Terminal

"No roof access. Sky Raiders." Kali began to answer. "But the large vehicle hangar on basement level two has a lot of street-level access ramps and a few hidden ladders up to the parking lot. Um." Kali did not squint, as her eyes could not move. But the beads of light shining in them seemed to visibly shrink. "Did you mention Flambeaux coming here? Isn't she a vill-" She abruptly shut her mouth. "Wait, no," She smiled anxiously. "You asked me to forget all that, sorry. It's really none of my business I suppose. But uh...this is technically a secure premises. There are undercover PPD hanging around outside specifically to keep solicitors and the press away. The superintendent is very serious about making sure people feel safe here."

"Oh, I'm a student. On and off. I transferred down to Nerva University in Crimson Cove for a while - had to get out and experience more of the world. But I came back here eventually. I am mainly studying art with some history thrown in." She leaned against the doorway casually as she spoke, crossing her hands across her chest. "Not the most practicable of studies, but you know how it is. The grass is always greener when you get recovery proceeds for retrieving priceless Phoenician artifacts from superpowered fascists and mystic cults." Kali eyed Tabithia with a level gaze for a moment - a level, unblinking gaze - before continuing. "So...Even if this is sort of a waystop for you, you *are* a registered hero, right? Er." She grimaced slightly, her gloved fingers flexing on her arms as she hastened to cover some kind of audible slip. "That is - I suppose it is no big deal if you aren't. Not to name names, but there are a few tenants here who aren't exactly entirely on the up and up." She paused again, her face freezing mid-sentence and then shifting to an awkward and plaintive look as she shifted her frame slightly against the door once more. "Ah. Sorry. I'm being rude. Let's try that again. I was just asking if you happened to be a Hero, and I would be grateful if you forgot all that other dumb stuff I said after that part."

That's fine, but don't feel like you have to chase it. That stone is already rolling downhill, and there are a few IC hours before it is going to come up again. Another small response coming soon.

Small response up. For those of you who do not know - there is an interior Invention Lab/University in Kallisti Wharf, which is marked on the map. As far as universities go, it is honestly rather small. But it exists.

"...Hm. If you say so." Kali indicated, resting one arm in the crook of the other and bringing her free hand against her check, treating Tabitha to a plaintive expression as the cat girl struggled with her spilled belongings and entangled herself in her backpack. "So you *are* a new tenant here then. If you don't mind me asking, are you a student down at Christie University? It's never too late to enroll if not." She trailed off for a moment as she stared at Tabitha blankly for a few moments. "Ah, sorry, I just sort of assumed you would be a student. You...sound young, if that makes any sense. You mentioned this was a temporary arrangement? How long will you be staying here?"

The incomplete aspect of other people's backstories invites zany elaboration. "You are COMPLETELY correct about the timing thing, but you see, I am also actually a time traveler because back in the Roaring Twenties this Circle of Thorns Psychic in a Speakeasy told me that Dr, Vahzilok was going to kidnap my dog-" Which is appropriate for the genre. A little bit of zaniness and crazy super-powered chicanery can cover a diversity of sins and woes as far as incompatible backstories and histories go, and you can still have your serious roleplay alongside it as well.

Some context for what just happened, in case anybody is unfamiliar: On Redside, tip missions in the 40s-50s range reveal that Flambeaux went from a Hero to a Rogue, and since then, she's become something of an attention-seeking drama queen, and spends most of her time scheming for public attention and also incidentally getting the snot beaten out of her by actual villains out to teach her a lesson in complacency. One of these sordid affairs involved an attempt by Flambeaux to host a party starring herself and several Nemesis Automaton copies of herself she managed to acquire, you can probably imagine how that ended. If anybody wants to barge in on the large fellow in the jacket with the glasses, feel free to do so.

The Sloan Apartments Right as Tabitha adjusted her hoodie, she saw an almost indiscernible silhouette descend across the other side of the gap between the door and the threshold - somebody was there! And they had picked up her finger-blob! After a brief pause, the door then swung open inwards, away from Tabitha to reveal the room's occupant. A heavy silence hung in the air as the mechanical girl stared down blankly at Tabitha, holding the finger blob up in one gloved hand as they seemingly processed the sight of the kneeling catgirl awkwardly attempting to hide herself beneath her bundled layers of oversized clothing. With a surprisingly breathy gasp of surprise - hardly any metallic reverb to it at all really - the android brought its free hand to its mouth as if in dismay. "Ohmigosh, you've been using these things to cover your claws? That won't do. I have some spare gloves you can have, they're made for exactly that sort of thing." The android's voice could have been described as bubbly, excitable - and suspiciously youthful. There was the faintest of tinny resonance underlying each of their syllables, but had it not been for the women's obviously mechanical exterior Tabitha might well not have even noticed. The android bent down slightly at the knees to offer Tabitha the finger blob, removing her free hand from her mouth to reveal a faint smile. Her face seemed perfectly flesh-like and malleable, with a complete expressive range - except for around the orbits of the protruding eye mechanisms, which seemed to be static and fixed structures. "I'm Kali. What's your name? Are you a new tenant?" As she spoke, she rose and straightened once more, swaying - in a perfectly organic and fluid motion no less - to the side of the doorframe as if to make room for Tabitha to enter the apartment beyond. The lights in the room were off, but with the afternoon sun shining through the window-shades, Tabitha could clearly make out what appeared to be a small living-room set including a light-blue couch, a standard glass coffee-table, and a large wall-mounted television - and then, across at the opposite wall, there appeared to be three large desks crowded with cosmetics adjacent to a massive, ornate wooden wardrobe that went straight from the floor to the ceiling, and between them both three standing-mirrors, two adjustable standing-overhead lamps, and a step-platform between them. Spare scrapes of cloth and bolts of fabric hung across the tables and one of the mirrors, and a sewing machine took up the center of one of the vanities. The android seemed to be something of a fashionista, it seemed. It really was amazing, what such profound effects a statement as innocuous and off-hand as Tabitha's could have. Although she had barely even noticed their presence as they passed her by in the apartments hallway, a young over-muscled man wearing a surplus military jacket walked right by her. He did not even spare her a second glance despite her awkward clothing situation - but he heard her mention Flambeaux owing her money just fine. The same man immediately forgot about this, left the building, and went about his day. A few hours later, after hitting the Christie bowling alley and getting a well-done steak at the lane's bar with some friends he got a ride across the wharf over the Old Sloan. He and his friends went to a warehouse where the Freakshow were currently holding a not-so-secret never-ending rave, and after taking a load off with a few drinks in one of the quieter corners he saw what appeared to be a malfunctioning and spluttering mechanical Nemesis Automaton Flambeaux duplicate trailing along after a Freak mechanic with a jittering leg and emitting sparks from somewhere questioning beneath its skirt - one of the many leftovers of Flambeaux's automaton fiasco in the Rogue Isles that had clearly seen better days. Remember what he had overheard from Tabitha, the man then immediately got back up and rushed hurriedly to one of the warehouse's back rooms. It was then that the man made a simple mistake - misremembering what he had heard, he told one of thugs lounging around in the small computer lab that he had heard Flambeaux owed a Hero over at Christie apartments "Five Hundred." He got a thanks, a bump on the shoulder, and was then shoved over laughing to the other malcontents living it up in the room for some more drinks while the thug got up and headed into a redecorated warehouse manager's office. Inside, a large and robust man was sitting attentively on a large and out-of-place chaise lounge and reading a dossier marked with the Freedom Corps. logo while having his neck and shoulders massaged by an affectionate women in a scandalous red dress standing just behind the lounge. "Hey boss. You'll never guess. One of the roadies just came in, said he heard a hero over in New Christie talking to Flambeaux over the phone - and that the prisshead apparently owes them $500,000,000." The man looked up with a slow measure of puzzled intrigue. Unexpected, but not startling. He closed the dossier up, handed it back to the woman massaging his neck, leaned forward, and carefully took off his glasses to give the thug a level look. "Five hundred, huh?" He drawled lightly. "That's...quite a bit of scratch as far as the little fussy hearthwarmer is concerned. No way she actually has that. Hell, even her powers probably don't rate that much if they could be sold." "I'm more curious as to how she got to owin' that much." The thug remarked. The robust man stroked his small tuft of a beard thoughtfully at that, leaning back in the chaise lounge for a moment and putting his glasses back on. "It is interesting. Might be nothing. Could be she just developed an abrupt and unexpected gambling addiction at the Giza over the weekend." "Or her filthy little hot mouth wrote a lot of checks that aren't going to get cashed for some kind of big project." "Mm." The robust man rolled his neck and cracked his everything, the entire room filling with the sound of popping bones as he hefted himself up out of his seat. "Alright. Bring the car around and get one of the autos that still has an intact tracker. Where did he say this was at again?" "The Christie apartments." "Mm. It'll have to be a stakeout then." "He also recommended the steaks they make at this one bowling alley, maybe we can get them to order out-"

I plan to have an opening post mentioning you up later today.

Not a problem Chase, and welcome to the RP. I have a character or two of my own to introduce, but like you I was sort of waiting for other parties to jump in. If you are looking for anything for Tabithia to get up to in the near/nearish future, I have a few ideas that can possibly springboard off of our tragically maligned viral internet sensation's fish-out-of-water situation.

Iteration 02.1 Primal Earth North America United States Paragon City Kallisti Wharf New Christie The Christie Apartments "...And we have finally managed to secure a safe-verified line of commercial supplies for the ground-floor grocers, sir." Mr. Line's secretary said with some measure of satisfaction as she handed off a printed copy of the securities contract to him in his office on the ground floor of Christie Apartments. "Thank god. I just wish it wasn't necessary, what with that attempt by Malta to poison people by altering shipments sent in to the food section." Mr. Line, the general manager and superintendent for Christie Apartments grumbled as he accepted the contract and put it into his 'TO-DO' tray. He then pulled up his computer records for the current list of tenants in the building, viewing the names there carefully and wondering to himself just what, exactly, they were all getting up to at the moment. Across the Wharf Old Sloan The Sloan Apartments "...and after executing the third negotiator, Commander Unfer is confident that the Circle of Thorns will no longer attempt to 'recontextualize' the boundary lines of the Basement Floor 1 Laundromat Demilitarized Zone. For the foreseeable future." The Arbiter-Fateweaver reported in a distant, airy tone to Arbiter Khai as he stonily peered at a wall-mounted Arachnos monitor currently depicting the list of known inhabitants for the building. "Commend the Commander and then tell him that we are running another round of background checks on the tenants. He is to stand-by to eject any possible Longbow and Wyvern undercover operatives." He stated. "Yes Arbiter. Shall tell him to ignore the ordinary gamut of frauds, cultists, undercover Malta, Crey, and alien shapeshifters?" "Yes. As usual." Arbiter Khai replied distractedly as he thought to the various tenants of the Sloan Apartments. He idly wondered exactly what sort of trouble they were getting into that moment.

Kallisti Apartments Hello and welcome all to the spiritual successor to the Whitmoore Apartments. For those of you not familiar: The Whitmoore Apartments was a character-driven slice-of-life and daily routine RP thread which, over time, spawned half a dozen or so spin-off series and evolved over time to contains far too many self-contained story arcs to succinctly recount. Here is a link to Whitmoore Wiki if you are interested in learning more about it. Here are some basic ground rules for how this should all work: Keep the RP in Kallisti. It's ok if you go to other zones/areas for one-off missions, but for the sake of locality, try to keep everything nearby. Keep it real, use the Ham sparingly. This is a slice-of-life RP thread. You can have your big end-of-the-world plot if you want it, but build up to it slowly. This is a character plot thread, not a story driven one. Related to the above: The Grand Inaugural Ceremony for One Statesman Plaza occurred on 8/31/2012. Ceremonies went smoothly and absolutely nothing else interesting happened. Please no power tripping or god-moding. Combat between characters should be more constructive and collaborative than anything else. Speak frequently and often with other posters involved in the same fight. Keep the melodrama IC. Do not get into heated arguments or debates in the OPEN in the OOC. Take it to PMs, or else contact me or the site moderators to resolve disputes. Related to the above: Don't take it personally, act professionally. Most conflicts between *posters* tend to grow from amidst misunderstanding and mistaken impressions. Stay connected and speak frequently with other posters to head off OOC melodrama. If there should be a huge posting spree or narrative gap anywhere, especially between characters: Assume time dilation is in effect. This is not a literal rule, it's just a rule of thumb: Keep going with what there is, don't give up just because you missed something, or several somethings. There can be a reasonable explanation for most things. With that out of the way, let's now briefly discuss the zone of Kallisti Wharf. Below you will see a big map of the zone. I have marked out sites of particular interest which are not already listed on the in-game map, I trust that everyone here with access to the zone can find everything else there is on their own. Note, there are several interesting sites which I have gone out of my way to not point out, since I want to leave aspects of the Zone open for collaborative world-building. These are just the sites which I have pre-defined in order to stave off egregious weirdness or because they would logically already have their own specifically intended purpose. Some brief notation on the points of interest above, from top to bottom, skipping over the apartments (covered later). The Vanguard Administrative HQ is so demarked solely because it has a Vanguard Helicopter and Warden parked up-top. The Crey Corporate Towers, with names ripped straight out of Lord of the Rings because it was funny at the time, have actual Crey Corp. logos down at the main entrance. Also these things are stupidly huge, and Ecthelion may actually be as big or bigger than the Statesman building. There's this weirdly obvious military encampment with tents, trucks, and weapon racks just out in the open in this very obviously public park. In order to avoid weirdness, I'm heading it all off by saying it's basically a Vanguard temporary transitional R&R site. The Kallisti Wharf Paragon Police Department Precinct. It exists. That is all. And now we move onto the Apartments and also the Zone's co-op functionality. Some more basic rules: Arachnos has a provisional embassy over in Old Sloan, their presence in Kallisti Wharf was sponsored and is vouched for by Vanguard and the Lady Grey, absolutely nobody else was thrilled about it, but it's a thing now. The Arbiters all have Diplomatic Immunity, do not even touch them unless you want trouble. Villains based out of the Sloan apartments, either by way of Arachnos patronage, blackmail, or devious schemes, have official status as diplomatic attaches. Within the confines of the zone, they cannot be attacked or arrested except in self defense or in order to prevent an ongoing crime. Yes, even if they are otherwise inexcusably evil supervillains guilty of genocide. They do not have the same diplomatic immunity as the Arbiters, but you still generally shouldn't attack them unless provoked. The Sloan Apartments are technically Sovereign Territory. If you want to drag out villains hiding in there, you need to have them extradited. This is not easy. Paragon City Rule of Law applies throughout the zone otherwise (but the KWPPD may have, shall we say, response issues trying to get anything done over in Old Sloan). Without further ado, the apartments and their features: Christie Apartments For Heroes, Vigilantes, and Other-Aligned Parties Christie Apartments were built as part of a subsidized Goverment Housing Project in order to provide free housing to officially registered and licensed heroes of Paragon City (although the registry database has never been the most secure). The building was specifically designed to handle the ensuing security and family matters that would likely develop. Has 15 Floors and 3 Basement Levels Floor 1 has Reception, Management, a Day-Care, a 24-Hours Grocers & Pharmacy. All are resident-restricted for security purposes. Floors 2-14 hold 20 apartments per-floor, in various states of repair. All of them have working utilities, but may or may not be furnished. Individual rooms do not have balconies or fire escapes, again for security reasons. Blame the Sky Raiders. Floor 15 is a penthouse level, with 6 private penthouse suites. Basement Floor 1 has a laundromat, an indoor-pool, and a gym - all resident-restricted. Basement Floor 2 has a large vehicle hangar, accompanied with bulk teleport pads and discrete street-level access ramps. Basement Floor 3 has a Secure Resident Vault and Emergency Saferoom. Has its own private parking lot out front. The entrances are secured by Police Drones, and the PPD has undercover security working in and around the Apartment grounds. Mr. Line is the general manager and superintendent for Christie Apartments. Sloan Apartments For Villains, Rogues, and Other Aligned-Parties The Sloan Apartments were part of an early and now abandoned redevelopment project by Paragon City in Old Sloan. It has the questionable distinction of being the single largest building in Old Sloan, and also being the site of Arachnos' provisional embassy. The building is not as large or extravagant as the Christie Apartments, but its features are of greater interest to its potentially nefarious inhabitants. Has 17 Floors and 3 Basement Levels Floor 1 holds the Arachnos Embassy proper and its offices. This is a high-security area and unless you are a diplomatic attache or have the consent of Arbiter Khai, you have no business being here. Floors 2-12 hold 8 apartments per floor. They are roomier than the apartments in Christie, but there are no free utilities and everything you can get legally tends to be monitored or metered by Arachnos. As with Christie, individual rooms do not have balconies or fire escapes. Floors 13-17 are all extravagant one-floor penthouse suites. Basement Floor 1 has a haunted laundromat, which pulls triple-duty as an Arachnoid hive and as a staging ground for the Circle of Thorns since there is a crack in the wall leading into Oranbega. Basement Floor 2 has a third-party operated, private high-security series of vaults, which can be bought or leased and freely modified. Basment Floor 3, not listed on the blueprints and officially not existing, is a series of twisting secret passageways and tunnels. These connect not only to the various warehouses around Old Sloan, but also to the Paragon City Sewer Network and Abandoned Sewer Network - which is not accessible from the Western side of Kallisti Wharf. Do not park out front, turn your head for a second and it'll be gone. Directly behind the building is power-plant substation grid, which can be readily and illegally tapped into for unlimited power draw. It keeps the War-Walls going, so yes, it has enough to charge up your death laser. The entrances, rooftop access, and the laundromat demilitarized zone are all guarded by Arbiter Drones. Unlike the friendlier Police Drones, these do not teleport you to a penitentiary cell. These disintegrate you at the quantum level. You have been warned. Arbiter Khai is in charge of everything. His word is the word of Lord Recluse and therefore law within the scant confines of the apartments. Anger him at your peril. I will maintain here, at the bottom of the OOC main page, a list of answers to particularly insightful or usefully directed questions. And with that, let the OOC and treacherous idle chatter commence. Answer: My personal headcanon is that Old Sloan is plagued by the Circle of Thorns, the Devouring Earth, the Nemesis Army, and the Freakshow, with non-aggressive Arachnos personnel leering angrily at you here and there. Meanwhile, Christie is constantly under siege by Crey Corporate Security, the Council, the Tsoo, and the Sky Raiders. Non-aggressive members of the PPD and Longbow can also both be found here, and Vanguard maintains a small presence in select areas. But this is by no means definitive. Answer: At Christie Apartments, talk to Mr. Line. As the building manager and superintendent, it is literally his job to handle that sort of thing. At Sloan Apartments, speak with Arbiter Khai. It is far, far, FAR and away NOT his job to deal with ANY of that, but if there is a problem of that nature so extreme that you cannot handle it yourself, he's probably the only authority short of Divine Intervention that can help you.

Alright, since there is some expressed actual interest in it, I plan on rebooting Whitmoore apartments for a new iteration here on the forums. The new RP will likely not take place in the original locale of Steel Canyon. I am thinking of basing the RP in Kallisti Wharf, to be more inclusive of Redside characters and schemes. Additional details will be forthcoming.

So back in the old Live Forums, there were two (amongst many, these are just the ones I have deigned to bring up here) particularly longstanding RP threads. The first was Whitmoore Apartments, which was both a localized slice of life/character-driven RP, with several extremely long and successful story arcs during its run, many of which occurred concurrently. I will forebear to actually describe the exact timeline of events since the thread itself was so long and detailed the exercise would be one of futility. The second was Final Fight, another long-runner RP with the premise of Extradimensional entities summoning heroes and villains to an isolated planet in its own pocket dimension to fight each other with three lives each, with the promise that the sole winner would have any one wish of theirs granted. It then proceeded to get out of hand extremely quickly. There were players who were raising entire armies and building fortified strongholds, and a lot of different contestants who had no actual interest in getting their wish granted would show up just to decide they wanted to stop X or Y from winning, or that there might be other worthwhile goals to pursue on the pocket world. The thread itself also got hijacked a few times, but it survived these hijackings more often than not. The big similarity between the two threads was that they were persistent locales with only very vague/generalized directives and that they both went on for quite some time. So I am here to ask and gauge interest in whether there is any interest in a continuation/reboot of either, or a fusion of the two, or any other premise along the same persistent and easily-accessible locale theme.

Personally, I like to think of it as an event analogous to TES Dragon Breaks. The Coming Storm happened, people remember or do not remember it, the Earth both survived and fell to it, everything is simultaneously true and false, all is one, one is all, the circuit is complete. That period of time is ineffable, indiscernible, impossible to establish any exact chronology of events with any certainty. This is just as well, with Ouroboros and the Furies being involved, a Dragon Break is not even an unlikely response to a threat like the Battalion.