[IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

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Doctor Malsyn
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[IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

Image

"You need to respect the classics when it comes to the superhero genre. An overarching story is good to have, but everyone loves seeing their favorite heroes just beat up some regular bad guys once in awhile. In the game, you'll find plenty of petty criminals just trying to make a quick buck by knocking a convivence store, mugging someone's purse, or maybe they're a fresh gang trying to make a name for themselves by knocking up a bank. This is an online game, though, so you can never be too complacent. Never know when that purse-snatcher is the next Mr. Freeze just getting his start."
-Toshinori Nakai, member of the Maboroshi Productions writing team.


It's been several weeks since the game suffered it's first and thus far only server-wide crash. Masa Maboroshi himself had been on several press tours in the days following the event to describe it in detail, emphasizing the unique circumstances regarding it. By his description, a player had unlawfully tampered with their immersion bed with proprietary hardware, allowing them to make unauthorized changes to their in-game avatar. The game's talent-tree encountered a fatal stockpiling error brought on by these modifications, causing the substance to continuously increase to an absurd level. When the explosion finally took place, the resulting energy output was equivalent to several nuclear warheads all going off in the same spot. Details about the player have been left anonymous, though it's rumored they were arrested on several charges related to the event in question.

The aftereffects of the incident was observed in a dip in the player base as people felt the game unsafe, but subscriptions have since started to stabilize leading to an ultimately negligible drop in revenue. Once they've inevitably gone back to the game the six heroes at the center of the disaster itself have become more recognized amongst other heroes and even some fledgling supervillains. It seems that being on stream for most of the event has left a notable impact on their popularity, with Rainbow Star herself experiencing a surge in subscription numbers. Consequence to this has been an uptick in stream snipers trying to rap into her fame, leaving the player behind the mask more stressed than usual.

Octogirl on the otherhand has arguably benefited from her popularity, as she was easily capable of reconnecting with Danny following her player's return to the game. Despite the implications during the battle that he might've been another player, without knowing his secret identity Tim had no way of adding them to his friend's list. Being attributed to the event has had an impact on their general recognition as well, giving the player a much needed sense of catharsis in regards to his outside life. It was football season again, which meant no shortage of grief from the player's father as he went on about what 'could've been'.

Back inside the gameworld, Warlock has had his work cut out for him following the incident. It seems that the Shard governing such matters decided to smooth over the event with an extradimensional incursion from Muspelheim. He and other occult heroes have been working around the clock to fight and banish rogue spirits, though none of these encounters were even half as intense as the fight against Absinthe and his elemental spirits. It was, in a sense, just busy work done to appease the Arcane Order. At least it would look good on his record when it'd eventually come time to compete for the title of "Master Mage". Outside the game, Samar has been having strange nightmares regarding the brief moment he saw something, a memory from the event that was ripped by an uncaring AI protecting it's secrets.

Gifted or cursed with powers of time dilation and spatial subversion, Hellcat has had some minor issues while using her powers as of late. Random encounters have become strangely fuzzy at times in her memory, and at times she's left with an odd sense of deja-vu. Both she and other players that have fought with and against have filed bug reports regarding lag spikes, and she's been informed that the Shards were 'working on it', whatever that meant. Kendall could only hope that the issues were resolved soon, and she wouldn't be forced to generate an entirely new character and destroy the narrative she'd been carefully constructing since the beta-version.

While others have might've been enjoying their increased bout of fame to various degrees, for someone like Operative recognition had it's consequences. Whatever plot-thread regarding to the character's backstory has become increasingly harder to follow up upon, as her grandfather's associates have become keenly aware of her activities and capabilities. The mission of taking down down the Full-House Crew has thusly for the moment taken a backseat, leaving her to seek out more radiant missions and plot-threads until 'main story' picked up again. In the real world, Maggie has had her own work cut out from her trying to assure her husband that she wasn't in danger from going back to the game, partially backed by the scans she'd had conducted. According to her doctors once they went over the data, nothing had seemed amiss.

On another part of the world, Emily has come under some not-so-slight pressure by her True Realities reprehensive regarding the incident with the man trying to ensure there were no lingering doubts about whatever dangers the VR system might've imposed. He'd come to her with medical data that the company had gathered from players following the event, meant to prove there would be no long-term damage. Whatever her personal feelings on the matter would ultimately be, she was still under contract to act out the superheroine life of Exemplar. Acting out her in-game job as a teacher has been something of a stress-reliever from company pressures, and the in-game pressure of rumored reports of powerful psionic maneuvering in the underground.

Various threads, various stories, all crisscrossing and converging in one way or another over the course of these weeks have left these heroes more familiar with one-another in-game as well. It seems whatever Shard that governed such interactions has been guiding them together in twos and threes for whichever mission or encounter might've come your way. Some of them might've added one another to their friends lists for ease of contact, but as of yet there's been no official 'team formation'. Today seems marked to be another of those 'coincidental encounters', as each of you in your own way have found yourselves behind a police barricade as an ongoing bank-heist takes place.

A familiar officer is there to meet them, as he turns to face the first hero he encounters on scene with both hands on his hips. "Well butter my biscuit, look who it is. Hadn't seen you since that scuffle on the wharf." Nodding his chin towards the bank, "Seems we've got ourselves a bit-of-a 10-65-B19. Reckon we could use some help in managing this before anyone get's hurt."
Last edited by Doctor Malsyn on Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Vivid
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Press Any Button to Start

Post by Vivid »

The Operative
CND: 0, HP: 2 JuryRig: 2
Utility Belt: teleportation Disks
Projection System: Hardlight Construct Programming
Scanner Suite: Visual gain penetrating, extended


She wouldn't even need to be seen at all but for the anti-power measures that some banks had these days. The Operative dropped out of a disk to the street to speak to the lead officer. She's not too proud to say she almost crawled back up into her spawn disk. But she doesn't. Sigh.

"Officer." she greets. "I wanted to see if I this bank had anti-teleport and anti-scan shielding in place." She could just try it, but some banks had feedback countermeasures if a would-be theif even tried using tech, magic, or powers to access the inside of a bank besides lobby. Even scans could be problematic as her secret identity, Dana knew - there were Medusa Protocols that could give a headache, or worse, to anyone even peering into the private bank areas. "I also wanted to jack into the camera feeds if I could. I know the police frown upon 'white hacking' where it can be avoided." the Operative says.
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by jmucchiello »

Octogirl

Tim wasn't sure why he did it but he spent an hour each time he logged in at the bar near the wharf that he told Danny about. He told himself he did this because he wanted to be sure Danny had not gotten hurt, as ridiculous as that reasoning was. So far no luck. People seemed to recognize Octogirl and she had never had to pay for any of her drinks while there. The fame boost from the explosion was nice and Tim liked that there was somewhere where people seemed to genuinely be friendly. Since it was a supers bar, most of the clientele were avatars, not bots. Only the bartender, Lou, knew that she was looking for someone named Danny.

Usually after visiting the bar, she would go home and practice the cello since Tim enjoyed playing the instrument in game. Then she would patrol for a while and logout. Today was the first time her patrol had brought her in contact with the other heroes from the explosion. As she landed behind the police corden, she heard The Operative talking about scanning the bank.

"Good to see you again. Hopefully there aren't explosives in the bank," she said.
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Vivid
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Press Any Button to Start

Post by Vivid »

The Operative
CND: 0, HP: 2 JuryRig: 2
Utility Belt: teleportation Disks
Projection System: Hardlight Construct Programming
Scanner Suite: Visual gain penetrating, extended



"Octogirl." the masked tech hero greets. "Explosives are one of many... disturbing possibilities. When I know its safe to scan I can check for those and more."
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

"Eeyep. All the modern measures you'd expect in an operation like this. Spatial anchors, blank widgets, the works. " From somewhere the officer takes a cheap paper cup of coffee, taking a sip before readressing the group. "Funny now ain't it, put in all the work to keep out supers yet they can't keep out a few thugs with guns. I'll have to get in contact with my superiors about giving you that camera access, but I like your thinking."
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Tony Jones
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Tony Jones »

Exemplar
Hero Points: 2; Luck Points: 4; Condition: Fine

Emily accepts that she is contracted to be Exemplar, not that that is a great hardship. But she does spend as much time as she thinks she needs poring over the medical data until she is satisfied that everything was going to be OK. Not that out of character she has any medical expertise, but she does the best she can...

----

In-game she does try to get in touch with the others following the incident with Absinthe.

She wants to try some sort of 'lessons learned' activity with everyone, to try and make everyone work better together, as well as tease out what went well, what could have gone better, what they needed to learn or change going forward. She is insightful enough to realise that the other heroes might not be exactly keen to take part in such an activity, but she does send everyone her own thoughts on the subject even if no one wants to meet up and take it further.

----

"Good day, Officer," she says to the familar face that greets her as she teleports in.

"While I realise the utility of anti-teleport and anti-scan shielding, it is really quite ... inconvenient ... when it hinders our efforts! But let me see..."

She closes her eyes and carefully sends out her ESP, slowly projecting her point of view from where she stands towards the bank building, hoping the ESP itself, in combination with her precognitive Danger Sense, will let her stop before sticking her brain into a metaphorical bear trap. Depending on how close this lets her get, she will either look into the building itself, or use her ESP to discretely peep in through the windows from the outside...
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Press Any Button to Start

Post by Gunmetal_Rainbow »

RAINBOW STAR
[HP:1] Cond: Normal

After that battle, and the aftermath which ultimately resulted in the game crash, Natanie was wiped. the center actually needed to get medical assistance just to make sure she was alright. Fortunately, it was just fatigued from pushing herself too hard in the game, coupled with the sudden ejection from the system. She was going to feel a little rough for a few days, but it did eventually pass. Frankly, she was glad the game was down for a while, since it gave her a valid reason to take a break from it and streaming and just all the things.

But, once the game was back up and running, Natalie felt compelled to be up and running again as Rainbow Star. Unfortunately, that came with its own challenges. The stream sniping was always a thing, but after big events it got worse, and with how big the news was of the game crashing,...well, events didn't get much bigger in this game and the volume of trolls rose proportionately.

Today at least, so far, had been relatively calm. Flying overhead while looking for something a little simpler to handle, she spotted the barricade around the bank. Stopping a bank robbery seemed like it would be just the thing. Challenging enough to engage the stream, but simple enough that it shouldn't be too stressful for Natalie.

Landing, she felt a bit of a chill up her spine though as she already saw a few faces she recognized from the battle a few weeks ago, and the bright rainbow light of her entrance made it all too clear to anyone around who had just arrived. Already the chat was blowing up with recognition of other members of the battle that crashed the game.

"Oh, hey! Fancy running into you guys here!" she greets the others on arrival.
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

She closes her eyes and carefully sends out her ESP, slowly projecting her point of view from where she stands towards the bank building, hoping the ESP itself, in combination with her precognitive Danger Sense, will let her stop before sticking her brain into a metaphorical bear trap. Depending on how close this lets her get, she will either look into the building itself, or use her ESP to discretely peep in through the windows from the outside...
The psionic blockers were not so shockingly on the spottier end, as Exemplar has come to notice with more rudimentary setups to keep out unwanted viewing. A product of cut corners when a business wants protection but either can't or doesn't want to fully invest in the best form of coverage. That being said, while she can get her third eye further into the bank itself than should probably be allowed, the most important areas were still cut off from her.

What she could see were a six figures clad head to toe in dark clothes and tactical gear, very professional looking when it came to hired goons. All of them were carrying riffles either at the ready or strung over their back, as well as handheld sidearms. About twenty civilians were currently corralled in the center of the room with two people keeping careful watch. The rest of the armed thugs were taking care to avoid getting too close to the windows. She could only surmise there were more people further in trying to crack the bank's vault via whatever method they had in mind.
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
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"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
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Tony Jones
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Tony Jones »

Exemplar
Hero Points: 2; Luck Points: 4; Condition: Fine

"Fortunately for us, the bank seems to have not invested in top of the range shielding," Exemplar announces. "I can see into the public area of the bank, though I cannot see the vaults or more sensitive areas. I see six professional-looking goons and some twenty hostages in there, like this..."

She pulls a pad and pencil out of a pocket and quickly sketches a summary of what she can see before showing it to the others.

"Though I imagine there may be others breaking into the actual vault that I could not see."
OOC wrote: Could she hear any sounds of attempted vault entry from where she could get her ESP to? I.e. sounds emanating from elsewhere in the bank but audible from where her third eye (which also counts as a third ear!) is?
"Hmm... Given the state of the shielding, let me try something..." she continues, pondering.

She reaches out with her psionic powers, trying to map locations in the bank into which (and out of which) it would be safe to teleport...
OOC wrote: Teleport is Accurate, Subtle - 1, and she also has 'Safety Sense' which lets her know if she can teleport somewhere before doing it. So based on that, could she try to feel whether she could teleport to a location in the bank without actually doing so? And use that to work out places she could successfully teleport into and out of in there? Sounds like maybe a Power Stunt but obviously if she can do it with her existing powers then that's good from my perspective...
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

She hears nothing that indicates what's going on in the back. What you describe sounds like a Senses effect of some nature, but we don't need to map it out. Call it a power stunt and toss me a perception check.
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Tony Jones
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Tony Jones »

Exemplar
Hero Points: 2; Luck Points: 4; Condition: Fatigued
OOC wrote: Oh yes, can Exemplar's Mental Senses 'see' into the bank? That is, in particular can she detect the people in there, and now she can see, tell which ones are criminals and which ones hostages?
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Vivid
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Press Any Button to Start

Post by Vivid »

The Operative
CND: 0, HP: 2 JuryRig: 2
Utility Belt: teleportation Disks
Projection System: Illusions
Scanner Suite: Visual gain penetrating, extended


"Officer, where are we with that hacking authorization?" she asks.

When Exemplar describes Operative scowls under her mask. "You said in our previous encounter you could put images in a person's mind. If you show me what you see I can project it holographically for the others."
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

GM: Nice roll! Exemplar finds a few spots in the lobby. Amd a couple further into the bank they could port into.

Exemplar isn't quite used to this method of 'feeling it out', yet she's always been something of a prodigy when it came to psionics. This time proves to be no different Ash she expertly identifies several spots she could slip through the protections in place. No doubt the bank would be thankful to learn of these weaknesses as well once this incident is over.

Her mental senses are foggy at picking out distinct minds through the Defenses, but she guesstimates there's between three and eight other beings within the building. One of the 'softspots' is close to these minds.

"I'm trying to get it to ya lickity split." The man assured Operative, half paying attention to the radio on his breast. His cup seems to have vanished at some point over the last few minutes.
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
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"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
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Tony Jones
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Tony Jones »

Exemplar
Hero Points: 2; Luck Points: 4; Condition: Fatigued
Vivid wrote: Fri Mar 31, 2023 6:12 pm When Exemplar describes Operative scowls under her mask. "You said in our previous encounter you could put images in a person's mind. If you show me what you see I can project it holographically for the others."
"Oh! Yes, very good idea," replies Exemplar, sounding slightly chagrined at herself. "Here we go..."

And she does as suggested, using her perfect memory to recall what she saw in the bank and project it to Operative.

"I believe there are sufficient holes in their defences that I could teleport inside with people, into the lobby or further into the bank," she continues. "And there seem to a number of other people inside beyond those that I saw. Between three and eight I would estimate. Perhaps breaking into the vault?"
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Doctor Malsyn
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Re: [IC] Superheroics Unlimited: Insert Coin To Continue

Post by Doctor Malsyn »

GM: Clever use of powers there!
Am I dead? Am I alive? The answer may surprise you!
------------
"What a week, huh?" "Doc, it's only Wednesday."
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