Aeon Campaign S3E2 – Fractured

We were delayed a bit as we had hardware problems and we were trying to actually all play together, but we eventually bailed and started the game.

Kool-Aid for the Win

We know we need to check out the warehouse that we learned about last mission, and I did a quick electronics-assisted recon (made Stealth roll by 23), and we just assume I make the Observation roll by 17 (I have Observation-31, and Christopher lets us assume a roll of 14). There are a couple of ways into the building that are disguised as boarded-up entrances. There are also a few ventilation-type ducts that would give access.

I decide that’s not why I’m here – external recon only. We pull in Eamon, and he decides with his gravity sense that there are three people present. He tries for a bit more information, to determine if they’re armed or not, and he sees some sort of gravity wave flash out, as if apertures are forming about 2 yards across. He warns us that something inside is currently breaking the laws of physics, and there are 15 portals that have opened, with more opening all the time.

One of the targets starts walking through and disappears into a portal. Zephyr tries a quick “where does the portal go” spell, but hard. He then tries to create a sympathetic token but that’s improv magic.

So we decide to do the Kool-Aid maneuver, and we send Arc Light through the wall at full force. He’s a human/robotic flash-bang. 

Eamon softens the wall a bit (actually quite a lot) and when Arc Light goes through, it explodes inwards. Hopefully creating real-brick shrapnel from a faux-brick force collision.

Inside we see Gemini, looking out of it, and a petite woman with black hair. And still fifteen or so portals branching throughout the city.

We basically figure we have 1-2 seconds to take these guys out. They’re not surprised or stunned, but we’re more or less first. So Zephyr jumps in and runs up to Gemini, and gives him a love-tap on the jaw for 5 damage. He didn’t even twitch, though – he gets a crazy look in his eye, and Zephyr gets the feeling he doesn’t want to be there. 

It’s like Age of Ultron, where Hulk spits out that tooth? Yeah. That kind of pissed.

GM calls for confusion rolls. The Commander fails by 1, and he’s dazed for 11 seconds (25-IQ), so ouch. 

Zephyr splits into two. Eamon’s unaffected by this due to Unfazeable, but the rest of us are stunned for at least one turn. Maybe more. Even Yukio is frozen in fear. I’m so going to make fun of him for this. Maybe from a distance, though. Katana is also confused, and Soarise just passes out.

That’s one heck of a confusion blast. It was a visible, multicolored wall of force that came out of the dark-haired woman. Eamon tries to fly up to her and give her a TK punch from the portal side of the room. He hits, but the GM spends Doom (anti-Karma, or Karma for NPCs) for a critical success.

They step through a portal. We recognize a particular donut place, so they’re still in the city.

Eamon elects to grab us all – stunned and not – and dump us all through the same portal by making the portal “down” in terms of gravity.

We all go through the portal, and we land in another part of town. The sudden mix of gravity and spatial distortion creates a massive breakdown in the concrete beneath us. Totally superhero-landing style.

Zephyr, who hasn’t done anything crazy in a bit . . .wait. 

Which Zephyr? There’s s second one lying KO’d on the concrete.

He shrugs, and runs up to the rapidly retreating criminals, and says “Hi. Where you guys going?” He rolls 17 on the reaction roll. 

“Bad man. Tried to punch me.” Says Gemini.
“I’ll take care of it,” replies the sister.

Gemini punches him. He’s got Roll with Blow, so he tries to take the shot, and he crits! And he makes it look good. Which is good, because Gemini hits for 15d+15 damage, quartered to 17. He’s knocked back, does a backflip in the air, and does a superhero landing, because we all have seen Deadpool too many times. As if that’s a thing.

Zephyr tries to talk to them, mentioned the jewlery store, and then she blasts him with a confusion blast. Zephyr makes the resistance roll, but pretends to be confused anyway. Not sure why, but we’ll go with that.

And the other Zephyr wakes up. He decides that the other him is Evil Zephyr. “I can take him down!” He runs over and performs six rapid strikes. Here we go. He hits with all six.

Heh. He’s reeling from getting biffed by Gemini, so his normal Dodge 15 needs to be cut down in half, then boosted back up to 15 with a fatigue point, a retreat, and an Acrobatic dodge. He makes five of the six dodges, and takes 2 points of damage, which brings him to 0 HP.

“Guys! Guys! I found the Evil Me!”

Fracture throws stuff at us, using a Telekinetic bombardment, but between The Commander’s TK (a seldom-used power) and Eamon’s, no harm done.

The Commander gets a turn, and runs up next to them, and tries to hit them both with a sheathed katana strike for 5d6+14 crushing, as well as a 5d6 kinetic blast. The blast throws Fracture three yards (not bad) and Gemini takes 29 crushing and 40 knockback . . . and just takes it.

Arc Light tries to tangle Fracture, but she TK’s it away, leaving a sticky spot in the middle of the street.

Zephyr is attacking Zephyr again – a parried grapple and another. “Wow, Evil Me is really slippery!” 

“I am not evil!” Z tries to Judo Throw Z, and gets aggressive parried for a point of damage.

Real Zephyr (we think) decides he’s had quite enough of this, and goes for his Hundred-Handed Strike. He makes the roll by 20, but the defender power stunts.

I get hit with a crit, spend karma, defend successfully, and my katana breaks as a result. I still make my DX roll to avoid the blow, so yay.

When the sword shatters, an explosive burst of energy comes from the sword, blows Gemini 7 hexes back, knocks Fracture into the goo, and the Commander is now standing in a crater. Gemini is on his back, screaming, with a piece of telephone pole pinning him to the grounds.

Apparently orichalcum blades are chock full of kyberian energy. Boom.

The Commander runs up and gives Fracture a love tap to put her out, which works. Gemini is bleeding all over the place, and in bad need of medical attention. Eamon chokes him out with a blood choke using TK, so that we can treat his condition. We keep him knocked out chemically, thanks to a quick gizmo by Arc Light.

The other Zephyr tells me that the other Zephyr is really the Dastardly Phantom Menace. Eamon’s had quite enough – he suspends both Zephyr’s in the air.

The Commander rolls a 3 for Physician to treat Gemini, plus first aid from Arc Light, and we fix up 12 HP for Gemini, saving his life. Not that he’ll be grateful or nothing.

Gemini’s real name was Edgar Giardian, and he suffered severe brain damage during an accident in New York. Very strong, very durable, regenerates like crazy.

His sister is . . . stranger. She’s got a big TK ability, and her “Fracture,” which is a kind of random effect field. It can damage, it can afflict people, temporary madness, and in one case it can actually split people into other versions of themselves. She can actually control what power is used, but normally she just lets it roll. Entropy influence, if not control.

This is the first time they’ve been able to be captured – he’s a D-scale metahuman, compared to us, at I scale (I, D, C, N). The A-Team are mostly high-end I-scale, one will end up D-scale. Just for background.

They’re keeping him under heavy sedation, changing his meds every hour. Fracture is wanting to see her brother. We decide that Eamon can leverage that desire for excellent interrogation prospects.

We hit the key questions

1. What was the purpose of the diversion? They were paid to steal something. They don’t know what. Don’t care. Steal a safety deposit box – gives us the number, too.
2. Who paid them? They were paid by a guy with a scar on his face – $5M, $10M if they could kill one of us – to mess with us. Sandy hair. Caucasian. No one we’ve encountered before – a new player.
3. Who was the portal guy? A very scary man. She won’t say more. 

Huh. Why didn’t portal guy – scary portal guy no less – steal it himself? A good question.

Oh, and she created Zephyr Duplicate. Usually they go away, but sometimes they stick around. If he’s not dead after 20 hours, he’s likely to be sticking around.

Oh, and I get an irritated call from Grandfather, who somehow knows that the sword got broken. He’ll be on a plane. Try not to break anything else. That it’s broken means “it” is active again, and that might not be good for me. 

What does that even mean? He’s not telling.

Anyway, we hit up all the information. The equipment, the patterns. We find a Blue Sky metahuman handler, reported dead, with sandy blonde hair, and a scar on his face.

Blue Skies is funding metahumans to attack us. No surprise there. They got just enough info from our involvement with Singleton to be pissed. 

We decide that we’ll take some time over the next week in out-of-character downtime to take the fight to them.

We end there.