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>>4696857
A few have fallen into the shadows and the tree line.

“Bones?” questions Clara looking down at the sonar images the two of you manage to collect before glancing back toward the basin, “According to scale that’s a pretty big set of snake bones,”

“Yeah, bigger than anything outside the fossil record,” you agree unsurprised and willing to accept the presence of a primordial mega snake as Clara peers over the top of her glasses toward the basin, “And a cave system further down?”

The Cult of Kobra seeks to excavate a giant snake fossil? Yeah, that checks out. Makes perfect sense. Why this location? A flood Basin seems like a bad place for construction

“We should get out of here, make our way back to the car and try to-” Clara whispers but falls quiet as the two of you catch the ripping of canvas.

Nearby to where you hide, you see a pair of figures cutting into the back of one of the smaller pavilion tents. One taller and built, the other a bit shorter and lithe, both wreathed in dark tactical gear and balaclavas, cast in shadows save for the sporadic burst of light from within the tent that abruptly goes out as a snake cultist is dragged through that opening by the smaller figure who you now notice carries of all things a scimitar on their hip. Are there any dangers we haven’t noticed

Whoever they are, they’re well equipped in versatile tactical gear. If you hadn’t just seen that initial altercation you might have missed those dark clad arms coming out the opening of the tent and dragging a passing cultist in after clasping a hand onto his mouth.

The smaller figure slinks through the dark silently. You lose sight of them, but Clara seems to have caught him again.

“Over there,” she whispers and points to one of the base generators of one of the flood lights, “They’re setting some packs of things on the generator and checking a small device with a red button. I think they’re bombs…”

She concentrates a moment and frowns before speaking mostly to herself.

“What are they thinking?”

Your eyes drift back to the tent, where the person you can only assume to be the taller of the two infiltrators steps out in a stolen tunic. Their balaclava discarded in favor of the Cult’s cowl and the submachine gun in his hands. The figure gives the device a look of decided disgust before casually and unseen by the patrols, removing the ammunition and clearing the chamber.

That face so framed in the cowl strikes you as unsettlingly familiar.

>Continue just watching, hidden for now
>Try and figure out what’s familiar about the infiltrator
>Use imminent chaos to better investigate
>Maybe it’s time to go, this seems like a bad situation you don’t want to be involved with
>This can’t be good, try to steal a machine gun and get mixed with this up in the worst of ways
>Try to get yourself caught. If you’re not murdered, reverse interrogations are fun power game
>write in

>>4696861
>>Try and figure out what’s familiar about the infiltrator

>>4697028
Agreed

>>4696861
>Try and figure out what’s familiar about the infiltrator
Ayyy, welcome back

>>4696861
>>Try and figure out what’s familiar about the infiltrator

>>4696861
>Continue just watching, hidden for now
Hang back, stay safe for once.
Though nothing wrong with following the figures, they are bound to create opportunities to learn more.
>Try and figure out what’s familiar about the infiltrator
>Use imminent chaos to better investigate

>>4697165
Following them with our eyes, to be clear.

>>4696861
>>Continue just watching, hidden for now

Rolled 4, 6 + 1 = 11 (2d6 + 1)

Try and Figure out what's familiar about the infiltrator.

Rolling ACT UNDER PRESSURE

You can’t help but be drawn to the now disguised figure, watching them move amongst the snakes in stolen scales. Watching them, scrutinizing them, making sure you could recognize them among this rabble.

This scrutiny notices a number of small things about their appearance, and as they move around you catch them at some point stopping at a number of arrayed laptops on folding tables near the dig site and what is probably the sonar machines...he takes out a thumb drive and places it in the computer.

Who are they, the two of you continue strafing around the edge of the camp in the shadows. Mindful of the patrols, the other figure preparing acts of sabotage, and your specific quarry of interest.

Every so often they pause now, and in out of the way places put down a small item. Too small to be like the explosives their associate placed...and amid their loop and rounds one is placed near you. Getting close to one is easy without garnering the attention of the thinning number of outer patrol guards. You imagine the other figure is responsible for that, though now you’ve lost sight of them.

The small device retrieved you fiddle with it. It definitely isn’t a bomb. Though as you and Clara inspect it, it does trill with a barely audible high frequency whine. One you’ve heard before.

Clara looks at it with a concerned and consternated face.

“Batman?” you consider a moment, “Or at least his technology,”

The device that emitted sounds what summoned a cloud of bats...this has got to be an incredibly small cross section of people in the world who employ that kind of trick.

Light sweeps across the forest and the basin from above as another, albeit smaller helicopter descends from on high to land among the others. Many of the Cultist rush to the side and form ranks as the blades spin to a close.

“HAIL KING KOBRA!” they announce in roared supplication as a hooded and cloaked figure exits the vehicle.

“Lois,” Clara says with a serious and somber tone, “I think it’s time we got out of here, find a rocky outcrop to hide behind, and wait it out until it’s safe to move again,”

Okay, this got a lot more complicated. This basin is about to become a warzone...and Clara probably has PTSD from her experiences during the Bialyan revolution.

Or is this distraction unnecessary, just keeping you off the path from your main goal? To the mountain and Superwoman?

>>4698173
But...what’s so important about a big snake and caves? Why is the leader of an international terrorist Cult willing to come out for it? Why is the Batman here, at the same time as you?! And who is the other person with him running around with a sword.

Lois...what do you do? Whatever is going to happen, it's about to happen.

Dawn is soon approaching, the darkest point of the night.

>Keep watching this play out (you will more than likely be discovered, but by who)
>It’s time to leave, even if this curiosity remains things are going to get too hot. Continue the journey
>It’s time to leave, even if this curiosity remains things are going to get too hot. Shelter somewhere to wait it out
>You need to get Clara away from this and safe, but you’re coming back to see what happens
>Tell Clara to run, you’re going to get in there when everything goes off
>Head into camp now, before things boil over, to hasten your acquisition
>Write in

>>4698175
>>You need to get Clara away from this and safe, but you’re coming back to see what happens

>>4698175
>>It’s time to leave, even if this curiosity remains things are going to get too hot. Continue the journey

>>4698175
>>You need to get Clara away from this and safe, but you’re coming back to see what happens

>>4698175
>>Keep watching this play out (you will more than likely be discovered, but by who)

>>4698175
>>You need to get Clara away from this and safe, but you’re coming back to see what happens

Nothing else to do about it. The tension mounts as you watch the organized scene in the basin ahead of you sit on the precipice ahead of spiraling into whatever chaos is about to unfold. You grasp at Clara’s hand.

“Come on,” you say to her initial surprise and resistance to your pull before she nods and follows.

After what happened with Solomon Grundy, and what you’ve read of her previous work, the lingering shadow of Clara’s likely post traumatic stress disorder looms.

“So, I guess we aren’t sticking around?” Clara says with a bit of surprise in her voice once you’re far enough away, perhaps venturing for the why of your decision making process.

It is entirely at odds with the behavior she’s witnessed thus far.

“I’m going back,” you reply simply.

“What?” she questions, “Then why-”

“I read about your work in the middle east,” you cut her off with an authoritative tone you learned by being Sam Lane’s daughter, one that you’re little sister heard shortly before instances of her accusing you of being bossy, “And given your reaction to Grundy...I’m not going to leave you in the middle of something that’s gonna hit all your PTSD triggers,”

The end is said with a bit more care and deference.

She stops short, and for a moment your legs almost run out from under you as it's like you’re trying to pull a buick from the front. Smallville is tough, you knew that already but sometimes it really surprises you. Letting go of her hand you turn to face her.

“You’re worried about me, but you’re still going to go back there for god knows whatever is about to happen?” she questions.

“Well...yeah. I’m reckless with my own life, Smallville, not anyone else’s if I can help it,” you say as her eyes shoot wide just before she winces as the first of the not quite so far off booms reaches your ears and sends sleeping birds skyward from the trees.

Though, as an afterthought.

“Okay, maybe I’m reckless with Jimmy’s life too,” you reason before walking passed Clara back the way you came, “I think we’re far enough away, if there’s shrapnel or stray bullets that rocky outcropping looks thick enough,”

She grabs your hand.

“Lois, I don’t have PTSD,” she begins but then falters as there is a flash in the sky and the distant rattle of gun fire, “...okay maybe I do but not for the reasons you thi- never mind...you’re really going back there?”

“I have to see what happens, and maybe if there’s something I can do in all that...I don’t know, just stay safe. Okay Smallville,” you offer as she lets go of your hand whereupon you race off into the final deepening darkness of the unquiet night.

Unbeknownst to you as you race toward it all...in that space by the outcropping where you left her behind. To your knowledge, safe.

>>4698998
Clara stands alone for a moment. Long enough to be beyond your range of sight if you were to look back in the crowded and hilly Alaskan forest; but still keeping her direct attention on you through the dark, the trees, and the ridges of earth between you. And she sees beyond you at what you’re running into.

She takes a breath.

She raises her hands.

She pulls open her jacket and blouse for the things she keeps beneath.

You, entirely unaware of the true emotional impact of the moment you just shared with your coworker and new friend in trial by fire, crest the hill toward the half darkened but eerie light and the shouts of the basin beyond. There is violence, there is the noise of gunfire, a swarm of bats shrouds the area, and the helicopter is trying to take off. Its light shines about wildly in the place lit by only one functioning but half exploded generator light.

The Batman has doffed the Cultist disguise and the balaclava entirely, and using the dark and the flashing light to his advantage he wages war. You swear he’s shot multiple times, or are the bullets just disappearing into the folds of his cape? No, you see him stumble taking a few shots to the chest, but there is no blood, there must be body armor of some kind beneath that fabric.

A number of cultists not fighting him have gathered in the basin. One holds a book aloft as the dark cloaked figure of King Kobra is...supplicating himself amid the mud and dirt of the area marked for careful excavation.

“You are a most unlucky woman,” says an accented voice, with the poise and diction between European Nobility and Egyptian Scholar, as the blade of the scimitar you saw earlier slides into your periphery from your own side and front, “To have have stumbled into witnessing this conflagration,”

Whoever they are, they are close. This person who was infiltrating the camp with the Batman. Right behind you, how did they sneak up on you so closely? The Batman is piled upon by seven men who have given up on using their guns and just rushed the man who had been laying them low unarmed technique amid the chaos.

“Or perhaps most lucky,” there is a smile to her voice as enough of the cultists are able to restrain him below, “To witness this conflict, and the turning of fate,”

The man holding the book chants something and that eerie feeling you couldn’t place surges, you witness fissures break into the ground to a strange green light as the robes of King Kobra are blown back to reveal a much older man than you were expecting. Green splashes from the fissures as the man keeps chanting.

The old man screams. Batman struggles, raising a grappling gun from his waist. Rib bones fold out of the mud in line as the skeleton of the great serpent rises. Then, the old man laughs as the skeletal snake sinuously rises to the sky, green ichor racing up its body and washing over the old man.

>>4698999
As it passes, he is changed. Robust. Strong. And young. Flesh returns to the giant serpent in the wake of green ichor.

“The Demons Head no longer controls all the pits!” declares the enhanced figure of King Kobra, “Rejoice, for we again control a source of Dionesium!”

“If they can keep it,” scoffs the woman behind you and withdraws the blade from where it was poised to strike your throat, “Watch what happens next carefully, this will be a turning point in wars to come,”

The bats screech and swarm. The sun is about to rise.

[b]Lois Lane, do you…[/b]
>Try to fight to fight the lady with the sword, fuck you that’s why
>Just...keep watching. You’re the reporter. She’s right, you’ll witness
>Charge down in there and do… I dunno something?
>Try to talk to this crazy sword lady
>Write in

[b]Ascending thematically with the Dawn, Superwoman will...[/b]
>Free the Batman first
>Even if she isn’t threatening anymore, you really don’t like swords at the necks of people you like
>Punch a giant snake
>Burn the giant snake
>Burn the book used to summon a giant snake
>Make short order of the mundane terrorists
>Clap hard enough to gain everyone’s undivided attention
>Write in

>>4699006
>>Just...keep watching. You’re the reporter. She’s right, you’ll witness

>Punch a giant snake

>>4699006
>>Try to talk to this crazy sword lady

>>Burn the book used to summon a giant snake

>>4699006
>>Try to fight to fight the lady with the sword, fuck you that’s why
>>Free the Batman first

>>4699006
>Try to talk to this crazy sword lady

She's a reporter not a superhero.

>>4699006
I mean of course we watch, but a report has got to ask questions too.
>>Try to talk to this crazy sword lady
What's her angle, came in with the Batman and leaving him on his own?
Mind filling some details on what Kobra boy is talking about?

>>Write in
Superspeed nab the book and speed read to figure out what we're dealing with here.

(Side note, has she figured out that magic is extra hurty to her yet? Incident in the JSA basement might have hinted at least.)

Rolled 5, 4 + 2 = 11 (2d6 + 2)

Lois Lane rolling investigate a mystery
>But I'm a Reporter move has been activated. Rolling with Charm rather than sharp.

Rolled 1, 6 = 7 (2d6)

Superwoman rolling + ??? to act under pressure

Rolled 6, 4 + 3 = 13 (2d6 + 3)

The Batman rolls to kick some ass

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So much is happening right now; between the bats, the fires from the generators, the unstable helicopter, the melee of cultist and the batman, and the giant snake hissing to the sky as King Kobra drops his robes and stands laughing in a gilded loin cloth that cannot be comfortable in this climate.

Still, you turn away from the fight...or at least step to the side and back away from it to glance at the still masked swordswoman.

“Honestly I’d like it if you could help provide a little bit more context for what I’m witnessing,” you say in a perfectly calm conversational tone.

Before you the Snake undulates vertically while King Kobra stalks over through the mud towards Batman; the movements of the beast are in tune to the waving arm of the cultist still reading the book. For his part the cowled mammal among reptiles activates what appears to be a single concussive flashbang from his belt and tosses it up to detonate mere feet above him as the Kobras drag him to the ground and cover him. You and your conversation partner wince and shield your eyes.

“Context? Are you not awed and surprised by what you’re seeing here tonight?”

Questions Posed: What happened here, and what is being concealed here

“Actually, I’m a reporter,” you sigh and fix her with a straight and defiant gaze, “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. What’s your angle in all of this, come in with the Bat but then leave him to his own? And what’s Snake boy ranting about?”

“A reporter? That reporter!” she is actually a bit shocked, “Perhaps I was too quick to stay my blade,”

“Yeah, you know by comparison you’re a lot less threatening with the prehistoric danger noodle showing off down there. So do me a favor and don’t threaten me unless you mean to make good on it,” you scoff a bit and cross your arms whilst turning attention back down to the fray.

The bodies on top of the Batman insulated him from the blast, he hefts their unconscious bodies off of himself whilst the others still recovering were thrown or threw themselves back. He’s hurt, but not as hurt as he could be. King Kobra blinks at his eyes and roars, blindly charging at the caped crusader.

What happened here

“Mythical, not prehistoric,” the masked woman sighs, “Haietlik, the lightning serpent. It was left to guard something best left untouched that these snake zealots have coveted. Dionesium is a mineral of supernatural rejuvenation potential, here it has been purpose augmented and activated by the cult’s blood magics,”

“Hmmm, well that’s a bit much,” you consider as you pay momentary attention to the book reading snake man, who seems sweating under his hood and worried about the tasks he is performing, “The Demon’s Head though, if you asked me a month ago I’d call him an urban myth,”


That man Perhaps keeping the giant snake undulating and in place?

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>>4699647
What is being concealed here

“He is quite real, he tasked me with entangling the Batman into this affair,” the figure says as a matter of fact, “by presenting him with a Kobra related lead to a human trafficking case he had been investigating,”

“Right, so the leader of an ancient order of international assassins wants Batman out of the picture and his rivals in the Cult of Kobra taken down at the same time?” you wonder aloud.

“If that happens, so be it,” she smiles and removes her mask…

How does someone in a balaclava avoid having hat hair, and look so immaculately made up?

“Either way he proves himself worthy of The Demon’s attention

“You’re being awfully candid about this, with a reporter,” you question.

King Kobra misses the Bat, who dodges deftly; trying his best to not engage the seemingly hulking man and instead hurling what looks like bat shaped throwing stars at him.


“Quote me as an anonymous source, perhaps telling you this is to my or my master’s benefit over all of this,” she smiles as the light of dawn crests through the forest; robbing the batman of his greatest ally in the dark.

“Well I can see how you might take adva-” you say as there is a sudden gale of wind as something darts across the clearing.

The snake has stopped undulating and looks too and fro in confusion, as does the man who had been keeping it at bay. Other snake cultists, those who hadn’t been dogpiling the batman, seem confused as they stumble and retake their bearings. King Kobra looks up in anger.

Batman wipes a trickle of blood from his lip and smiles.

She’s here. Casually pressing her thumb against the edge of the pages of the book she stole from the cultist below causing the pages to rapidly flip past.

“Can’t read any of this,” she huffs as her face cast in darkness by the sun behind her suddenly darkens.

Literally the shadows on her visage deepen with the sun behind her as her eyes burn red and the grimoire in her hands is incinerated.

“Morning Ms Lane!” the Superwoman waves a hand as the basin recovers from her passage, “Sorry, I got a little impatient and saw you were being held up,”

>>4699648

The giant snake hisses up at her, and then down at the cultist before it. Its throat bulges and arcs of energy coat its form, revealing flashes of black and white across its body as it’s skeletal structure briefly illuminates before it disgorges a cascade of lightning bolts at the doomed soul.

The woman beside you is surprised and shocked. The batman uses the opportunity to leap onto King Kobra’s back and jam a hypodermic needle into his shoulder.

Superwoman cracks her neck and...

>tries to placate the mythical lightning snake
>tries to melee the snake and beat it down
>tries to melee the snake and drag it skyward
>fights the snake at range with heat vision & breath
>keeps the snakes attention on her and not anyone else
>gets Batman to Lois and the assassin, leave snakes vs snake
>get as many of these people away from the giant snake as you can
>Quickly try to take down as many cultist as you can
>write in

Meanwhile, Lois Lane

>Press your luck on this sword lady and what she might be willing to share
>Take out some breakfast bars for yourself
>Take out some breakfast bars, offer one to the sword lady
>Head down there amid the chaos to help the Batman to safety
>You can’t trust sword lady, she’s distracted, maybe time to cheese it
>You can’t trust sword lady, she’s distracted, maybe try to sucker punch her
>write in

>>4699650
>>tries to melee the snake and beat it down
>>Press your luck on this sword lady and what she might be willing to share

>>4699650
>tries to placate the mythical lightning snake

>Press your luck on this sword lady and what she might be willing to share
>Take out some breakfast bars, offer one to the sword lady
Offer the bar as a 'bribe' jokingly (unless she actually wants it, then hook her up)

>>4699650
>>tries to melee the snake and drag it skyward
>>keeps the snakes attention on her and not anyone else
See if we can get the wildest thing out of the fight. Upward and maybe north too, if we're lucky either the cold work against it being a snake or not being grounded will cut down on the lightning.


>>Take out some breakfast bars, offer one to the sword lady
>>Press your luck on this sword lady and what she might be willing to share
>Write in
Please tell me we have a camera we can take a couple shots with, or maybe set to video and get Jimmy to extract some good shots from it later.
Make obvious that we are excluding mystery lady from the shots, unless she requests otherwise. Mysterious assassins tend to be camera shy.

"Was Kobra actually involved in that human trafficking angle? Sorry, I'm usually more up to speed in these situations, but as you can see, I was following an entirely different lead.

Assuming we live through this, the heck is a Haietlik anyway? Either of them have a chance here?
(We know our Supes has superhearing, so prehaps she can spill something useful while the battle is on.)

>>4699650
>>tries to melee the snake and beat it down
back into the ground with it

>>Press your luck on this sword lady and what she might be willing to share
>>Take out some breakfast bars, offer one to the sword lady

>>4699650
>fights the snake at range with heat vision & breath
>Take out some breakfast bars, offer one to the sword lady

Rolled 6, 1 = 7 (2d6)

Danger Noodle Beat Down

Rolled 4, 3 + 2 = 9 (2d6 + 2)

Lois Lane Manipulates someone.

Lois Lane does have a digital camera, and is casually using it, but is not very proficient

Fishing around in your bag for some breakfast bars as Superwoman bullrushes the giant snake monster into the mud it rose from.

“You hungry,” you question of the swordswoman and gesture with the wrapped pastry, “I have breakfast bars,”

“Might as well,” she sighs and takes the confection, “Thank you,”

“So, is Kobra actually involved in that human trafficking case,” you question while unwrapping your own, “I normally have more research ahead of an interview; but I’ve kind of stumbled into this one,”

She considers it, hums to herself in consideration taking a bite from the breakfast bar. Superwoman holds the head of the giant snake two handed as it roars out another blast of lightning into the sky before taking a strong hook against it.

King Kobra has fallen to his knees. Looking half lidded and groaning as he falls to the ground. The Batman rolls his shoulders and squares up with his fists raised to beckon forward any of the other cultists while the Superwoman bodies the monster.

“I’m not so inclined to divulge that,” she hums to herself, “Though perhaps we can make an arrangement for another time,”

She considers and regards the Superwoman as they are knocked back by the buck and whip of the snake’s tail.

“What did you have in mind?”

The Batman engages the last dregs of the Cultist of Kobra as others start to flee the chaos or try to hoist up and move the unconscious King Kobra.

“An exchange,” her eyes bore into Superwoman as she tears another dense piece of fruit tart bar from the wrapper, “When in more civilized trappings,”

Superwoman rises from the dirt, spits, and shakes her jacket clean before flying into the creature fists first as it sparks with electricity.

“I think that can be arranged,” you offer with sudden worry as even Batman casts himself and his cloak wide over the pile of cultists who had previously tried to dogpile him and now lay unconscious while others run.

You don’t like the look of that monster’s flashing and sparking. The woman beside you is already gone, when did she?

>Try to flee to a safer distance
>Hit the deck up her on the ridge
>Get down there and try to take cover behind one of the grounded generators
>Keep watching what’s going to happen, don’t miss a thing
>write in

>>4700937
>Get down there and try to take cover behind one of the grounded generators
We are a reporter, but best to get our story out of harms way

>>4700937
>>Get down there and try to take cover behind one of the grounded generators

>>4700937
>>Get down there and try to take cover behind one of the grounded generators

>>4700937
>>Get down there and try to take cover behind one of the grounded generators
Get closer to the dange- I mean story to be safer? Sounds like her style.

>>write in
Also, make note to check for bugs/trackers when we can, wouldn't be surprised if someone that can slip away that smoothly would leave a present like that behind.

Rolled 6, 3 + 3 = 12 (2d6 + 3)

Lois Lane is rolling ACT UNDER PRESSURE

Move activated: What Could Go Wrong? Takes +2 Forward to Act Under Pressure.

The action successes of our Lois today reminds me of Tales of Metropolis Lois.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JU2hKAnz9w

Sorry, had a discord remote larp this past weekend and then busy days back to work. Update tonight.

In a split second decision you break over the ridge and down the hill into the basin. Finding purchase you race past every ounce of the ongoing madness around the rim of the marked out ruined excavation area and break into a base slide toward the broken generator. The serpentine beast flickers in the negative and monotone mannerism again and you can feel the world slowing down.

The hairs on your arm stand on their end.

Dawn casts the warring figures in silhouette before you as dirt and muck are pressed forward and aside by the momentum of your outstretched leg.

The scent of burning ozone and rising petrichor mix with muscle memory and make you distantly recall a childhood game of stickball on some forgotten military base interrupted by a storm.

Though it is a storm you fail to see; beyond the blinding flare that casts the world in white just as you make it behind the generator and shunt yourself as low as you can go behind it. With intensity the arclight overhead pierces your shut eyelids, and the world is cast about in a weightless moment thrown asunder by the immediate and all encompassing crash of thunder.

You are fine, save for the ringing in your ears and the brief inability for your eyes to focus after the blast. Peering around the edge of the machine you see the serpent is again bone. Not freshly charred flesh and charred but muddy and ancient petrified bones that wouldn’t be out of place guarding some archway in a museum.

Superwoman stands looking raggedly frustrated; groaning nearby is the pile of snake men and women who had tried to apprehend the Batman but were instead defeated and saved by his efforts, arms, and guile. The caped crusader himself nowhere to be seen.

“Are you alright, Lois?” questions the Superwoman, drifting in casual flight across the clearing toward you.

“Absolutely fine, and I have so many questions,” you beam and rise from behind the ruined generator, brushing muck off of your wilderness clothes.

“Can’t say I could answer any of them, honestly,” she huffs and looks around, “So...you want to call this even for trying to get to the original rendezvous?”

“I need to regroup with Clara at least, it’s important, she came all this way with me,” you explain, hiding from the woman of steel your concern over your friend’s situational emotional delicacies, as the Superwoman herself looks off into the forest with a specific focus back the way you’d come from.

“You don’t need to worry about her, she’s found the Batman,” she says and muses in a smug tone that you don’t think is directed at you but...to someone else, someone listening? “And from the look of things he’s not in a great way, looks like she’s gonna squeeze an exclusive interview out of the brooding ex-cryptid,”

>>4709643

You think for a moment and catch at a small quibble of language that has always bothered you.

“I know what you mean, but the Batman’s emotive and theatrical presentation isn’t broody. I mean if he started nesting, corralling baby birds, and being a parent or something then by all means call it brooding,” you sigh, “give me a moment,”

The Batman for his part, unseen by you, frowns where he’s hidden himself as he listens to this exchange. A frown that deepens at the assertion that he’s been caught for an interview. The potential for mutually assured destruction sits firmly in his lap as he makes a few decisions.

Superwoman, Kara Zor-El, nods.

Lois Lane do you
>Take Superwoman up on the offer to cut her theatrics and take you to see her ship
>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
>You want to finish the journey you started for this, Lois Lane sees things through
>LIKE HELL SHE’S LANDING THE BATMAN INTERVIEW ALONE
>Write in

Lois Lane, faced with this battle scuffed and burned Superwoman
>Comment on how amazing her Nigh Invulnerability seems in face of that blast
>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her
>Speculate about why she seems a bit hurt now but not in some other situations
>write in

>>4709646
>Take Superwoman up on the offer to cut her theatrics and take you to see her ship
>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

>>4709646
>>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
>>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

>>4709646
>>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
Even if she's ok, we'd hate to have her think we just ditched her without a word.
Though we wouldn't want to spoil her cornering the Bat either (we can horn in on the byline a little with the 'anonymous source' info and bad pictures later).
What to do..

>>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

>>4709646

>Take Superwoman up on the offer to cut her theatrics and take you to see her ship

>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

>>4709646
>>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
>>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

>>4709646
>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
>You want to finish the journey you started for this, Lois Lane sees things through
>LIKE HELL SHE’S LANDING THE BATMAN INTERVIEW ALONE
All of the above? All of the above.

>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her
>Speculate about why she seems a bit hurt now but not in some other situations
Do the good person thing, and the reporter thing.

>>4709646
>Even though you trust her, you need to see with your own eyes that Clara is okay first
>Notice the small bits of damage she’s taken and offer to help patch her

“I trust you, Superwoman, I do,” you begin while meeting her confident gaze, “but I need to know Clara is okay with my own eyes first,”


The woman before you seems to hesitate a moment in response, but she nods and lays a hand on your shoulder supportively.

“I understand,” she says with a confident grin, “I’ll be here when you’re done. Going to try and make sure these guys can’t get far on their own when they finally wake up,”

You smile at Superwoman, but before you turn you catch sight of her arms and hands and gasp.

Her fingers and hands are bruised and spiking squiggly veins of purple run into the now grayed cuff of her jacket’s sleeve. Even though you’ve seen her swat missiles out of the sky you guess that man handling a resurrected serpent monster that can breathe and explode into lightning can put her nigh invulnerability to the test.

“Look at this, hold on,” you take her hand in your own to her initial confusion as you swing your backpack around and begging rifling through for your first aid kit, “I have burn cream and something for bruising,”

She didn’t even flinch at the pressure on those deep bruises, a testament to how hard she is to hurt you imagine. Did she even notice until you pointed it out? She looks at her hand in surprised wonder.

“I know you’re super strong,” you offer as you peel off your gloves and apply both tubes of cream to her hand before gently spreading them about, “but you probably need to at least be a little more careful,”

This rips her from her stunned silence and she laughs deeply and readily as you begin carefully wrapping the hand in a thin gauze.

“That’s pretty good coming from you,” she smiles again and you feel the faintest bit of indignancy, “Considering that slide you took getting behind the generator at the last second,”

“Hmph,” you frown and perhaps huff a bit, “Silly me, I forgot to douse this bruise with iodine. The other hand’s gonna have to get some burning, stinging, iodine,”

Her laughter stops, but she still smirks as you fish the small disinfectant from your bag. Just handling it with how chapped even your previously gloved hands are right now makes you flinch a bit; when it washes over her’s there is no reaction.

Stupid invulnerability negating your rather appropriate dig. She continues to smirk, smugly.

Satisfied with the care you’ve provided once both hands are properly tended to and wrapped to the finger, you turn on your heel back into the only vaguely familiar in the light of day woods.

“I’ll be back in a bit,” you explain, unsatisfied as to the balance of power that the exchange ended on, you march off to find Clara.

“She’s not quite where you left her!” Superwoman calls out from behind you, which you spare a glance back toward her as she gestures a bit to the side, “Veer off that way about a hundred yards or so,”

>>4711617

Nodding to her, you follow suit. Never seeing her blur in a wide arc at speed to her true intentions and destination amid this parting. It isn’t long after that you indeed catch sight of Clara in a crouch near a seated figure on the ground.

True to Superwoman’s word, in the early morning daylight of this forest the Batman sits leaned against a rock and in the process of wrapping bandages a laceration on his leg. Portions of his suit, seemingly compartmentalized armor pieces under the rolled up fabric, sit arrayed carefully on the ground. The first aid supplies he’s using appear to be from Clara’s bag.

“Can we keep him? He’s all injured and alone,” Clara smiles at you coming into her line of sight.

At a glance, the armor looks like kevlar padding. Easy to replace if one section is damaged without losing the whole thing, but leaving more than a few gaps. Further you catch sight of his cape. The lightning blast has done a number on it but revealed the layers underneath. It isn’t just fabric...there are veins and circuitry.

When he threw himself over the cultists who had been trying to kill him, the cape had gone rigid.

“I dunno,” you hum as the Batman frowns in the sunlight catching the exposed lower half of his face, “As self sufficient as bats are they’re a big responsibility,”

Well, you guess that rules him out as being a vampire. Do actual vampires have a reaction to sunlight? They didn’t in the original Dracula…

You’ll ask your magical consultant about that later.

“If the two of you are finished with banter,” he reaffixes his armor and tries to stand, “I need to track down King Kobra,”

“Whoa now,” Clara says and steadies him, he seems a little disoriented, “You’re not going anywhere like this,”

Seeing Clara, hands properly gloved for the dry and cool weather, you regret not putting your gloves back on after helping Superwoman.

“Clara, we’ve got a change of plans,” you explain and help steady the Batman against a tree.

This close, you might be able to slip his mask off...but no. Not after how he helped you before. Not after how he helped Jimmy.

“Oh?”

“Superwoman is taking me to see her ship from here. I justed wanted to swing by and make sure you’d be okay,”

She nods and flashes you a thumbs up.

>Time to head off with Superwoman
>You want to stay here and ask The Batman a few questions
>You want to ask Clara if she’s okay, make sure things didn’t rattle her too much
>This was harrowing, rest with these two a bit before heading back to the basin
>write in

>>4711620
>Time to head off with Superwoman

>>4711620
> Half-jokingly tell her "If you do the Batman interview without me, I'll never forgive you, you know."

>>4711620
>>Time to head off with Superwoman

>>4711620
>>write in
Comment that if she's snagging the Bat, suppose that makes Wayne fair game then. Unlikely she could pull off both before we return.
Pull Clara aside, fill her in on info from the assassin. Tell Batman to play nice and he can find out a bit more about what led him out here before it hits the paper.

Swap in fresh memory card for camera, freshen up, and
>>Time to head off with Superwoman
Ask her if she can find the King Kobra guy as well.

>>4711620
>>You want to ask Clara if she’s okay, make sure things didn’t rattle her too much

>>4711620
>>You want to ask Clara if she’s okay, make sure things didn’t rattle her too much

File: Batwing.png (6 KB, 348x202)

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Taking the time to change out the memory card of your camera, you watch as the Batman takes another small handheld device off of his belt. Again you hear the familiar sound that his jump drive and seemingly proprietary software made when you plugged it into your office computer.

“Well, if you have the Batman, then I guess you’re fine with me trying to snag that Wayne interview,” you grin broadly.

“Yeah, no conflict here. I’ll forward you the notes later for your interview,” Clara grins and nods a bit too quickly, you imagine because she has the Batman at her reporter’s without a direct means of egress.

Letting her know about the assassin briefly, and in a whisper despite the Bat’s proximity, you fill her in on what you gathered to help set up her course of interview before breaking back away toward the basin and clearing.

Again, unseen by you, Batman cracks a smile at Clara and gives a tilted gesture with his head after the path you’ve run. The tacit peace and hasty agreement between them born of necessity and continued operational secrecy and security. Clara leaves his sight hurriedly.

Moments later at the basin, you find superwoman dusting off her bandaged hands as several Cult of Kobra operatives are bound in the bent metal of the neck of the floodlights previously destroyed.

“Welcome back! Ms. Kent and the Bat doing alright?” she beams and sets her hands on her hips.

“They’re fine; I’d say I’m jealous of her getting that interview by circumstance, but I think I’ll manage under current circumstances,” you smile back to Kara, “Don’t suppose you sorted things with King Kobra as well?”

“Well, he’s still being carried off to an emergency helicopter about two miles that way,” she gestures off and then winks, “but wouldn’t you know it the rotor and the blades have all been sheared off by extreme heat. They’re not escaping anywhere for a while,”

“Then if we’re ready, lead the way,” you step up to her.

With one hand supporting your back and the other offered low you swing your legs up into the now familiar bridal carry. That sensation of weightlessness again takes you as she rises from the base earth below and takes to the sky. While your arms loop for security around her neck and shoulders, Mount Denali shifts height and perspective next to you, and the clouds become closer than even from the window of an airplane. This empty sky around you above the rapidly receding treetops is quite different from being flown between the buildings of Metropolis and all the more exhilarating for the sense of open majesty.

Below, you catch sight of a jet black plane in a very uninspired shape given your assumptions of the owner. Much like Jimmy’s photos of the Batmobile, this wing has a decided motif. How does he have so much advanced and custom stuff, it must be capable of VTOL, as it stops at a hover over where you think you left Clara and the Bat.

File: The-Fortress-of-Solitude.jpg (180 KB, 1200x600)

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>>4713622
That isn’t important now, as the two of you pick up speed and altitude. Though the air thins a bit, it doesn’t become entirely uncomfortable; the cold however is another story. Not that it matters much as the ring of condensation breaks off around the two of you when you think she hits near the sound barrier.

Her explanation of powers holds true, for manipulation of kinetic force and inertia; else you imagine your skin would be peeling off your own flesh right now from the wind resistance or your ears being blown out by the sound and pressure differentials.

This close to her, you’re safe. In defiance of every law of physics you know, you’re safe.

Mountains below give way to ice, ocean, and ice again. After what seems like forever she pitches her legs forward and shifts position to come into a gentle landing amid an ongoing snowstorm somewhere in the arctic circle. With careful steps and leading you by the hand she advances.

“Come on,” she smiles and leads you toward a particular crystalline formation of rocks. Through an arch of folded crystals a doorway parts for the two of you on approach.

Inside is splendor, this is no formation of nature but a guided growth or design. Did she make it? Within the vaulted ceiling of the place sits the stellar life boat that ferried two souls to the blue earth. It is a bit smaller than you expected all told.

“So, what do you think?” she beams and presents the device, “Pretty cool, right?”

If you were more technologically inclined, you know you’d have better appreciation for the how this object coursed the darkness between stars. For now, you’ll settle for the awe of knowing this had done it, regardless of the visible tech level.

Where to begin though.

>Marvel at this, lets see what Kara Zor-El volunteers
>Ask questions about the spaceship
>Ask questions about her family & its construction
>Ask questions about Krypton’s history and fall
>That line about social corrective device has had you concerned
>Does she know any other aliens, if not you have a lead
>write in

>>4713627
>>That line about social corrective device has had you concerned

>>4713627
>>Ask questions about Krypton’s history and fall

>>4713627
>Marvel at this, lets see what Kara Zor-El volunteers
>Does she know any other aliens, if not you have a lead

>>4713627
I'm good with:
>>4713636

>>4713627
>>Marvel at this, lets see what Kara Zor-El volunteers

>>4713622
>Batman cracks a smile at Clara
Huh. Surprised he's able to smile at that. Probably a good sign.

>>4713627
>Marvel at this, lets see what Kara Zor-El volunteers
Let's see what she says, and what she doesn't say.

>>4713627
>>Ask questions about Krypton’s history and fall

Once i finish acclimating to this year’s passover, there will be an update.

Three way tie, writing tonight or tomorrow.

You take a long time to marvel at the spaceship. An honest to goodness actual spaceship. Reaching out for it, you pause and glance back over to Kara who nods. It is smooth and temperate to the touch despite how cool it is within this crystalline fortress; though nowhere near as cold as it had been in the frozen ice field beyond. The metal, dragging your hands across it feels a bit like moving through water. The material is somehow adaptive to tactile contact perhaps? A technical thought picked up from some of your time with Dr Hamilton.

Here you decide to hold off from pressing her with excessive questions, treating the moment as a liminal wonder preening and investigating what is ostensibly an interstellar life boat.

“The amount of time I was conscious within it was relatively small,” she admits and sits on an outcropping of crystal, looking more than a bit tired, “We were barely out of atmosphere before the stasis effect took with activation of the phantom drive,”

The reminder of her trauma gives you pause, a dead world behind her and a new one she is eager and aggressive to protect in front of her.

“When we woke it was like a bubble popping, surrounded by debris and the weightlessness of space. Before thrust engaged to restore our trajectory we tumbled through the rings of Neptune…”

She pauses amid the memory of helplessness and sighs.

“This was before I’d even had any yellow sun exposure too, one scary situation to another as we cut a course through space,”

“Straight tour from the outer to inner world before hitting Earth?” you question and sit beside her.

“No...we didn’t see any other planets directly except on the instruments in the pod,” she shrugs and waves a hand, “Orbits,”

After a quiet moment you broach another question.

“In your time on Earth, have you met any other aliens?” you question seriously, “I know you’re one of two survivors...but even sticking to the shadows have you met any others?”

“Honestly, yeah,” she seems a bit wistful and regretful, “Only a few though and under very...strange even for me circumstances…”

She’s silent here, not really offering up much more on the subject.

Daxamite plot thread flagged for later

“Well, if you want to meet another one I may have a lead for you, if you’re interested,” you offer.

“I may well be,” she replies.

Briefly you recount the events you learned about in regard to the accident surrounding the Zeta Beam Project at STAR Labs. She listens, nods, and considers things for a long moment.

“Though that’s also something I plan on following up, and publishing after the fact... unless you’d be interested in seeking this out as well?” you ask tentatively of the incredibly human-like alien before you.

“Lois Lane, are you proposing cooperating to search for a stranded alien on the run?” she hums to herself, “Well, count me as interested.

>>4719238
“Glad you think so...so...let’s finally ask the big questions,” you stand up and stride between Superwoman and her ship, taking a few photographs of the presently inert vehicle, “Tell me about the history of Krypton and the details of it’s fall,”

“Well, here I think I can do you one better,” she floats from her seated position and drifts toward an array of crystals that begin taking on orange hues within a podium of clear icy blue stone.

“Ooooo, is this a presentation?”

“Something like that, here, hold this sun stone,” she hands you an orange gold glowing stone.

You take it in hand as she holds up another. A beam of light lances from the console of crystals to her hand and from there to the one in your hand before the flash of light consumes your world.

When it fades, you are in a white void, you look down and you seem to be...fractalized? The world starts building structures around you that shift and collapse into themselves. Kara’s face forms in spiraling motes before you, partially discorporated.

“What is this,” you wonder aloud and then excitedly, “Is this a space hologram!?”

“Not so grandiose...it's a mental projection and connection. With me as the in between medium, the machines can learn human brain chemistry and learn how best to present things,”

And then...those fractal patterns become more emergent and take on presence, color, and solid definition. When they are done you stand beneath an orange sky surrounded by buildings of cyclopean height and...an odd sense of decay? The landscape beyond these spires is bleak save for a few copses of blue and green forests contained in rings of the same technology and architecture of the world around you.

It is haunting in the stretches of empty space between. And as the red glare of the sun sets beyond the horizon the bleak landscape comes more to life, previously black outcroppings of crystals throughout the panoramic scope around you glow white as the sky darkens and the world is teaming with life. The structures that in the light of day seemed decayed and ancient seem more vibrant and ethereal while the horizon shifts to a purple haze that is reflected in the vast sea.

It’s...beautiful. You aren’t alone. Kara is there, and rather than the outfit you are used to seeing her wear she instead is clad in a white bodysuit. The shield emblazoned across her chest is more stylized and set in gray. Like the crystals that dot the landscape and the structures her bodysuit seems to have become iridescent under the starry sky.

File: General Zod and Ursa.jpg (148 KB, 1512x2016)

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>>4719240

“This is Krypton as I knew it. Those are the biome recovery zones. During a war, about a century ago, this continent had been ravaged by energy weapons. The disparate city states of the world had come together to reform the previously disbanded council to oversee this restoration and a unified future for a world long in decline,” Kara explains and sighs as the world moves around the two of you and brings you among one of the sequestered forests she gestures toward.

Here, in the projection, she reaches out for and tries to touch a tree trunk, looking a bit downcast as her hand presses through it sending fractals rippling throughout the unreal projected memory.

There is laughter and you watch as a young girl that looks much like her charge through the alien environment. She plays with a small almost dragon like creature that streaks around the air around her on insectoid wings.

“Though...this, I think, is when the fall truly began,” she looks up at one of the distant spires and the world moves around you anew.

In a room atop one of the tallest towers, there is an open platform underneath the bejeweled night. Rings spin suspended in air, as a figure stands within, their hands bound in a sort of organic looking manacle connected by chains forming from loose metallic dust like matter.

There are overlain aesthetics in this place. The base layer is some kind of planet fantasy wonder of the jet age covered by intersecting and competing concepts of HR Geiger biotech and a sterile crystalline fantasy.

The figure in the rings, he stands with diction and purpose. Wearing a black bodysuit overlain with a green tunic.

He speaks in harsh words, curses of a foreign to you tongue...though in a strange echo you hear his words and the contempt of his voice.

“How could I not? When this council would choose to try to repair a failing biome while confined rather than reaching out again to the stars and glory as had our ancestors!” the figure rants with mad eyes.

Arrayed before him, projected in silver and white high above are the muted facsimiles of faces. In the darkness a gallery of figures watches.

“It is the will of this council and for the future of Krypton that we must believe the Biome can successfully be restored,” one of the faces of this council explains, “And that for your crimes of murder and the near desolation of the Vathlo restoration habitat carried out during your failed coup, Zod, that you be punished by means not used since those days of wretched aggression and glory,”

“I AM General Zod! I am of military caste and I will not be denied my rank!”

“You are stripped of caste and rank,” says another voice.

“How dare you! HOW DARE ALL OF YOU! Mine was a way forward, TO THE STARS WE HAVE BEEN DENIED! THAT IS WHERE KRYPTON’S FUTURE WILL LIE! THE STARS UNDER MY FIST!”

>>4719241
A mirror plane folds out of space above the figure, shrouded in rising light discorporating and distending them into the hollow reflective space.

The rings wrap into the ground, the man named Zod slams on the surface from within.

“To the Phantom Zone with you, may suspended time of reflection with your thoughts show you a better tomorrow,”

The scene shifts again, to a figure in a red robe standing before a less ominous version of the same council.

“The council presented absolute faith in the systems that were supposed to save and restore our world. Automated over a generation ago they only acted against an attempted coup...resting on political laurels…General Zod would have been no better. Seeking rule by the military castes and what atrocities he had planned to break the Eradicator system,” she explains beside you, “When my uncle discovered the destabilizing core as it related in life cycle changes to our sun Rao...that council ignored him,”

There is a long pause from her.

“Though if out of faith in the system or in disgust for his plan I can’t say,” she laments.

“By placing the entire population in the Phantom Zone, a single agent can travel beyond the atmospheric level shrouded by the compression field of my Phantom Drive’s engine. In temporal and metabolic stasis the genetic unraveling in that physical band would be suspended. They could reach a safe destination and restore us all!”

“MADNESS!”

“There is no reason to abandon the restorative operations!”

“These quakes are less severe than when I was a child,”

“His findings were suppressed using the global systems the council controlled. Part of why things came so close to the wire...my family had to build everything off the grid basically. No central computing power to assist or anything,” she reminisces.

You are on a beach, at sunset under alien skies. There is no movement, you stand in a still and frozen picture.

“And then came the fall...if Zod had never attempted his coup...I wonder if the council would have been more willing to accept the findings,” she laments as the fractals fall away and the image fades to reveal the two of you still in the great crystal manse.

How long has she had this place, in near absolute solitude. She seems absolutely depressed now, a fear cry from her smug and haughty laughter in the face of dangers that barely phase her. She again leaves herself open and vulnerable to you. Between the tabs she’s kept on your since you first met in the skies over the Delaware Bay you cannot help but wonder.

>Give her space, but be present, leave her to her thoughts but stay near
>Press with further inquiry, was this Phantom Zone the social corrective?
>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt
>That was a bit too much to deal with, and you feel overwhelmed and mental strain
>Write in

>>4719238
>Daxamite
Ah, Kryptonian's evolutionary cousins.

>>4719241
>THE STARS UNDER MY FIST!
And here, the mask breaks. Not "we." "My."

>>4719243
>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt

>>4719243
>>Write in
"Seems short-sighted politicians and glory-seeking generals is one more thing our people have in common. I hope you don't mind if I make a point of this in my article, it won't fix those sorts of people perhaps, but an example like this might encourage more people to guard against them."

>>Press with further inquiry, was this Phantom Zone the social corrective?

>>4719243
>>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt

>>4719243
>>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt
supporting the write in part of >>4719264

>>4719243
>>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt

>>4719243
>Attempt to comfort Kara Zor El, you can’t begin to imagine this hurt
>Write in
"Seems short-sighted politicians and glory-seeking generals is one more thing our people have in common. I hope you don't mind if I make a point of this in my article, it won't fix those sorts of people perhaps, but an example like this might encourage more people to guard against them."

Rolled 2, 2 + 1 = 5 (2d6 + 1)

Lois Rolling Cool to help out

Rolled 1, 6 = 7 (2d6)

Clara rolling to act under pressure
+???

[b]Lois Lane fails to Help out, marks 1 experience[/b]
[b]Kara Zor El still manages to pull herself together to act under pressure[/b]

Vulnerabilities, and perhaps respect for them when presented, is what this moment should be about. At least, that’s what you decide as you observe Superwoman in this moment.

You approach her, as she looks emptily at the console of protruding crystal shards, setting the sun stone she handed you down on a flat ledge along the column.

“Are you going to be okay,” you ask tentatively, just outside what you think would be the boundaries of personal space, as she looks up at you with an expression between faded frustration and loss.

Despite her facing, her eyes avert from your own after the initial moment of contact. Unlike some people you’ve come to know, she seems to at least be aware of her own traumas and the weight it carries.

“I really don’t know...I just need a mome-” she begins with an honest sigh as you find yourself urging toward an unintentionally...troublesome response.

“Seems short-sighted politicians and glory-seeking generals are two more things our people have in common,” you offer up with what you hoped was a wide and inviting smile to help prompt her to look on the bright side, “HAD!,” you correct with a sudden personal moment of panic and try to course correct, “I hope you don’t mind if I make a point of this in the article, it won’t fix those sorts of people here but I’m sure the example will help people at large to me more on guard against them,”

She grimaces a bit, you grimace. What was that? It was a well composed thought save for one flub. It was your delivery that probably sunk it. Are you still all nerves from being in front of an alien spacecraft and palling around with an alien.

Oh no, have you sunk that?

Her grimace had faded immediately into something tired and a bit despondent. The quiet moment waits between the two of you. Her shoulders sink a little bit.

“I’m sorry...this got awkward,” she admits with some dejection before she gestures wide to the whole of the crystal manse, “I wanted to show you all of this and tell you the story but...I wasn’t ready; which I’m sure you’ve picked up on,”

“Yeah…” you nod, recomposing yourself from the moment of lost cool, “And if I came on too strong there trying to-”

“No! No, I appreciate it...I’m just all over the place right now and need a minute,” she sighs and breaks away from you a bit to pace toward the ship.

As she goes, she squares her shoulders again and shrugs off her jacket. Placing it down on a crystal ladder that rises from the floor next to the rocket.

“And I do want you to write about it, that’s part of why I set everything up,” she sighs with some disappointment in herself, which you think is entirely undeserved.

>>4721699

You give her a moment to recompose herself as she sits on the ladder. It’s strange, seeing her so hung up like this, lost from her brashness and endlessly courageous...hubris? Bravado? She’s still hurting so much from what she has seen and she’s projecting an emotional state to match her physical invulnerability...when her own lived experiences can break her heart on review.

Is she weighing the risk of letting you and the world in more than she already has? Does she think it was a mistake to open up and reveal herself so...

>What is this place, exactly?
>Part of? Kara Zor El, did you have some ulterior motive?
>Give her more time, fiddle with the console yourself, she said it would adapt to human
>Sit next to her alongside the rocket, if you’re both gonna be awkward be awkward together
>write in

>>4721702
>>Give her more time, fiddle with the console yourself, she said it would adapt to human

>>4721702
>>Sit next to her alongside the rocket, if you’re both gonna be awkward be awkward together

>>4721702
>write in
examine the splendor of the room further, without taking pictures. does it remind us of architecture from the memories she showed? in what ways has she taken extra effort to make it beautiful? (variable transparency, carvings, impractically complex structure, thought put into how it refracts light)
gives her time, but is an examination of something that is interesting because it is hers, not because it is alien and a scoop.

>>4721702
>>Part of? Kara Zor El, did you have some ulterior motive?

>>4721702
>>Give her more time, fiddle with the console yourself, she said it would adapt to human

Rolled 4, 6 - 1 = 9 (2d6 - 1)

Rolling Lois Lane attempting to use significantly advanced technology under clarks 3rd law

Rolling + negative weird.

This is the equivalent of using magic.

On a 10+, the magic works without issues: you will choose your effect from a to be presented list
On a 7-9, it works imperfectly: choose your effect and a the QM will choose or present a list of glitches. The QM will decide what effect the glitch has.
advanced: On a 12+ the QM will offer you some added benefit.

What information are you trying to get from the console Choose One
>General Zod’s attempted coup
>What were the last days of Krypton
>The Mythology and history of Krypton
>The Culture and society of Krypton
>The Phantom Zone and the Phantom Drive
>What is or was Eradicator
>Is there any information on other aliens?
>Has this recorded anything interesting since coming to earth?

Glitch Choose One
>The system hasn’t fully adapted w/out Kara as a medium and you suffer harm
>You’ve done something wrong and unknowingly activate a beacon to the stars
>You’ve done something wrong and unknowingly activate a beacon to something closer to home.
>You experience what you’ve selected from the perspective and self identity of another, temporarily lost in the simulation

>>4726283
>>The Culture and society of Krypton
>>You experience what you’ve selected from the perspective and self identity of another, temporarily lost in the simulation

>>4726283
>>What is or was Eradicator
>The system hasn’t fully adapted w/out Kara as a medium and you suffer harm

>>4726283
>>The Culture and society of Krypton
>>You experience what you’ve selected from the perspective and self identity of another, temporarily lost in the simulation

>>4726283
>>The Culture and society of Krypton
>>You experience what you’ve selected from the perspective and self identity of another, temporarily lost in the simulation

>>4726283
>>What were the last days of Krypton
>You’ve done something wrong and unknowingly activate a beacon to the stars

>>4726283
>>The Culture and society of Krypton
>>You experience what you’ve selected from the perspective and self identity of another, temporarily lost in the simulation

Writing, hopefully will have a long update tonight or tomorrow.

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Well, if she needs a minute you can surely give her that. Way to go with that, this whole scenario and the state of the world at large is all still so new to everyone. Not even an hour or so ago she was wailing on a giant snake monster you randomly happened upon in the middle of the woods.

Outwardly and to the world she is seemingly invincible. Now you see her overcome by something like this. It’s something you’ll keep close to your chest unless the world doubts if they can trust her more readily. Perhaps worth saving until some scandal where to help her save face you can reveal it in a tell all.

She broke a masquerade, to use the current internet parlance. The world shouldn’t see her the way you do now. They need the laughing woman who shrugs off high caliber rounds and catches planes from the sky.

You definitely don’t want to force things now, all you really think you can do is just let her recompose herself. If you felt half as much as she must be right now, you’d absolutely want the same.

At some point, you should probably tell her of your willingness to take this part of your encounter in confidence. Or that you wish you had the words to comfort her for the loss that still haunts her.

No. For your so far handful of encounters you aren’t so close to the Superwoman to be that right now. She clearly wants and needs a friend. Maybe that can be you. With a sigh you withdraw the vector that thought was hurtling toward.

So, you stay where she left you. Standing by the console of assorted crystals…she called one of them a Sunstone. They all look fairly beautiful, and idly you read out to one of them stuck into the flat surface and become aware briefly of its function and information therein.

It lingers. She still sits there uncertain as you form an idea. No reason not to pursue the rest of the presentation as it were. Picking up the first Sunstone and tapping it against the one Kara had been holding you search for a place to reslot it into the console.

There is a sound and a thrum.

She is so lost in thought she doesn’t notice this as you fiddle around with the crystals and the unused slots. Honestly this arrangement for storage is a bit sloppy, or is the arrangement important. As you touch a slotted crystal you gain vague moments of ideation toward purpose, function, and information.

After gaining this from a few touches, you move the sunstone she gave you around, replacing a silver crystal for what you hope will give you some more cultural information while you wait for the situation to be a bit more approachable for both of you again.

So engrossed, you never noticed the strange contact vibrations from the console. Or...are you only perceiving these issuances?

“Lois?” you hear her say from the distance in concern as your world turns white.

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>>4730093

It isn’t like falling into the previous simulation. No, this time it's forming around you and the spiraling fractals are falling into you. The sensation doesn't hurt, but it feels muted to you. You are muted. There is the vague sound of someone calling your name again but it's too far away. Too far away.

It’s so bright.

Bright.

Away.

Far Away.

Up and Away.

You awaken in your bed to the chirp and chime of your chronometer.

“Kara?” a voice calls your name from far away.

No, it isn’t far away.

“Kara, dearest, are you awake?” a voice calls from beyond your room as the door slides open.

Your mother smiles warmly.

“I’m awake!” you cry out and rise from the bedding as sunlight begins streaming into the room as translucence takes the walls for the morning sunlight.

Looking into the red light of the sun with a smile you offer a quick thanks to the life giver Rao, you smile before you hit the floor in your sleep cycle solar compression suit you charge across the room to hug your mother as far up her leg as you can reach.

“Get yourself together, your father is preparing breakfast,” she smiles as you disengage the hug and run over to one of the walls of the room.

The crystalline inlays of the wall shine and parts of the wall opens to reveal a number of outfits.

Where are you going today Kara Zor El?

>A prim utilitarian outfit with over-robe [your Science Caste Examination]
>A flexible black and white solar compression outfit [you have an athletic field day at a Restoration Biome]
>A fancy black compression suit with embroidered over-robe [your Aunt and Uncle are hosting some kind of announcement]
>A utilitarian and armored self repairing blue and red compression outfit [you have an academic field day in the Scarlet Jungle]
>A solemn black compression suit with a mournful hooded robe [today will be your family’s last visit to Fort Rozz]

>>4730096
>>A fancy black compression suit with embroidered over-robe [your Aunt and Uncle are hosting some kind of announcement]

>>4730096
>>A flexible black and white solar compression outfit [you have an athletic field day at a Restoration Biome]

>>4730096
>>A utilitarian and armored self repairing blue and red compression outfit [you have an academic field day in the Scarlet Jungle]

>>4730096
>>A flexible black and white solar compression outfit [you have an athletic field day at a Restoration Biome]

>>4730096
>>A fancy black compression suit with embroidered over-robe [your Aunt and Uncle are hosting some kind of announcement]

>>4730096
>>A flexible black and white solar compression outfit [you have an athletic field day at a Restoration Biome]

Writing tonight after I get my shot.

>>4732883
You alright Artemis? Have a bad reaction to the shot?

>>4735678
Little bit, but bouncing back

>>4738913
Glad to hear you're getting better. Some members of my family with chronic health issues were fucked up for a while. Second shot fucked me up good the day after I got it too, but at least I got over it fast.