THE NEW VANGUARD! HAUNT Issue #8

Admin wrote:The place has been turned upside down and its a total mess. They've clearly been looking for the TIME STONE that Cortez had...

"Well not that he is in a position to worry about it, but I doubt Cortez's estate will see his deposit. We'd best find that stone before we find out if these fellas had back up."

Given the state of the place it wouldn't be obvious to see where the pot might have been, but looking around for plant pots would be a start since the Aliens hadn't discovered the stone it was a fair bet the pot and stone 'might' still be together although looking at the state of the room, Steeplejack had to wonder if they'd ever find it.

OOC: Ugh this reminds me of rolling for secret doors and not finding them, so having to go about things the hard way. Let's hope our skills or powers might come in handy.

Sj

"Show off," the Haunt mutters as he watches how easily Steeplejack took down a foe he was SURE he was going to hit and hit hard.

"I will sift the rubble, you look for the pot plants or potted plants or whatever Cortez said he hid it in," he says in a louder voice, a grin heard through his faceless mask.

Using his powers, he forms his arms into a giant broom shape and sweeps up a part of the room then turns them into a shovel shape and scoops up some of the debris then turning it into a sifter he sifts the debris over the cleaned area, allowing the dirt and dust to sift through, looking at the larger chunks to see if one of them is the stone.  He will continue shifting and sifting the rubble while Steeplejack performs his investigation of the non-destroyed parts of the apartment.  

DavidMcMahon wrote:"Show off," the Haunt mutters as he watches how easily Steeplejack took down a foe he was SURE he was going to hit and hit hard.

"I will sift the rubble, you look for the pot plants or potted plants or whatever Cortez said he hid it in," he says in a louder voice, a grin heard through his faceless mask.

Using his powers, he forms his arms into a giant broom shape and sweeps up a part of the room then turns them into a shovel shape and scoops up some of the debris then turning it into a sifter he sifts the debris over the cleaned area, allowing the dirt and dust to sift through, looking at the larger chunks to see if one of them is the stone.  He will continue shifting and sifting the rubble while Steeplejack performs his investigation of the non-destroyed parts of the apartment.  

"Glass jaw..." Steeplejack said back by way of an answer, a smile on his face as he laughed at his partner's good-natured jibe. And turning to matters at hand sifted, sought and basically prodded and he sought the prized object of their attentions.

Sj

Though he detected no danger Steeplejack frowns and turns to the downed Muton... who glows then vanishes!

What the...?

Haunt started sifting through the rubble of the apartment and found most stuff had been smashed into fragments as the Aliens hadn't been concerned with preserving anything or being tidy...

OOC Haunt looks through the apartment, then Steep.

Haunt first... Int 8 + Roll(2d12)+0: 11,7,+0 Total:18 (26) vs
OV6 + Roll(2d12)+0: 11,10,+0 Total:21 (27)
FAILED

and Steeplejack Int 9 + Roll(2d12)+0: 6,9,+0 Total:15 (24) vs
OV 8 + Roll(2d12)+0: 8,4,+0 Total:12 (20)

+3EV (to 5 Will = 8) vs RV 8= NO RAPS. FAILED

It takes a while and distant sirens can be heard as screams and shrieks ring out through the building but the heroes sift through the remnants of the apartment. Nothing. Either it's not here or they aren't looking in the right places. Having exhausted the living room and kitchen they move into the dingy bathroom and bedroom. the place has been turned upside down and it's taking even longer!

OOC Steeplejack doesn't have any Hero Points as yet (but will have some from the end of the issue) but Haunt might want to spend a few (He has 84HP). He still gets a bonus for being able to sift through busted stuff faster than Steeplejack but you're running out of places to search!

we'll go for two extra dice

Haunt wouldn't give up the search. It HAD to be here!

OOC Haunt first... Int 8 + Roll(4d12)+0: 8,8,6,9,+0 Total:16 DOUBLE plus Roll(2d12)+0: 2,8,+0 Total:26 (34) vs
OV6 + Roll(2d12)+0: 6,10,+0 Total:22

+5 EV (to 13) vs RV6=7 RAPs SUCCESS


HAUNT HP 71


It took some extreme measures... dismantling a toilet which hadn't been cleaned in months was a low point.

Almost giving up, Haunt shook his head and looked out the window. Cops were coming and... what was that? Hanging under the window on this side of the flat was a plant pot on a chain. He pulled it up, carefully pulled the flower free and shook it free of dirt and looked in the pot. Encrusted with muck and barely recognisable was a rock.

The Time Stone.

The Aliens had failed to find it, but the sirens were getting louder and the Police would ask questions that perhaps ought to be skipped. Time was of the essence if they were to beat ADVENT.

They had a time stone. Haunt washed it under the tap and cleaned it free of muck. It was circular, ridged and unimpressive, but apparently with the right amount of magical power channelled through it, this rock would allow the holder to travel through time!

He glanced at Steeplejack, coming into the toilet. With a wave of the cleaned Time Stone the pair knew they needed to make themselves scarce. They still needed another for both of them to travel through time if that was the plan.

Shouts from below. The Police were here. Time to go!

Professor Thoth would know what to do with this. Perhaps he was the first port of call...

"I will cover us leaving with a fog," the Haunt told Steeplejack. "Guess it is back to Prof. Thoth now."

He summons his Fog and steps up to the destroyed outer wall preparing to fly off to see the Professor.

People were spilling from the building at ground level and Police were trying to make sense of it when the superheroes stepped to the hole in the wall and left in an impenetrable wall of fog!

The vanishing alien/s was a concern (OOC same for the weapons - everything just... vanishes!). Without any kind of proof that the Aliens were there the government had no grounds to raise the issue of hostile action against ADVENT.

Against an ADVENT influenced Europe Britain stood alone. The same for the USA against China, Russia and the rest of the world as a whole.

Of course there was a resistance to the ADVENT rule in those countries but there seemed an inexhaustible supply of Alien troops even though the massive spaceships had departed. Perhaps teleportation or some other means of shipping them in, or maybe there was a more sinister explanation.

The heroes made their way across London.

=========

13 Grosvenor Crescent...

The door opened as Haunt reached a hand to knock on it. The young Moroccan/Egyptian woman opened the door, bowed slightly then stepped aside. As the pair entered they noticed immediately that the decor of the hallway had changed. The woman noticed the glances and said "Victorian decor is lovely but takes some getting used to. Modern tastes are less ... fussy."

She led them to a door that was in a slightly different position to the last time Rush King and John Gibbs had gone through it.

The room was distinctly 'more' Victorian in look this time. Quite a feat to redecorate in a day!

Another door opened and Professor Thoth... or rather Cowboy Thoth... stumbled through it in a cloud of dust with the ringing sound of gunshots close behind!

He was dressed smartly in period dress but leaked blood from a gunshot in the shoulder and his hat clattered to the floor as he slumped into a chair. His assistant calmly walked over, closed the door and silenced the sounds of gunfire. Then she carried a tray over to the Professor who mopped his brow and muttered "I prefer the version of the OK Corral gunfight that didn't include Vampires and Zombies." He placed a Derringer on its side on a table and took a cup of freshly prepared tea that his assistant had prepared. She seemed able to think of everything he needed.

He looked up and nodded to the heroes. "Chaps! Much spookier look for you, Sir." said Thoth as he referred to Haunts current garb. "And I sense... the time stone, perchance?"

He winced as he reached over to take the proferred artefact with his good arm and muttered "Steady on" as a pair of golden tweezers were poked into the hole in his arm by his assistant.

"Hush!" she whispered. "The bullet is growing, spreading. If not caught in time..."

"Yes, yes. The bullets were cursed and dipped in Vampire blood. The cads will stoop to anything they consider will get them a win. Swines." muttered Thoth. He winced again and rotated the Time Stone in his hands. "Cortez actually did a good job with this. Got to his forties having been given this as a child and guarded it with his life. He thought it was useless of course because he couldn't do anything with it, but it's actually the reason his powers manifested even if he didn't know about it. That he chose to use those powers for personal gain as a villain is by the by. He kept it safe just because his Grandmother gave it to him, but over the years far more evil and powerful people than he have sought this and overlooked him because they thought him a buffoon. At one point he even wore it around his neck when he worked his jobs. Ah well. He's done his job. Time to do ahhhh steady on!" said Thoth looking at the tweezers deep in his shoulder.

"Hush!" he was ordered and the tweezers withdrew, a bullet in their grip, but one unlike any the heroes had seen before! Black tendrils issued from it, alive and writhing and clinging to Thoths skin as they attempted to infect its host! Each tendril snapped off with Thoth biting down on a thin book to stifle the pain. The bullet clanked onto a silver tray and sizzled! in heartbeats it melted into liquid and steamed away, leaving a slight stain in its wake! Thoth put the book down, muttered something in an ancient long dead language and the wound in his shoulder closed. His assistant wiped it with a damp cloth and there was no trace at all of it!

"Not so easy to replace this shirt. It was a one off. Dash it!" said Thoth, rolling his shoulder stiffly and looking back to the heroes. He looked at the Time Stone on the table. "For the pair of you to go back in time you need another." With a sigh he fished inside his jacket and pulled out another on a chain. "I'll start the search for another but your need is greater."

He stood and walked to the grand fireplace as his assistant offered drinks to the Heroes. Turning, he placed hands behind his back and addressed the pair.

"ADVENT has agents with those. The Time Stone allows the passing through gates of time and space in your own time line - which is important to note - and therefore ANYTHING YOU DO will affect the timeline you are from. NOTE! Butterfly effect and all that. Any action you take will affect the timeline you are from whilst you have this stone. It is powered by magic. To step through the gate it provides get someone to fire pure magic at it and find a doorway, any doorway. Then step through. ADVENT aren't dummies. That stone exists throughout time as do others. The more examples they gather of the same stone the more they can dish out to their agents. Their plan is to eliminate people who can oppose them in this timeline right here and now." he said, then sighed.

"Right. TIME will mess with your head. Find the ADVENT agent in the timeline and eliminate them somehow. Separate them from their time stones to prevent them being recalled. After a certain amount of time they will fade and cease to exist. This bit is important."

"If you are separated from your Time Stone you have a limited amount of time to get it back or find another or...." he made a vanishing motion with his hand "Pffffttt. Gone. Forever."

He let that sink in.

"ADVENT have a head start on us. I have sent out a message to my past self and explained what's going on. Can I say for the record how annoying it is to argue with yourself. Anyway, past Thoth will help you if you can find him. The resonance of the ADVENT stones suggest I can send you back to three specific periods initially. You can choose which."

"The.. ahem, VERY Wild West indeed, The Somme in 1916, which is a horrible place to be, or 1929 in Chicago. Past me will make his way to where he senses resonance and you should look him up to hand in Time Stones when you get them after stopping whatever ADVENT are doing. Note, ADVENT will happily use super powered agents as well as their own Alien agents. You know..." he said to Haunt "how effective they can be if they get the drop on you. This is dangerous gentlemen. The world, and our future is at stake. We have two TIME STONES here. I can find two other hero types to send back through time if you have things you'd rather do, like live a safe, ordinary life. I would prefer not to do so, because then I'd have to go through all this speech again and quite frankly I'm spitting dust and tumble weeds right now." he arched an eyebrow at his assistant and she rolled her eyes, going for the bottle of vintage Brandy with some reluctance.

"Gentlemen. ADVENT is hunting targets through history to WIN in our time. If they do... we may never have had this conversation, and I hate wasting my time with windy speeches!"

Steeplejack had to admit that was the most he'd ever heard Professor Thoth say at once!

Admin wrote:"Gentlemen. ADVENT is hunting targets through history to WIN in our time. If they do... we may never have had this conversation, and I hate wasting my time with windy speeches!"

Steeplejack had to admit that was the most he'd ever heard Professor Thoth say at once!

Steeplejack nodded his thanks, he had no intention of backing down now. "In for a penny, me, always have been. If I might suggest we go back the furthest date and work forward.
I say that only because to an average fella like me it makes sense. But you might have a different idea?" He said looking with an arched eyebrow at Haunt.

OOC: Actually happy to do whatever you think is best Dave but in my mind, it's tidier to go back the furthest and then forward from there.

Sj

"Well, podnar, the Old West sounds mighty fine to me for our first stop," the Haunt says while pulling out his pair of six shooters and twirling them. [which are actually part of his body and he is just using shapechange to "twirl" his hands now in the form of six shooters.]

Thoth pokes a finger through the hole of his jacket and throws it to the sofa before remarking "I hope you're good with those. Whatever was regarded as wild in the movies had no real idea how wild it really is! Was. Time. *Sigh*"

"You should be warned." Thoth said and raising a finger while sipping from the brandy appreciatively.

"Magic and time travel do very very strange things to superhumans. Normal humans not so much but you might appear in a place with less abilities, none at all or power levels off the scale. The laws of time and space are pretty constant but introduce magic into that and it's an element of chaos. I genuinely cannot say what will happen to you. I've done plenty of time travel and sometimes my magic powers are more or less potent than they are now but I have some idea and adjust who I bring with me if I can. Magic tends to ... 'protect' against the chaos effect to a certain degree but I've been to places and turned out as... uh."

"A woman?" offered his assistant with a straight face.

"Yes, and worse. Once I was a horse, another time a bird, another time as a child, an old man..." muttered Thoth.

"Statistically given the number of time hops you've done you turn out as yourself more often than not." she offered.

"True, true. Last few times have been fine. I just don't want to go through the door like that one time and turn out to be..."

"A chair. I had to go in after you and rescue you!" she laughed.

"That was an oversight on my part. Use doorways and it makes things much more predictable. I found that out the hard way. So. Get my past self or another mage to blast the stones, concentrate on where you want to go, find a doorway and get through it before the magic fades. Stop the bad guys, find someone to do the magic thing and go to the next place. Easy!" he said, smiling but frowned and shook his head. "Our reality is dependent on an out of practise retired hero and someone with a strange taste in hats and theatrics. We're doomed."

His assistant rolled her eyes. "Drama Queen. Gentlemen if you would like a costume change wear these..." She handed a ring to each of the heroes. "A quick rub and the clothing should change to something more appropriate to the era. Don't ask how it works. It's a kind of magic." she said with a cheeky look in her eye.

"Any Questions?" said Thoth, sipping on the brandy.

"Can yuh narrow down exactly where we will be in each era," the Haunt asks, going a bit heavy on his Western accent. "The Old West is a pretty big place, like all of Europe and maybe a bit more in territory."

DavidMcMahon wrote:"Can yuh narrow down exactly where we will be in each era," the Haunt asks, going a bit heavy on his Western accent.  "The Old West is a pretty big place, like all of Europe and maybe a bit more in territory."

Although it struck Steeplejack that Haunt seemed very at home with voices, inflexions and mannerisms subtly different that fitted the persona he seemed to be projecting, a side effect of the shape-changing maybe? But he was not going to get away with doing an American accent coming from, 'up-north' as Londoners like to say. He'd have to hang back on the talk and keep it simple, silent type perhaps in mixed company.

He wondered how also magic would play with his abilities, to some degree there being tied to the earth...perhaps that was related. But he thought not, he had to hope things didn't go haywire. It was still going to be a challenge not looking like a complete numpty, not having pulled a gun before the lack of high buildings from which to line swing. Still, he was sure that riding a horse couldn't be harder than managing his motorbikes, could it?

"Ok best get out of here partner..." and with that, he rubbed the ring and saw his clothes change to something more in keeping, a bit like Doc Holiday from that old film Tombstone. He like the look and his tall thin frame wore it well. "Though impractical for a fight, I could get used to this otherwise." he said, very aware how odd his northern accent sounded as he tipped his hat to them all.

OOC: Right ready when everyone else is.

Sj

"Wouldn't happen to have any spare gold dust, would you, Doc," the Haunt asked as he rubbed his ring as well. "Best way to have currency back then in case this takes more than an hour or two, you know?"

"Doc?" asked Professor Thoth as he raised an eyebrow. "Here. I happen to have some lying around."

He reached down for a small bag that the heroes could have sworn wasn't on the table a moment before! Opening it up with the draw string he showed the pair the gold dust inside. "Fake of course but it will last long enough to buy supplies and will pass any test of the era."

Thoth walked over to the fireplace and took a glass sphere from its pedestal there.

"Hmmm. Lincoln, New Mexico. 1877 or 8, can't narrow it down." he said, looking into the globe.

"Lincoln... Billy the kid?" he asked, looking over at Haunt and Steeplejack in their western garb. "I don't know if you have to stop Billy the Kid, save him, or perhaps save another of his gang. You'll have to find out when you get there. Good luck gentleman. I believe back then I was a travelling salesman by the name of... Jeremiah Broome. I have a mule named Codswallop. I was in the general area but you may have to travel a bit to get to Albuquerque where I was for a while."  

"Good luck gentlemen! I wish I could be of more help but the past is no longer set. Everything ADVENT does and everything WE do will change things. Remember the butterfly effect! Don't kill anyone or change things unless you have to!"

He shook each mans hand then took the Time Stones, one in each hand. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he chanted in a language not heard on earth since the dark ages and the stones started to glow!!

He handed each man a stone and turned to the door. "See you in the past! I may not know you, or I might."

"That wasn't helpful." stated his assistant with a deadpan expression.

"Nor was the snark." replied Thoth.

"See you on the other side." added Thoth and he stepped aside to let the heroes step through a doorway which had previously led to a corridor, and now led to an open grassy plain!

"1870s huh," the Haunt says stepping through the portal and looking around.  "Post-Civil War, rapid western expansion, Indian Wars, Cattle Drives, Lawless Frontier, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday, Buffalo Bill, Railroad tracks being laid everywhere.  Masked Riders of the Plains.  Interesting Times."

"We need to get into town, get to an assayer and change this gold into cash, get some guns, need 'em to protect ourselves from wild animals, Injuns and bandits, and ..."

"Hmm, the Prof mentioned our powers might be different with this time travel stuff.  Do you feel any different?"

Haunt looks around trying to see if there is anybody who can see them.  If not, he will try out his powers to get a feel for what works and what doesn't work.


ooc:  Found this pic, looks okay so this is what Haunt is wearing now.





of course his scarred face looks something more like this:

OOC: cool m God with whatever, but glad to get the show in the road and the next part in tow partner...


Sj

Love in the doc holiday look, that's me. With a northern accent ;-)

Sj