Amorkca

Martial Dodging eh? 😜

I know this is the single most unpopular opinion on this board, outgunning even Linked and Shapeshift, but I think it's helpful to keep it in mind:
 
Martial Arts in the HERO System is a hyper-tweaking of Skill Levels.
 
You can have Skill Levels in Ranged Attacks and in HtH Attacks; you can have a Martial Art that includes both.
 
 

And the lord said unto John "come forth and you shall have eternal life."

But John came fifth and won a toaster.

New version of GM and Player books up in the downloads section; this is rough draft 5 and probably the last rough draft I'll put up before final release.

Words fail to adequately describe my frustration when the USPS man diagonally jams a book (typically an 8.5x11 inch plus softcover affair) into the mailbox. These days, I make it a habit to ask the vendors I do business with if they can send their products (usually a tabletop gaming supplement) in a box large enough not to fit in the mailbox.

I have started to color most of the interior black and white art, I hope the artists forgive me or at least are understanding.  I've tried to do them as simple as possible, to keep a kind of 4-color feel for the most part.

Walking from the wraparound porch to Warren's latest addition, a deck around a new pool, Marlene asked, “Why so big?”
 
Kate laughed. “With the sheer number of you guys that will show up for the pool parties, mainly. How's the water?” she called out.
 
“Warm,” Trese answered.
 
“And Warren just had to add the deck to the porch while keeping the pool far enough away from the house in the event of a malfunction?”
 
“Are you kidding? The dealer made a big deal of the fact that the liner is comparable to ballistic cloth. He thought we were crazy when we told him how big we wanted the pool to be. The frame is well reinforced for the extra size,” Kate explained. “Then there's Warren's deck around it, further reinforcing it.”
 
“When do we eat?” Dani asked.
 
“As soon as Warren and Jason get back and fire up the grill,” Leah said.
 
“Not sure I can hold out that long,” Dani said with a laugh.
 
Most of the contingent were on floats of one type or another. Kaneda was the odd man out, being the only male in the pool. Warren had dragged Jason off to help with one chore or another.
 
Two motorcycles sounded from the front of the house. One noticeably louder than the other. They abruptly cut off. After a moment, Jen, Amanda, and Billy rounded the house and came up the steps to the pool deck.
 
“Sorry I'm late. I hope you don't mind that I brought company along,” Jen said.
 
“No problem, Sis,” Kate said. Marlene pulled her cover off, revealing her bikini-clad body. “Oh, God, I'm jealous.”
 
“Why?” Marlene asked.
 
Kate dropped the shirt she was wearing onto a chair, revealing her own one-piece bathing suit. “We both had kids. I got cursed with stretchmarks. You, you look better than you did before you got pregnant.”
 
Marlene laughed. “It's a gift. And I started working out again as soon as I could. As for the stretchmarks, well, there's a secret to that.”
 
Jen shucked off her shorts, revealing her own black one-piece bikini. Billy's gaze went from Jen to the women in and around the pool. “I died,” he said quietly. “I died and went to bikini heaven.”
 
“Hey, Jen,” Dani called out. Jen looked up. “You've grown up nicely.”
 
Jen blushed a little. “Thanks, Dani.”
 
“Who're the others?”
 
“Billy and Amanda. Friends”
 
“Hello, Amanda,” Kris said.
 
“Hi, Dr. Tyler,” Amanda said.
 
“Wait a moment before you get into the pool,” Kris said. “Could you hand me that black thing on the table there?”
 
“This?” Amanda asked, picking the item in question up.
 
“Yes.” Amanda handed it to her. Kris fit it into her ear and pushed a stud. “Pulsar.” She waited a moment. “Are you busy? Home in on my signal. Because miles to go. See you soon.” She took it out and handed it back to Amanda. “Back on the table, please.”
 
* * * * *
Putting the tools they had been using back into the carrier, Warren asked, “What was that all about?”
 
“On a guess, I'd say Jen finally showed up and, as we expected, had Amanda in tow.”
 
“'Miles to go'?”
 
“'The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   
But I have promises to keep,   
And miles to go before I sleep,   
And miles to go before I sleep.'
 
Robert Frost. I made a promise to Amanda. Kris just called in the marker.”

“Kate?”
 
“Yeah, Lene?” Kate took a baking sheet out of the oven and set it on the counter. “I'm sorry, Marlene. I didn't think.”
 
Marlene smiled. “It doesn't bother me. Honestly, I've missed it.” Kate smiled back. “Keep on using it if you want. Where's the sketchbook Jason gave you?”
 
Flipping her oven mitts off onto the counter, Kate said, “I'll get it for you. Jason change his mind and want it back?”
 
“No. I just want to look through it for something.” Kate pulled it out from the closed bottom of a book shelf. “Thanks,” Marlene said when Kate handed it to her.
 
Sitting on a stool across from Kate, who was collecting cookies off the baking sheet with a spatula, Marlene began flipping through the sketchbook. She stopped on the picture of Aaron and the nameless girl.
 
“This one is different,” Marlene said. “All the others he did of Aaron has his face scarred. Not this one.”
 
“Yeah,” Kate agreed. “He said he didn't know who she was.”
 
Marlene frowned and shook her head. “No. He said he hadn't met her yet.”
 
“I don't think he would say that now,” Mary said. Aaron was curled up on the couch beside his Nana. Mary rocked gently side-to-side with Sandy in her arms. “If you were to ask him again.”
 
“You mean...?” Marlene said.
 
“Stacy, Jason's mother, I counted her a friend. That picture reminds me of her. And she reminds me of you.”

Waking up, Kris realized she was face-down on the bed. It was still dark. Her wings shifted. She smiled and gave them a gentle flap. Her stomach rumbled. Kris was ravenous. “That must be why there was more food on the table.”
 
“Yes,” Jason answered. Kris sat up. Working on his second chicken, Jason had stripped the first down to bones. “It was either more food or MREs or protein packs.” He glanced at her and then stared. “That was totally unexpected.”
 
“What was?”
 
“You still have gray in your hair, but you look about twenty years younger.”
 
Kris grabbed a potato out of the bowl and ate it on the way to the bathroom. In the mirror, she recognized the woman she used to be. “Unreal,” she whispered. Her belly rumbled again. “Save me a chicken.”
 
“Or two,” Jason called back.
 
Kris came back slowly. “How are you doing?”
 
“I dealt,” Jason said, pulling another strip of meat off a chicken. Kris noted her shift draped over the back of a chair.
 
Slipping into it, Kris said, “When you healed me before you took it on yourself. The same with Emily. When you healed Sharon, you blinded yourself for hours. How are you dealing? You don't have wings.” She dropped herself into the chair.
 
“And every nerve ending in my body screamed at me about it,” he said. “I dealt with it.”
 
Kris tore a leg off and bit into it. There were other questions she wanted to ask, but every time her mouth was empty she took another bite of something.
 
Jason got up and scraped food waste off his plate into the waiting bin. He returned to the table for an empty bowl. Then for another plate. By the time he was through, the only plate left on the table was hers and she was picking remnants off the carcass. She didn't realize how much she had eaten or how much time had passed.
 
Standing up, she dumped what was left of the chicken into the bin and passed Jason the plate. “A wipe-down of the table, and I'd say we're done for the night.” When Jason was done washing the last plate, Kris washed her hands and her face. “I'll take a shower in the morning.” Kris nodded.
 
Jason took his shirt off. The negators gleamed in the light of the lantern. Kris carried the lantern to a table near the mattress. She watched while Jason got comfortable. “Something wrong?” he asked.
 
“Still hungry, I guess.”
 
“I pretty much shot my load with six chickens, roasted potatoes, and the beans. Protein bars or MREs are pretty much it until I go out again.”
 
Kris shifted her wings and the shift fell around her feet. “Different kind of hunger.” She crawled on the mattress, straddling Jason. “Don't worry. I'm a doctor. I know what I'm doing.” Her hand grazed him, felt him respond to her, and she smiled. When she leaned in and kissed him, Jason responded to that, too.

Standing in front of a cracked mirror, Kris toweled her hair dry. It had felt good to have Trese and Aaron at dinner. Even Melner and Kira. Sharing old memories, remembering absent friends. If only Elyse could have made it. They were Guardians again. Still.
 
Hanging her towel up, Kris turned and flicked off the light. She made her way down the hall, back to the open room that was whatever room it needed to be at any given time. Sitting room, dining room, meeting room, bedroom.
 
Jason had turned off all the lights except one lantern. The blackout curtains were open, allowing a cool breeze to blow in. The table, instead of being cleared of the remnants of their meal, held more food. Four more roasted chickens. More potatoes.
 
“I thought you were going to put stuff away. Not add to it.”
 
By the light of the lantern, Jason was flipping through one of his sketchbooks. Kris noted the absence of his pencil. “Did you mean what you said? That you want to be a part of it?”
 
“Yes. You heard Trese. I'd be in the way.”
 
“Not necessarily.” He looked up at her and closed the book. Kris saw her name on the cover. “I want to try something if you're willing.”
 
“What?” Curiosity touched with... Excitement? Nervousness? Maybe a little of both, Kris decided.
 
Jason turned. The book disappeared from his hand. “Last Christmas... The Christmas before you yanked me here, I gave Sharon her sight back.”
 
“I remember,” Kris whispered. Her mind churned with the implications.
 
“It will hurt. I need to reopen the wound. I can't heal the stump, but if I have a fresh wound to deal with, maybe it will work.”
 
As a surgeon, Kris understood the necessity of cutting away the bad to let new growth take place. “Do it,” she said quietly. Jason nodded.
 
“Stand or lay?”
 
“I plan on sleeping on that mattress,” she said. “I don't want to have to clean blood out of it first.” Turning her back, Kris braced her arms on the table. Jason moved the shoulder of her shift to the side. It slid down, caught by her wrist.
 
“Sorry,” Jason said.
 
Kris flipped it off her hand. The entire shift fell to the floor. “I lost my modesty a long time ago.”
 
“I'm sorry for that,” he said quietly.
 
Kris smiled over her shoulder. “Planning on having your way with me?”
 
Sliding his hand over her belly, Jason hugged her gently. “Yes.” A leather strap appeared. Jason placed it against her mouth. Kris accepted it and bit down to hold it in place. “I am sorry that I will hurt you again.” Kris nodded.
 
Then she screamed into the strap.

Irish made small adjustments to the image she was scanning. “Ooch.”
 
“Something wrong?” Jordan asked her.
 
“Wainwright. The man was an absolute genius. The way Archie's wetware joins with the biological elements, it's fascinating.”
 
Jordan nodded, agreeing with her. “The man was broken upstairs. Imagine the things he could have done if he were on the right side of things. As much as I hate to agree with it, I think Jason did the right thing calling that nuke in.”
 
“You really think that?”
 
“Aye, Love. I do. Wainwright would have just gotten worse over the years.”
 
Rocking back in her chair, Irish put her head back. “I honestly ha'e no idea if this can even be reversed. An' from what Archie said, it was all automated. It's like the man was using lasers when the rest of medical science was knocking holes in peoples skulls to let the demons out.”

While I haven't tried to do a census of magic items from myth and folklore, my intuition is that most of them weren't kaboomy, "gamerish" magic. The most powerful, such as wish-granting items, tend to operate at narrative levels that are hard to quantify. I will grant you, epics from India have army-destroying magic such as the discus of Vishnu, while China's Fengshen Yanyi has plenty of kaboomy magic such as the Umbrella of Chaos.
 
An item that cures disease, such as the brazen serpent of Moses. That would be worth fighting wars to possess.
 
Truth-verifying item, such as a mirror that darkens if someone tells a lie. If you don't mind the pun, a "ring of truth" that chimes when someone nearby tells a lie.
 
Resurrection magic. Maybe single-use such as the Honey of Heaven that Lemminkainen's mother uses to bring him back, from the Kalevala. An even bigger deal if it functions repeatedly, such as the Black Cauldron of Celtic myth. (The original actually did raise the dead. The version in Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" series reanimated the dead as zombies; still formidable.) Again, people would do much to possess such an item.
 
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall..." A scrying/clairvoyance item, especially if it can locate people or objects.
 
Here's a real object that sounds like it ought to be magic, though I don't know what it would do. Years back, The Economist ran a science story about chemical archeology -- deriving information about the past from chemical residues left on objects. The most spectacular example was a coin found in a Roman sewer, that over the centuries had turned bright blue. Aluminum from clay and phosphorus from bones dumped in the sewer had reacted with copper in the bronze coin to coat it in a thin layer of turquoise. So... coin from a sewer, color of the sky. What can it buy?
 
Dean Shomshak

Standout moments:
 
Monster-Hunter All-Stars: Ghost Rider leapt onto the Scorpion King's back and "possessed" him as a vehicle. Scorpion King lit on fire, and Ghost Rider rode him into battle against Lo Pan and Beetlejuice.
 
Cereal Killers: Sonny the Cuckoo was almost "zoggied" (zombie Soggy) by the lactic undead (only 2 points of transformation BODY left out of 13), and with no apparent way to cure him (Lucky the Leprechaun's magic kept backfiring on him), Count Chocula slit his own wrist to force-feed Sonny some undead chocolate blood. (Some Chocoholics Anonymous sponsor he turned out to be!)
 
Meep on the Borderland: Squawk (Big Bird as a Gladiator) was airborne out of reach of most attacks, so Polearm (Sweetums as a Monk) leapt up and took a swing with his giant staff, but barely connected. Savage (Animal as a Barbarian) leapt on Sweetums and ran up the staff at just the perfect moment of its swing, and took out Squawk with a well-placed war club.
 
Spideys on Infinite Earths: Being hunted by extra-dimensional Inheritors who eat spider-life-energy, Agent Venom: Space Knight (legless Flash Thompson bonded with a cured symbiote) decides that since the weird multi-space vampires are used to hunting only Spider-Men types, that he should approach the situation is as un-Parker-like as he can, so he sets up with his alien sniper rifle and pegs Morlun in the back of the head.
 
 
 
 

Shadow Hunter peeked around the corner and saw the hall was empty. She moved silently down the hall towards a door at the end. Bloodbath stepped into the hall and sneered at her. He charged down the hall.
 
Morgan froze.
 
Bloodbath stopped inches from her, frozen in place, claws ready to rake her.
 
“That's a fatality, Morgan,” Huntress said.
 
Shadow Hunter pulled her hood down and released her helmet. “I guess I'm not ready for that rematch yet.” She could feel herself shaking.
 
“Come on up and take a break,” Paladin told her. “We'll go over the exercise and give Cav a chance to confirm your helmet.”
 
“Just make sure the coffee is ready,” Morgan said. She slowly made her way back down the stairs.

I was trying to introduce some new players to the game (5er) and setting pre-COVID, so I had a DEMON Morbane break away from the fold to make some money selling a street drug that let the user experience any hallucination he wanted for a few minutes, completely under the user's control, no limits of any kind.  It was called the God Drug and it was, of course, just addictive as hell.  The fun part is that it achieved this effect by being comprised of demonically-tainted human blood, and the users that willingly ingested it were willingly donating a portion of their own blood (more than they'd like) to summon a demon prince once enough people were using the drug.  (I figured demons would have no problem giving people hallucinations, and also deliberately injecting demon-tainted blood counts as "active voluntary submission.")  VIPER caught wind of the plot from an informant and did not want to deal with a full-on demon prince, but didn't have nearly enough information to do anything (including to get law enforcement involved.)  So they sent a fake PRIMUS agent to get the PCs on the trail and monitored their progress as their "friendly contact."

The PCs were enthusiastic, good-natured and impulsive the way only new players can be.  First they destroyed a building full of police evidence for reasons I was never clear on, then they managed to nearly destroy a shopping mall just trying to buy some of the drug, then after one of them (multiple science Ph. D.s type) determined that the drug was made of super strangely contaminated human blood and not much else, another one ingested it anyway and decided it was awesome and he wanted to keep using it forever.  We stopped meeting because of COVID right when the players managed to inadvertently expose VIPER to PRIMUS and got both sides into a full-on battle with each other--and the players, with no idea who was who, were in the middle of attacking both sides.  The very last action a PC took before we wrapped up the last time we played was to direct-charge an APC head-on.  He's a new player, we're having fun, the group's definitely got a good social vibe; I won't kill him if we ever meet again.  But that was definitely one of those "that's a big heavy gun pointed right at you and you can go literally anywhere else, are you SURE?" moments.
 
Good times.

It's not a Hero Designer template. It's a blank Word document, like a blank character record sheet. So yes, you have to write in it, or copy-paste into it, etc.

I told my wife she should embrace her mistakes.

She hugged me.

“How is she doing?” Marlene asked.
 
“So far, so good,” Huntress answered. “Her training is progressing nicely.” Kaneda nodded.
 
Cavalier's head kept moving from side to side, as if she were reading something. “I'm getting a glitch from her helmet. I'll take it back down to electronics when she's done.”
 
“Do that,” Paladin said. “Readings from her staff are nominal. I'd say she's good there.”
 
Ash glanced at Marlene. “Armor is good. Heavier than most around here wear. Doesn't seem to be holding her down.”
 
“Jason wanted it be able to stand up to most small arms fire. Including lasers, blasters, or whatever the hell else they might be called.”
 
Shadow Hunter dived for cover. Bullets stuttered across the brick wall. A figure in green and yellow dove at her with a winged jet pack. A blast from the staff sheared a wing off, sending the agent into a death spiral. “Lawn dart!”
 
Popping her head out from behind the wall, she was met with another hail of bullets that drove her back. “How many of these assholes are there?”
 
“Between five and seven normally,” Huntress told her.
 
“Found it!” Cavalier exclaimed. “Just a few seconds.”
 
Peering out, Shadow Hunter saw a green vest with a serpent on the chest through a car's windows. She pointed her staff at the car and released a burst into it. The agent was caught between the moving car and another wall. “Oops?”
 
“He's down and no longer a threat,” Paladin said. “As much as we try to avoid it, dying is a possibility on both sides.”
 
Marlene bumped Ash in the arm. “How's Archie doing?”
 
“He's doing fine. Michaels is being an ass. Trese got him out of the lab and out of the way.”
 
“How'd she do that?”
 
Ash tried not to laugh. “Hamster balled down the hall. Then Kris locked the door to keep him from coming back.” There were chuckles from the others.
 
“Oh, wow! That makes a major difference!” Shadow Hunter called out. Bracing her staff, she sent a blast into the ground. It launched her into the air. She landed on the roof opposite. Running for the far edge of the roof, she looked down into an alley. “Where's the fire escape? Who designed this city?”
 
Jumping from the roof, she used a blast from her staff to slow her fall. “Any chance you can put a silencer on this thing?”
 
“I'm afraid not,” Paladin said.
 
Another agent ran along the side of the building, only to be met by the end of the staff when he came to the corner. “No problem. It was just a thought.” She looked through the cracked visor of the helmet. “Two down.”
 
A quick visual scan aided by her helmet, Shadow Hunter saw that the other three were in the building. One of them was near a window facing her. She ducked into a doorway, out of sight. Out of a pouch came a lock-pick gun. She slid that into the keyhole and activated it. A second later, she slid it into the deadbolt and activated it again. A turn of the knob and the door soundlessly allowed her entry.
 
“One down, two up,” Shadow Hunter said to herself. Moving silently down the hallway she came to what was someone's workshop. Freestanding shelves lined half the room. Other shelves and bins were along the walls. A counter separated the workshop from the storefront. Stairs up were off to the side.
 
The agent walked between shelves, glancing to either side. The gun in his hands didn't seem to be the kind that shot bullets to her. “Who are these guys and what are they using?” No one answered her. “Right. Research later.”
 
Flipping the staff over her shoulder, she slipped it into its sheath. She jumped high onto one of the shelves, knocking it over into another. She climbed the shelves like a ladder. Then she ran across the tops shelves towards the stairs. The agent was caught in the falling metal and contents of the shelves.
 
At the top of the stairs, she ran into the fourth agent. Shadow Hunter hit his gun with a forearm. Rounds tore into the wall. The heel of her fist snapped his head back. She tossed his limp body down the stairs.

Monday - Greg
Tuesday - lan
Wednesday - Greg
Thursday - lan
Friday - Greg
Saturday - lan
Sunday - Greg

The Gregorian calendar

“Alrigh', Mr. Ross. If'n ye'll step inta the scanner, we'll get this party started. The scans will allow us ta have some idea o' the things that be done ta ye.”
 
Archie looked at the device with four arms hanging down to the floor. “What will it do?”
 
“In and of itself, it will give us a 3D render of your body. Layer by layer. It's a broad spectrum scan, Archie,” Kris said. “Nervous?” Kris smiled reassuringly to him.
 
“Just a wee bit, Doc.”
 
“Whene'er your ready, Mr. Ross,” Irish said.
 
Archie stared at the machine. “Archie. I prefer Archie, Dr. Kendall.”
 
“Very well, Archie,” Irish said.
 
Nightwing pushed Archie towards the platform. “C'mon, Bug. I don't have all day.”
 
“Mr. Michaels!”
 
“What?”
 
“If'n ye canna show the man proper respect, then perhaps ye should depart.”
 
“I'm showing the bug all the respect he deserves!”
 
Irish stood up and looked down from the observation deck where the controls were. “Mr. Michaels, git out o' me lab!”
 
“Brad, leave,” Kris said.
 
Nightwing looked up at Kris. “I'm on babysitting duty.”
 
“And I've just relieved you of it. Archie doesn't need a sitter.”
 
“I don't trust him!”
 
The lab door opened. Ash and Trese walked in. “Your objection was noted. Your continued objections have been noted,” Ash said. “You were asked to leave.”
 
“But...” Eyes flashing purple, Trese encased Nightwing in a ball. “What the...?” Trese pulled her hand back, palm forward. Nightwing rolled towards the door. When he was in the hall, Trese gave the ball a push. Nightwing rolled away.

I really like this!  Is there any chance you could share the template?

I had a Precog that did something similar.  He had a very defensive martial art based on the fact he always knew what the other person was going to do in a fight.  Some of his maneuvers were based on using what was around.  He would do things stand in front of something and move as his target tried to hit him causing the person to trip over the item he was hiding.  On more than one occasion he turned a door car door into a weapon when someone was not expecting it.  Watching him fight was often like watching an old slapstick comedy routine.  A lot of times when he “did damage” to someone it was actually the person attack them doing it to themselves.  I went so far as to take weapon element object or opportunity.  One of the most funniest tricks was when someone took a swing at him and he simply move aside and let them hit the steel pool behind him.    

“Mind if we join you?”
 
Charley tore her gaze away from the city. She blinked and then realized it was Marlene and she had Angel in tow. “Not at all. What are you two up to?”
 
“Worrying about you,” Angel answered.
 
“Me?” With a smile, Charley laughed. “I'm fine.”
 
Marlene and Angel pulled chairs out on either side of Charley. “I've got a question for you,” Marlene said. “What would you do if you knew where Rachel was buried?”
 
“She's in an unmarked grave,” Charley responded.
 
Marlene smiled. “That isn't an answer to the question.”
 
Charley looked down at the remains of her lunch. “I never gave it much thought. I lost any hope of actually finding where she was years ago.”
 
“We found her,” Angel said.
 
“Her grave isn't unmarked. I've had a temporary marker placed,” Marlene told her. “Figure out what you want to do. Whether you want to move her or have a permanent marker placed where she's at.”
 
“How can you be sure?”
 
“It wasn't easy,” Marlene said. “Lost records and such. That's why I enlisted Angel's help.”
 
Angel smiled. “As for being sure,” she placed a strand of braided hair in Charley's hand. “You could have told me before. I would have found her for you.”

Tom Abernathy closed the door to Marlene's office behind him. “You wanted to see me?”
 
“Yes, Tom. Thanks for coming. I realize that, nominally, you and your office cover the upper Eastern seaboard.”
 
“Yes, Ma'am.”
 
“How much contact do you have with other offices?” He approached her desk. Tom put his hands on the back of a chair facing her desk. His fingers started tapping. “Tom, sit. You're going to annoy me. It's bad enough when my husband hovers.”
 
“Yes, Ma'am.”
 
“Tom, you've dealt with me since I was Charles' personal assistant. You call me ma'am one more time and I'm going to throw a banana at you.”
 
Tom sat. “May I inquire as to what this is about?”
 
“You may.” Marlene slid a file across her desk. Tom opened it and started browsing the contents. “Her name was Rachel Adams. She was living in Las Vegas. To the best of my knowledge she was a prostitute.”
 
“I see that. What is it you would like me to do?”
 
“You were involved in the investigation Charles had done when Trese came into our lives.”
 
“Peripherally,” Tom said. “I was made aware, but since Trese hadn't come into my area of business, there wasn't much for me to do.”
 
Marlene smiled. “Tom, what I want is the same detail that was put in Trese's case put into Miss Adams' case. I want to have copies of her arrests, medical records, autopsy report, but most importantly, I want to know final disposition. If she was cremated I want to know. If she was buried, I want to know exactly where.”
 
“May I ask why?”
 
“It matters to a friend, Tom. It matters to a friend.”

Door closing behind her, Charley unslung her purse and set it on a table inside the door. Stepping out of her shoes she made her way to the window. New York was lit up. Lightning flashed through the clouds. Rain was closer to falling.
 
Toying with her necklace, an angel with its wings upraised, Charlie was lost in thought. “Mentor?”
 
“Yes, Charley?”
 
“Play music for me.”
 
“Preferences?”
 
“Something mellow.” The Carpenters started flowing from speakers. Karen was singing about rainy days and Mondays. “Apt,” Charley whispered.
 
Turning from her window she went into the bedroom. On her dresser sat a jewelry box. She opened the top and took out an antique looking key. She closed the box. At the foot of her bed was an equally antique looking hope chest. The key slipped in the lock and turned easily.
 
She lifted a tray out and reached into the bottom. Charley took a box out of the chest and replaced the tray. She closed the lid of the chest. The key she set on her jewelry box. The box in her arms she carried like it was a great weight.
 
Charley set the box on her coffee table. Pulling the table closer, she put her legs up on the couch beside her. Her fingers absently caressed the pattern on the lid. “Hello, Rachel.” She set the lid aside. Maybe if she asked nicely, Warren would fix the box for her.
 
She tossed the idle thought to the side, knowing it was just an attempt to distract herself. The box contained a photo album. Charley took that out and set it behind her legs. Under the album were loose photos, chains, charms, tassels, gumball machine rings and figurines, refrigerator magnets, and postcards. All that was left of Rachel and Charley's relationship with her.
 
Charley fished out a large red crystal heart on a chain. She stared at it for some time. Charley began sorting through the loose photos. Some of them made her smile. When she finished with the photos, she put them back in the box and took up the album.
 
The chain of the heart was tangled through her fingers and the heart rested against her palm. She flipped the cover of the album open. The photos told the story of her relationship with Rachel; meeting in college, similar classes, similar interests. Some of the photos were of them posing for art classes or photography students.
 
A photo of the two of them sitting in a restaurant. Their first official date.
 
Charley slowly flipped through the pages. Carefully studied each photograph. Holidays and birthdays. Random dates. Random snapshots. Until she came to the last page of photos. There were more pages in the album. All blank. Rachel had stuck a note that read “Road Trip!” in the page without photos, marking her intent when they got back.
 
Even now, the road trip seems to keep going.
 
“Mentor?”
 
“Yes, Charley?”
 
“Is Jason in?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Is he awake?”
 
“He and Marlene are watching a movie.”
 
Replacing the album in the box and covering it with the lid, Charley slid the table back. She stood, picked up the box, and held it close to her chest. “As long as I'm not waking them.”
 
Mentor asked, “Would you like me to announce your imminent arrival?”
 
“No. Thank you.” Charley made her way out the door and down the hall. She took the elevator down a floor. By the time she made it to Jason's rooms she counted herself lucky she didn't run into anyone else.
 
The door chimed and almost immediately opened. “Come on in,” Marlene said.
 
“I hope I'm not interrupting anything,” Charley said.
 
Marlene shifted her legs out of Jason's lap. “Not at all. Just watching an old movie. Would you like something to drink?”
 
Charley shook her head. “Did my share for the night, but thank you for the offer.” She looked at Jason and smiled. She could tell his eyes were picking out details. Like the fact she had been crying.
 
“Have a seat.” Charley settled in a nearby chair. “What can I help you with?”
 
For the second time that night, Charley recounted her story. When she was done she passed Jason the box. “This is what I have of Rachel.”
 
Jason took the lid off the box. Marlene shifted to see while Jason flipped through the loose photos. “What is it you'd like me to do?”
 
“I've got entirely too much empty wall space in my apartment,” she explained.
 
“You want me to paint you something of Rachel?” Charley nodded.
 
“I'd appreciate it. You can hold on to the box as long as you need to.”
 
Marlene pulled a braid of hair out of the collection. “You and Rachel?” Brown and blonde were woven together.
 
Smiling, Charley said, “Rachel did that. Cut some of our hair and braided them together. She had one and I have that one.”
 
“What happened to her?” Marlene asked.
 
“Died from a drug overdose. I never found where she was buried.” Charley stood up. “I'll let you get back to your movie.”
 
“You're welcome to stay,” Marlene told her.
 
“Thanks, but I'm tired.”
 
Jason put the photos back in the box. “I'll scan what I need and I'll have this back to you in a day or so.”
 
“That's fine,” Charley said. “Good night.”