Aeon B-Team: Season 8 Session 7

 

Cast: The Nomads

• Amie-Belle T. W. Lee aka Whisper (Played by Curtis): Cold War era super-soldier/spy that got put in the Freezer, because she got poisoned. After getting thawed out and cured she tried to back to work, and was given an “adjustment period”. Uncle Sam called 2 years later, with work… because once you’re in, you’re in for life. Tagline: “In and out without a whisper.” Absent
• Beauregard K. “Bo” Ratnam aka Wirerat (Played by Brice): Technopath, inventor, and hacker. He specializes in co-opting enemy systems and tech assets. Tagline: “Nice tech – I’ll borrow that.
• Stainless Steel Rat aka “Sir” (NPC Ally): Bo’s best friend and assistant. A sentient drone in the shape of a stylized shiny metal rat mindlinked to Bo. Specialties are rapid repair construction and modifications. Imagine if K-9 and R2D2 made a baby and it looks a bit like a rodent. Tagline: “Repairs and upgrades in progress”
• Derrick K. Ratnam aka Ledgerdemain (NPC Ally): Spin doctor and media liaison for Project VANGUARD. Twin to Bo. Tagline: “Well, actually that’s not how it happened.
• MIA Sentient AI made from recovered tech on a prior mission.
• Rafe Hanlon aka Nyx (played by Chris D.): An umbrakinetic petty thief still on work release several years later, on his way to becoming a true agent and hero. Tagline: “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
• Layla A. de Blackburn aka Nox (NPC): CIA-trained child assassin all grown up to be Daddy’s Little Monster. Maybe a little mad. Argues with her shadow often. Tagline: “No, we shouldn’t do that…should we?”
• June B. O'Neill aka Prodigy (NPC): Savant with hyper-intelligence that may have cracked the universal power-dampening conundrum. Fresh out of the Meraki Institute for the advanced and gifted. Extremely intelligent, but young (she's 16).
• Vincenzo L. dePrezzo aka Threshold (Played by Rory): Doctor, Mathematician, and Scientist (yes, capitals) and Spatial Manipulator. Threshold can bend space like a pretzel, teleport, obliterate things, and has extraordinary senses. He’d rather be in a research lab than fight. Better known for his work with Doctors Without Borders, the United Nations, and disaster relief than famous battles. Tagline: “I can be there in a snap!”
• Nawang Sonam aka Wan Shi Tong (NPC): Martial Artist with a mysterious past. Thresholds mentor, experienced and highly capable, indeterminate age.
• Eleanor C. Bulli aka "Bubbles (NPC): Manipulates bubbles of energy, short range teleportation, can fly on the bubbles, use them for shields or attack and even see through them.
• Grant L. Wojcik aka Fridge Boy (NPC): Can control ice/cold, but mostly the ability to create ice that explodes. 16 year old emancipated orphan, Our janitor. 
• Rudy A. Coldwater aka Gimmick (NPC): Mildly hyper-intelligent savant. Stutters. Makes very accurate guesses. Typical nerd, not yet 20. Wants to make a difference, assigned to support duties.
• Summer Stratos aka Chain Jacket (NPC): Ferrokinetic
• Vargas Manwell Tilium aka "Impulse" (NPC): Speedster.

Session 7? What happened to 5 and 6?!

If you have been following along you may be wondering what happened. Session 4 was July 3rd and a lot of stuff has come up causing us to skip games since. When the two did occur they were very short and I also had no computer for about a month. Sorry for lack of reporting but here is a short recap.

Session 5 was mostly a recap of session 4, some retcons on what people were doing and how long they took doing them.

Session 6 Lynch (from Season 7) knocked on our door to tell us about a secret experiment in the Adirondack mountains in upstate NY.  We filed in a seaplane docked a few miles away and flew to the hidden base to check things out. Some discussion was about how we handled transportation, since many of us can teleport some felt we should go to the edge of the darkness, walk across the border, then teleport to the location.

Another Covert MetaPowers Program

Lynch explains that this was a covert program using darkness manipulators for special operations. Nox was part of the program, as was Erebus.  Apparently Erebus stole the powers of most of the others before being captured and Nox was the only one to escape.

We arrive with Threshold, Whisper, Nox and Nyx, Wan Shi Tong, and Lynch.

Nox has the keycode and entry is easily secured. Heading in we are stalked by creatures of darkness from a dead darkness manipulator "Grue" who says he is someones memory and not real. We find his mummified remains inside, so Threshold decides to take him at his word and gives up trying to save him. There is a chair that boosts supers powers, currently tuned to darkness manipulators.  It effectively is a khyberic fission bomb that can permanently boost your powers - if you live.

Grue tells us that Erebus wants the device to boost his power, Lynch confirms this and says its our only hope as it should boost his powers so much that it pops him like a balloon and kills him.

Threshold is less than pleased with this strategy.

Threshold examines the device (Science! -21 with Pararadar and scanning plus other modifiers) and crits with a natural 3. He now knows exactly how the device works and is confident he can retune it to neutralize Erebus powers permanently using the negative orichalcum that he has back at base.

He tells the team about this new option and they debate it's merits. 

Player invokes Thresholds foible "Prove they are wrong"; inspired by that crit success I felt he was all in on using the device.

Threshold offers to tune the device to "safely" boost Nyx's powers but Nyx declines. Threshold internally considers the others but decided that Nox is too unstable, Threshold has enough power already and what he needs most is more control and refinement over it. Threshold can channel khyberic energy to boost his powers as needed already and fears he might lose control with a sudden larger power boost. Whisper is a super soldier and they tend to be unstable and ride a knifes edge on keeping power, dying, or simply going crazy so that is also out. Similar with Wan Shi Tong.

There is a risk that anyone could die, though Threshold is confident (in a mad scientist sort of way) that he can control things to avoid that effect. But no one really wants to try it and for the reasons above that plan is quickly dropped.

Besides the crit success on Science! Threshold has specifically studied metahumans writing two scientific papers, plus working with other experts over the years.

Whisper announces her plan to shoot the device, Threshold tells her its basically a nuclear bomb and that just shooting it is a bad idea. Threshold disassembles the device and they take it back with them, planning to use it to neutralize Erebus powers.

As they leave Whisper borrows a hand grenade from Lynch to destroy the device as soon as everyone leaves the room. Threshold is less than thrilled as no one had declared the device fully safe from exploding or causing massive collateral damage if destroyed.

The team takes files from a computer, Lynch looked at the files, Whisper looked over his shoulder and SiR hacked and copied the computer files.

Nyx is informed by his ghost friend* that Lynch is possessed by Erebus before we leave, though after plans have been discussed.

As we arrive back at the base Nyx lets the ghost capture Lynch and tie him up in the closet.

*Grue gave up his "afterlife" to lend his powers to Nyx and now Nyx can see and talk to the darkness creatures Grue could make. The rest of the team doesnt really know this yet (to my knowledge) and thinks Grue is still around.

Aftermath

Another very short game, one of the players was sick and once we reached a decent stopping point the game was called. Nyx did not tell anyone about the possession so that's a big trap waiting to happen. He likely will next game when the player is feeling better, so we can try and make up for the plan being revealed to the enemy.

I have a counter plan ready. The best plan would have been to just go with the plan of Lynch to give the chair to Erebus and hope it blew him up after secretly being modified. We can't do that now though.

It was a fun game, though short and a bit frustrating in some respects. I liked getting that crit, and rolled with it. Threshold now knows how to build this kind of device and will discuss it with Wirerat and Prodigy for how best to weaponize it.