From tbutler@birch.net Fri Nov 2 19:13:22 2001 Date: Fri, 2 Nov 2001 00:32:47 -0600 From: Travis Butler To: Philip J. Moyer , Chris Bremner Subject: [UnS] Stinger Ace and the Academy of Weird Science John asks, "You ready to rumble, Travis?" Beowulf nods. John says, "Alrighty." John asks, "When last we played, you'd just rendevoused with Shinobu Minor and Keitaro. What's next?" Beowulf says, "Think we covered everything Shinobu and Keitaro had picked up, so next would be the trip to Thebes." Beowulf says, "OOC Actually, did we get the chance to meet with the Mystery Men yet? That was next, I think." John says, "OOC No, you haven't had the chance yet." John says, "OOC Now I just have to remember the name of the place I told you last time. ^^;;;" Beowulf says, "OOC Heh. :)" Beowulf OOCly checks the log. "I think it was Eskimo Joe's." John says, "OOC That works" Beowulf asks, "OOC How much can I quietly tweak things with Pattern? Enough for us to run into the fellow there, and have him be friendly?" John says, "OOC If your target has no Primal Powers, which is probably the case, you think you can likely manage that, Beo." Beowulf OOCly nods, and tweaks things that way as they head to Eskimo Joe's. You head through the city to Eskimo Joe's, and arrive to find it closed, as it's a bar and isn't open in the morning. However, there's a flying woman in an aviator's outfit (with a cape added) here, beating up some unfortunate men in suits, who are trying to shoot her without much luck. Beowulf calls out politely, "Could you use a hand?" The woman blinks, sees Beowulf, then takes a punch in the gut while she's distracted and gets pulled down by the five men, who start pounding on her. Beowulf steps in to start pounding on the five men. You soon pound the poor little people flat. The woman pops to her feet. "Wowsers, you're strong!" Beowulf shrugs modestly, and makes pumping motions with his arms. "Weight lifting." She looks you up and down assessingly. "So, I'm Stinger Ace, Defender of Justice!" She strikes a pose. "What's your name?" Beowulf smiles a bit. "Bey Kohl. A mildly effective fighter for Truth, Justice and the Lucas Way," he says, falling back into his Lucas speech patterns almost naturally. He turns to the others. "These are my companions, Gabrielle, Kei, and Lily." Stinger waves cheerfully. "Hi there!" They now come over and join the two of you. Beowulf says, "So why were these gutter-scum trying to take you down?" Stinger says, "Well, the Abdullah gang weren't too happy about me sending a few of their boys to jail, so they decided to rough me up." Beowulf nods. "Ahhh." He cocks an eyebrow at Shin--er, Gabrielle the Blue and Kei. "That the group you tangled with?" Gabrielle says, "We had a little chat with the Red Mullahs." She idly cracks her knuckles. "And a few of them had a chat with the wall or the chair or the floor." Beowulf grins. "Well, one mob group, another mob group... comes to the same thing in prison." Beowulf asks, "Or should I say, when the pinstripes hit the wall?" Stinger nods. "Exactly." She stretches. "You new here in Cairo?" Beowulf nods. "Just breezed into town t'other night, still feeling my way 'round a bit." He taps his chin thoughtfully. "Been thinkin' about runnin' down Thebes way and taking a look 'round." She says, "Well, if you're looking for people who need a good beating, Thebes is the place to do it." Tybalt wakes up. Beowulf shoots her an ironic look. "So I've heard. Anyone in particular?" She says, "Evil priests, thugs, shocktroopers, the usual. But in larger numbers. Of course, it's usually a good idea to get OUT of Thebes pretty quickly afterwards." Beowulf chuckles. "Sounds like you've got a little experience 'long those lines. Care to share it?" She says, "Well, the Insidious Dr. Amoeba was trying to build a giant magnet to move the planets into some special alignment, and I had to go down to Thebes to try to get to some of the components before he did. Had a couple of running battles with his flunkies across the city with shocktroopers trying to get BOTH sides of the fight." She continues, "Quite a hot time of it." Beowulf grins. "Sounds like it. I thought the shocktroopers usually played favorites?" "I don't think Mobius likes Amoeba any more than he likes me. Not since the time Amoeba tried to shrink him and keep him in a bottle anyway." Beowulf shakes his head, grinning. "Sounds like a heckuva story. Almost makes me want to cheer Amoeba on myself." He shoots her a smiling look over his glasses. "I take it Mobius doesn't like you much either?" Stinger says, "Well, I can't seem to make the top ten most wanted list no matter how hard I try. but i did give him a wedgie!" Beowulf rolls his eyes. "Riiight." Beowulf asks, "One of these days, someone oughtta take care of 'im. You hear he's going for number eleven right now?" Stinger laughs. "You say that like it's so easy. Giving him a wedgie is one thing, but if we could get rid of him, we'd have done that a long time ago." Beowulf asks, "Well, hey, always someone stronger comin' round the bend, yah?" Beowulf says, "I hear there's a group of folks gathering from across the Empires and beyond, looking to take him down. Seems like he ticked off a few too many folk with some of those raids he did." Stinger says, "And I take it you represent that group?" Beowulf shrugs modestly. "I know a few folks who are looking for a few good fighters, yup." She says, "Well, I can probably put you in touch with some people who might be interested if you've got a plan for dealing with Mobius." Beowulf nods. "The main thing we're needin' right now is some more detailed info on Thebes and Mobius himself. I figure he's got to have some big source of power backing him, the way he keeps coming back from the dead, and we're gonna have to take it out to finish him off for good." Beowulf grins. "Of course, if they've got more fighters like you with them, that's gonna be a *big* help." She says, "Well, some of us fight, and some of us are more of thinkers and gadget makers for the rest of us. But if you'd like to meet with some folk, come by here tonight, and I'll introduce you to them." Beowulf nods. "Good 'nuff." Beowulf asks, "OOC About how long would it take to get down to Thebes?" John says, "OOC Getting down to Thebes by car is about a two hour drive, so you could drive down to Thebes, spend a while there, and make it back to Cairo tonight if you wanted to." Beowulf OOCly nods. Beowulf waves. "See ya this evening... bag a few more mobsters for the cause, would ya? I hear Mobius is puttin' out feelers to a few of the big boys." Stinger frowns. "Just greeeaaat. I'll let everyone know." Beowulf waves goodbye again and heads off with Lily, Gabrielle the Blue and Kei. John asks, "OOC Going to head down to Thebes next?" Beowulf OOCly nods. You go hop in your humvee and cruise on down the road to Thebes. Aerianne has disconnected. Beowulf keeps an eye out for bandits, stormtroopers and other impediments to travel along the way. :) Your travel is fairly worry free, except for when an endless array of trucks nearly shoves you into the Nile. Avoiding a watery grave, you continue on through seemingly endless farmland. As you approach Thebes, however, traffic begins to back up and slow horribly. It looks like there's some shocktroopers up ahead who have established some sort of roadblock and are checking identification. Beowulf takes a quick look 'round the area for other forces backing up the shocktroopers, then looks at Lily. "Think you'll be able to pull off the Obi-Wan maneuver?" Lily smiles. "Yes, I think that won't be too hard." Beowulf grins back. "I knew there was some reason I loved having you around, besides intelligence, beauty, a wonderful personality..." She laughs. "Thank you." Eventually, you finally pull up to the roadblock. Two bored looking shocktroopers come over to your window. "We need to see some ID." Lily leans over and attempts to make eye contact. They are, however, too busy staring at her chest to look into her eyes. Beowulf pulls out the phony ID Gabrielle the Blue and Kei picked up. They take the ID, look at them, nod, then pass them back. "Alright. Enjoy your visit to the city of the Gods." They wave you on. You now drive onwards into Thebes. The city is quite huge, home to about a million people. A strange mix of 1930s, 19th century middle eastern, and 1500 BC Egyptian architecture. Rod has connected. Close to where the highway enters the town, you pass the huge Temple of Geb, and in the distance many other temples can be seen to tower over the skyline. Where are you heading to? Rod has left. camera-2 has arrived. John pokes Beowulf. Where in the city do you want to go? Beowulf says, "OOC Did any spots stand out in particular in the library research? If not, probably wander around the city for a few hours doing typical Thebes touristy things to get a feel for the place." John says, "OOC Well, there's Mobius' palace, there's the Artifical sun, currently down on its resting pad during the daytime, the Academy of Weird Science, and the Museum of Mobius' Glories that stand out to you as perhaps especially interesting locations." Beowulf says, "OOC Let's take a swing by the Academy of Weird Science. As I suspect it's what Bey would be interested in IC, and it also lets him put his Navigating Academia skills to work. :)" You head over to the Academy of Weird Science, a huge building obviously designed by Escher. It takes a while to figure out where the actual front is; there's a huge fountain with what appears to be a Klein Bottle in the center Heading inside, you soon find yourself in a huge lobby area manned by several receptionists. One of them smiles at you as you come in and says, "Hello, there. Can I help you?" Beowulf grins at the fountain, then smiles at Lily. "You know, I still owe you that dinner in Talislanta." She nods to you. "Hopefully, we can try again soon. Without the master this time, I hope." Beowulf nods with a smile at Lily. Beowulf asks, "OOC Reading up on those articles gave me some ideas about how Weird Science works here, yes?" John says, "OOC Yep" Beowulf asks, "OOC Any of them seem reasonably close to some things Bey already knows, and/or to constructs, that he can use as an 'in' to talk to one or more of the professors here?" John says, "OOC Yep." John says, "OOC With your Mad Brain, you can pass yourself off as someone with some knowlege of the field, though not an expert." Beowulf OOCly nods. "I'm not going to try and pass myself as an expert, but more as an intelligent layman who's read up on the field and has some ideas for devices. As Bey could probably come up with some interesting conjuration ideas from looking at the stuff, and the ethos here is certainly favorable for the Lone Inventor. ^_^" John exclaims, "ooc Yep!" Beowulf picks a likely idea or two, and asks the receptionist who the applicable professors would be and when they have some free time. Oh, and he asks for favorite items for those professors, suitable for bribing. :) She points out several professors and is quite happy to gossip about them, making suggestions for appropriate presents. What sort of topics are you looking for experts in? Beowulf says, "OOC Two basic things -- enough info to let me conjure devices that use Weird Science, and info that could be related to Mobius' construct." John asks, "OOC What angle are you going to take on the construct? Artificial Intelligence? Extradimensional Physics?" Beowulf asks, "OOC Hmmm... which do I currently know the most about, and which do I think I could get the most interesting information from?" John says, "OOC You have the impression that Extradimensional Physics is a more developed field than AI in this Shadow, so you'd have more luck with that angle." Beowulf OOCly nods, and asks for that. You get sent first to see Dr. Guff. He turns out to be an old man with a huge mass of white curly hair. He seems to be busy building a device that looks rather like a huge fish. He says, "Ahh, are you here to deliver the Framistan? Beowulf says, "Alas, no; I must have missed the messenger." He bows. "I'd gladly check with the receptionist for you and see where it's gotten to, though." He says, "It probably hasn't shown up if you're not bringing it, then." He continues working on his fish, carefully setting two beady eyes in place." Beowulf looks at the fish with interest. "I don't think I've ever seen something put together like that before." Beowulf says, "OOC Can I tell anything about what it's supposed to do, at least enough to make an intelligent-sounding comment?:)" John says, "OOC It looks suspicously like a giant fish, though you can see a few electronic components that haven't been covered up yet. Perhaps he intends to launch it as a probe into a dimension of water, though." He says, "Well, it's designed to blend in where it's going. Assuming the dimensional shunter works properly this time." Beowulf nods and makes considering noises. He continues, " He continues, "So who are you and what brings you here?" He now goes to a control panel and fiddles with some buttons and levers. The fish begins to 'swim' or it would if it was in water. Beowulf asks, "I came up with a few ideas for gizmos that sounded interesting... I hoped I might be able to get a true expert to take a look at them, see how far off base I am." He pulls out a box and smiles. OOC What was this one's favorite goodie again? John says, "OOC He likes Chinese Folding Boxes" Beowulf hands him a Chinese folding box that he conjured up on the way to his office, with his Mad Art Skillz... what stat was that related to? o.o "I also wanted to share something to a fellow appreciator of fine art." John says, "OOC A Folding Box would probably be related to Psyche" He smiles and takes it. "You are quite kind, sir." He says, "So what sort of thing have you been working on?" Beowulf pulls out the first of his designs... hmm, let me think what to make it... Beowulf asks, "OOC How 'bout a gizmo that lets you listen to 'extradimensional' radio? ^_^ I take it 'extradimensional' is Weird Science talk for cross-shadow?" John says, "OOC AS far as you can tell, it is. And the extradimensional radio is a great idea :)" Beowulf says, "OOC Probably want to cut for the night when we finish talking with Dr. Guff, as I'm starting to run down." John says, "OOC no problem. " Beowulf says, "OOC So what did he think of the little gizmo? :)" You talk shop with him for a while. You quickly discover that their view of Shadow is fairly different from the model that you use...or at least his is, as he seems to think of shadow as a sort of huge twelve-dimensional grid of universes, with no real center points like the Pattern or the Logrus. Moving from point to point on the grid is possible, but you have to build devices which can percieve the other nine dimensions. It's easiest to move between adjacent points, although you can build 'chords' which arc along and connect far seperated universes at a high energy cost. Beowulf OOCly hmms. Does that seem to remind Bey of anything he's heard of, except for Number of the Beast? ^_^ John says, "OOC IT seems like a reasonable way for a Shadow person to grapple with the complexity of shadow, though you're inclined to think he would probably miss a lot of the subtle sort of shadow travel an Amberite can make " Sana_Kurata falls asleep. John says, "OOC The other big weakeness of it is that any sort of shadow who doesn't fit the 'variables' which each of the dimensions he postulates represents couldn't be reached by someone using this base theory." John says, "OOC It doesn't seem like a heavily Outsider-Influenced dimensional theory, as there is no 'Outside' in it for Outsiders to fit into." Beowulf OOCly nods. What kind of shadows does his theory cover, and does it relate to what Bey's heard about the shadows Mobius's already conquered? John says, "OOC All the shadows he's conquered fit into this theory, and you think that a lot of the weirder shadows off towards Chaos would be hard to fit into this theory." Beowulf OOCly nods. Would it sound like the construct is using this system of dimensions, then, given that what Mobius appears to have done with the construct fits the system? John says, "OOC You suspect he probably took this base system and combined it with Outsider Lore to overcome some of it slimitations." John says, "OOC This theory probably also underlies his Reality Bombs." Beowulf OOCly ponders. Not sure how to say this... we know the location of the bridges to the other shadows he's conquered, presumably set up according th this therory. Does that give enough info to get a start ond deducing the location of the item powering the bridges, which might be the construct? John says, "OOC You'd say that most likely the Construct would need to be in Thebes, in order to reduce the energy cost of the bridges in Thebes, since they cluster the most here. The Pattern of Bridges in the city seems to have mostly been dictated by the need to find large open spaces more than any dimensional theory, though." Beowulf OOCly nods. Oh, well, was worth a shot. Beowulf asks, "OOC What will probably happen to the bridges and teh shadows they connect when the construct is destroyed?" John says, "OOC The bridges will collapse. This may or may not have much effect on the shadows they are in." John says, "OOC Thebes itself will likely be devastated as the Bridges fall on large chunks o' city" Beowulf OOCly nods, that figures; was hoping that it wouldn't be too catastrophic to the shadows. From what I've heard, though, it sounds like Thebes won't be much loss. Except for the artificial sun, which could be a big problem if it's hti. x.x John says, "OOC IF you launch your attack at night, while the Artificial Sun is up in the air...well, it would be very ugly if it fell during your attack." Beowulf asks, "OOC Right. Is its resting place during the day safely removed from the bridge locations?" John says, "OOC Yes. You have the impression Mobius wanted to make sure the sun was in a pretty safe place when not deployed." Beowulf OOCly nods. Anything else teh good Dr. Guff knows that would be helpful in locating the construct? John says, "OOC Not that I can think of." Beowulf OOCly nods. Does he know much useful about Mobius himself, or his government/troopers? John says, "OOC Not much that you haven't already found out elsewhere. Mobius employs a lot of weird scientists, and once you go to work for him, it's generally for life." Beowulf says, "OOC Lovely ominous implications. o.O" Beowulf asks, "OOC Well, if there's nothing else I can think to ask him, probably cut here for the night. About what time is it game-time?" John says, "OOC At this point, it's probably about lunch time." Rod has arrived. camera-2 has left. Lian wakes up. Beowulf OOCly nods. Probably time to see one or two more profs before heading back up to Cairo, then? John says, "OOC YEs." Beowulf OOCly nods. "Righto... wrap here, then?" John says, "OOC Yep" Travis Butler tbutler@birch.net ...Cats are the proof of a higher purpose to the universe.