Ataraxian Wist

Karabiner was a genius. It had taken him just three days to set up this trap, and it was going off perfectly. Shardlight would be here to kill him in about five minutes. Haha, if only he knew… Karabiner glanced at his wristwatch. 4:32. He should discover my false trap right about now… He checked his Mobile. Sure enough, a new message from Boomerang told him Shardlight had escaped the staged Reckoner attack without a scratch, and had even correctly guessed the location of their “hideout.” Well, that accelerates things a bit. I won’t even have to compromise my Mobile with that beacon. He hadn’t really expected Shardlight to be blunt enough to need that tip, but he had come ready. A sky blue glow shown between the two apartment buildings he was watching. He checked his gloves, making sure they were fully secured, monitoring his motions and giving him extra resistance, though not much. They were originally invented for medical purposes, helping people recover from nerve-damage in their hands when used consistently. At the moment, they were basically useless to him. Not for much longer, Karabiner chuckled in his brain. Any second now… The sky blue light was quickly getting brighter: Shardlight was close. There was a sky blue flash, and a small section of the brick wall behind Karabiner exploded. He ducked, avoiding the bigger pieces and ending up with little more than dust on his sport coat. I am awesomer. He stood, dusting off the shoulders of his coat, and watched in greedy awe as Shardlight used his powers in person. It was hard to make out his face through the glass-like glowing energy pane he had conjured in front of him, but Karabiner knew from research that Shardlight would have short black hair and rectangular glasses, which let him see through his energy walls unobstructed. His eye color was famously identical to his energy power, though Karabiner was unsure if there was a connection or not. Karabiner knew he had backup waiting, but he really didn’t feel like involving them beyond some machine-gun fire to keep Shardlight distracted. This had already started, of course, as his Reckoner “allies” – meaning people with aligned goals, since it was their hideout he had led the deadly Epic to – had turrets already in place and watching for direct threats like Shardlight. That was why he had conjured the energy pane, which was now easily deflecting each bullet that came his way, though it also put a barrier – an Epic interrupting barrier, no less – between him and his quarry. This could be a very enjoyable fight, if he played it right. He switched on a radio-shaped temporal accelerator he had made from none other than Epoch of Olympia Polaris – which wasn’t the best name they could have picked, in his mind – and felt his vision tunnel. The field moved with him and was limited to a sphere equal to his height, which had taken months to tune correctly, and allowed him a speed boost that wouldn’t carry to his surroundings very badly. Karabiner ran toward Shardlight through a world of slowness, getting around his wall just as Shardlight suddenly pushed it up in the direction of fire. It smashed against the turrets, its Shards exploding and totaling the guns like one had the brick wall earlier. Dropping his speed field, Karabiner threw a careless punch at the more powerful (arguably, anyway) Epic. As expected, Shardlight threw up a pane of sky blue energy to block his strike. Rather than trying to slow his punch to avoid it, Karabiner opened his hand at the last possible moment. Then he stole the energy pane, pushing it with his gloved hand straight into Shardlight’s face. His expression was priceless. And then it was smashed by a wall of blue – though not sky blue anymore – energy. Not a High Epic, than. Good to know. There was a blur, and suddenly the radio in his left hand exploded. "What the-" He was interrupted by a sudden impact to his stomach, and doubled over, wheezing. He held his hands out to the sides and flattened them against the gloves' tension. Sure enough, they had remembered the shape his hand had been in when it had first made contact with the power, and had also remembered that they were one thing, despite multiple pieces. A pane of light blue energy extended from the center of each one. He saw a woman blur to a stop right before impact with them. He closed his fist, shattering the pane into her face. She didn't get up. Karabiner left the two Epics dead or in a daze, running for the pre-established corner of a nearby building. He knew he couldn’t beat Shardlight in a fair fight, and it would soon have become one, now that he had really made himself known as an Epic. He smacked the wall – the agreed signal – and felt his stomach lurch as indigo light encompassed him and sent him far away. Home-free.

Okay, so is there a major problem with Karabiner having a temporal accelerator stolen from Epoch's powers? I can even get it destroyed in his intro, if you want. (I'll just do that if there are no serious and timely objections. I can even explain it later, saying it was part of a trade deal or something.) EDIT: And it's up! I had to edit it to fix the one thing, but it's finally there! I'm a real part of the role-play now!

I'm pretty sure I wrote character intros, but they don't seem to exist, so don't expect them too soon. Probably one by the end of tomorrow, and the others Friday. If Karabiner or other Fence people need writing ASAP @Hemalurgic Headshot let me know and I'll work some magic.

First one.

Healing? Hmm... That would be interesting... But yeah, I think the short-term-memory-time-banishment-thing is coolest though.

That is also a relevant factor. If it's temporary, it would be significantly less OP. Maybe they could be banished to some other plane for a certain period of time, but then come back to a random location. Or she could be like Megan, but only able to send things to the alternate dimensions. That would be really interesting, actually.

I like the name idea. But yeah, kind of OP. A lot.

I third.

Great, thanks. I've fixed a couple of problems with her powers and - after trying unsuccessfully for nearly a week - added Karabiner.

No, tall structures aren't critical. Still can't as the map from my stupid phone, so I'll trust you on this one. Also, Ok making a slight change to Arachnerd's profile to better match some of this stuff, but up keep her limited in some key ways. Just something wrong with the webs and horde.

Things like inside corners, close structures, and some tall stuff. She's really thorough, too, so her Webyrinth will need to have support lines to every nearby structure and several farther-off structure.

Hey y'all, sorry I've been gone for so long, July 4th is a really big deal in my rural community, so I haven't hardly been able to pick up my phone. Anyway, for Arachnerd's location: I'm not sure. See, it needs to be somewhere she can make her little Webyrinth without picking any big fights that she would lose or disrupt politics with. I'm thinking right on one edge of no-man's-land, though I can't course the map right now because my phone is... Annoying. My reasoning for this is that, since no-man's-land is the area no one fraction could really take, she would be fine there with her several neutrality deals, and it could even make her neutral stance more clear to anyone who missed the memo, as they would see that none if the other factions are fighting her for her out of the area. If it didn't du that, it would just make her seem more dangerous to the uninformed than she really is. Anyone got a really good place for that? Preferably somewhere like a spider would actually make a web, but on an Epic scale?

Yeah, that would work.

So, apparently I'm not the only one who won't be here for awhile. I'll be gone most of next week, and probably won't have much time this week, but I'll see what can do.

Karabiner should be one. I mean, he only makes some of the weapons himself, and they work differently, but the Fence will definitely deal other Epic tech.

Olay, so the Epic I was actually thinking about for The Fence is not quite a gifter, because his powers are kind of weird. Here he is: He basically makes Epic tech, with a twist. EDIT: But they could totally co-manage it, and Node's lackeys would make excellent security, among other things.

What do you think of another Faction called the Fence that is basically Edmonton's black market, specializing in Epic tech? I've already got an Epic whose powers beg him to head this up, and its main hub would literally fit inside of an ice cream truck.

Feel free.

More Minor Epics: Boomerang: Perfect accuracy with boomerangs, which will always come back, even if they move. Hit-n-run: Can survive all automotive crashes. Moodring: Can detect and project the emotions of others as beacons of colored light above them. Basket Case: Can weave intricate whicker baskets out of thin air. Partycrasher: Can teleport to the nearest source of loud music.

Okay, some minor Epics I just thought of, though I'm not sure where to put them yet and am not partial to playing them. Slagface: Can heat up all metal he sees, putting the most heat into the metal he focuses on. He cannot exclude any metal, and his name comes from his ability to melt metal into slag if it blocks his vision of other metal. Pickpalm: Can unlock things by maintaining contact with them for certain amounts of time depending on the complexity of the lock. Can open time locks early. Catalog: Summons books she knows the titles to, and can see and process the covers of all books within twenty feet.

Okay, Fluke is totally awesome. Mime reminds me of an idea I had for an Epic called Phantomime (pun off of Phantom, meaning unreal, and Pantomime, the competitive event name for mime acts) who could effectively create an imaginary anything but that can only be seen by and affect himself and within a certain range. Basically, he can't die of falling because he would either A) land in invisible water, B ) ride an invisible elevator down, or C) something else I can't think of right now.

I had actually thought of doing that, but they were going to be a little girl who's power is more specifically cuteness, and she basically would have an entire legion of teenage girls and boys her age who do everything she asks.

I like the idea of a Reckoner's cell in Edmonton. It would give Nate someone to look for and seek help from, maybe even tell them "Bloodlight's" weakness as a failsafe.

So, can I put Arachnerd and Bloodlight onto the character thread now, it are there still problems?

I'm with Voidus on this one. That couldn't really be a weakness, because it's too specifically a Calamity thing AND would be self defeating. Their weakness could be tied to the kinds of things they might do under it's influence, like breaking laws, killing people, doing immoral things, being feared... EDIT: Floodlight's new PI limitation: He can Bloodlight any number of people through maintained aura chains within his 75' range, but only the most recent person to be dismissed from his power will Backlag in two hours, where others will simply Backlag a few seconds after he releases them. This way he still can't kill people very easily, but he also can't PI an infinite or even large number of people.