DrakeMarshall

Quietus wasn't sure, but it looked like the smoke was actively being repelled away from his prey. Since she wasn't surrounded by it, a push of the wind could drive the smoke back, preventing it from getting too close to her. But it didn't look like she could actually single out the smoke with her power, so maybe a gas would work against her. Something to remember, if she escaped this time. She was just standing there. Quietus could see the glow of her body heat. It hadn't noticably increased, implying that she was not yet afraid. Quietus smiled. The best ways to have power over people all grew from cultivating the right sorts of fear. But a complete lack of fear had it's uses, as well. It would make the next part easier. She was at the edge of his range, not yet feeling the effects of his power. He silently approached her through the smoke cloud, still maintaining some distance for the moment. He had to be patient, and allow his powers to set in while she calmly waited for something to happen. Calamity's gift let him destroy movement, and that meant all movement. He wasn't sure which symptom she would notice first. For most, it was the difficulty breathing. Others cited the dizziness, difficulty moving, or the drop in heart rate. Regardless, the glow of her body heat would slowly begin to lose intensity, as her body entered a downwards spiral in a failed attempt to conserve oxygen. Once she noticed, the hunt would begin in earnest. In the meantime, he fired off a burst from his gun in her general direction, and began to circle further around his quarry.

“Why do you assume I have powers?” Sparks, this one was sharp. After the drama of the last hour, and then being confronted with a question by her captor, most wouldn't have the presence of the mind, let alone the nerve, to call him on that. Respectable, but it also made it harder to get any answers. Should he just try to move on, and ask her about the other epics? That was the more pressing issue, at the moment, and he could circle back on this later. No. If he couldn't at least resolve whether or not she had powers, it would set a bad precedent for future lines of questioning. Another angle? Maybe... "Are you familiar with the device known as a dowser?" Five. The epic flinched, but Quietus was already in motion, mounting a second attack before waiting to see if the first had succeeded. Only the extremely powerful or extremely weak ever held themselves back. He let two more pins drop to the ground, the last two he kept on hand on a regular basis. Any more would take up too much space. Four. One of the two was a second flashbang, which he dropped without a sound in the space he had just been standing in, before circling around his prey a quarter turn. Three. The other was a smoke grenade, which he dropped directly in front of himself, in between the two of them. Two. She was attempting to make a witty comment, but the words never quite reached Quietus through his power. He hoped she was still looking towards the flashbang. Sensory overload was painful, but sensory damage was much more satisfying. It would save him some of the trouble of crippling her later, once she was subdued. One. Both grenades detonated. Quietus allowed the smoke to roll over him, shifting his vision to spot the telltale glow of heat from her body, shining through the expanding curtain of smoke. It would be interesting, to see if her air manipulation could push away the smoke without also pushing away the air and suffocating her. And if not, then it would become yet another way to make flyer incapable of seeing him. The spread of smoke appeared to stop as if hitting invisible barriers behind him and above him, revealing to Quietus where the new slow zones were forming. Epoch had gotten his message, then. He would be disappointed if the flyer zoomed blindly into one of them. It would take hours to get her out, and by then Epoch would probably take a firmer hand in all this, and might not let Quietus have her.

Taya sat in one of the chairs, and waited patiently for Premier Notley to come. She was fairly sure the Premier would want to speak, but she hoped they weren't preparing to arrest her before having that conversation. She half expected to get arrested, but it would go better if she didn't. Taya drifted off while she was waiting, completely exhausted. Thoughts from the last 24 hours flooded her mind. . . . "There are two powers we use to conceal South Common. The sight should be fairly self-explanatory; it's how Typhon can always single out epics trying to enter it's territory. There's a little more to it than that, but it's not important. The one you need to figure out is the illusions." Curator held up her hand, conjuring up a featureless yellow ball in it. "For obvious reasons, simpler things are easier to craft, so this is a good place to start. It's a little bit like painting, I guess. You need to picture exactly what your doing in your head, and then build it up brush stroke by brush stroke, on top of something else." Taya held up her hand, willing and hoping for a yellow ball to appear as well. She entertained the idea of succeeding on her first attempt, but realistically she suspected it wouldn't be that easy, if Curator felt the need to teach her about it. "It's kind of hard to explain, like flexing a muscle you never had before. Your brain'll get used to it though, over time. Just work at it." . . . "You... Agree?" Taya gave Curator a slightly incredulous look. "I do. I think you should go through with it. You don't have any serious experience using illusions, and you aren't the most qualified by a significant margin... But we also don't have the people to spare, and more to the point, your survival will depend on the success of this job, whether or not you are the one doing it. That's actually why I'm here, to explain things. The idea is pretty simple. The group that just surfaced, called Circle of the Shield, has something to do with epic technologies. If you do this right, you get a chance to find a cure, and we get to learn what their agenda is. We can give you a pic of one of their badges, and we can stick their car with a radio illusion to mess up communications and stop whoever they work for from outing you. That's about it. You don't need to keep them fooled for very long, just enough to find out those two things." . . . Taya blinked, bleary-eyed. The assistant was addressing her. "Sorry, what?" "The Premier has been informed." "Oh, great. Thanks." Finley continued listening as he read a message from Quietus. It was a brief message, requesting a barrier. He glanced at the checkpoint, and noted Quietus speaking calmly to the flying epic, who had just landed. Quietus was fairly easy to control, once you understood the things he wanted. The only caveat was, once you sent him out to do something, you couldn't really change your mind. Knowing Quietus, negotiations were probably completely out of the question by now, even though the epic had been willing to talk. Finley sighed, and absentmindedly started placing slow zones to seal the path further into ERA territory, and then in the space over their heads. Slow zones took much longer to build up than fast zones, though they developed at the same rate from the perspective of anybody inside of one. A quirk of his power. All the while, he continued listening to the cloaked epic. "Um, if you mean my name it’s Jacklyn and I am really sorry for breaking into- well I guess it’s more like through but you know what I mean- through the checkpoint I just was freaked out by a weird red lady and I panicked and ran and read the brochure and then I got lost and I’m just rambling now so please don’t kill me?" Finley frowned. That wasn't the response he expected. She sounded genuinely spooked. Either she was really good at this, or she was telling the truth. He couldn't say which with any level of confidence. Still, her story about the red epic at least gave him something to fact-check, later. "Hello, Jacklyn. My name is Epoch. You may have heard of me," he explained. "I would like to avoid killing you if that is reasonably possible," he continued evenly. A little bit of fear was good, but too much and people would just tell you what they thought you wanted to hear. He didn't want her terrified of him, if in fact that terror was genuine. "Are you comfortable for the time being? I have some questions. For one, what kind of power set do you have?" A loaded question was often a great way to test a hypothesis. "Oregon. Yes, such a shame," Quietus answered with a false smile. And she didn't even help destroy the place? Boooooring. "As for real estate... This is some really excellent real estate. I definitely recommend staying here for a while. We actually make these neat little brochures about it, have you seen one yet? Mostly propaganda of coarse, but there's also a really good summary of the different territories." Quietus began fishing in his bag. Five. "Yeah, I think Epoch would probably be happy to recruit you into a good position here," he explained truthfully. Four. "You should try to talk to him, sometime." Three. "He's the one in charge of this area." Two. "Aha! Found it. Have a look. Also I don't recommend flying anywhere on this map." On-- Quietus hurled the flashbang from the bag moments before it detonated, taking care to land it in front of her feet to avoid whatever effect crushed the knife. In the same motion, he activated his powers and averted his eyes. His powers let Quietus do interesting things with flashbangs. From the way she interacted, he was almost positive she wasn't a high epic, but like with Quietus himself, conventional attacks seemed to fall short. This way, he could test both light and sound in one go. As a bonus, if she wasn't immune, he was pretty sure a flashbang going off that close to her would really hurt. At the fringe of his range, his power wouldn't do much at all to mitigate that.

Nighthound would probably still be corrupted, because Nighthound's consciousness would presumably still reside in the tissue sample that powers the motivator. Taya would not be corrupted, no. Or at least, more or less as uncorrupted as you can be when you hear Nighthound's voice in your head constantly.

The way I see it, at first one of them is fully in control at a time, and that switches unpredictably. They might hear the other person's voice in their heads, but not much more than that. When she first activated the motivator, Nighthound would be in control for a while, so he would be able to do the surgery thing. Later on, they might start to unwillingly compromise with each other on some things, so that one of them isn't undoing what the other was just doing once they gain control. They may also occasionally benefit from the other's particular skills, though I don't think Nighthound or Taya would admit that under anything but the most dire circumstances (ie Taya doesn't currently know how to fight, and might willingly cede Nighthound total control in a sufficiently threatening encounter). Would Nighthound in fact be able to regulate Taya's access to power from the motivator when she is in control, though? EDIT: We just hit 101 pages, time for question 21?

*starts looking desperately for a different healing motivator, only to discover that there are none* Hmmm... Edgedancer what do you think? This sounds viable.

Personally I think dual-personality with Nighthound as one of the personalities sounds incredibly entertaining, but I'm open to other ideas. Note that to keep things interesting, this means that Nighthound will modify the motivator so that Taya can't remove it when she is in control. Which Nighthound would totally do. He would probably have it made into a collar of some kind. EDIT: Also, Bloodlight = Grey Boy? (also, if you plan on reading Worm, don't look up too many of those names, because the wiki has spoilers)

Nah, Taya was already fated to have something kind of similar happen to her. She was going to snap and become an epic at some point (I even had a rather interesting powerset in mind). And I don't mean one that could particularly control it; there would have been a full-force rending. Sharing a body with Nighthound is in a sense a more intense version of what I was already planning.

Yes. The Slaughterhouse Nine is a group of superpowered serial killers from Worm. In a story with quite a few horrible, nightmare-inducing, and/or cataclysmic beings, the Slaughterhouse Nine is a cut above the rest. Maybe. I said Red was like Cherish mostly by association with Heartbreaker, and the fact that Red can sense heartbeats and emotions to a precision that is reminiscent of Cherish. Although, psychologically speaking, Red is most similar to Crawler.

Not to mention Quietus. He doesn't in fact believe in racial superiority, but he respects how effectively the mindset can be used to undermine people. If anything, Nighthound kind of reminds me of... Oh. Storms. Heartbreaker lives in Canada, doesn't he Storms x2. That also means Red is probably Cherish, and is therefore fated to join the S9. Nighthound's power level definitely outclasses Quietus. A fair fight would probably end in curb stomp, because Quietus can't even hurt Nighthound (assuming Nighthound is immune to hypoxia anyway), and Nighthound can swamp Quietus with hounds, or pursue more indirect vectors of attack. Although, Quietus makes an art form out of finding weakness, and he would probably piece together very quickly that destroying the motivators would let him win. And he's fast, and gets faster the more peole he is fighting at once. It might be over before Nighthound is able to get creative with things that could slip by Quietus' power. So shrug I don't really know. A Nighthound/Quietus/Red/Jacklyn situation would be exquisitely horrifying, though. We just need five more and it's a party.

Can we please pair them with an epic with enhanced physique called "Olympian" so their team name would be "Olympia Polaris" Synergized enhancers is a scary thought. Off the tope of my head, Kokichi (reality is officially out to lunch), Orbit (a literal black hole), Epoch (instant timestops everywhere), Quietus (a wave of stilness kills everyone), Impact (a wave of motion kills everyone), Riley (a wave of heat kills everyone), Armageddon (everyone is brainwashed), Creator (everyone is soulcast into cheese), Arachnerd (the ground becomes spiders), Lethe (everybody is mindwiped), and Euphoria (everyone is brainwashed, part 2) could all pretty much instantly screw the city with the power of an enhancement feedback loop. Nightrook? Huh. When you put it that way, it sounds like things are pretty calm. Time to start working on something to fix that Are you telling me that Empire 88 is now a thing in Edmonton? Oh dear. We now have a faction of neo-nazi supervillains, and a faction of drug dealers, and a faction that's mostly mooks with a conniving leader. We even have a (completely fake) endbringer named Typhon. The logical next step is for the S9 to arrive...

And then add Kokichi to the equation and laugh as reality as we know it falls to pieces.

...I’ll try to get some posts up soonish; the last couple days I was busy with other stuff but I have some ideas. She is waiting to speak with Premier Notley, I think. There are reasons why enhancers are powerful, yes. The most dramatic synergy would very probably be Upgrade-Nicroburst, although they would need a third epic for things to really start to get interesting. A magnetism epic. Fun. Edmonton seems to house a noteworthy population of both meta epics and physics-themed epics. How very meta-physical Actually though, from the books I think that having prevelant themes in a region is fairly common. It helps give each city a unique vibe.

That’s tricky. I’m not yet convinced that either of the two have limits.

More or less what has happened in the thread (sorry if I miss something): The city houses quite a wide variety of factions. For more details on the major factions, see the initial post in the WHiE thread. Doubletake, a precog and the most powerful epic in the city, disappears. So does Titan, her most powerful supporter. Also, Epoch, a time epic and the leader of a rival faction, had his weakness leaked in the aftermath of Doubletake's death. Various groups respond to this. Various groups of refugees arrive in the city, mostly from Oregon and Calgary. Some of them are epics. To my knowledge, these are the ones that have made a debut so far: Orbit (gravity epic) is attacked by Knoxx (walls epic) and Silhouette (shadow epic), and fights them off. Sangria (fire epic, kind of) and co help with damage control to ingratiate themselves to Orbit. Armageddon (omnicidal brainwasher) sends out a message to everybody about his motives. He ends up having a long-range conversation with a mystery epic, discussing why he wants to destroy the world. Taya (fugitive) enters Edomonton, and is effectively recruited by Typhon (feral epic, but not). In a plan to save herself from a lethal poison, she is currently impersonating an agent in Circle of the Shield. Scribbler travels towards Edmonton and then makes preparations to enter the city. Liam the Moose heads for Edmonton and runs into the Kokichi (reality warper). Together, they visit a research facility for leads on Liam's mission, and subsequently rob said facility when they are shut out. This causes the Alberta Government to try to arrest them. A car/motorcycle chase ensues, and is then interrupted by the Riley (thermal epic), who kills the people that are chasing Liam and Kokichi, before passing out from injuries gained during the fighting. In the aftermath, Phytomagnet (plant epic) notices them and starts asking questions, but Liam and Kokichi talk their way out of the situation and run away, bringing Riley along. Liam, Kokichi, and Riley are currently situated in an abandoned refinery, with Riley regaining consciousness and making an escape. Jacklyn (attractiveness epic) tries to enter Epoch's territory. Red (blood epic) attempts to swear her undying loyalty to Jacklyn, only for Jacklyn to run away. Meanwhile, Impact (momentum epic) watches the scene from overhead. Epoch (time epic) gets paranoid by all the epic activity and sends enforcers to capture them all, and also sends Quietus (speed-stealing epic), the extremely sadistic head enforcer. Red senses Quietus' approach and allows herself to be captured. Jacklyn gets lost while trying to leave ERA territory and is also detained. Quietus approaches Impact, and they are now conversing.

The shattered plains had to come from somewhere... (probably not, but it would be funny)

Well, I'm not sure if it directly points to anything... But I can think of two possible meanings, off the top of my head: It's a reflection on the nature of the sleepless, just like his later philosophy was. Arclo doesn't necessarily believe that people who go to sleep get a new soul, but it is more relevant to him, because he does not sleep, or age, or change very much at all on a macro level. And the creatures that do seem much more changeable. (somewhat less probable) It's actually a hint about the Voidbringers, who have been known to possess people to varying degrees. Perhaps there is an Unmade that invades dreams, or perhaps it is more generally a reference to the Fused, who effectively die and become inhabited by a new soul.

The way I see it, a bullet or arrow is primarily designed for three things: aerodynamic flight piercing defenses causing exit wounds A shardweapon can't cause exit wounds, and pierces all defenses regardless, so 2 of the 3 things that make bullets or arrows appealing no longer apply. And even the remaining 1 thing, aerodynamics, is not a concern for 4 out of the 10 orders. Shallan was able to attach a lightweaving to Pattern, and by the same logic, a Windrunner/Skybreaker should be able to lash a shard weapon, and an Edgedancer/Dustbringer should be able to make their weapon ignore air resistance. So, basically, most radiants should use chakram as their ranged weapon of choice, as per Calderis' explanation. They strike a great balance between aerodynamics and cutting edge size, and leverage all the advantages provided by shardweapons/plate. For Windrunners/Skybreakers/Edgedancers/Dustbringers, even aerodynamics fades into the background, and the size of the cutting edge becomes the primary concern. A weapon that is as long and as bladed as possible would cause massive destruction, ideal for stormclasts or fused that can fly. Although, they still might prefer to use a chakram in situations where collateral damage is a concern.

Granted. You possess two Honorblades. Heck, I'll even let you choose which ones. However, I'm afraid the universe has already named the bane to accompany that particular boon. You are bound to the Oathpact. Twice. I wish to be sleepless. You can interpret that whichever of the possible ways you like.

The thing about working for Epoch was, you started to appreciate the value of time. The epic started showcasing her abilities, and Quietus looked up from his mobile, turning off his power in time to catch the second half of her explanation. He noticed that she made no attempt to account for the way her voice carried. "...and a few others, but a girl must have her secrets." "Too late," he announced. "I'm on to all of your secrets, now. You're packing laser vision behind those wide eyes, aren't you??" He had crossed an epic with actual laser vision before, in fact. The thing about laser vision was, it didn't work so good without eyes. "Don't worry though, I'm just a common speedster," Quietus confided with a wink. "Simple, but lots of fun applications..." "So, once more, what sends your merry show traveling into Edmonton?"

Well, so long as it remains a conversation she could talk to them or something. But yeah, since Quietus doesn't have a PI and isn't wholly independent, he is going to focus on the more threatening (ie not shackled) epic first.

Yeah, sorry ‘bout that, I imagine Red will have more to do soon once Quietus is not otherwise occupied. Edit: and now it’s my turn to start a new page.

'sfine, we already discussed the circumstances under which Phytomagnet might get asked to do something by Epoch, and it wasn't difficult to justify him doing it.

Finley raised an eyebrow as Cloak agreed to come quietly. That's not supposed to happen. As any self-respecting villainous ruler should know, if anybody interesting ever agrees to "come quietly" then they planned it, obviously. Maybe this entire arrest would be more trouble then it was worth. He considered having her extradited to another faction. Perhaps the Belt. At worst, such action would mean the loss of a potential asset, and losing some face. Still, he rationalized. Measures could be taken, and he still wanted to make sense of what was in play at the border. And when it came down to it, perhaps throwing Cloak out just didn't feel right. He decided not to stop his enforcers, as they made their way back with the prisoner. The decision made, he moved on to the next order of business, dialing up Phytomagnet. "Listen, Phyto, I finally got more info on that situation I sent you to cover. Turns out, they broke into a heavily guarded research station and made off with proprietary technology. The Premier let it slip that the tech was epic-derived... Lock them down, whoever they are." That these fugitives were near ERA territory was, more or less, incidental. What he was really interested in was the possibility of epic technology. Such devices were rare, useful, and valuable, and the Alberta government couldn't easily take issue if their stolen technology happened to get "confiscated" from "intruders" under ERA jurisdiction. He trusted that Phytomagnet and Ironwood could handle it... . . . The no-longer-cloaked stranger had just been moved into a holding cell, located in a former police station now used by ERA enforcement. The room had a small table laden with refreshments and a mobile situated in the center, but was otherwise quite clearly a cell. This was, as best as he could tell, the simplest all-around method of mitigating the dangers posed by an unknown power set. Epoch called the mobile on the table. "Hello. First of all, what do you go by?" She came closer. Quietus gave his best cheshire cat grin. "The ordinaries? I always figured they only existed for comparison's sake." In truth, they had been idiots. Quietus would give them each some choice new motivational bruises, by the end of the day. He wouldn't break them too badly though, as long as people who weren't on his side remained readily available. "So, what are you 'just passing through' for, chérie? Selling girl scout cookies? Delivering a dramatic ultimatum? Looking to join our gloriously democratic people's republic of tyranny? Or maybe just grandiosely hovering above everything to impress people?" He eyed her critically for a moment. "I am, by the way, duly impressed with the flying-brick act. But just to be clear, you're not really my type. Not to put too fine a point on it, but while you've obviously got the stereotypical superhuman powers, you're rather lacking when it comes to the stereotypical superhuman cleavage," Quietus explained frankly. When the response was not immediate, he looked down at his mobile and feigned a deep interest, temporarily activating his powers to mute her response in case it was superhumanly loud or violent.

Well, if/when I do a Blindside intro they might be able to interact?