Arctic_Princess

Kata, clutching her wounds, uncurled herself and managed to prop herself up against one of the control panels.

"I think I'm going to have to mediport out of here. Not sure I can actually stand, let alone fight."

She checked the entry wounds and winced as the effects of Red's powers wore off.

"Nothing mortally wounded here - I hope." Kata's breathing was in short, sharp bursts as she tried to mediate the pain.

She made sure her undamaged leg and attached foot was touching her trusty katana before she got a firm hold on the mediport device.

"Good luck to you all. And promise me that you'll find out what this whole sorry business is about." Kata gave a wan smile and then disappeared in a burst of light.

***

The doctors were their usual efficient selves: The bullets were extracted and Kata was given some very powerful painkillers. She drifted off to sleep, lying in a hospital bed in Galaxy City, partially comforted by the fact that she had put up a good fight...

Of course, the matter of Edward and a known criminal by the name of Wild Red will have to be dealt with...

There are some co-op zones that provide some interaction: Cimerora, Rikti War Zone, Midnight Club. Of course they all require a certain amount of effort to enter, whether it be level or performing certain tasks.

To be honest there is nothing particularly stopping any of us from RPing anywhere we like, it's just that GG is in a starting zone and just happens to be less populated so we're less likely to encounter tools. PvP zones are, obviously, more difficult.

Pocket D for me is okay, but it's far too shiny and distracting to get anything done plus I find a lot of different types of RP there that don't gel well with how I like to RP. The main example is, imo, emote rp (smiley faces etc). It is very picky of me, but I just don't like it.

I'd like to think that as time progresses more zones will open up (not necessarily new ones, but perhaps redevelopments of existing ones - Boomtown anyone?) that give us the all-important space away from the 'regular' game to RP in. For example, the intermediary building between Faultline and the Overbrook Dam is, for the most part, quiet. Sure it takes some effort but the option is there.

Just my 2 million inf

Kata felt the warm surge of energy wash over her. It didn't stop the pain or the fact that she was bleeding, but it gave her enough strength to reach out with her right arm and take a firm grip on the katana.

Come on, all you need to do is flick the switch...

Kata raised the blade in the direction of the gun-toting Freaks and managed to press a recessed switch in the pommel of the sword -

An arc of bright white energy shot out, as if the blade itself had caught the moonlight, and slammed into the Freaks with some considerable force (Energy Torrent). The sword fell from her hand - it would be a while yet before she could ready another shot and that also depended on whether she was fully conscious by the time the energy source had recharged.

Kata felt sick so she curled into a ball and rolled to the relative safety of the control panels, trying to keep as little of her vulnerable body from view as possible.

Kata was caught in the headlights, so to speak. The bullets came upon her thick and fast - too fast in fact for her to dodge them. Three grazed her left shoulder and several zipped past her legs, causing her to collapse to the floor. Luck was on her side though, as two stray bullets zipped overhead as she fell: A second earlier and she would have been struck right between the eyes.

Then white hot pain ripped through her body as two bullets caught her in her left arm and on her chest. The smoky haze from Red's attack caused her to cough and splutter as she folded over, slumping to the floor. Despite the power surge, Kata could barely lift a finger and her katana slipped from her right hand. She tried with all her might to reach the mediport device concealed in her belt...

Kata dodged the first couple of blows as she used the flat of the blade in an attempt to stun her opponent into submission. Unfortunately the Meat Doctor was having none of it:

"Get off me, hag!" The 'Doctor' hissed, "Slashade will not be bested by a skinny-"

"Oh get over yourself! What is it with these villains? Always have to tell you their name." Kata snapped back at her assailant.

One of the bladed arms from the doctor grazed off Kata's shoulder, cutting off a strip of leather and a little part way in to her shoulder. Kata bit her lip, not daring to show a sign of weakness. Instead she swung the katana up through the air in an attempt to lift the doctor clean off the floor (Soaring Dragon).

As she did so, a burst of blue energy zapped her and her action connected quicker and with more force than either women had expected. The doctor flew up and away to a spot not far from where Tim had indicated as the blow struck...

"Tim, out of the way!"

Kata hurried up the steps and dived under her ally, rolling across the uneven floor. It was an uncomfortable journey but there was no way she was going to let the Freaks get away with this.

Kata dodged flying blades and managed to leap out of the way of another grenade, shot by a desperate Tank that had been caught in Ed's fearful assault.

She glanced back to see glowing bolts of electricity heading for Molly but there was little she could do to save her from the effects.

Instead, the spidery figure of the Meat Doctor looked like an interesting target. Kata rushed at her striking out with her katana and hoping that she'd be able to avoid the painful-looking attachments on the Doctor's metal arms...

Kata ignored Red, opting to remain the last to enter the new 'room'. And by last to enter, it meant she heard the grenades, the screeching sawblades and felt the tingle of electricity all centred at the open hatch but was safe enough at the foot of the stairs - for now.

She scanned the area they had been in previous to the next wave of attack for anything that could be used as a weapon. The speakers and the wires looked the most promising - now if only she could coax one of the assailants in here...

"Tim!" Kata yelled, "That watch of yours - can it transport you back here?" Kata closed her eyes for a second, hoping that the answer would be in the positive.

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I actually toyed with the idea of having a single contact that both villains and heroes used, but I really couldn't think of which group to use as the neutral to offer it - we only really have 3 completely neutral factions who don't particularly care if you're a hero or villain: Vanguard, Ouroborous and the Midnight Club - each have their own quest hubs/areas and have narrow agenda/focus (Vanguard are anti-Rikti, Ouro is time-fixing, Midnight Club have the magical focus) - I needed a contact that could have a much wider remit to send players against potentially every other enemy faction in the game - and Longbow/FreedomCorp and Arachnos just work well for that.


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Hmmm, well Spanky was a dubious man to say the least.

How about an unlocking arc first (say an instance and an errand or two) to allow you access to the terminal missions? Everyone likes badges (sweeping statement) so maybe even unlock it with the Tourist badge? (collect 10 badges)

I do love this idea and the possibility of consented PvP intrigues me.

Maybe the following badges could be unlocked?:

Holiday Maker - Complete 5 missions overseas

Sidekick - Rescue Aurora/Barracuda

Even a few temporary powers? Unlocked from those 'retrieve the relics' style missions?

Poison Dart from the Peru mission.
Medusa's Mirror (Basically a 5 use Fossilise that does no damage) from the Athens one.

/signed - excellent ideas Valkryst.

Kata lost patience as the lights came back on and the music started again.

"Come on!" she yelled, neck muscles straining, "Storm the room! Fan out! Take defensive positions. And for God's sake, put an end to that terrible racket!"

Kata finally had time to relax and take stock. I nearly killed someone - But it wouldn't be the first time... Stupid woman.

"Tim, what does that machine do, d'you think?" Kata approached him and peered at the odd contraption.

Then the clanking metal sound of the door hatch rang out. Kata looked at the hunting knife with contempt and tossed it to the ground. She drew her sword and flattened herself against the wall by the stairs, waiting...

The metal arm, blazing with the reflections of power and electricity came at Kata full pelt. She felt her heart jump as instinctively she leapt backwards, dodging the blow. The fall was softened a little by the sludge covering the floor of the sewer. A little of it flew up around her.

"Come 'ere girly!" The Freak bared his teeth and lifted his arm up for the next round.

She managed to roll to her left as another blow struck the ground, causing more muck to splash up and making her vision unclear. But she had a few seconds to pull herself back up and ready the hunting knife and this time she'd finish off this Freak once and for all.

The Freak raised his arm yet again and launched himself at Kata, bringing the heavy blade down at her. She sidestepped him and brought the full weight of her foot down on top of the blade, digging it into the sewer floor enough, she hoped, to stop him from using it again. Just to make sure, Kata sliced the hunting knife across the Freak's arm where it joined the blade and took just a little bit of satisfaction at the pain she caused him. For good measure she kneed him in the face and then dashed over to Wild Red and Edward to see if they needed assistance.

So the door had shut and now they were up against a handful of Freaks. Interesting.

Ed and Wild Red seemed to be handling the situation quite admirably, so there seemed to be no point in engaing the Freaks directly. Dammit! No Stealth Suit either

Kata weighed a throwing knife in her hand and dashed behind one of the makeshift pillars. There seemed to be a clear line of sight between her and the Freak that was stuttering back onto its feet. She took aim and hurled a (Throwing Knife) at him, follwed by two more, hoping that if she didn't quite hit his legs on the first go, the others would.

I really like this idea

Really like it

It's well thought out, well presented and it makes me want to roll one.

Also, it should be Tanks/Brutes only *blows a raspberry to Scrappers and Stalkers, then realises his two mains are those ATs*

Keep the ideas flowing

My two main criticisms are this:

1) - Where are the pets/pseudopets/other effects? Mind Control, for example, has no pets so it makes up for this by a) being a lot of Psionic damage and therefore very useful against a lot of mobs and b) has some powerful Targetted AoEs which, whilst doing no damage, inflicts some interesting effects on their victims (Confuse, Mass Hold, Repel, Mass Sleep).

2) The tier 9 power is more of a Blaster Nuke than a control power.

Don;t get me wrong though, some interesting ideas there. I think, as a Controller/Dominator set, Gravity is pretty much already there. And I like the idea of the 'Quantum Teleport' (like a PBs Quantum Flight) although this is more exploitable with the Teleport bind, allowing for a simple shift-click to move.

I can see some of the powers being more useful as a Blaster's secondary - perhaps Temporal Manipulation?

And a third/fourth point!

3) There doesn't appear to be any Slow component.

4) Temporal Nimbus could work as a DoT toggle, causing slow and a bit of energy or lethal or whatever damage.

My 2 inf.

In my mind Edward is standing there first, followed by Wild Red. Tim and the figure clothed in black are behind them and Kata is at the back.

Kata is wearing a leather bodysuit with her Katana attached. There's a small switch on the handle that allows her to fire off a short-range Energy Torrent. It's a 'fire every ten minutes or so' attack.

She is currently carrying a Hunting Knife and has access to some Throwing Knives.

She is Agile, able to Dodge but relies heavily on Luck during prolonged battles, especially gunfights.

Oh and as she's a non-metahuman, she also has to rely on the environment around her more... but I want to leave some surprises...

Kata watched Ed's transformation and was secretly impressed, although she realised now how those Freaks had been killed. He had changed so rapidly, so calmly almost, but to kill like that. And then...

He's singing?!

Kata shook her head and then her eyes caught the gaping maw, seemingly spitting sparks at the 'team'. The rubber body-suit may have been a better choice than leather one.

The woman calling herself Wild Red collided with Edward...

Kata watched the odd group, which she was now inexorably linked to, wander off further into the sewers. She let her shoulders sag, breathed a big sigh and set off after them.

Kata had never bothered much with maps for this place, even though she knew they existed, mainly because criminals running into the sewers were in the same boat and liked to keep near the entrance unless they became lost. Also, they stank - the sewers predominantly.

If Edward killed that last lot of Freaks, did he chase them in here, was he told to come here by someone? How come we haven't seen any more of them?

Kata silently cursed her decision to keep patrolling tonight. She was getting a little cold from the exposure to the water, her comfortable bed was waiting at home for her.

Buck up, child. Western Life is making you weaker. Admit it. You've suffered worse summers than this before now.

After a few minutes of skulking at the back, not really wanting to catach up with Edward who was powerwalking his way to who knows where, Kata sheathed her sword. A moment later she stopped, bent down as if to tie her boots, and retrieved a hunting knife and a handful of throwing daggers.

Just in case.

Edward moved past Kata and she decided to let him. Well, technically that wasn't true - his build and the fact he was capable of killing souped-up humans had a part to play in her decision. There was something in his tone of voice, not exactly apologetic but calm and soothing that made her think.

The woman was an entirely different story. She reminded Kata of... well her other self; the one she had met two years ago. Cocky, a little arrogant and definitely up to no good. She would definitely need watching, although three heroes against one usually worked out. How did she get my number? The thought niggled at Kata. She bent down and retrieved the Hero ID and then looked up at Tim who hadn't gone with the pair. He looked a little out of his depth and the glowing light beside him reminded Kata of Peter Pan and Tinkerbell.

"You don't have to come along, Tim. I don't want to put you in any further danger."

"Me? I've never see-" Kata clapped her free hand to her face, "The telephone call. How stupid of me. And what would the likes of you," she pointed first to Wild Red and then to Edward, "and you be doing here? Surely not desperate to bring the Freaks who caused that attack to justice?"

Kata was becoming irritated and a little claustrohpbic. She had also failed to notice a bit of sewer sludge that was hanging precariously from her hair.

Kata sighed, straightened herself up again and gripped her katana firmly with both hands, assuming a defensive position. She backed away further into the heart of the sewer to give her enough room to maneouvre.

"Well, at least I've had some luck tonight. I thought it was going to be arrest free."

Kata could feel her arm coming down at Tim and, for a split second, she felt she couldn't stop it. She screwed her eyes shut and forced her hand to open...

The clatter and splash of the sword hitting the sewer floor was a surprisingly welcome sound. Kata fell forward, managing to splash a little sewer water on her face Yuck!.

The assembled group stared at her as she composed herself, straightening up and carefully brushing off bits of detritus from her bodysuit. She turned to the demonic figure of Edward,

"You're in trouble unless you can give me a good reason as to why those Freaks I found back there have been relieved of their lives."

Before he even had a chance to speak, Kata turned to the figures of Time-Skip and his dark, sword-wielding companion, "Apologies for my rather rash behaviour. I hope you're not hurt in any way."

Again, not stopping for a reply, although by this time noticiably blushing, she turned to the woman with the striking red hair and studied her for a moment before saying, "Who in Hell's name are you?!"

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This is a friendly challenge

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So far I'm not seeing that.

I'd like to PvP but sadly attitudes like that put me off. I don't mind being one-shotted, even called a 'n00b' (just right click and check the Vet badges ^^), but they don't seem all that prevalent in PvP.

So, I'd like to turn it around a bit - who would like to take me on a 'Welcome to PvP' style outing? We could visit each zone, regardless of the number of people in them, and the finer points of PvP could be given. Heck, if BB is always so dead, why not organise a fun night there?

I've mentioned this before in relation to other threads on the inclusion of RPers. Nothing stopping us particularly from organising our own team and taking it to one of the appropriate zones. I think I'd far more enjoy it though as a sort of cultural exchange program - have a few mixed teams going and get a feel for what we're doing.

Also, I'd like to see a few more Zone Events - such as the Invasion of Longbow (and Heroes) at Mercy Island (CoV End of Beta event), Battle for Siren's Call etc.

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Cool. Well, it's up to you guys. All I need to put it in, is for them to go deeper into the sewers, and for you to not mind me prodding them into a certain direction...

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I'm always up for a prod. No, wait-

It was a very strange feeling being frozen, because to Kata's mind she was still on the verge of attacking Tim and her brain was telling her that she'd done it but it couldn't fill in the rest because... well, it hadn't happened.

For some reason she could hear things though, but they were trickling through like echoes in a cheesy dream sequence. She half expected a small, green Martian to pop up beside her and tell her to wake up. Thankfully this didn't happen.

Kata, in her mind, made to shout out that she would very much like to be unfrozen, or whatever it was that had happened to her. Of course nothing came out of her mouth... yet.

Up ahead there was a bright glow, followed by an odd sound. Kata instinctively drew her sword, the metal of the blade flashing as it reflected against the water. Whatever was in there was going to have to be taken down first and, if it could talk, asked questions later.

With a blood-curdling scream, Kata launched herself through the doorway, barrelling into a man wearing bronze-coloured clothing and caused a large amount of sewer water to displace itself. She got a grip on the figure and raised her sword as if to strike...

Sewers were never mentioned in the Freedom Corps 'induction pamphlet' - they were carefully removed from all reference materials pertaining to the life of a 'Hero'. There was a pretty good reason too, Kata thought, as she waited for her eyes to adjust to the gloom. The stench of motor oil was thick here at the mouth of this section of the sewer network. Odd shadows scuttled along the walls, accompanied by the timpani of trickling water and punctuated with ominous gloop! noises.

Kata tried to keep to the sidewalk to avoid having to stand in the filthy water, but it was overlapping on the concrete platform which suggested that something or someone was causing the water level to rise a little. The Belarusian woman had learned, fairly early on in her career, that carrying a flashlight was not conducive to successful investigating, especially in the sweres. Not only did the light distort the environment you were in but it often alerted your target to your presence allowing them enough time to run or, in one memorable, sewage-filled incident, plan a counter-attack.

Kata almost tripped and rolled down a steep embankment, saving herself from falling into the water at the last second. She composed herself and inspected the obstacle: The lifeless body of a Freak, Excelsior dripping from a chest plate like blood. Kata stopped herself from wretching and inspected the body. Nothing particularly unusual about this one she thought. Then she noticed a sliver of light reflected on the Freak's armour and looked up and behind her to a water pipe just visible in the shadows. The slumped body of another Freak lay there, its 'human' arm hanging down wearing a silver rolex. Someone's been killing Freaks. Could be retaliation, could be totally unconnected to this, which I doubt, but it's killing nonetheless.

A little further down, Kata found a couple more Freak bodies obstructing a doorway. She carefully pulled one of them from the top of the heap and was about to step over the rest when she heard voices echoing through an adjacent sewer shaft.

"...buddy?"

Kata headed for the voices.