Mr_Grey

So, Warshade's version of Siphon Life, Essence Drain, remains doing low damage with the justification that the archetype isn't a Melee type and the power heals its wielder.

I rather like using Siphon Life on my Dark characters. On my Warshade, it's a severe afterthought... Especially since the pittance of healing it does doesn't justify the mezzing enemies turning toward my Warshade and riddling him full of holes.

Happy birthday, Devil Dog.

It's happened a couple times to me. Sometimes characters think or behave in ways I hadn't intended.

I shudder to think about how they would behave if I applied more irrational decisions to the mix.

Happy birthday, Zekkers!

Kipland didn’t go to the Brickstown Infirmary. He went to the LaGrange Medical Center in Skyway City. Nester had to pull some strings, but when he learned what happened, he had the people running MedCom reroute Aaron’s destination.

By the time Kip arrived, all the important work had been done. His father, Randall and Charlene Grey, their daughter Sarah and her adopted kid, and Misty were all there before him. As he arrived, Nester was in the middle of explaining the situation to them.

Misty was crying.

“Hey,” Nester said as he broke from the group and approached his brother, “I just got done telling the others… It’s not good, man.”

“It wasn’t good for me, either, Nest,” Kip replied, his tone almost cracking, “What are the details?”

“Not immediately lethal… Grazed liver, hole through the lung, punctured small intestine… Cracked ribs, fractured wrist… There’s also a lot of internal tissue damage and bleeding that we had to stabilize. He’s good for now, but… He’s dying. Slow.”

Kipland closed his eyes and sighed. It had happened to him, now it was happening to his Praetorian double. It should have concerned him more, too, as his brother’s Praetorian had become a disembodied brain in a machine that detonated itself in a prior interdimensional invasion. Did everything have to work in such parallel? Would his brother share a similar fate? What about their father? He was apparently dead in Praetorian Earth.

“How slow?” he asked, trying to curb the depressing thoughts.

“Days… Weeks… With the technology we’re working with… Maybe even magic…”

“Enough time for a miracle, right?” Kip asked.

Nester could only look back to his brother with quiet discontent. There was no weird super crystal growing inside of Aaron. He had no guardian angel looking over his shoulder. He also wasn’t on any priority list. No resources for heroes would be devoted to saving his life. If any spandex or armor-clad meta human were to teleport in with special needs, they would take priority over him.

“I’ll do what I can, Kip,” the older brother said somberly, “But I’m just a technician here, remember?”

Kipland stepped away from his brother so he could get back to work. As Nester departed, Misty walked up to the younger Durj and looked him in the eyes. Still, the two looked too similar, and she couldn’t take it. She started crying and collapsed into his embrace.

“I’m so sorry, Misty,” he said, struggling not to let his voice crack.

“It’s not fair…” she gasped into his shoulder, “He’s taken away for so long… Now…”

“Missus Durj?” a deep voice resonated behind Kipland, “Are you Aaron’s wife?”

“Crimson,” Kipland growled.

He turned to regard the Central Intelligence agent with a cold glare. His eyes flashed white briefly, but Crimson didn’t even flinch.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said, “All of it.”

“What the Hell happened!?” Misty shouted, “How did they find him? HOW!? I thought you were careful about these things!”


“I am careful!” Crimson replied agitatedly, the vein in his forehead bulging suddenly, “I ensure the security of the identities of each of my assets under countless layers of subterfuge! I don’t know how they broke the identities of each of those agents! Nearly fifty identities, cast out into the Malta Group and Knives of Artemis for them to do as they saw fit! Do you think you’re the only family I have to console about this?”

“And a fine job you’re doing…” Kip’s voice was still a growl, “Rounding on this hurt young woman as she levels a very justified inquisition on you. You said it yourself, Crimson, his life was in your hands, so how did this happen?”

There was a tense silence as the three stared at each other. Finally, Crimson lowered and shook his head.

“I don’t know…” he sighed, “I’ve had setbacks before, but this… This was a total failure… Those were good men and women we lost out there today… Only three survivors… All in similar conditions as your friend in there. Everybody else is gone… Just gone… I’m… I’m so sorry…”

There was more silence between them. Only the din of the hospital around them made any noise. Finally, Misty broke from Kipland’s embrace and gave the red-suited man a hug. He gave her a gentle, commiserating pat on the back.

After some discussion, they were finally admitted to see Aaron. He was hooked up to various tubes and machinery to keep him going, but he was cognizant of his surroundings. With the way the room was situated, they could only see Aaron’s head.

“Hey,” the machinery around him said in a digital voice, “I. Am. Think-ing. Words. And. It. Is. Talk-ing.”

“Hey…” Misty gasped as she leaned in close and gave her husband a kiss on the forehead, “Does it hurt?”

“No. They. Have. Me. On. The. Ver-ee. Best. Stuff.”

“Dying and cracking jokes,” Ezekiel smirked at the young man, “I see my counterpart taught you well.”

“He. Was. The. Best,” Aaron quirked his lips a little like a smile, “You. Too.”

“It’s not good, Aaron,” Kip said, “You’re dying.”

“And. Here. I. Thought. I. Was. Per-fect-lee. Fine. How. Soon?”

“Not sure. Nester said days to weeks.”

“Great.”

“I’ll always be right here, baby,” Misty whispered, “Right here with you…”

“No. No. Carl. Will. Need. You. More.”

Misty couldn’t say anymore. She could only sob. How was she supposed to explain this to their son? He was so young, but was already so amazingly aware of the world. His psychic talents were pushing him to heights of excellence he hadn’t conceived before.

“We’ll all be pitching in, bro,” Kip said.

“Yeah,” Ezekiel agreed, “Misty’s one of us, now.”

“That. Is. Good.” Aaron’s eyes closed and a tear trickled out of his right eye.

----------

“We’re going to take care of him,” Crimson said with determination in his voice, “Him and the other two survivors of this fiasco. I don’t care what rock I have to overturn, or who I have to strangle in Langley… I might even see if an old associate would be willing to throw some resources my way…”

“That Viridian guy?” Kipland asked, “Some of the folks who turned coat said they worked for him some.”

“Yeah… He and his protégé…” the spymaster’s eyes started shifting from side to side, “We used to… Play cards… And philosophize…”

“Games and theory,” Ezekiel chuckled, “Funny.”

“God damn it…”

“Look, even with things rocky between us, he should know that with things the way they are, an attack like this on my boys and girls is a prelude to similar attacks on his assets. There’s an outside player in this, and I need to figure this out.”

“Maelstrom showed up to finish the job,” Kipland explained, “He got a round into Aar’s armored belly before I kicked him around the room.”

“Maelstrom?” Crimson rubbed his chin as he looked at the floor, “I thought he died…”

“Might be something to look into.”

“Kipland?” a young female voice asked from the end of the hall, “What happened?”

Pop Roxxy walked up to the gathered members of Grey’s Army and gave a sheepish wave.

“Everybody, this is Roxxy, one of the recruits we got from Praetoria,” Kip explained, “Roxxy, this is Randall, Charlene, my dad, Sarah and… Aaron’s wife, Misty. Aaron is my Praetorian… He’s in the other room.”

The blue-skinned girl saw the somber looks on their faces and nodded sadly. She gave Misty a hug and the mourning woman shuddered a little as she shared the embrace.

“I was just explaining how Maelstrom assaulted him from out of nowhere,” Kip explained.

“Maelstrom?” Roxxy asked suddenly, rounding on Kip in surprise.

“Yeah. He’s apparently some old superspy for the U.S. government, then he-”

“He’s been a security agent for Emperor Cole for the past few years! A lot of our training in the Powers Division was overseen by him! He even deals with renegade Powers Division agents personally if they prove too troublesome…”

Kipland narrowed his eyes and growled. It seemed with that revelation, they now knew how the Malta Group had learned of the Praetorians in their ranks.

----------Two Weeks Later----------

Kipland sat in the room with his brother from another dimension. Aaron was now so heavily medicated he couldn’t get a coherent thought through, so the voice emitter had been shut down.

At the end of every day with Blue Talon or a patrol, he would tell Aaron about his day. Sometimes Misty would be present, doing much the same or bringing their psychic son in to talk with him. It was always heartbreaking to see such a young child tell his mother that she had to be strong. He wasn’t even two yet and he was already talking with fully-formed sentences.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Kip,” she whispered to him as Carl conversed silently with his father, “He understands so much, and so little… He doesn’t realize his father is never coming back… That he might not even remember this!”

“Just take it day by day, Misty,” he replied quietly, “And don’t hesitate to talk to any of us… We’re not messing around. We’re here for you, too.”

She hugged him. Though it had been an issue the first day, as the days progressed, she found he wasn’t the same as the man she had married. There were similarities, to be certain, but the fact of the matter was that they were not one and the same person. He was her brother in law, nothing closer.

A few hours after she and Carl were gone, Kip quietly sat with his silent friend. He couldn’t respond anymore. He could only breathe, have nutrients pumped into him and waste drawn out. He was on his last legs.

“There’s nothing left to say, brother,” he croaked, “Crimson said he put the word through the grapevine about Maelstrom’s supposed leanings… Haven’t heard anything about the Malta Group slowing down on working with him. You’d think a group paranoid as Hell about meta humans ruling the world would drop a ‘traitor to the cause’ like a bad habit, but… Nope…”

Aaron simply lied in the machine.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry you had to die… And I know that you’re not the only one, that suffered from this conflict, but… Damn it…”

“There’s nothing more to do,” he heard his brother, Nester, say suddenly.

The door closed quietly behind him as he sat next to his younger brother and they watched the Praetorian dying in front of them. Nester’s eyes looked red under his high-tech glasses.

“You tried to rescue him. I tried to save him. Crimson had people come in here… They looked him over some, but it looks like they didn’t or couldn’t do anything to save him.”

“I’m not going to say anything about the promises of the government,” Kip sighed, “I know I tried everything I could. I’m sure everybody else involved did, too. Especially you, Nest. Just like you did for me.”

“But I know more now, Kip. I should be able to… Able to…”

“Would everything you know now have saved me from the Obsidian Blight?”

Nester didn’t reply.

“I didn’t think so. Eventually, this awaits us all, no matter the cause. I just wish he could have lived to watch his son grow up. I wish he could have known some measure of peace in life, that he could enjoy with us. Instead, his life was conflict.”

“Yours is, too…”

“But I can perceive an end, Nester. I can see a stopping point in my future. I’m sure at some point I’ll be able to let somebody else shoulder the burden. Did he ever believe that? Did he ever think he would be able to breathe a sigh of relief because he knew he made the world a better place? If he did… It was cruelly taken from him…”

“He could be going to a better place,” Nester suggested, “I would think that for all that he’s done… He must have earned that.”

“Depends on how you look at it. The thought doesn’t make me any less selfish. I wish he could still be here, with us, with his wife, with his son. There’s got to be a point to what we do here, it can’t just be some stupid test. Looking at it that way… It feels like we’re just holding ourselves back…”

Nester didn’t know what to say. He shrugged and watched the monitors. Aaron’s EKG was slow, but steady.

“One day, we’ll each meet this fate,” Nester sighed, “I can only hope I’ve accomplished half of what he’s done when my time comes. There may have been more for him to do, but we should celebrate what he’s done, too. And, like we’ve said many times, they’re going to need our vigilance and assistance.”

Kipland nodded. He hated when he was facing a problem he couldn’t just pummel into submission.

They stayed until an orderly informed them that visiting time was over.

Grey's Army: Dealing with Praetorians

Kipland says goodbye to his Praetorian. With that, I think I'm done with this particular story.

The in-game Praetorian (or Primal, if you're playing a Praetorian) Death Scene is depressing, I figured this one should be on par with it.

Kipland didn’t go to the Brickstown Infirmary. He went to the LaGrange Medical Center in Skyway City. Nester had to pull some strings, but when he learned what happened, he had the people running MedCom reroute Aaron’s destination.

By the time Kip arrived, all the important work had been done. His father, Randall and Charlene Grey, their daughter Sarah and her adopted kid, and Misty were all there before him. As he arrived, Nester was in the middle of explaining the situation to them.

Misty was crying.

“Hey,” Nester said as he broke from the group and approached his brother, “I just got done telling the others… It’s not good, man.”

“It wasn’t good for me, either, Nest,” Kip replied, his tone almost cracking, “What are the details?”

“Not immediately lethal… Grazed liver, hole through the lung, punctured small intestine… Cracked ribs, fractured wrist… There’s also a lot of internal tissue damage and bleeding that we had to stabilize. He’s good for now, but… He’s dying. Slow.”

Kipland closed his eyes and sighed. It had happened to him, now it was happening to his Praetorian double. It should have concerned him more, too, as his brother’s Praetorian had become a disembodied brain in a machine that detonated itself in a prior interdimensional invasion. Did everything have to work in such parallel? Would his brother share a similar fate? What about their father? He was apparently dead in Praetorian Earth.

“How slow?” he asked, trying to curb the depressing thoughts.

“Days… Weeks… With the technology we’re working with… Maybe even magic…”

“Enough time for a miracle, right?” Kip asked.

Nester could only look back to his brother with quiet discontent. There was no weird super crystal growing inside of Aaron. He had no guardian angel looking over his shoulder. He also wasn’t on any priority list. No resources for heroes would be devoted to saving his life. If any spandex or armor-clad meta human were to teleport in with special needs, they would take priority over him.

“I’ll do what I can, Kip,” the older brother said somberly, “But I’m just a technician here, remember?”

Kipland stepped away from his brother so he could get back to work. As Nester departed, Misty walked up to the younger Durj and looked him in the eyes. Still, the two looked too similar, and she couldn’t take it. She started crying and collapsed into his embrace.

“I’m so sorry, Misty,” he said, struggling not to let his voice crack.

“It’s not fair…” she gasped into his shoulder, “He’s taken away for so long… Now…”

“Missus Durj?” a deep voice resonated behind Kipland, “Are you Aaron’s wife?”

“Crimson,” Kipland growled.

He turned to regard the Central Intelligence agent with a cold glare. His eyes flashed white briefly, but Crimson didn’t even flinch.

“I’m sorry about this,” he said, “All of it.”

“What the Hell happened!?” Misty shouted, “How did they find him? HOW!? I thought you were careful about these things!”


“I am careful!” Crimson replied agitatedly, the vein in his forehead bulging suddenly, “I ensure the security of the identities of each of my assets under countless layers of subterfuge! I don’t know how they broke the identities of each of those agents! Nearly fifty identities, cast out into the Malta Group and Knives of Artemis for them to do as they saw fit! Do you think you’re the only family I have to console about this?”

“And a fine job you’re doing…” Kip’s voice was still a growl, “Rounding on this hurt young woman as she levels a very justified inquisition on you. You said it yourself, Crimson, his life was in your hands, so how did this happen?”

There was a tense silence as the three stared at each other. Finally, Crimson lowered and shook his head.

“I don’t know…” he sighed, “I’ve had setbacks before, but this… This was a total failure… Those were good men and women we lost out there today… Only three survivors… All in similar conditions as your friend in there. Everybody else is gone… Just gone… I’m… I’m so sorry…”

There was more silence between them. Only the din of the hospital around them made any noise. Finally, Misty broke from Kipland’s embrace and gave the red-suited man a hug. He gave her a gentle, commiserating pat on the back.

After some discussion, they were finally admitted to see Aaron. He was hooked up to various tubes and machinery to keep him going, but he was cognizant of his surroundings. With the way the room was situated, they could only see Aaron’s head.

“Hey,” the machinery around him said in a digital voice, “I. Am. Think-ing. Words. And. It. Is. Talk-ing.”

“Hey…” Misty gasped as she leaned in close and gave her husband a kiss on the forehead, “Does it hurt?”

“No. They. Have. Me. On. The. Ver-ee. Best. Stuff.”

“Dying and cracking jokes,” Ezekiel smirked at the young man, “I see my counterpart taught you well.”

“He. Was. The. Best,” Aaron quirked his lips a little like a smile, “You. Too.”

“It’s not good, Aaron,” Kip said, “You’re dying.”

“And. Here. I. Thought. I. Was. Per-fect-lee. Fine. How. Soon?”

“Not sure. Nester said days to weeks.”

“Great.”

“I’ll always be right here, baby,” Misty whispered, “Right here with you…”

“No. No. Carl. Will. Need. You. More.”

Misty couldn’t say anymore. She could only sob. How was she supposed to explain this to their son? He was so young, but was already so amazingly aware of the world. His psychic talents were pushing him to heights of excellence he hadn’t conceived before.

“We’ll all be pitching in, bro,” Kip said.

“Yeah,” Ezekiel agreed, “Misty’s one of us, now.”

“That. Is. Good.” Aaron’s eyes closed and a tear trickled out of his right eye.

----------

“We’re going to take care of him,” Crimson said with determination in his voice, “Him and the other two survivors of this fiasco. I don’t care what rock I have to overturn, or who I have to strangle in Langley… I might even see if an old associate would be willing to throw some resources my way…”

“That Viridian guy?” Kipland asked, “Some of the folks who turned coat said they worked for him some.”

“Yeah… He and his protégé…” the spymaster’s eyes started shifting from side to side, “We used to… Play cards… And philosophize…”

“Games and theory,” Ezekiel chuckled, “Funny.”

“God damn it…”

“Look, even with things rocky between us, he should know that with things the way they are, an attack like this on my boys and girls is a prelude to similar attacks on his assets. There’s an outside player in this, and I need to figure this out.”

“Maelstrom showed up to finish the job,” Kipland explained, “He got a round into Aar’s armored belly before I kicked him around the room.”

“Maelstrom?” Crimson rubbed his chin as he looked at the floor, “I thought he died…”

“Might be something to look into.”

“Kipland?” a young female voice asked from the end of the hall, “What happened?”

Pop Roxxy walked up to the gathered members of Grey’s Army and gave a sheepish wave.

“Everybody, this is Roxxy, one of the recruits we got from Praetoria,” Kip explained, “Roxxy, this is Randall, Charlene, my dad, Sarah and… Aaron’s wife, Misty. Aaron is my Praetorian… He’s in the other room.”

The blue-skinned girl saw the somber looks on their faces and nodded sadly. She gave Misty a hug and the mourning woman shuddered a little as she shared the embrace.

“I was just explaining how Maelstrom assaulted him from out of nowhere,” Kip explained.

“Maelstrom?” Roxxy asked suddenly, rounding on Kip in surprise.

“Yeah. He’s apparently some old superspy for the U.S. government, then he-”

“He’s been a security agent for Emperor Cole for the past few years! A lot of our training in the Powers Division was overseen by him! He even deals with renegade Powers Division agents personally if they prove too troublesome…”

Kipland narrowed his eyes and growled. It seemed with that revelation, they now knew how the Malta Group had learned of the Praetorians in their ranks.

----------Two Weeks Later----------

Kipland sat in the room with his brother from another dimension. Aaron was now so heavily medicated he couldn’t get a coherent thought through, so the voice emitter had been shut down.

At the end of every day with Blue Talon or a patrol, he would tell Aaron about his day. Sometimes Misty would be present, doing much the same or bringing their psychic son in to talk with him. It was always heartbreaking to see such a young child tell his mother that she had to be strong. He wasn’t even two yet and he was already talking with fully-formed sentences.

“I don’t know if I can do this, Kip,” she whispered to him as Carl conversed silently with his father, “He understands so much, and so little… He doesn’t realize his father is never coming back… That he might not even remember this!”

“Just take it day by day, Misty,” he replied quietly, “And don’t hesitate to talk to any of us… We’re not messing around. We’re here for you, too.”

She hugged him. Though it had been an issue the first day, as the days progressed, she found he wasn’t the same as the man she had married. There were similarities, to be certain, but the fact of the matter was that they were not one and the same person. He was her brother in law, nothing closer.

A few hours after she and Carl were gone, Kip quietly sat with his silent friend. He couldn’t respond anymore. He could only breathe, have nutrients pumped into him and waste drawn out. He was on his last legs.

“There’s nothing left to say, brother,” he croaked, “Crimson said he put the word through the grapevine about Maelstrom’s supposed leanings… Haven’t heard anything about the Malta Group slowing down on working with him. You’d think a group paranoid as Hell about meta humans ruling the world would drop a ‘traitor to the cause’ like a bad habit, but… Nope…”

Aaron simply lied in the machine.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry you had to die… And I know that you’re not the only one, that suffered from this conflict, but… Damn it…”

“There’s nothing more to do,” he heard his brother, Nester, say suddenly.

The door closed quietly behind him as he sat next to his younger brother and they watched the Praetorian dying in front of them. Nester’s eyes looked red under his high-tech glasses.

“You tried to rescue him. I tried to save him. Crimson had people come in here… They looked him over some, but it looks like they didn’t or couldn’t do anything to save him.”

“I’m not going to say anything about the promises of the government,” Kip sighed, “I know I tried everything I could. I’m sure everybody else involved did, too. Especially you, Nest. Just like you did for me.”

“But I know more now, Kip. I should be able to… Able to…”

“Would everything you know now have saved me from the Obsidian Blight?”

Nester didn’t reply.

“I didn’t think so. Eventually, this awaits us all, no matter the cause. I just wish he could have lived to watch his son grow up. I wish he could have known some measure of peace in life, that he could enjoy with us. Instead, his life was conflict.”

“Yours is, too…”

“But I can perceive an end, Nester. I can see a stopping point in my future. I’m sure at some point I’ll be able to let somebody else shoulder the burden. Did he ever believe that? Did he ever think he would be able to breathe a sigh of relief because he knew he made the world a better place? If he did… It was cruelly taken from him…”

“He could be going to a better place,” Nester suggested, “I would think that for all that he’s done… He must have earned that.”

“Depends on how you look at it. The thought doesn’t make me any less selfish. I wish he could still be here, with us, with his wife, with his son. There’s got to be a point to what we do here, it can’t just be some stupid test. Looking at it that way… It feels like we’re just holding ourselves back…”

Nester didn’t know what to say. He shrugged and watched the monitors. Aaron’s EKG was slow, but steady.

“One day, we’ll each meet this fate,” Nester sighed, “I can only hope I’ve accomplished half of what he’s done when my time comes. There may have been more for him to do, but we should celebrate what he’s done, too. And, like we’ve said many times, they’re going to need our vigilance and assistance.”

Kipland nodded. He hated when he was facing a problem he couldn’t just pummel into submission.

They stayed until an orderly informed them that visiting time was over.

Let's see...

Let me get this out of the way first: Great story. It's mostly well written and reads well. It could have used some indentation or breaks between subjects, because it suffers from looking like one long string of text with only brief pauses at each punctuation mark, but it's an interesting tale, nonetheless.

First mission...
I don't understand why all of the enemies have to be level 54. Seems somewhat unjustified to me.

Plus, I also have to fight a Level 54 Elite Boss (probably an Arch Villain)...

And scour the crags of the Cimeroran Mountain for the last of the invaders...

Not exactly a good opening. At least the map was small, and I was using my Incarnated and IO'd Out character. If I hadn't, though, I can't imagine getting through this without a team.

Also, this is my game lore bug biting, but you make references to the "CoT." Despite the fact that in the game's storyline, they were long-since dead, the Circle originally called itself the Oranbegans in reference to their magical nation City, Oranbega.

Mission 2...

Level 54 enemies again. THESE Romans and Germans must have eaten their Wheaties! They're able to stand up STRONG against any and all super-powered beings who come to face them!

Now I have to fight TWO Elite Bosses (likely Arch Villains). At least I've got General Imperious's help...

General Nonious is an interesting challenge as a Broadsword/Shield Scrapper.

General Igneous might need some help to make him tougher, though. I could have mopped the floor with him without Imperious's help. Mostly did, too. I like that you don't have Imperious set as an aggressive ally (or at least, he didn't act like he was).

Lore Bug: You've got Imperious as a General fighting as your ally, but asking for your help to "beat back the Roman dogs." In the game's lore, Imperious is the last Roman Emperor. His fighting them doesn't make sense.

Mission 3...

Pretty quick. Not sure if you intended the objective to spawn right in front of me, but it did. Went in, fought the people holding the guy and ran for the exit. Done.

Opening text was a bit bothersome in the respect that you're still referring to the group as the CoT. Ignoring the breach of canon, when telling a story like this, it would help the reader if you didn't refer to a group outside of the targeting reticle by the abbreviation and by their actual term as Circle of Thorns. And if they're not supposed to be the Circle of Thorns, then what is CoT supposed to stand for? Referring to them repeatedly as CoT is just going to confuse the player if they're supposed to be something else.

Mission 4...

Level 54 Circle of Thorns. Apparently, the Well of the Furies has leaked into their drinking water.

Lore Bug: You've got Akarist betraying/abandoning the Oranbegans here... He didn't actually do that until the 2000s.

Also, as the mission ended, I was attacked by Void Hunters. Don't know if that was planned or if it's something coded into the map. If they were supposed to be there, there was nothing to explain why Void Hunters would show up. If they weren't supposed to be there, I'm going to chalk that one up as another shortcoming of the Architect system.

----------------------

Now, I'm not one to shirk a challenge, and this certainly was one. However, I prefer to have a REASON behind my challenge, and I didn't see any reason for these enemies to be ranked so far above character level.

I liked the named bosses and how they worked. They looked like they belonged. I strongly hope they weren't set as Arch Villains, though. In the Imperious Task Force, the various generals never get above Elite Boss ranking, so it wouldn't make much sense for these juggernauts to be higher ranked. Still, I guess it would also make as much sense as all of them running around as if they've been slaughing back Steroidihol.

So, there's my feedback. If I were to ignore the lore behind it, I would say it was a very satisfying Challenge Arc, even if it is an origin story for your character.

You guys do realize these are all teasers for a system that's going to take MONTHS to finish, right? We're not going to hop into Issue 21 and go "Where's Synapse?"

Yeah, because the character is the developer, so it's entirely justified karmic death...

Though I don't understand why, I'm certain a lot of players are really happy with that image.

Maybe if it keeps getting suggested, it will be considered.

Well, congratulations, guys. You certainly have been working hard for this one, and I'm glad it paid off for you.

The closest thing I have to a "Patriot" character is my sociopathic android Ryat Dreadnaught, who had no qualms about detonating a Neutron Bomb under Imperial City because "They're the Enemy." He's that fiercely loyal to Primal Earth, and, tangentially, the U.S. as that's the nation where he was built.

Another android in the series dresses the part for one of his outfits (lots of Red,White and Blue), but his attitude is so aloof, it comes off as just a "Gimmick of the Day."

Otherwise, patriotism and politics doesn't really play a part in my characters' behavior. That's probably due in part to my upbringing, though, as patriotism didn't really factor too heavily in it in the first place.

As a one-time (and often repeat) complainer about the grind-tastic nature of the Incarnate Trials and a chief complaint being their enforced exclusion of the rest of the game, I considered this idea...

The Incarnate Setting.

The idea is a simple: An Incarnate Setting for the high end Task and Strike Forces to place the team under the same duress an Incarnate Trial would put the team under.

The benefit, you ask? Why, Threads of course. Enemies defeated under these circumstances would drop Threads in conjunction with their typical salvage drops.

I would figure that all typical Incarnate level limitations would still be required, of course. So, all PCs in the team must be at least level 50 before the option can be activated, etc.

I've seen some of the artwork hinting at Manticore and Back Alley Brawler, and even a few have suggested Sister Psyche...

If someone were to die and have it make an impact within the Phalanx beyond "So, who do we get to replace him?" it would have to be somebody like Psyche or Statesman, the characters who represent the soul and mind of the Phalanx. Manticore is cunning, and he had some nifty representation in the Top Cow comics, and the Wedding Event was interesting, but he still comes off as rather expendable.

Of course, there's also the fact that a lot of different players have problems with the various Signature Characters. While they have their ups and downs, I've never found any reason to jump on the bandwagon of hate for any character, whether it's a contact (I've heard a lot of hate leveled Crimson's way) or a hero/villain (Statesman, of course).

I don't understand the hatred of Statesman as a character. A lot of players still call him by various insults, but I've never seen it in his character speech or behavior. I recall friction with the developer, but I don't see that as reason to dump on the character. The inverse is true, too, since the developer Black Scorpion has been fun with the community and has helped bring us some awesome stuff lately, but the character in-game is about as interesting as a box of limestone rocks.

If a character HAS to die, I hope it's handled tastefully and respectfully. It's going to be hard to make the death have meaning, like what was done with Cyrus Thompson (the guy who has a statue of himself sitting on a bench feeding pigeons in Kings Row).

Then again, it might be Comic Book Death in the end. If we don't see it happen, chances are it didn't. The character might return later for a dramatic reveal, possibly scarred or altered as a result of his journey, but still the same person at heart.

Gratz, Lorax!

I haven't had much need to play on other servers, lately.

I've got a bunch of characters stored on Virtue and have had good experiences there. I've also had good experiences in Champion and Triumph, but there's a certain "quiet" to those servers that's a little worrying. It feels lonely there, like I'm not really a part of the proceedings unless I have some sort of group of friends to team with, whereas I can usually have random conversations and polite team invites here without even participating in a channel.

Folks are willing to take a chance here, and usually have a pretty high tolerance for their fellow players for mistakes. Other server populations usually don't seem too eager to take that gamble, for whatever reason.

You guys have issues you need to work out in a forum that isn't so public. My own outbursts have taught me this lesson enough times, I would have hoped somebody else could learn from my very public mistakes.

If you're not mad enough to pummel each other over it, though, and don't feel like shrugging off the jabs and stings surrounding your otherwise decent information, then kindly shut up your bickering over it.

I've got a lot of respect for you, Stale. Not sure where our schism started, exactly, Witch, but I've still got respect for you, too. Watching you lose your heads over a couple subtle backhands, though, is more than a little aggravating, and this isn't the place for you to vent your issues.

If you've got something to say to me over this, send it in a PM. I'm sorry if I'm being overly blunt, and maybe I should have also said this in PMs, but there is a message everybody needs to see: Keep the fighting between you and the person you're fighting with. Making a public spectacle of it is only going to hurt everybody involved.

Frankly, I didn't understand the need for the story in the first place. You had this whole thing set up as basically a fair, full of minigames, events and prizes, but not much to push any kind of narrative.

I agree that if you do this again, with the storyline, you'll need to find a way to get that to the participants (especially since a lot of players STILL don't peruse the forums). If you can't do that, however... Well...

I'm not going to say that you shouldn't write the story... I will always encourage writing, especially when it's the quality presented in the other thread. However, it will probably have to stay out of prominence in the grand scheme of the event. Perhaps the event is something happening as its own occurrence, and your story will detail your characters' adventures in it. In that respect, you could even open up a story-writing competition for participants in the event, to detail how other players view the proceedings and how they interpret their characters' involvement.

But that's one way to take it. Others may have suggestions as well.

Last time I wrote a character who did things that disgusted me, I actually made myself feel ill. Be careful with this route, Saint. You're even deeper in the mentality than I put myself.