Midnight of the winter solstice draws nigh. Above the roiling storm clouds, the lunar eclipse has begun.
Vanguard hovers over the thick jungle canopy, one kilometer from their target; from the resolution of their quest. Darkness, mist and the hurricane conspire to destroy visibility.
Aperture’s nanotechnology reconfigures his optical sensors and the scion of cyberspace discerns ancient stone ruins rising up from the dense foliage. Near those ageless temples, warmth radiates under the canopy. Aperture believes it to be dozens of people.
The Vanguard Reservists and the Soviet Super Soldiers openly hurtle toward the ruins, trying to draw fire.
(OOC: Despite the above image, the Collective is not among the SSS. Clone is with Vanguard.)
Dr. Swastika’s legion of villainy, comprised of the Ubermensch and the Imperial Guard, fly out from ambush!
The villains burst from the jungle and the cloud cover, attacking the Vanguard Reservists and the SSS!
The heavens thunder and flash as this battle of the titans is joined!
Vanguard believes their path is clear. Aperture sees that the heat signature at the temples are unchanged.
Sentinel and Slingshot quickly confer. Aperture uses his nanotechnology a third time (PR:15 again) and turns invisible! Avatar summons the powers of Zeus and Hermes!
Sentinel dims the glow of his energy platform and Vanguard flies through the rain and wind toward the coordinates, and the temple! It takes 30 seconds to cross the kilometer.
Vanguard reaches the temple without incident. They descend beneath the jungle canopy to find hundreds of dead bodies, still warm. A mass suicide. All races, ages, genders and cultures are represented, including primitive natives. Each apparently cut their own throat. There are hundreds of wet, crimson knives. All for the glory of Cthulhu.
Invisible, Aperture separates himself from Vanguard’s ranks.
Menagerie and Sentinel detect that this area is thick with sorcerous energy. Menagerie’s and Sentinel’s paranormal senses also detect the energy signatures of the Artifacts of Power! All are present, and they are together. For Sentinel to detect them, they must lie within 120 feet of him, but neither hero can tell the exact distance, only the direction: directly into the dark maw of an ancient stone temple.
The magical heroes report their findings to the rest of Vanguard.
Less than two minutes remain until the end of the world!
Actions?!
Current Conditions:
Aperture: Hit Points: 35, Power Points: 22, Nanotech: Invisibility
Avatar: Hit Points: 29, Power Points: 44, Manifestation: Weather Control, Heightened Speed
Clone: Bodies: 1, Hit Points: 23, Power Points: 67, Hit Point Pool: 23
Lightning Strike: Hit Points: 36, Power Points: 85
Menagerie: Hit Points: 26, Power Points: 66, Form: Man
Sentinel: Hit Points: 28, Power Points: 70, Creation Points: 140
Slingshot: Hit Points: 38, Power Points: 92, Invulnerability: 8, Damage that can’t be regenerated: 42!
--------------------------------------------------
Slingshot:
Slingshot looks at the carnage. He can't believe that so many people are so desperate that they will kill themselves to doom the world. He shakes his head. He feels the dread of the impending doom. He wishes his fellow superheroes, The reservists and SSS well. They have a big fight in front of them.
With resolve, he turns to Vanguard, "This is it, we have to get there!".
[ooc]I have no plan. While the other teams are fighting each other, we still have little information on what is actually there waiting for us. I think we need to come up with multiple plans. What can they be exactly? The ones I still have in my head are:
A- Stop the spell somehow
1- Run away with a bunch of artifacts, essentially going on the premise that he needs them all for the spell to work
1.5 - Aperture opens a portal to the Digital world and we start throwing artifacts through and wait for the fireworks
2- Beat the tar of the bad guys, but I'm not sure how much of that we can actually do in 2 minutes
3- Ruin the Spell
B- Stop Swastika's control over Mystic and hope that Mystic can stop this thing
1- Aperture opens a portal to the Digital world and we throw Mystic through, hoping that will sever the swastika link
2- Kill/Disable Swastika, assuming he's physically there.
[/ooc]
--------------------------------------------------
Aperture:
OOC: Stephane, that’s pretty much along the lines of what I was thinking, separate the artifacts from Swastika/the spell. Aperture is hidden/invisible at this point, but he’s running very low on power at this time, he’s got maybe one switch (to teleportation/whatever left), and he’s got the digital cannon. I’ve thought about trying to get the cannon as close to the spell as possible, and overloading it as an anti-magic bomb, that wouldn’t cost power, and I think most of our “magic” friends have prepared if it takes out all magic for a while, maybe we’d get lucky and it would work on Swastika. I doubt it, but if Sentinel’s powers are actually magic, maybe.
Aperture has separated himself from the team in the hopes that they’ll distract Swastika so he can take these actions, but with two minutes, we’ve got to act fast.
IC: Aperture will follow the rest of the team into the tunnel, hanging back a little, so as not to get caught up in any area effect spells/traps. He’ll be using his heightened comprehension to try to identify any traps/triggers so they can be avoided.
--------------------------------------------------
Sentinel:
OOC: Our working theory is that any of the objects can summon Cthulhu (information given to us) but ALL of the objects are required to control him (seems to be the most logical reason (& the only we can think of) that Swastika had us gather them all and then stole them all).
We have every reason to believe that Swastika's powers are both magic and scientific based. We also have reason to believe he has no physical body of his own.
Seems like we have to go in and hopefully we will be able to do what we came here to do once entering.
Kirk will focus his energy senses to hopefully avoid any potential traps/foes before they hit and warn the team... but really until we know what is actually happening in there not really any way to plan. Preventing the summoning is surely the goal and it would seem getting all the artifacts away would be the way to do it.
Seth
--------------------------------------------------
Menagerie:
Menagerie turns into a Cheetah. He sprinted to the artifacts. His goal was to assist Aperture either by being a distraction to the Swastika and any remaining minions or by grabbing 1 of the artifacts and running away with it.
Whichever he could do with the best chance of success he will do.
Thanks
Tom
--------------------------------------------------
Clone:
IC:
Clone looks out upon the field of dead body before with horror and sadness. His strong religious beliefs and personal love of life make it difficult for him to comprehend the carnage at his feet. As his mind struggles to understand this grotesque mass suicide, Clone suddenly comes to terms with what is transpiring around him. There is no political agenda here, no cultural misunderstanding, or a difference in ideology . . . this is a fight between good and evil, a fight for man's right to exist. He must prevail, Vanguard must prevail, nothing can prevent them from stopping this arcane ritual from coming to fruition.
He steps off the platform and starts to think about all the good things in the world.
He starts to walk quickly towards the ancient monument as he envisions all living things being destroyed by the chaos of Cthulhu.
He breaks out into a full sprint as he remembers the love he has for his dear, sweet Rachael.
Clone doesn't know what he'll do once he reaches the artifacts, he just knows that he has to reach them . . . because in two minutes the world as he knows it will cease to exist.
OOC:
Clone will race towards the artifacts and do whatever is needed, even if it results in his own death. If he has the option of taking Actions, he'll save/hold them and prepare to split into as many duplicates as necessary at a moments notice. He'll grab artifacts, organize duplicates to act as human shields for anyone in Vanguard that is stealing an artifact or is in life threatening danger, he'll provide distractions if necessary, he'll do whatever he must - failure is not an option for this man.
-Kev
--------------------------------------------------
Slingshot:
OOC: Gang: I just realized last night that we had another option, but that's not something that can be done easily.
Take over: if they needed all the artifacts to take control of the beast, maybe we could take control of all the artifacts to control the monster and send it back?
I would assume that would mean we need to have Mystic on our side or something like that as we do not have access to the knowledge of the ritual.
Stephane
--------------------------------------------------
Avatar:
Avatar will take off toward the entrance with Heightened Speed. Reckless, yes, but with nothing else to do action is all that he can do. He will use his speed to bypass any opposition, if possible, and head toward where the ceremony is taking place.
--------------------------------------------------
Clone:
Clone's ability to duplicate could definitely help with rounding up the artifacts quickly. He's already storming into the pyramid, so you may want to bring him up to speed quickly on any last minute plays you may want to call lol.
As for Mystic - is it possible that he has one of those control devices on him? Could we short it out or disrupt the signal quickly if he does?
-Kev
--------------------------------------------------
Sentinel:
OOC: At this point it would seem we have to enter and find out what exactly is happening before we can make a true move. We don't have any idea what is happening or who is present other than that we expect to be in the middle of the summoning and they have all the artifacts.
Given the preliminary bloodbath outside the summoning area you wonder what sort of sacrifice ritual is directly involved and we are about to discover.
It would seem preventing the arrival of Cthulhu would be the method to use if that were possible as opposed to allowing his arrival and trying to then control him to send him back but if we were unsuccessful in preventing the arrival then trying to gain control would be an option (although Kirk is still sure that others may be lurking to try exactly that for their own nefarious purposes).
Seth
