Gregory_Black

I think the Mission Difficulty slider is a MUST before you jack up the SL 22+ minions. I'm not such a bad build (fire/fire blaster, SL 21) and I am getting my [censored] handed to me on a regular basis with these changes. I have NO ability to resist psionics from the Tsoo or Banished Pantheons. This is the time (SL 21+) that most folks move out of the lower villains (CoT, Clocks, Skulls, Hellions, Lost) and move into the next tier (Pantheons, Tsoo, Warriors, Freakshow, Sky Raiders, uber 5th Column) and without the ability to resist psionics, yellow minions are death. Because they almost always bring their orange LT's into the fray. Even at SL 22, when SO's are available, not everyone has the influence to replace all the enhancement slots they have.

Yes, I've tried strategies... I know better how to pull some of the minions off the LT's and deal with them one at a time. But unfortunately, I don't have any stealth powers, but looks like I'll be forced to at SL 22 just to stay alive. If you're not able to team, and street sweeping yields lower XP than missions, what is a hero to do? Not play? Play only when they can dedicate time to finding/building a team to play?

I came over from another MMORPG that had a way to deal with mission difficulty (based on the group you were in and the weapon you had equipped, your skills, etc.) and I know that won't work here. So if not a slider, can we at least have a choice of 2 missions - easy or hard - when we talk to the contact? It'd be, say, 0 and +1 mobs for now. And of course the XP will automagically scale based on the minion's level, like it does now.

I agree with you +1 folks that are enjoying the difficulty. I know a score of folks who don't post here who both agree and disagree with you. I don't want to see you guys get whacked. But if the fixes aren't good, then reverting back to the previous setting is what needs to be done, in the interim.

((Ruby's character story is that of her parent's divorce, the pain she went through as an adolescent dealing with a mother who was an executive and a father who was a firefighter, and the loss of her to a terminal illnessa and her father to his vices and, ultimately, to murder. And that's just the beginning of the story... look for her continuing saga here exclusively.))

((The continuing backstory... sorry if my formatting and/or writing aren't all that good, it's been many years since I've written anything original like this!))

"Innocence"

She could see him clearly, standing there waving at her from the park bench. Then, quickly, he slips below her vision and she looks up at blue sky. Thin, whispy clouds miles above seemed to hang there, teasing her to try to touch them. The sky slips above her and she sees her daddy again, briefly, before she sees the sand below her.

She always loved swingsets, as long as she could remember, which wasn’t very much for a 6-year old. She imagined she was one of those superheros she always saw on the news, flying through the air, stopping the bad peopler. She pumps her legs harder, swinging faster, flying higher into the air, relishing the feeling in her tummy as she swings as high as she can, right before the swing starts its rapid pendulum back to the earth.

She sees her daddy talking to a man she doesn’t know. *She* knows better than to talk to strangers, but daddy is big and strong so he’ll be okay. Her swinging slows as she watches them talking… daddy handing the man something, and the man handing him something as well. The strange man looks at what her daddy handed him.

She can’t hear what they are saying, but the strange man starts to point at his hand. He looks mad. He points at daddy’s pocket and rubs his forefinger and thumb together. Then, the strange man turns and looks right at her. Her stomach feels funny as the strange man stares at her for a second, and then turns to talk to her daddy again.

The strange man then leans toward her daddy and makes some funny motions with his hand, and daddy reaches into his pocket and gives the man something else. The man looks at it, nods and then puts his finger on daddy’s chest before turning and leaving.

Her daddy comes over to her, and he looks a little scared, like when they watch those scary movies at night and eat popcorn.

“Hey pumpkin, are you ready to go home yet?” he asks her, his voice a little shaky.

“Daddy, who was that man?” she asks, idly swinging her legs around in circles.

“He’s just one of daddy’s friends,” he says nervously, before craning his neck towards the boulevard. “Hey, is that the ice cream truck I hear?”

She smiles and takes his hand as they walk towards the low music coming from the nearby street. She smiles and skips with her daddy, thinking of how good the strawberry ice cream will taste. She breaks the grip of her daddy’s hand and skips forward a little ahead of him.

“Honey... Honey... Come back here,” a strange voice behind her says. She freezes, because the voice sounds familiar... like the one of the mean man in black that has a glowing sword and she saw in a movie once. She turns slowly around to see where the voice came from.

It’s her daddy. It’s not her daddy. Her eyes grow big, and her heart starts to race.

Standing a few steps behind her is something that looks like one of her dolls with all the wrong arms and legs. Dripping liquids slip down it’s body, a patchwork of different colors, metal, leather and smelling like a dead cat she saw once in the alley behind their apartment. The face, distorted, bloated, and sickeningly wet is that of her father.

“Honey… do you want mint chocolate chip ice cream this time?,” it says, and then green fluid comes flying out of it’s mouth toward her.

She opens her mouth to scream, but nothing comes out.

She sits bolt upright in bed, sweating poring over her body. Her heart has never raced this hard before. She lifts a hand into the air, and small flames surround it. She surveys the room, the flickering shadows only making it worse. She jumps out of bed, landing a few feet from the edge of it, and hurredly flicks the switch on the wall.

She turns toward her dresser, and riffles through the pile of papers and clothes. She becomes frantic, and throws everything on the floor. She sees it, and picks it up, and runs back towards the bed, leaping off the ground and falling in the center. She opens her hand and looks at the lighter. She holds it up and turns it so she can see the firefighter’s emblem on the front. The wear is evident from decades of use. She turns it over and reads the inscription:

“To My Daddy,
May this be a reminder of:
The fires you have fought
And those you will
The lives you have saved
And those you have touched
I Love You Always! Love, Ruby”

She clutches the lighter tightly in her hand, and curls up in the center of the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks.

((This is just a small beginning into the saga of Ruby Fuego. This was also posted on the Virtue forum.))

She absentmindedly opens and closes the Zippo lighter with one hand, and in betwixt the combustion and extinguishing of the low flame strobes the air conditioning unit she was crouched next to.

Stopping for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dark, she turns the lighter over in her hand. Her fingers feel the not-so-smooth surface reminding her of the decades of wear, and dance lightly over the emblem affixed to it. Her breath hitched for a second, as the familiarity and pain came back to her.

Blinking, she turns toward the sliver of moon, low in the night sky. A rushing waterfall of sound comes upon her abruptly, and brings her back from her thoughts.

She hears the muffled noises behind her, and turns, looking at the punk that she had brought up here to “chat” with. He struggles, weakly, with the zip cuffs on his wrists and ankles, looking more like a sick earthworm than the pathetic filth he really was.

She leans down to him, bringing the lighter up to his eyes so he could see it clearly.

“And, where did you say you got this again?” she asks casually as she pulls the cloth rag out of his mouth.

“Go to hell!” he practically spits at her. “It’s mine. I found it fair and square.”

“Found it, you say? You wouldn’t have happened to have “found it” on someone you mugged, now, would you?” she asks.

“I… well…He shouldn’t have tried to stop me. It was all going as planned until he put up a fight.”

“And, what were you doing, that you would steal a lighter from an innocent person?” she questions, opening the lighter and turning the flame up.

His low laughter catches her by surprise, and she turns, snapping the lighter close, and looked directly into his eyes, her gaze as cold as this wintery night.

“You don’t get it do you? You don’t oppose the Hellions. We’re not going to take that from the likes of the police, or that firefighter I “took” that from.”

“So, what else did you take from him? Are you forgetting to tell me something?”

“Why do you care so much? He was just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time!” he shouts, eyes glinting dully in the moonlight.

She turns the lighter over in her hands a few more times, and opened the lid again, then snapping it closed with emphasis. Tucking the Zippo into the top of her hip boots, she stares down at him coldly.

“Hey, baby, I’m sorry I hurt the poor guy. It wasn’t all my fault. If he hadn’t resisted, he’d probably still be alive today. What say you and me forget all this, you let me go and let’s have a few drinks… what do you say? C’mon, you must be freezing in that outfit you’re wearing!”

She slowly leans down, closes her eyes and brings her lips to his towards his left ear.

“Sure, as long as you tell me one thing: what did my father say before you killed him that night?” she whispers seductively to him.

The punk’s eyes grow wide as the realization creeps down to the marrow of his bones.

She steps back a bit, and pulled a small knife out of the top of her boot. She leaned forward, and cut the ankle and wrist ties as he lay there, barely able to speak.

“Father…? Who’s father… YOURS?!?! That can’t be… you… you…” he falters, as the resemblance starts to sink in.

“Get up. I’ll give you a five second head start.”

”What? Aren’t you going to arrest me? Take me in or something?”

“Not today, sweetie. Looks like you were in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

The punk looks around, and realizes that it’s a long way down to the ground. He runs towards the fire escape leading from the roof they are on down to the ground eight stories below.

“One.”

He jumps over the edge of the roof, boots clanging on the metal as he scrambles to get down to the next level.

“Two” she says, as she slowly walks to the edge of the roof.

He grabs the handrails and starts to slide down to the next level. Hurriedly, he has made it down three stories already.

“Three” she says, as she slowly walks off the edge of roof and begins to fall.

His steps grow quicker, and suddenly he falters, catching his foot in a hole in the escape flooring he hadn’t seen. The pain lances up his leg, instantly signaling something has broken.

“Four”, she says, as she slows and hangs in the air at the level the punk is at.

“Please, please, please don’t kill me! I didn’t mean to do it! I swear!”

She pauses her count, and looks at him sadly. Her hands begin to glow, and flames suddenly leap about them.

“Here, let me help you off the fire escape,” she says coldly as the flames intensify and engulf her body.

“NOOOOOOO!” he screams, as the heat starts to singe the hair on his head and face.

“Five.”

* * *

The police reports would classify it as a “gang related” retaliation. The building had been abandoned, apparently due to excessive fire code violations. As such, it was no surprise that it quickly burnt to the ground, leaving only the outer brick shell barely standing. However, the police could not reconcile how the badly charred remains and the charred foot left hanging in the fire escape became separated by a hundred yards, when there had been no explosion at the building.

Hi John! I'm a first-time caller. I used to be a flea, but when an exterminator accidentally inhaled me and a whiff of pesticide at the exact moment an x18 solar flare hit the earth in 1989, I merged with him and took over his body. I was wondering if you have attempted to reverse the accident and, if so, where could I purchase your findings.