csyphrett

The Magnificant Marconi is a master of stage magic who may have discovered pieces of the real deal. He typically appears to give club members advice on things before he goes back to his own timeline. He is frequently found in the kitchen when he does appear in the club. CES

Captain Furlong is a criminal mastermind who likes the pirate motif. he uses flying boats and a robot crew to get what booty he wants. Laser blades and blasters are his preferred weapons. His ship typically presents a big target until the heist is over, then he picks up his team and engages stealth to escape. CES

Depends. Some of the heroines like Wonder Woman and Miss America in one of the pictures could easily be hundreds of points. The equipment could be in the same range depending. CES

The guy playing the hulk went to playing Captain America. That's how Rick Jones went from being a sidekick for one to a sidekick for the other CES

I dont really try for an ending. That's probably why the group breaks up before the campaign ends. background stuff comes from a rogues gallery. In the Domino City campaign I mentioned, the players kept running into the powers of hell, stopping two outright, and elevating a demon into kingship. But I tend to be a reactive gm. I don't write games, they write themselves. CES

Kay Shen, The Dragon of Shang Hai, visits the club every few years. Every time he arrives, he has been wounded, and he looks different from the last time. When asked, he puts it down to stepping out the wrong door at the wrong time. He leaves when he has healed up. There is two theories. One is that Kay is really a bunch of different versions of the same man who know about the club and use that to hold up before returning to their original divergent line. The other theory is Kay navigates across divergent timelines and that changes his appearance as he goes. Kay wont confirm either thought CES

I get the players to give me characters with a starting situation, then I do an intro adventure. Then I build on the the intro adventure. I try to use villains more than once so the players build up a rogue's gallery. Mostly the group falls apart before the campaign ends, but the Domino City game did have a happy ending CES

I think we did a team, Chris. You might be able to check for it on the hero/villain thread that Death Tribble archives for us. CES

Apostrophe has the power to break off a small piece from any material. Mostly he uses this on structures, as it is a small killing attack. CES

Man blows himself up in bathroom in Florida CES

Ed Byrnes is the Nuetrino. Ed is flying point of destruction with his ability to shrink to a point and burn everything he touches at the speed of light. CES

6 Scott Bolo brought his ship in for a landing on the Carrier KrcSTE after arranging a meeting. He needed to have it inspected for any surveillance after so long in Conglomerate space. Everything had checked out under its diagnostics, but he wanted to make sure. He also wanted to know if there was anything wrong with his body after spending so much time in Conglomerate space. He needed to be checked out himself. The carrier had a sick bay capable of doing that. He also needed to know how the war had gone since he had entered the black space. He hoped Nolgroth and the others had devised things to keep the expanding empire in check. The weapons master had a skill for strategy and striking at sensitive parts that he downplayed. “General Bolo.” A squad of armored marines arrived with a sergeant with a disk and feather marking his rank arrived to escort him off the hangar deck. “We’re here to take you to sick bay for examination.” “Thanks.” Scott kept his own helmet on. “I need to make sure I haven’t picked up anything that could be contagious, or electronic.” “That’s why we’re here.” The sergeant issued a command and the squad surrounded the Earthman. They lifted up screens to form a bubble of non-communication around the group. “We have your specs from Command, so this shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.” “No problem.” The group used an elevator to enter the central decks of the ship. They maneuvered down halls until they arrived at a medical lab. The marines cut off the shields when Scott stepped behind a screen designed to block input/output from the rest of the ship. “Greetings, Scott Bolo.” The doctor and the sergeant stood on the other side of the screen. “You can remove your helmet and suit now so we can do scans on them.” Scott carefully disrobed, placing his weapons on the pile of clothes. He passed them through a slot in the screen. He regretted not keeping the pistol in case he needed to get out of the room in a hurry. The sergeant ran a scanner over the suit and gear. He nodded when the equipment gave him a tone to signal the belongings were clear of outside monitoring. “It looks like your belongings are clean.” The sergeant placed the gear in a locker. “We’ll have them cleaned and readied for use while you wait, sir.” “All right.” The doctor smiled with his jagged teeth on display. “This is the last exam before you left Command for your mission.” A three dimensional model lit up the space between him and Scott. He rotated it with a move of his taloned hand. “Please remain motionless while we take a picture of your current condition.” A light went off. Bolo closed his eyes against the glare. Some of it still came through his eyelids. Then the light snapped off. Another model floated beside the first. Several changes was noted by the model. The doctor made a small hiss to himself. “It looks like you have picked up some parasites.” The doctor checked the type with what he had in his files. “I am going to have to flush them.” “What kind of parasites are we talking about?” Bolo looked at the model. The indicated beasts were in his lower intestines. “Are they common?” “Only on Conglomerate worlds.” The doctor examined the beasties, placing them in a picture drive. “Maybe they ride around inside the Connie drones.” “Make a note that we might need to look out for those things.” Bolo hated the thought of something riding along in his intestinal tract. “We might have to kill them when we kill the enemy.” “We might have to kill them to kill the enemy.” The doctor examined the readings. “These things seem engineered to kill any poison.” “How do we get rid of them?” Bolo wondered if maybe he was looking at some sort of biological booster. “Precise radiation burst should do it.” The doctor pushed a few buttons. “Otherwise we might have to perform surgery.” The parasites in the model burned up under the precise beam. The doctor smiled. He made a note of the treatment. He might have to do a lot of it before the war was ended. “I don’t feel so good.” Bolo looked around for a barf bag. He settled for an empty basin. He tried not to look at the pieces that came up from his stomach. “Put that next to the screen please.” The doctor indicated the basin. “We should examine it for contaminants.” Bolo did as instructed. The doctor ran a wand over the basin, shaking his head at the readings. He put the readings on the floating model. “It seems once a body is subjected to radiation, the unwelcome guests try to leave to get new bodies.” The doctor flash fried the contents with a tool from his suit. “So I’m clear.” Bolo sat on the bed. He held his head down to let the nausea pass. “Yes.” The doctor ordered a scan of the ship for any similar beasts. He was rewarded with negative readings. He ordered the crew working on the General’s personal ship to scan it for more of the creatures as well as themselves before mixing with the rest of the crew. “It looks like we have learned something new about our enemy.” The doctor made a human shrug. “I don’t know what it means.” “It might mean nothing, it might mean everything.” Bolo felt better. He doubted he would be himself for a while. “Transmit it to the fleet command so they know that we might have to deal with infiltrators after ground landings.” “Understood.” The doctor packaged everything into a message and sent it out to his counterparts on the other ships, then up the chain of command of his own species, and laterally to the Allied chain of command. Everyone fighting the Conglomerate would know about the parasites within a few days. “I need some sleep, Doc.” Bolo laid down on the bed. “Then I have to figure out if we learned more than our enemy has a bunch of worms in their guts.” “Good night, General.” The doctor cut the lights, but made sure to leave the screen in place in case they had missed something. Bolo closed his eyes. He still had to get home from the carrier. He couldn’t expect the captain to stop in the middle of a mission to escort him home. He wasn’t that important. Nolgroth and Quozaxx probably had everything under control. They knew he wanted them to push the Conglomerate back. He hoped the information he had stolen had been helpful. He wanted to keep the clone army from finding the Earth. Everything would be destroyed when they reached the Solar System. He had seen that devastation first hand. Bolo wondered what kind of brilliance the rest of the council had come up with while he was gone. He had left himself out of the loop while inside the Conglomerate. They should have come up with some kind of solution to the problem. He wondered what that was. Maybe they had decided to attack the home planet. That might start a breakdown in the chain of command. The clones seemed to need it to keep advancing. Such an attack would face a heavy defensive array. The Conglomerate homeworld was surrounded by ships and automated stations. Bombers capable of burning the planet would have to fight their way through a system of planets designed to keep fleets at bay. It would require a fleet of super bombers, or something capable of making the sun go nova in that system and wiping everything out in one blow. Such a weapon would be just as dangerous to use as anything else they had come up with in the last few years. Would Nolgroth have such a weapon? Would he use it to save the galaxy? Would he be able to keep it from general use by the fleet? Bolo didn’t see how they were going to be able to do that once it was learned they blew out a sun to stop their enemy. Bolo fell asleep thinking about the ramifications of the plan, the logistics, and the responsibility of everything. He couldn’t allow anyone else to pull the trigger. Who could live with the guilt of executing billions of lives in a single murder? Maybe that was why Nolgroth had retired in the first place. Bolo’s world had already fought such a menace, and he knew the Conglomerate would not stop until they had wiped out every system they could reach. You were with them, or you were dead. They offered no quarter to anyone who happened to be in their way. In a situation like that, stopping the aggressor with any means at their disposal had to be considered even if it meant putting out a sun and dooming a solar system of combatants. The Conglomerate would do the same or worse to them if they could.

5 The slugs split apart in a cloud of munitions. They struck the wall in a wave of fireflies digging out divots of material as they dove to their deaths. A hole appeared as the cloud of dust settled to the ground. Bolo listened to fire alarms triggering from his assault. He inspected the hole. He could get through, but there was no way to go. The broken pipes were six inches wide. Humanoids of his stature were not expected to get inside the wall to get to the pipes. Water sprayed everywhere as he fired again. If he could dig his way out, he might be able to get out of the trap he was in. Security would love to take him apart and find out what was going on. He had to elude them, and get back to his ship. The munitions blew a hole in the wall behind the water pipeline. He jumped through in a supply closet. He eased pass the cleaning supplies, taking a disposable towel to wipe his front off as he went. He dropped the towel by the door as he slid out in the corridor. An uproar told him that he had been spotted by the security system. He ran down the hall. He had to get clear of the building somehow. He kept an eye out for elevators and stairs. Anything going up would be helpful. He spotted a set of elevator doors before he reached the end of the corridor. The doors slid open to reveal Conglomerate troopers in combat gear stepping out with weapons ready to fire. He shot from the hip first. The spreading miniature missiles struck at random. The explosions blew pieces out of the soldiers as the next shot added to the carnage. Bolo fired into the elevator as he used his jets to jump over the wounded and dead. No one was in condition to stop him from blowing a hole in the support mechanism on the elevator to drop the platform to the bottom floor before he got in the shaft. He headed for the roof. They would be waiting for him at the bottom. He needed to head up. If he could get in the sky, he might have a chance to get out of there despite the security net that was being thrown for him. He fired the last of his magazine at the top of the shaft. The roof came off in bits and pieces as he pushed against it with his jets. He shoved a keystone out of the way and headed for the sky as it headed for the bottom of the shaft. He reloaded before Security tried to catch up to him. He frowned at the visible trail he was leaving but it had to be done. When he got the chance, he would try to use his disguise to blend in. He felt that was blown. They would know they were looking for him. His disguise might not hold up at this point. It looked like getting off the planet was the best choice for him at this point. The Conglomerate would never give up looking for him if it thought he was still on the planet causing trouble. He doubted he could plant another spy on the planet unless they were someone who looked like the inhabitants better than he did. He forced himself to concentrate on the readings his helmet gave him. The future was nice, but he had to get away from the tenacious army trying to capture him first. He needed to be picked up and head out of the system before the armed forces could catch him. Time to call in the calvary. Bolo sent a burst message with his helmet radio. The signal piggybacked on local messages being sent offworld to invasion forces. The ship sent a reply as it started engines and pushed off to retrieve him. All he had to do was stay long enough for it to drift into the atmosphere, locate him, and pick him up and head out of the system. That didn’t sound that hard when he thought it but Conglomerate fighters appeared to disagree with him. Bolo wanted to use the traffic as cover, but air cars moved away from him to give his pursuit a clear lane of fire at him. He would have to use the buildings and hope to shake them. His own ship gave him a check-in. He pointed himself in that direction. He had to get to his pickup. Pulses of light blasted at him as he swooped and swerved. Windows and parts of air cars melted under the intense fire. He dove to blend in with traffic and to use ground cover to his advantage. The pulses of light followed as he went. The soldiers didn’t seem to care about anyone getting in their way as they followed Bolo. He supposed that when your population is nothing but clones, everyone is disposable. That seemed to be the rational for their brute force methods for their expansion. Throw bodies at the problem until it was gone. That worked as long as you had a way to make more bodies faster. Bolo used the ground traffic as an obstacle course as he jetted across the city. Buses and trains rolled on predetermined routes. Pedestrians sought cover instead of getting in the way of their comrades in the air cars. His helmet warned him more and more troopers were joining in on the chase, moving to cut him off. He didn’t dare stay out in the open with so many troopers working against him. He had to get out of the open with exits that couldn’t be covered. He checked his ship. It was drifting down a few miles away. It was outside of the cordon so far. He had to get to it. It was time to cause a distraction. Bolo turned, hovering in flight as his jets adjusted to the new direction of travel. He emptied his magazine at the fleet of air cars behind him. He wasn’t trying to hit anything in particular, just trying to cause the pilots to do something stupid. The barrage of miniature munitions blew apart on the armored skins of the cars. Some hit the cannon on the lead car. It exploded, setting fire to the gunner. That caused the pilot to head into a building and crash land through office furniture and low level workers. The second car lost part of a jet and the pilot had to fight to stabilize it as it headed down. The rest of the pursuit came on. Few of the missiles had gotten through and the damage was minimal. Bolo reloaded as he charged them. He tried to zig-zag so they wouldn’t have a clean shot. Pulses of light denoted hits on the buildings on either side of him. He fired at random to give himself working room. The distance wasn’t enough for the missiles to separate from the slugs so they flattened uselessly against the skins of the cars. Then he got lucky and one shell went into a jet and that car headed for the ground. Bolo swerved right and around a square office building. He checked the position of his ship and turned right again on the other side of the building. He started climbing again. He listened to the reports on his helmet. They seemed to have lost him for a minute there. He had to make the most of his head start while he had it. A sighting went out. He frowned. They were back on him like ticks on a hound dog. He kept climbing. He loaded his last magazine as he listened to cars reporting they were approaching from an angle ahead. He had to be ready so he could get by and be picked up before he was stopped. If they caught him, or his ship, the war was as good as over. He had no illusions that he could withstand torture for any amount of time. His ship would be drained dry even faster. He spotted the air cars roaring in to stop him. He fired as soon as his helmet said they were in range of his pistol. He had to cause enough confusion to get through. He activated the recall so his ship wouldn’t land and would instead head right for him. He told it to fire at any threats as it came. He ignored the answering affirmative as he kept firing at the air cars. He slipped through the cloud of falling debris as his pistol ran out of ammunition. He put it away as he roared into clear skies. He ignored the radio chatter. He only had eyes for the ship’s position marker on the visor of his helmet. Then he saw it roaring at him faster than any air car. The door of his ship opened to let him slip inside the airlock. He ordered it to go. He didn’t want to be caught so close to an escape. The ship reversed course and headed for space. Bolo cycled through the airlock. He headed for the helm, checking the holographic screens as his ship blasted out of the gravity well. The faster than light was useless until he was clear of the planet. The radio warned him that defensive ships in orbit were moving to stop him. Automatic guns spun in orbit as the call went out. He told the ship to evade until it was at the outer limit of the jump, then take them out of there as fast as possible. The ship warned him that missiles had locked on. He fired the defensive flares as the ship headed for the partition line. It looked like it was going to be close. He fired missiles behind him. He needed to keep the offense dodging just enough to make it to the line. The faster than light spiraled up to full power as the ship crossed the line. The ship had programmed random coordinates so when the threshold was reached, it blinked away from the combat. Bolo searched space when the jump finished. It looked like he had escaped from the Conglomerate. He sat back in his chair. He took a breath. He needed to get back to Nolgroth’s world and hope the others had devised a better plan to beat the Conglomerate before they ate up the galaxy. He took a sighting and turned to sail toward his goal. He needed to get the ship checked out to make sure there was no bugs on it first. The Conglomerate didn’t seem to believe in sneaky, but who knew? Maybe someone in their command structure recognized he needed more intelligence to crush the Alliance that struggled against him.

Horace Kirk is Flash Step. Normally capable of speeds of three hundred miles an hour, Kirk is capable of boosting his speed by passing through objects in his path. This tends to cause the objects to explode, but that doesn't bother Kirk at all. CES

Arsenal has been asked to come in as a temporary hero from his own team, Team America. His propensity to act like a squirrel sometimes is overlooked by his CIA trained mind, and coat of gadgets that help him deal with problems oversight might encounter CES

Read hidden by Ben Jacka. ALex Verus has to deal with some problems when one of his friends disappears. CES

watched Homefront with Jason Statham and James Franco. it's a slow motion picture as Satham's character and daughter have settled into a town where James Franco's character runs the meth trade. After the daughter beats up the nephew of Franco's character, hilarity ensues. CES

I don't know if this falls here, or in other news, but kernersville police had to give back 20k in illegally seized money according to yesterday's Journal. A couple of things stood out to me, but the major one was the judge who signed the order to give back the money asked the lead officer if he had probable cause to seize the money, and they didn't according to the officer. They just did. CES

An excavdora is a bulldozer CES

Of course. I didn't even change the name that much. CES

The masked wrestler known as Excavador is known to be gallant to women, polite to everyone he robs, and capable of ripping a vault door off its hinges. He even insures a fair fight with any hero who tries to stop him. That's why he is Excavador, the valiant villain. CES

Read Helen and Troy's Epic Road Quest by A.Lee Martinez. Fast food workers are cursed to bring back to life a lost god. They are lessed to please with the help they get on the way CES

Had a dream where the Schwarzeneggar Terminator was teaching school kids how to survive the apocalypse. CES

Read Spirits from Beyond and Voices from Beyond by Simon Green. The Ghost Finders investigate a haunted inn, and a haunted radio station. CES

Watched Darker than Black. Superpowered mercenaries, terrorists, secret agents, and the black reaper are fighting over who controls the future. CES