Oddestsey III

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

Im pretty satisfied with Alex' new get your info on MSN thing and yesterday Ive asked him a bunch of questions already that Id love to share with my teammates...

Fernando (or Alex posing as Fernando, this is so confusing!) told me a thing or 2 about The Mechanist, the murdered one. I wanted to know what kind of superhero he was, one that saw the police as an ally, or one that saw the police as getting in his way. Turned out The Mechanist ONLY ever fought the kind of villains the police never fought, big space gods, huge lizards, etc. So he and the police always neatly stayed out of each other's way. Also, the police has been trying their best to keep this crime secret for the public eye, there may be some rumors, but the police is keeping their lips sealed.

Still, Fernando, there must have been a big bang when The Mechanist fell, what does the public make of that?

[alex_holt]

Re: Oddestsey III

The five leave the police station with little ceremony. It is dark and raining heavily outside and the city towers above the unlikely group in a way that is too enclosed and looming for comfort. The dark streets are filled with puddles and reflecting the neon that coats the heights of the buildings like a particularly gaudy Christmas tree.

Maurice strides towards the lamppost where his quint-bicycle has been locked and frees it, getting in the lead cyclist position. The other five also manage to climb aboard behind him, with Blotter and Patricia having a more difficult time than the others due to their non human anatomy. Despite this, with the powerful legs of Maurice doing all the work, they quickly skid off through the night, spraying puddle water on pedestrians as they go.

It takes Maurice a mere ten minutes to power his way to the docks district with his powerful pedalling. The others feel slightly motion sick. The transition from the commercial to industrial is quite clear with the towering skyscrapers making way for warehouses and cranes. They decide to briefly stop to ask directions to the station from a group of passers by. A group consisting of a creature that looks like a child€™s attempt to make an elephant out of green plastercine, a generally human looking girl with eyes of solid silver and a giant talking starfish seem provide some decent directions.

It€™s at this moment that they hear a shout from across the street. €œNice bike you€™ve got there looooooooosers! Must be worth a bit - fit for a King even€
The group turn to see three beings approaching them from behind them - a man in a suit with a strange rod seems to be the one who spoke. Behind him he has two grinning friends - a bull with the head of a man and riding on his back a third figure. This one is a huge bulbous figure of a man, dressed in what appears to be what you€™d get if you tried to create a costume for a King out of thing€™s you found in a skip.
Appropriately, an incredibly drunken declaration of €œWHO DARES CROSS THE PATH OF THE KING OF THE STREETS!€ followed by a load of giggling and then a particularly disgusting belch that sends a wave of what can only be described as essence of whisky and week old kebabs.
€œMR SIR KNIGHT! Acquire that bicycle IN THE NAME OF YOUR KING!€

The man in the suit is apparently the Knight - and the baton suddenly sprouts numerous multicoloured crystals from one end, shuffling around the tip of it into a surreal morningstar. More of immediate concern however in the man-bull charging towards the party - the King rolling off it backwards and is lying giggling on his back in a puddle. The three people they€™d stopped to talk to seem to have vanished.

The charging bull splits the party down the middle. Maurice and Taranis get driven to the right, while the other three get driven left. The Bull spins round and heads for the other three while the manically grinning €˜Knight€™ confronts the other two. However, his slightly drunken state doesn€™t help his reflexes and a blast of electricity from Taranis makes him drop him mace with a yelp. A gentle roundhouse kick from Maurice to the man€™s face knocks him out cold and through a wall.

The Man-Bull meanwhile is proving slightly tougher than his companions. Blotter manages to stun it briefly with a thrown club to the face while its charge is slowed by waves of energy from Phil. Patricia jumps on it€™s back and attacks with her talons, but the large beast is merely enraged. Even Taranis€™ joining the fray doesn€™t seem to phase it - electricity not enough to kill a human doesn€™t phase a bull particularly. Maurice hurls his croissants and they lodge on the Manbulls flank, annoying it slightly. Phil manages to up the power of his sonic waves by playing a quick riff, slowing the bull down. Patricia eventually powers up her staff with the humming noise rising about the sounds of the fight. Whacking the forcefield down on the Bull€™s head seems to double up as a large hammer knocking the beast out cold.

The €˜King€™ is still giggling in the Gutter

After the gratuitous looting session of the unconscious (and drunk out of their minds) forms you find:

The living crystal mace
A suit
10 credit points
A pocket watch grappling hook
A gaudy fake crown made of brass and paste-gems
A Kings suit made of litter

Taking what you will, you leave the three in the gutter. Maurice strokes his beloved bicycle. They continue onwards through the docks, following the directions given to them by the Plastercine-elephant-man slashing through the rain into the night.

They eventually find the station and Patricia, Phil and Taranis get off, and enter the station, Maurice however again gets about his bicycle and powers himself and the pokemon off to the crime scene.

* * * *
When they arrive there, they are stopped by two policebeings. A cloud of sentient glowing red vapour and a foot tall amphibian rhinoceros, each implausibly with a police badge attached. They introduce themselves as Lt Hydrogenette (who for a cloud speaks with a bizarre stereotyped sultry woman€™s voice) and the Rhinocerous named Corporal Frankfurt has a distinct Texan accent. They briefly touch your foreheads with a wand, and suddently, what had seemed like an empty street closed off by the police is revealed to be a huge crater twenty foot deep.

* * * *
Meanwhile, the others are lead into an office to find it empty but for a large golden coin on the desk. The officer showing them in introduces them €œThis is Nickelson, he€™s who you€™ll want to talk to€
The coin replies €œGreetings Gentlebeings, now how may I help you?€

[joey_picus]

Re: Oddestsey III

Patricia: *is now thinking that her staff might be more awesome than she ever imagined it'd be, and also shows a great interest in the pocket watch grappling hook, grabbing it and sticking it in her jacket pocket if nobody else wants it*

Hiya Nickelson...forgive me for being a bit odd, I just genuinely seem to have underestimated how odd this city is, heh...erm...anyway, what we came here to ask is if you could help us out with any info about the Machinist's murder - do you know of any being or collection of beings who would have suddenly developed the ability and motive to do such a thing to an essentially invulnerable man?

Also...sorry if this sounds a bit demanding, but would you possibly know how some of us could get to talk to Mr. Panginoon? I'm inclined to believe he might be worth talking to about all this as well.

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

Penny for your thoughts, monsieur Nickelsen?

yeah I know, Im not even at the police station right now so it wouldn't make much sense for Maurice to say that, sew me :P

[kodster]

Re: Oddestsey III

That's a deeeeeeep crater. Shame I don't have any writing utensils on me...have any, Maurice? If not, maybe we could ask if Lt. Hydrogentte and Corporal Frankfurt have any.

Blotter's got a handy memory, but notes should be taken about this incident, just in case. :P

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

Blotter and Maurice will ask if we can borrow some writing equipment from a policeman and then jump into the crater to investigate

[alex_holt]

Re: Oddestsey III

Frankfurt rummages in his small sack and finds what looks like a marble sized sphere of metal which he tosses into the air where it begins to hover, with hundreds of tiny points of white light over it's surface. At the blank look from Maurice and Blotter he explains it's a sensory memory sphere. It'll essentially hover around you, take pictures or video footage when you tell it too, scan any writing you want, for either evidence of personal memos and record all conversations you have. It's essentially an all in one evidence taker. It also has a taste memorisor, smell recorder a physic reader, a geigercounter, a magi-ometer and can be used as a stapler.

Back with Nickelson: The most obvious candidates for the murder would be the 3 cosmic league villains in the city. There has historically only been two - Monsieur Butterfly and Kyt'aplkk the Ravager. However, a few months ago a third one moved in, known as V.
There are also any number of inventors who would like to see the Mechanist dead as he always seems to release a new product just days before they were going to release their own version of the same thing.

As for Panginoon, Nickelson is not as scared of him as Fernando. He's tricky to get hold of, but by dad met him once when he was a freshly minted constable-penny. He said he seemed like a reaonable sort of guy, but he really couldnt remember anything about him afterwards. It's like all features - appearance, clothes, voice, just melted out of his mind the moment he left his presence, leaving just the words. He was apparently very reasonable. But having said that, meeting him on demand is unheard of. You could try going straight to his headquarters, but don't piss off his secretary. I think you are more likely to meet him as his will than yours though....

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

excellent, I think it is time for Blotter and me to jump into the crater now, is it not Kody?

Im fairly sure that Maurice's legs would allow Maurice to come out a jump like that unharmed (if he lands on his legs of course), and they'd also allow Maurice to jump out of this crater when he is done... how about you Blotter, do you think you can take the jump or do you want me to take you on my shoulders?

[steven_mcg]

Re: Oddestsey III

Wow, a talking penny! Man, good thing there aren't any vending machines on this floor. I could really go for some Monster Munch.

I wouldn't mind hearing more about these 'cosmic villains' or perhaps the inventors who most vocally opposed the Mechanist. Particularly this 'V' bloke. Sounds very sinister and sexy.

[kodster]

Re: Oddestsey III

Think I can take the jump tbh, Maurice, but thanks for the thought.

[alex_holt]

Re: Oddestsey III

Joey is hopefully sorting out his MSN interview with Nickelson, covering those villains and politics of Melded.

Meanwhile: Blotter and Maurice leap into the crater, with Maurice firm legs allowing him to land with Catlike grace. Blotter lands heavily, and has to full his eyes away from Maurice, as he lands like a sleek yet muscular oiled (french) panther. Faintly distubed by this line of thought, Blotter headbuts the wall of the crater several times. When the thought is bashed out of his mind though, there are only two observations.

Firstly this is not a crater - more like as if a sphere of reality thirty meters wide had just been obliterated. There is not cracked pavement, just a bowl cut into the city itself, revealing numerous layers, including a suspicious one which looks like a thin layer of sentient green slime. The only things which aren't perfectly smooth are thigns that fell out after the damage, or, were blugeoned by Blotters head.

Secondly, the one exception to this is a pile of dust at the bottom of the pit. It contains what seems to be a mixture of ashes and metallic powder.

[alex_holt]

Re: Oddestsey III

After icecream, I'm now in the mood to type up the villain summaries, so Joey doesn't have to :P

Monsieur Butterfly - A prankster sorceror or immeasurable power. Not malicious so much as weird sense of humour. His spells express themselves by producing butterflies as they go. Has a bad french accent and his main hobby is irritating people.

Kyt'aplkk the Ravager - A retired Lovecraftian horror. Thirty foot tall and made up of nasty things. Terrorising earth is his hobby now hes retired. Leans towards being more destructive than the other two. Looking at him tends to make people go mad.

V - An inventor supervillain who wears a mask and victorian costume. The least known of the three. Tends to go for spectacular and audacious crimes.

__________

The political system of Melded is as follows:
The mayor is Mayor Elmwood, and he's a puppet. A literal puppet, albeit sentient. Panginoon seems able to influence the political system at will, but otherwise the whole thing is mired in beaurocracy. To the point where there is a department to deal with complaints about there being too many departments. The police under Panginoon are actually probably the most free part of the government.

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

Blotter and Maurice have learned that the slime is natural to Melded, its just the way the ground is made up. What Maurice will do is look through the non-slime rubble and see if anything is still recognizable...

[alex_holt]

Re: Oddestsey III

After an extensive search, the only thing in the 'crater' which isn't normal for a crater is the ashes and powder mixture.

[majinb]

Re: Oddestsey III

Blotter and Maurice learned a thing or 2...

Hydrogenette, the cloud-woman, can store samples on a crime scene in a highly sterile way, and was asked, and agreed to, store the ash and metallic powder of what seems to be the remains of The Mechanist. After securing these remains, Blotter used Sandstorm, to clean the crater and look for clues. What Blotter discovered, is that the slim under the upper layer of slime is lighter than the darker upper layer. Hydrogenette is asked to store a sample of both light and dark slime. We've been told Urtusks Quick Forensics specialises in... well... forensics, they seem more advanced than any kind of forensics we know, and they can tell us more about the ashes, the metal, and the ground samples.

The crater is sphere shaped with the centre of the sphere at ground level, the current popular theory among the police is that The Mechanist, while at ground level, exploded, causing exploding particles to go in all directions creating the sphere shape.

The lab seems like a nice next stop, Kody?