Coyotedancer

Agreeing with Doc... As a Unique? It's an interesting idea. I can imagine having good fun with it.

>_< No, you. (That said, I wouldn't mind seeing the Layer Cake room go the way of the dodo on kill-all missions. It's just a royal pain in the rump there. Too many goons get stuck in odd, out-of-sight places. Under other circumstances? Eh. It's not THAT bad.)

Laughing over here. XD And Arte says, "I would *never*... make someone say 'nyan'. T-that's just... inhumane."

Oranbega, beneath Brickstown In the Middle of a Riot at the Zig Kaikara “Manticore wants to… what?” Behind the impassive calm of White Thorn’s graceful ivory mask, Kaikara raised an eyebrow at Apallos, not entirely sure that she had heard what the Ruin Mage said. “He wishes to flood the tunnels beneath the prison,” Apallos repeated, matter-of-factly, as if that was the most obvious and rational idea in the world. “He’s insane.” Kai shook her head. “Even with your order’s Earth magic supporting the tunnels, there are so many undocumented entry and exit points to seal…. Someone is going to have to go down there and manually-” “Exactly! And it will not be without danger, of course. From our enemies *or* our erstwhile allies.” “The Temple volunteered me, didn’t they?” She shook her head again and made a mental note to discuss ‘responsibility’ and ‘authority’ with Portias of Primeva when all of this was over. “And I bet we have to take Manticore himself along, too, don’t we? Just so he can ‘keep an eye’ on us.” “Indeed.” Apallos sighed, a little dramatically. “And that ReVolting fellow. I fully expect either the hero or the villain to become troublesome at some juncture. Possibly both. As is their nature.” “If they try anything silly, we’ll have to deal with it… I just hope we don’t end up flooding the whole western district right along with the sewers. If those caverns aren’t sealed this is going to be a terrible mess." "Less-so than the alternative..."

Date: In the course of “Hellions Raise Hell” Location: Steel Canyon Character: Artemian {Melodramatic? Yeah. But that's Artemian for you... XD} The emotions of conflict never changed... The razor’s edge of Pain. The blood-red howl of Rage. The hard, biting cold of Fear. The mage closed his eyes and let them all wash over him. Focusing. Gathering. “We’re going to gut this one, aren’t we? We’re going to gut him and watch him twitch!” The Hellions’ thoughts were bright-hot with ambition and pride. Sure of their victory, they were already reveling in expectations of torture and agony. The mortal at their feet was terrified. Every tale he’d ever been told of sacrificial alters and hellfire danced through his memory. He’d already given himself up as lost, beyond all hope of aid. “I… think not,” the mage said softly, stepping out of the shadows, pulling the strands of Pain, and Rage and Fear tight with a snap. Holding them poised, sharp as daggers, a heartbeat away from the now-started Hellions’ minds. “I think… that you will s-surrender yourselves peacefully, and trouble Steel Canyon n-no more. Or… you will reap what you have sown. The ch-choice... is yours.” ===================== “This man… requires aid.” Artemian helped the mortal he’d taken from the Hellions three blocks away to a bench, where an over-worked medic was handing out bandages. “His assailants… h-have been dispatched… to PPD Processing.” When Kaikara had asked him to come to Steel Canyon he had not known what to expect. Mayhem was all she had said. Chaos. Danger. All of the usual horrors of this modern city and its plentiful sorrows. ‘Focus,’ he reminded himself again, leaning against the medic’s ambulance, rubbing the bridge of his nose and trying to ignore the familiar rising doubts. ‘This is not Astoria. This is not Doom. This is only a cult of half-trained mortal hedge-mages...’ And yet… He looked around at the civilians, and the medics and the handful of other heroes gathered in this small refuge and he sighed. Mot was not among the horrors of Steel Canyon, but that did nothing to make what WAS here any less trying. The emotions of conflict never changed... And he was already weary of them.

All of this business with the Family is just getting stranger and stranger, Diary… It turns out that the Midnighters Club wasn’t the ONLY place in the City that those mafia jerks decided to take over yesterday… Not long after I went to Steel Canyon to help the PPD round up all of their escaped Hellions, I found out that the Family’s goons had *also* taken over one of Portal’s buildings in Peregrine Island. AND the City Hall in Atlas Park! I have to admit that it seemed improbable that a bunch of everyday mobsters like the Family… the same fellows who are always getting beaten up by the Council and the Tsoo… could manage to successfully organize something so ambitious. But after seeing with my own eyes the mess that they had made of the Midnighters’ archives? I guess anything is possible with enough laser-guns, targeting drones and angry Singularities. I left the rest of the Hellions and their crates of random junk (No, I still don’t understand what all of THAT was about, either…) to Artemian and the other heroes who were starting to arrive and went to find Unai instead. Some of the Family goons had already kidnapped Tina and taken her SOMEWHERE, but there were still a lot of them loose in the building. They were ransacking the place, trying to steal all kinds of equipment that they really shouldn’t have. I know that there’s a whole dimension out there where the Family took over the world… I went there to repair some temporal ruptures last year… But that doesn’t mean OUR Family goons ought to be allowed to get any ideas about visiting. >_< They had also captured a few of the scientists who hadn’t gotten out of the building fast enough, but Portal’s scientists seem to handle that kind of thing better than most people. I think they’ve sort-of gotten used to weird things happening to them on the job, and being captured by the mob is prooooobably less concerning than being split in two, turned into a tentacle monster or body-snatched by a Thorn Caster. The Family weren’t just taking equipment and harassing scientists, though. They were also trying to pull information from Portal’s computer network. I was curious what they were looking for, and they had no clue I was there… so I might have spent a few minutes reading the file over their shoulders. That just raised more questions than it answered, though… They were reading about power transferal across dimensional thresholds and looking up reports on Reichman’s empowerment machine. After I’d punched all of the goons at Portal into next week, I decided to go to City Hall. I kind-of had a bad feeling about them sacking MAGI’s vault, and what they might find. I mean, I KNOW some of the things that are in there... The Wheel of Destruction. The Scroll of Tielekku. The Gambler’s Stone… All kinds of stuff that it would be really, really bad for the Family to get ahold of. Sometimes I hate being right, Diary… The Family goons had taken off with Brighid Moreira and with Azuria. (No surprise there. Azuria is even worse than Percy about getting into trouble. <_<) They had also grabbed Gregor, though, and UNLIKE his boss, he doesn’t deserve that. I may dislike the way Azuria does her job, Diary, and the way MAGI catalogues their books and their artifacts, and how often they send heroes to “borrow” something of ours and then refuse to return it, but Gregor is an okay guy. He shouldn’t have to put up with being kidnapped by jerks who’ll threaten to stick him in a bucket of cement. The Family were stealing artifacts and equipment from City Hall, too, just like they had from the Midnighters and Portal. They were taking all kinds of things from the Praetorian War, and had searched the records for files related to Tyrant and something that was referenced as “power suppression” by the IDF… I’m not sure what that’s about, exactly. But given what I’d already found at Portal and the Midnighter’s Club, it lead to some disturbing thoughts. Tracking down their leader did not make me any happier, Diary. The jerk had decided to try to loot the memorial… Their memorial. HIS memorial. I… might have punched that one a little harder than was, strictly speaking, necessary to arrest him. Anyway, at the end of all of this, I have a lot of guesses and a lot of questions, but not many proper answers. Power manipulation isn’t something that I know much about. Void magic, Force magic, wards and barriers… yes. This? Not so much, Diary. I am, as Sig would say, out of my depth. I need to speak to someone who understands these things better than I do. I think I’m going to try to find the Dream Doctor. And Sheridan. -K

Nature defender... Her name is Eve. She gets a really bad rap for having listened to a serious snake in the grass. Now, about that Avatar

That might be nice to have.

If other players' use of a fast-travel option is enough to make you stop playing the game... I have to wonder rather there's more going on than JUST the annoying travel power. Burnout is a thing. Been-there-done-that is a thing, too. Even with a game we love.

{{Thanks. XD It's been quite awhile since I've played around with Kai.}}

Several of the little islands around the Chantry, and at Crimson Falls in the Shard are nice. If you can get to them.

{{OOC Note: Kai is taking part in Terminal's 'Self-Conceit' server story-arc on Everlasting. This is her summary of the first day's events. XD}} Dear Diary- Who knew that college would be SO MUCH WORK! Between classes, and papers, and exams and projects (and still being Scirocco’s intern when I’m NOT trapped in the university library in Founder’s Falls-) I haven’t had time to do anything else! I’ve really missed being able to go out and bash things with my friends, a little spider has decided to live in my camera drone and my Capebook page has lost all of its followers. Not that I really mind that so much. I was getting tired of dodging all of those pervy questions about what kind of pajamas I like to wear, anyway. (Did they think that I was going to post video or something?! Social media is just *weird*.) I haven’t even gone shopping for any new boots. <_< All of that changed yesterday, though. Something REALLY STRANGE was going on, and I kind-of ended up walking right into the middle of it… A bunch of men from the mafia decided to take over the Midnighter’s Club while I was on my way there to borrow one of the Librarian’s books on extraplanar cartography. That wasn’t the first time that someone had taken over the club. It… It honestly happens more often than you might think. The Rulushin. Unbound demons. Animate spells… Uncle Deafie… The place has a long history of invasion. I think this is the first time that the Family had done it, though, and they made a very big mess. They’d taken hostages, and looted the archives and no one was supposed to go after them, but… I sort of DID because I was worried about them trying to steal Tommy’s skull, like the Rulushin did. So, I snuck in. And… I punched them. A lot. I found out that they had already taken some of the artifacts, including the Dream Doctor’s dagger (The one he called the Dagger of Jocsa. It’s kind of a Big Deal.) AND they had kidnapped Percy! Because of course they had. Getting kidnapped again probably serves him right, though. He usually does something to deserve it… Ashley said that she was sending someone named Darin and someone named Shrike to get him back, so at least I don’t have to go and find him this time. Anyway, one of the mafia jerks told me that the Family was just being opportunistic, and taking advantage of everyone being distracted by a big riot at the Zig. Someone named Upstart (He’s with the Freakshow, I think?) had broken out of jail and let a lot of other prisoners out, too. There was no way I was going to get my library book with the Club locked down and the Librarian making statements to the police, so I thought that maybe I ought to go help out in Bricks… It was either that or get grumped at by Mister Castanella for sneaking in to deal with all of those Family guys on my own. When I got to Brickstown, it was a huge mess, too. There were prisoners and Freakshow guys with metal hands all over the place! Some of them were fighting with other groups, or with the police, and it all seemed to center on the sewers. (It’s strange, Diary, but EVERYTHING in Paragon City eventually seems to come down to the sewers… I still haven’t figured out why that is, exactly, but it’s true a statistically improbable percentage of the time that the solution to any problem will lead you there.) A swordsman named Rapier Wit had come to the same conclusion, and we decided to go in together. I’ve spent a lot of time in the sewers, Diary. Enough to have perfected my Cleansing Rituals, anyway… But I’ve never seen them so crowded with so many different people. Nemesis soldiers, Praetorian revolutionaries, Council goons, one of those Crey Death-stalkers (Which *still* crunched like it was made of soda cans-), a Carnival Ring Mistress, some rogue Vanguard rangers… Mantis was even there with a few of the spider-bots, though I’m preeeeety sure she didn’t recognize me. I was dressed as White Thorn, after all. (Secret Identities, for the win!) Things got dicey for us quickly, though. The whole place was shaking like crazy and coming apart all around us, and when one tunnel caved in Rapier and I got caught on opposite sides. He said to split up and head back up to the street. I was looking for the exit when I met Apallos. He’s a Ruin Mage and was trying his best to talk a bunch of Freaks and patrol of Khedian PPD officers into NOT trying to bash each other, but no one was listening to him. That wasn’t really a surprise. No one in Paragon EVER listens to us… It’s like they see the glowing eyes and the spikey armor and they just tell themselves that whatever we’re on about is probably Something Questionable. This time? It was that the shaking (Which turned out to be centered on the prison-) and the chaos that was destroying the sewers was ALSO threatening to collapse our tunnels in the old city! That was a very Not Good thing. Archmagus Tya’s crystals are strong, but they weren’t made to handle Zig-breaking earthquakes! I didn’t go back to street-level. Apallos and I went back to Oranbega. I don’t know anything about Earth magic… just Void and Force and Light… But I know there are people at the Temple in Primeva who DO, so I summoned Laertes and sent him to ask Amtes if she could send anyone to help here in Bricks. Apallos’ coven is a little short-handled (It sounds like they’ve had Hero-troubles), but maybe if Primeva pitches in they’ll be okay. We don’t need to lose any MORE of our city. Not after what happened to the bits under Astoria. Since all this started with the riot at the Zig, I said that I was going to see if I could find out anything there to stop the shaking. All I found were more escaping prisoners and Freakshow guys. <_< The PPD officers and prison guards seemed to appreciate the help… They even gave me one of their machine guns for some reason. (Diary, I have no idea how to use a gun. I probably ought to give it to Jordan or to someone else who does.) We didn’t quite manage to catch all of the escapees, though. I had to chase them all the way to Steel Canyon. And I didn’t find out anything about the earthquake. I *did* find out that the Hellions were the ones who had the network of tunnels for getting out of the prison, though, and that someone called Tempter had asked them to collect a lot of… well… JUNK, really… for someone they just called “the patron”, but I have no idea yet what any of that’s about. Looking at the things they had on their crates? It didn’t make much sense. I mean, what would the patron of a demon-summoning fire-cult want with a box of lightbulbs, some hand-tools, a broken hair-dryer and a frying pan? I think I’m going to skip my early lecture tomorrow and do some looking around. -k

I consider OOC drama at least a little inevitable within any given roleplay community. People being people, it's just going to happen. I'm just not a huge fan of "engineered drama" IC either. It struck me as a bit of an asshole move, to be blunt about it. Fun for them, I'm sure, but maybe not so much for the people who had no idea what they were planning. Like I said, I made a mental note of the plan and have just sort of avoided anything the two of them have created since. 'Not my bag, you know? If they want to go that route, it's not my place to tell them it's BadWrongFun. It's just not something I want any part of myself.

'Have to admit, that one makes me side-eye a bit, too... A friend mentioned awhile back that he and his partner-in-mischief were specifically planning on introducing a couple of new characters, getting them to the point where people in their RP circle were attached to them... fond of them and all that... just so they could then kill off said-characters and create copious ~roleplaying dramus~. I laughed, wished him luck and made a mental note never to let another character of mine have anything but the most casual of attachments to anyone new of his. I'm a Dirty Casual. I'm just not in it for All The Drama. XD

I'll always and forever sing the praises of KinMelee… *especially* on Stalkers. They're just scary. A friend has a Kin/Shield Brute who's fairly terrifying in his own right, too. I have to admit, I do miss having an actual build-up on the non-Stalker versions of KM, and yes... it has some slow animations... but still. The set isn't a bad one.

'Wouldn't go well with demons, I suspect... They're a mixed set, but like to close on things. The Prince in particular with that ice sword of his.

Interesting that Group Fly works well with the Mercs set... I had it briefly on Hanano (my Ninja/FF MM back on Liberty-) and it never went well with them. Even in an enclosed space and with a lot of micromanagement, the boys tended to end up outside of it more often than in. Granted, that was back in the Live days before the AI update... 'Might be a little less of an issue now. Or not. Because... ninjas. Goofballs gonna goofball. XD

Being a farmer more than a marketer, I just toss them enough to get the handful of vet/p2w powers that I typically have on everyone, with enough left over to get them DOs/SOs until they hit 32 and can dive into the Common IO bins. So... yeah... about 20m. When I start working on their set builds, I tend to send them the actual IOs rather than INF.

I do it all the time. XD

Or they came from a different set of people. I think you could have figured that out on you own, but hey... Why pass up a chance to be snarky, right?

I suspect I know what the locals would have to say about that. XD *a few of the Thorn Wielders, a Death Mage and one stray Spectral with nothing better to do gather in the hall to discuss the situation... all coming to a quick agreement* "We suggest that the next time one of your contacts asks you to come and 'borrow' something from us... Our books. Some ritual or other. One of our artifacts... Instead of saying yes, you tell them to GET STUFFED! ... Honestly, we're as weary of all of you barging into our city, taking our stuff and doing unspeakable things to our staff as you are of getting lost in dead-end passages, caught on torches and mobbed by summoned behemoths."

That's a lot of it, I think... Plus the perception that the game as a whole is "too easy" and so if you AREN'T running at the highest difficulty settings you're just a bad player. Which is completely ridiculous, but still A Thing I guess.

Yeeeah… Do you honestly think that someone who was so worried about cysts that they wouldn't even team with a Kheldian would actually JOIN a team lead by one? Really? Not a chance, buster. <_< And it isn't really about rather or not you can smash the cysts. It's about the perception of them being death-traps and an added complication for the rest of the team.

This. Which is why I say HELL NO to the cysts making a come-back. I remember a little too well being told flat-out that my PBs weren't welcomed on teams, back-in-the-day. It didn't stop happening until the random cysts were removed. I'd really rather not see it start happening again. <_<

I'm in that boat with Warshades… I've tried human-only. I've tried bi-forms. I tried a tri-form "MFing Warshade" with what was, I was assured, a kick-ass build. I hated every one of them. It's not that I dislike the form-shifting or the Kheldian-thing in general. I've had bi-form and human-only PBs and enjoyed them all. No... It's just that I apparently can't get along with 'Shades. <_<