone number in case she needs a lawyer, but that's all. He especially doesn't allow the girl to ingratiate herself into his household and try to pull Emma away, denigrating Taylor as a mere hanger-on. He doesn't allow her to manipulate the girls so that they would split and so that Emma would follow her into her high-school of choice: Winslow.
He had the money for Arcadia, so why would he send his daughter to that hell-hole? Sure, she would be better than everybody. But being the top of a pile of crap wasn't any better than being average (and striving for more) in a regular high-school. Besides, she was still friend with Taylor, and her friend had no conceited bone in her body: she would help as much as she could.
I know I don't have the proper money to send Taylor to Immaculata or Arcadia. But with her grades, Taylor won a scholarship large enough to provide more than just entrance to the school: with proper clothing, she wouldn't be picked upon as the "local beggar" or something.
The school starts well enough, and Taylor and Emma quickly join the ongoing quest to discover who among the students are Wards – it was known that the Protectorate Wards, the junior heroic capes, went to Arcadia.
Speaking of Wards, it was around September that Alan received the phone call he had dreaded – because, when offering his card, he was sure it would be used sooner rather than later: Sophia was violent and would be caught one day or another.
Still, he had promised his help, and went to the police station. He arrived right as the PRT was leaving with the vigilante, and was invited to follow them – the PRT was the cape police, and if he had to offer witness statements, he could do it there.
In the end, he helped her join the Wards, but didn't go as far as vouch for her character. As a result, Sophia was under quite a bit of restrictions, including a rebranding in PR-happy colours, which horrified her. She chafed so much that she went full villain as soon as she could. Thankfully, she doesn't consider the Barnes as her personal enemies or something. Still, Alan gets electrical wiring around all his walls – the girl had been tested and prodded, and, as a concerned party, he had been informed of her weaknesses as soon as she escaped.
As for myself…
With Zoe's help, this time, I returned home and we did some remodelling: a couple layers of paint, and new furniture, mostly. Keeping the house in exactly the same state it had been when Annette was alive made my heart ache each time I entered a room. Taylor, too – because I discussed it with her, of course. It was still our house, and we still had memories of her mother, but the pain was slowly losing its edge, and we could laugh again when watching humorous videos of ourselves, with her.
In addition, changing furniture made me dig through everything we had in the old ones, before they could be thrown away – or given to other people in need of them, because they were still useable. And I found various things that I had thought forgotten: Annette's outfit from when she had been a cape hanger-on; a box of old photographs; and my old Dungeons & Dragons books.
"What's this, dad?" Taylor asked. And that was the start of the next phase in our life.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Random EncounterIt's now two years later.
Taylor and I have come to terms with our loss, and I'm dating again. Or, as I should say: Taylor pushed me to date again, and I wonder if it was to use it as an excuse for her to introduce me to her boyfriend Marcus… whom I knew already.
In fact, I knew him and I knew Emma's boyfriend Tom, because they were the two boys who stayed the longest when we did our roleplaying gigs: twice a month, Emma would come to our home, and I would make the girls roll some dice. Once school started, Taylor's bag of dice was a dead giveaway of her new activity, and several teens were invited to participate.
None lasted as long as those two. And even the teens' in-game actions were coloured by their feelings, as they would blush while telling the flirting actions and kisses their characters would do. Thankfully for my peace of mind, I wasn't one of those Game Masters who required Live Action all the time.
Well… except for Taylor's birthday (which was a month away): as a surprise, I had booked a weekend for one of those gigs, where people dressed and acted like in the Middle Ages. With some fake fighting thrown in, too.
I know now that we weren't fated to go there.
Two weeks before, we were playing our usual table-top game: a recent variant of the ages-old Dungeons & Dragons.
Taylor was thin in real life, and still a bit timid. She had chosen to play the opposite: a brawny barbarian – a male one, at that. Torg was his name. In MMO terms, he was the Tank, able to both withstand and deal damage, especially when charging, Enlarged, with his oversized sword. In cape terms, he was a Brute and Striker. Along the adventures we had played, he had acquired an obsidian figurine that could transform into a horse.
Marcus was Serena the Healer: a sword-and-board paladin in armour with a couple special twists: first, Serena was a girl – and, of course, Serena and Torg were often "playing" their own subquest together. I allowed it as long as it wasn't graphic. The other twist was Serena's Ki Pool: with the right game supplements, she could use Ki points to power her Lay on Hands ability, and thus fuel her Channel Energy ability. Whichever way she did it, it healed everyone around her (unless she used specific feats to prevent that) – a Shaker effect. With other feats, she could also use Channel to replenish her Ki. That made her an unending font of healing.
Quite taken by movies from Earth Aleph, Emma had chosen the Amazon look for "Emma the Amazing Amazon" (she didn't like having to answer to another forename but her own)… and the weapon of choice for the warrior women the myths described (the bow), not the sword-and-board the movies depicted Wonder Woman as proficient in. Between Rogue talents and a few magic items, "Emma" was able to rain death on enemies at range – a true Damage-focused Blaster, although she still had enough skills to be the party "Face". As a point of fact, she could damage people with her wit as much as her arrows.
Tom, finally, was Tim (heh), the Mage, the Support, and the Controller. A build of Artificer levels, reworked from other specific supplements, meant the ability to craft spell-throwing items, emulating spell-casting classes and also providing magic items to his friends… without casting any spell. Despite this, Tim could charm enemies, throw walls of flame, summon illusory or real creatures… and cast any spell. He "just" needed to spend quite a bit of time (and money) to craft the appropriate item beforehand. He was the Tinker of the group. And Thinker, too, his Intelligence-based build granting him bonuses to all the knowledge skills. And, with his "spells", he could actually be any one of the cape categories, for a time.
And I was the Game Master, piloting the plot as well as the other creatures while they tried to follow the former and interact with the latter. We were in the middle of doing exactly that when the sirens howled, making us jump in fright.
The Endbringer sirens.
Every town in America, and the world over, had some sort of warning system, as well as designated procedures for evacuation and shelter, to deal with the massive machines of destruction. And the sirens had two tones: one to warn the capes that the Truce was in effect, to get their act together, and to come to the Protectorate for transportation.
The other tone was when the city itself was the target of an attack. And that was the one we heard.
We thought we had enough time to leave the house in a hurry and head into the nearest shelter.
We were wrong: Leviathan had already sent a wave that destroyed almost everything on its passage. The five of us were picked like ragdolls and thrown into another building – it was the Library, an old building made of heavy stone reinforced with metal pillars from when they remodelled the interior. It stayed in place, but lost all doors and windows. And, of course, the water did dreadful things to the content (both paper and electronics).
I don't remember much, about all this. I have dreams, or nightmares, really, reminiscing about two cosmic entities heading towards Earth. But, at that moment, it was mostly terror. Both for myself and for the teens I was in charge of. And, of course, they were terrorized too: we all thought we were going to die.
We triggered.
That's what it's called, I know… from further discussions with the teens as well as others afterwards: our mind snapped, and got help from alien power shards. And we got super-powers – some scientists had pushed a theory that Endbringer fights created as many capes as they killed, although nobody was crazy enough to design a testing method to prove (or disprove) it.
At first, we didn't realize: sodden, cold, and miserable, we were just trying not to drown. And that's when I said something that changed everything.
"Okay, kids… what do you do?"
And the world froze. We couldn't move either, but we could think. And talk. With our mind. I was assaulted with pleas for help from the four of them at the same time, and reacted almost by instinct. Muscle memory, or something.
"In order of initiative, please."
That brought some order… and also the realization that, having triggered as a group, we might have powers in relation with what we had been doing as a group during the trigger event and before. I even heard the shuffling of papers from Tom. It made me think about the game and, suddenly, I was aware of various books I could access about the rules of the universe. And sheets of notes appeared at the edge of my consciousness, ready to be pulled for some note-taking or reading. Even while the "real me" was underwater.
"I search for a weak point in the building." Tom said, his voice trembling a little. At the same time, he was displaying his ability to think under pressure, the kind of thing that made him into a magic-user. "To point at Taylor so she can charge at, so that we can escape through the hole she'll make."
I made the mental gesture, and a die rolled in front of me. "You find one."
And, like that, a light lit on what we thought was a blank stone wall stonewalling us. It outlined a doorway leading outside – the door opening inside, but was kept shut by the pressure.
"Marcus? Your turn." I said. I had wanted for Taylor to act now, but Initiative was something that was almost sacred.
"I Channel Energy to heal everyone and remove fatigue." the boy's mental voice said, while his other voice spoke strange words… in a tone much higher. A different set of dice rolled in front of him, and the four of them sighed in some relief. Me as well, because, apparently, my impressions of being a good Game Master came from my players enjoying their game, and any healing was like a nudge in that direction. After doing that, though, Marcus started to drop into the water, and I could see that his clothing had already changed into something more… metallic.
"Thank you, Marcus. We'll deal with that on your next round. Taylor?" I asked. "You can do what Tom suggested, but you'll need a couple successes in Swim."
She shrugged. Well, she couldn't move, but I got the impression that she did so. "I have enough ranks. I charge at the door."
Another die appeared in front of her, rolled a few times, and time started to flow a bit around her – and I noticed that she was growing rapidly, allowing her to actually reach and strike the door after swimming like a champion. Able to strike several times in the same charge allowed her a second blow… that didn't destroy it outright, but it still splintered a couple of planks, damaging it enough for the water pressure to do the rest. Pushed by the current, we ended up on the hill behind the Library, still sodden, but at least able to move normally.
Except…
"What the hell was that?" Emma asked. And it wasn't with the "inside voice" we had experienced before. And it wasn't the Emma we had seen before either: it was Emma the Amazing Amazon – although, as GM and players, we also saw our real selves if we squinted real hard.
"Ems! Language!" Taylor said, standing up, and then up some more, dwarfing her friend with a body that was too large, too muscled, and too male to be my daughter.
"Not now, kids." I said, standing up and looking at the Library… and at the massive monster behind it – it was quite far, in fact, but it was large enough that we could see it. "Let's… I mean… you can stay, or move away from the rampaging monster."
"Can't we… do something?" Emma asked, mimicking pulling a bowstring. And, surprise (or not), her bow appeared in her arms, with an arrow nocked.
"If you roll Initiative, you'll be committing to this fight." I warned her.
"Emma! Let's start with smaller targets, please." Tim the Artificer said, with the two others nodding – a sodden Serena trying to remove water from inside her armour, while Torg was trying to shield her from the others' gaze.
"Let's see if everything we know about the game can be used in… this." I said. "You wouldn't want to be caught with your pants down if we don't have access to real healing."
"…or resurrection." Serena said, her face grim. "We don't even know what will happen if our character dies."
Taylor and I exchanged a glance. Not Torg, because, while I could see what they saw, I wasn't in that world. I was heading the table where we played the game. Was I even alive anymore? And that mention of resurrection? Could we get Annette back?
Well… we could try, but I had my doubts. It would be a game-changer already, for us Player Characters, and I didn't think it would work on anyone, especially after such a long time. But should it work, Endbringer fights would become much less lethal – provided the ones asking for that service could fork the diamond dust that was necessary to craft the needed item.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Painful RealizationThe building we had just escaped from started creaking and groaning. Without looking around, I knew what was going on, and told them. "Leviathan sent another wave. The Library is collapsing. What do you do?"
"To the hills! Rod of Speed, command word: Haste!" Tim said, and we didn't recognize the last word spoken. Only the fact that we had a mental chat at the same time allowed us to understand what kind of spell had been cast. And they acted upon it.
Tim having used his action, it was up to a stronger character (such as Taylor's) to carry him further than the single move he could do after casting. The four of them became almost a blur of movement as they ran away from the crumbling masonry. A few rounds later, they were at the top of the hills overlooking the city, and quite safe.
And I hadn't run a single step, but I was still with them. Benefits of being the Game Master, perhaps. In fact, as they were running, together but one after the other, as was usually the case in turn-based games, I wondered about how our powers meshed with the real world. Was I really able to use the infamous "Rule Zero" to change things on a massive scale? Make the worst villains line up and dance the can-can? Have the Endbringers explode in confettis?
Thinking that, I felt my power hit something like a wall. I was powerful, alright, but there were limits. And I had to stay consistent in my rulings, as well as realistic – as much as that term might mean when you have either super-powers or magic spells. Or both, like what we had now. Apparently, I could decide to have the experience very realistic, or completely imaginary, with hit points giving an abstract view of the character's health. And bullets would be stopped by armour, without tracking the damage upon the armour.
As a point of fact, my power granted me the ability to pick and choose not only the options in the game, but also the rulebooks that went with it. Deciding which supplement was available, I could allow or disallow things based on how they meshed with my adventures and the campaign world, now moved to the real world.
This made me aware of something that I had to check quickly. Thankfully, I was "out of sync" with the real world, and could take notes about things I remembered from my books – mostly lost, by now; although I had a digital copy archived somewhere. Most notably those I never used, because they weren't coherent with the medieval time period: books about industrial, modern, and futuristic equipment. Thankfully, the base rules were the same, the weapons and armour only having some unusual properties on top of regular damage or protection.
In a normal game, we had a table upon which we could lay the character sheets and the other books necessary for play. And throw dice. Thanks to our shared powers, that table became virtual, and the various papers could be held up for easy reading… and modification. That allowed me to summon my players' character sheets, and I started preparing them for what was coming.
First, given Torg's role as a tank and the massive discrepancy in technology levels, I replaced his onyx horse with a magic item that gave him ability to ignore ranged attacks for a few minutes per day.
Serena had a good armour and could withstand a few bullets, whereas Emma could sidestep bullets thanks to her dexterity and equipment, so they didn't need a similar change.
Tom, finally, had already started compiling a list of things he wanted to craft while I was reflecting about the rules of the universe: bracers of armour that would stop the bullets (yes, he had seen Wonder Woman with Emma); inertial inverters, like in the Dune universe; shields that would grant their holders the feats to deflect and reflect both projectiles and rays (and thus lasers).
"So… what do you do now?" I asked. "You can either establish a strategy before going on the offensive; attack first and think later-"
"Yay!" Taylor-the-player said with a gruff voice, making the others smile.
"What are you smiling about?" someone asked, and we looked to the side, where a winding path came from the city below. It was a man, old but still strong (but winded), and he wasn't smiling at all. "The fight is down there if you decide to help."
"Excuse us for not having power before today." Emma retorted, and would have continued had I (and Taylor) not stopped her. At the end of the day, each and every person in Brockton Bay would have lost something or someone. There was no need for needless antagonism.
"I have an item casting Overland Flight." Tom said, out of the blue, his eyes scanning the sky over the battle.
"Good idea!" Taylor said "We could go over the thing and throw things."
"Things, Taylor?" I asked with a smirk. "I thought you were more articulate than that."
"We could, but not everyone has a projectile weapon with infinite ammo." Serena said, looking at Emma… and then at Torg. "Or a magic quiver with an infinity of javelins. With Strength to damage."
Taylor pouted while answering, as Torg. "It's close range only. Given the size of that thing- of Leviathan, I'm sure I'd be in reach of his tail."
"You can also go with the healers, or do some Search and Rescue, or split up." I said. "Or you can head somewhere safe where we can continue figuring things out."
"Things, dad?" Taylor-the-player commented with a smirk.
"I don't think we could just… ignore this fight." Tom said – for those trying to eavesdrop on us, I realized that it would be difficult to get everything, since part of the dialogue was OOC. "It's our town too." A pause. "I want to head over there and pelt him with magic, but I don't know what. The walls of fire, perhaps? To corral him back into the Bay?"
"I'm going with you." Emma said. "Perhaps my arrows will do some damage."
"Until I can find a weakness I can exploit, I'm outclassed." Torg said. "I'm going for Search and Replace… I mean Rescue!"
We smiled, and Serena nodded with Marcus, speaking to Taylor. "I'm going with you."
Between the two players, I noticed the joined hands, and the fact that they blushed when they saw my raised eyebrow… but stayed linked. I nodded, once, and they beamed. But when they made to get closer, I raised the eyebrow of doom a bit higher, and they blushed again and nodded. It's impressive what can be exchanged through a few gestures.
"Would our Message ring work?" Tom asked me. He had crafted one of those per character, so that they could keep in touch – trust a teenager with access to today's technology (his phone) to try to replicate it as soon as he misses it. At least it was to stay in touch, and not to play dumb games on smartphones.
My mind explored the universe (I have no other metaphor), and I nodded.
"Let's go, then." he replied, before using one of his numerous trinkets to cast one of his numerous quasi-spells. And we got to fly through the air, making the old man grumble about capes again. But, at least, there was some respect, now.
Things are strange, when I'm following the two groups. For obvious reasons, I can't manage them sequentially. I'm thus split in two thought processes, both of them knowing what happens in the other, but only processing what happens around the players I follow.
Tim got high in the air and tried to throw fireballs and firewalls to do as he said and push Leviathan back towards the sea. That didn't work very well, the beast apparently having some Improved Evasion or something similar. And he couldn't spam the area in walls, because the capes still needed to move, and not be cooked. Besides, he was quite high above the monster, reflecting that, at least, he wouldn't be seen – Leviathan's head didn't have the range of movement allowing him so see skywards. Still, the beast was able to infer the position of an attacker from the vector of his attack, and it jumped a few times to get at them (him and the arrow-slinging amazon), scaring my players with the water after-effect shooting towards them like a fired cannonball. Thankfully, gravity was in play, and the were only slightly (more) drenched.
At the same time, Torg and Serena ran down the streets, the paladin Channelling Energy every twenty steps or so, in case someone was hidden and wounded. They inadvertently caused some surprise among the capes when Dragon's bracers told them of their friends getting up while not in the Healers' domain. Two teleporters arrived while Torg was trying to balance three wounded people between his shoulder and his arms – Channelling energy didn't grant new limbs.
They were brought to the Healer's tent, and caused quite the stir, because Serena started spamming her Channel non-stop, expending her Ki to heal and remove fatigue… and recover the lost Ki. Even the healers were healed, including Panacea, who (miracle!) lost the dark bags under her eyes – those had been there for weeks. Now in better shape, Panacea could concentrate on giving missing limbs back, instead of healing mere hit points.
Serena and Torg were given Dragon bracers and returned to the Search and Rescue teams – she had finished healing everyone (with how cramped the triage area was, the area of effect was particularly effective) and could also heal people stuck under debris, since she did it at range. That was the only reason for which the healers accepted that she leave for the battlefield, wary as they were of losing the goose who laid the golden eggs. Or something like that.
With the bracers, it was easier to coordinate their mission, especially as Dragon had perceived their specialties and they were directed to places where capes had been detected as "Down" under fallen debris.
After enough damage had been dealt by the water elemental (er… the Endbringer, that is), Scion itself appeared and his powerful beams of energy pushed it back. And then the golden man continued on his path, unperturbed.
That day, the city defenders lost many capes, heroes and villains alike. But less than usual, thanks partly to my players. And we became capes ourselves, too.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Chaotic AftermathThat evening, we visited the place where I feared my house had been destroyed. It was worse than that: there was absolutely no sign that there had been a house there, or around the whole block. The first wave had collapsed everything, and the following ones had spread and scattered our meagre belongings in an area so large that I couldn't even start to fathom it. Still, we were alive, Taylor and I, and we held to that.
Emma was, too, and we returned to Alan's home… only to notice that some people had beaten us there: a few windows were broken, and the obvious signs of wealth had been ripped away. The food, too – I suspected that a sandwich would soon cost more than a Picasso, around here.
It was easy to explain: the whole city had taken quite a hit, and the roads were in such disrepair that it was dangerous to even walk. As such, the people who had been stashed in the shelters, if they could get out, wouldn't be able to go home. Especially at night.
There were people who wanted to loot, more than they wanted to live, apparently, because many low-lives climbed the debris of ruined homes, in order to find things to steal – some of them fell to their death, and several families of theirs (pushed by unscrupulous lawyers) would try to sue the city for criminal negligence.
To get the most out of what they felt was Christmas night, the looters logically selected the more lofty houses, left unguarded as long as their owners couldn't come back.
We even found one of them snoring in Alan and Zoe's bed. He was promptly thrown out. That brought us some attention from a flying hero, and he flashed a beam of light towards the house.
"Who's there?" the voice asked.
"Who's there yourself?" Tom asked.
"This is Aegis, Ward of the Protectorate. Looting is not permitted."
"You are too late, Aegis, Ward of the Protectorate. Looters already came… and left."
"I am Emma Barnes." Emma said, hiding her face with a towel. "This is my house."
"Why the towel? Show your face!" Aegis asked, suspicious.
"Shut up!" shouted Torg. "Let her speak before jumping to conclusions!"
"A mere looter wouldn't know that, first. Also, I triggered during the attack. As I revealed my civilian identity to you, I'm now hiding my cape one."
There was silence in the sky before the light turned off and Aegis landed near us. He was quite the sight. The fight with the Endbringer had been horrible, and he had lost an arm and a leg, crushed at the knee and elbow when a whole apartment complex tilted on him. Still, he was stable despite his low health, and was sent to patrol Captain's Hill to check for exactly what he had accused them to be: looters.
"We can help." Serena said. "Starting by… Channel Energy!"
"Oh! Wow!" Aegis whispered in awe. He wasn't "reshaped", yet, but he suddenly felt much healthier than before.
"What do you do with the looters?" Tim asked.
Aegis was suddenly looking lost, all his automatic answers invalidated by the current situation. "Just showing up makes them flee, in most cases." he admitted. "I wasn't told what to do besides that."
"We can do that with you." our own Tinker continued. "Two groups, making opposing inwards spirals around the perimeter."
"I'll stay here." Emma said. "I don't want my parents to come back to an empty home. They already stole many things… including the television! Who steals a TV after an Endbringer attack? I mean… there is no current to actually use it!"
Tim approached and patted her back, while still addressing the junior hero. "She will stay to protect what remains of her family's possessions, and check on the neighbours for stragglers, too."
"Together?" Aegis asked. "But… I can't walk."
"Who spoke about walking?" Tim asked as he lifted to the other boy's altitude, quickly followed by the two others. "Lead the way, hero. My two companions will go the other way."
Aegis nodded. And while nothing much happened after that (advance, meet looters, scare them away, rinse, repeat), me and my players held our own discussions about what would happen next.
Emma had already started testing our connexion to the game, and succeeded in switching her character for another she had with her – when I set a game, I expect my players to come with everything they needed (apart from rulebooks, which I provided). Including secondary characters they could need, should their main one succumb or something. Hence the transformation of the regularly-sized Emma (the Amazing Amazon) into Emma (the Strange Sorceress).
She also succeeded in reverting to her civilian shape, after that. However, doing that pulled her off of the virtual table upon which the other players were still pulling the strings of their in-game characters. As we had gotten used to the fact that we were always there, we panicked slightly. Serena and Torg weren't far and sped there, only to see Emma smiling to herself. In her normal body.
From what she retold, it was done through the quite simple "mental gesture" of standing up from and leaving the table.
I refrained from doing that, right now, and told my players why – so that at least one of them was still at the table. My questioning the universe got me the details about the process, and I knew that, if all players left, or if the GM left, the current game was left on hold, while we returned to our NPC status.
We were still testing the mechanics of our power, and Torg made a discovery when he found Emma (the baseline civilian): by inviting her into the game, Emma got the mental pull to return to the table. Other question were asked, and we found out that I, as the GM, was the only one able to invite someone into such a game when none was in process.
Could we invite other players? Would they share our power? Would we share theirs? So many questions… and not that much occasions to play. Because, once we were done for the night, I ended the session and we all crashed down, quite tired.
The next day, we used our powers to help the situation in town. With magic-using characters, my players could use spells to levitate and clean debris and roads, mending those that would help the most. With physically strong characters, they could physically lift the obstructions and even use them to pave holes in the ground. And with cleric types, they could visit the camps and deliver food and water, as well as healing.
With Tom playing Tim and churning magic items for them to be able to do everything at the same time, they were even able to go to the different camps individually. And also help with the various and numerous tasks that were still to accomplish – such as helping those still trapped in the shelters, pushing back the gangs that wanted to use the rampant chaos to spread some more. All the more ways to gain more experience, too.
As he had said once: this was our city, and we won't see it brought down by chaos. Even if there were people talking of abandoning the city. I like to think that, with our help getting the roads opened, we participated in the decision to stay.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
The Expansion OpportunitiesAmong those wanting to sow more chaos were the two video game-themed small-time villains and occasional failures: Über and Leet. They tried to take advantage of the chaos to make a video of a pursuit set in a post-apocalyptic game environment. My players managed to stop them, and the two villains noticed the "play-acting" inherent to "old-school table-top pen-and-paper roleplaying games". And they mocked us for that.
They quickly stopped when lightning was called around them. Convinced of the possibility of munchkinism, they accepted to join to help… and found themselves without their power. In fact, while they are at "my" table, they can't use them – Leet found it particularly fascinating as, when he got out of a session and recovered his power, his Tinker designs were reinitialized. For most Tinkers (and people like Dauntless), it would be a difficulty, but his case was special: he could now reconstruct things he had already built. With a better understanding of how his power worked, too. He ended up particularly agreeable to our suggestions in order to benefit from that particular advantage.
On our side, we also discovered more about our own power. Notably that people external to our group could only join as long as there were a few of us in play. They couldn't start a new session, and certainly not play at being the Game Master – that's me.
And, by the way, it took them some time, but they finally understood the concept of Rule Zero: each time I heard one of them hinting at doing more harm than good, things tended to fall on their heads – such as more lightning, or rocks when they were inside. I reacted especially badly when they joked among themselves about them "joining the new gang" – we are not a villain "gang". We are a group of people trying to help the city through the characters our powers granted us… and others.
It didn't seem much, at the beginning: clean the roads around a given point; help the people to find either their home or a new one, depending on its state; distribute food and water; maintaining law and order. Given that the players liked feeling themselves useful while doing that, we brainstormed for something in-game to reflect that.
We came up with the concept of banners – either held in hand or affixed somewhere. And while they were close, they would have bonuses on their management of their territory (including the discussions with other territory holders). In fact, it was like the "title" option of some games, but I preferred a physical representation.
Later, we came across another group trying to do like us – in the "holding territory to bring food to the people stuck there". And, among them, Leet recognized someone he knew he had already met in his "mad Tinker" persona, and whom he knew had an interest in games: Regent. A few taunts were exchanged, and Regent was dared to try our way of doing things.
He accepted, certain that he wouldn't like it one bit – especially because he had selected the most complicated thing he could find and also quite far from his area of expertise: a psionic self-morpher. Apparently, he loved it, especially when he could use a couple utility powers to out-do Tattletale in the "I'm a psychic" imitation.
The girl started by smiling indulgently when noticing the "boys and their toys" theme, frowned when she noticed that there are also "gals with dolls"… and then almost had an aneurism when her shard started giving her an idea of my own power… before shutting down – as the others had experienced, once a parahuman started to play with us, their power was put on pause. And, for a while, the girl got to experience the "other side": not being the know-it-all. And be a brute, too. She loved it, but only as long as everybody knew that it was temporary.
Tattletale didn't mind if the others kept at it: Brian followed Alec (Regent) and found some interesting time as a knight or old. Even Rachel, not pegged as a player, found herself liking playing a druid, especially when using dogs and morphing as one. And she was also more articulate, when playing, her parahuman power not stifling her human side.
Generally speaking, being a Game Master with too many players is difficult. And, here, we had reached ten. But since they were "merely" holding territory (mostly) separately, it could be played with the "separate instances" of myself: even if they ended up in combat at the same time, I kept separate Initiative tracks. I even allowed for Summoned creatures and minions – which Rachel loved, as long as she could choose dogs.
And then they found themselves together to fight an arch-villain. Because Tattletale started confiding in her fellow players, her usual power-derived paranoia and knowledge checks being absent when she was around the virtual table. And we learned how Coil had recruited the various Undersiders and what he planned with them.
Alec didn't really care, nor did Rachel. Brian gave her a bit of cold shoulder, but he quickly understood, especially when she outlined the lack of progress he had had with his efforts in getting his sister out of their mother's drugged clutches. So we attacked the villain, following Tattletale as she went to see him.
The mercenaries were quite the opposition, but Tom already had devised ways to deflect rays and projectiles. And the fact that Coil could manipulate probabilities didn't prevent all my players to roll successfully from time to time. In his dying breath, he unleashed the Travellers from the sublevels.
Recognizing that, among the opposing capes, only two were willing to do them harm, my players isolated them with a carefully-erected Wall, and recruited Oliver, Ballistic, Sundancer, and Genesis. They recognized the game, and brought their own characters in (with some adjustments, of course). Seeing the physical representation of earlier characters (which they had discussed just before the Simurgh teleported them in) made the two others pause for a second.
Charm Monster and Charm Person were then used, for Noelle and Trickster, respectively. And then the Counterspeller secondary build made by Tom was brought forward. Between Dispel Magic, Break Enchantment, Remove Curse, Cure Illness, and Heal, there were few afflictions that could stay. And if it was intrinsically linked to someone's power, like it was the case here, he could still kill her and then Raise the Dead.
Speaking of which…
That spell still required large quantities of diamond powder, but Tom and Tattletale had found a workaround: using Coil's assets, they bought enough of the material component to imbue a ring with this spell, to be cast an unlimited number of times per day. And then they covered their cost by offering to bring back the casualties from the Endbringer assault – with a fee that scaled with whom asked for it, even the poorest people could get back some of their loved ones. But not all, since they needed the body and some were lost or completely pulverized.
This game-changer put a boil under Cauldron's plans, and Alexandria herself came to offer us a place in the Protectorate (or the Wards, for the kids). We rejected it. She wasn't happy and tried to prove to us that we couldn't resist if a heavy-handed villain group wanted a piece of us… by attacking us. Despite her high level and numerous resistances, my players still found ways to incapacitate her.
And that's when the Siberian jumped from the sidelines and slashed the heroine's second eye.
As Fate would have it, Alexandria weakening us was only the first step in that particular combat. Of the sixteen characters in our group, two were already dead: Trickster's and Leet's. The temporarily-not-Teleporter pulled another character quickly enough to face the Slaughterhouse, while the temporarily-not-Tinker tried to create another on the fly – he preferred to stay at the table rather than become cannon fodder in the fight going on.
Seeing this, Tom pulled one from his thick folder of conceptual builds, and gave him. It was a Sorcerer with a specialization in dimensional doors. It was the kind of physics-denying character that would be quite the asset in the ongoing fight, able to isolate each enemy so that they would have only one to fight at the same time.
And then came the Teeth, and we sent the immortal Butcher on another Earth.
At some point, Brian commented that some of our dimensional shenanigans could be seen as "Instant Dungeons" like the abilities outlined in the Gamer fictions. We replied that if one copied the other, it was probably the other way around. The ability to create demi-planes was quite powerful, and we could even change the rate with which time flowed. That allowed us more time to craft items, for instance, as well as a base to rest quickly between fights. And one of the first thing Tom crafted after that was a few sets of goggles to help with teleportation – so as not to appear in the path of a moving vehicle, for instance.
The creation of a demi-plane was normally limited to the highest levels, but my players knew quite a number of shortcuts. And I let them use them, too, because they would have to need quite a large number of options to deal with the other threats – most notably Scion and the Endbringers, and then the Fallen, the Blasphemies, and Sleeper. And the Yangban.
A hero's work is never finished.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
To be continued… eventuallyDisclaimer: Besides house-rules and my own characters, I don't own D&D and any of its commercial follow-ups.