Only what was mentioned upthread, meaning doing his best to avoid people asking questions without appearing suspicious. At the same time, it’s fair to say he recognizes people might be looking for him and he wouldn’t want them heading into the lower levels, so he’d be keeping an ear/eye out.
Brad
Brad doesn't have many friends, but I guess he'll probably want to go down to the station for a debriefing and paperwork once everyone is cleared out of the school. While he's there, he'll reach out to some close friends and figure out (if he can) if anyone on the force ever got "powers" and what they did about it. Easy enough under the guise of a conversation he'll undoubtedly have with everyone who sees him about what happened with the supervillain attack.
María Romero
María doesn’t like whisky. She has more to say on the lanyard subject, though. And she’s a little pissed off her theory is not being taken into consideration.
I don’t know. I mean, if there’s a chance these… Whatever we got… came in the lanyards… Those where personal issue. It would mean they specifically chose - targeted us.
The other guy. He was a cop? Do you know him? Maybe he could run some research…
María realizes nobody has brought up the voices in her head yet. She wonders if she’s the only one with them or if other also hear them. But she doesn’t ask. If she’s the only one, she doesn’t want to find out.
The following is for when the meeting ends. If Thomas wants to carry on talking, it will happen after the talking.
Once the meeting with Thomas is over. María goes home. On the way, she walks by a church. There’s a moment of guilt, a half formed thought of maybe going in for a moment. But it’s been too long since she went to church, and she keeps walking.
It’s going to be hard sleeping today.
Thomas Albertson
Thomas starts to chuckle, then bursts out into full on belly laughter.
‘Oh Brad, performance review, oh god, I can’t breathe. Ehhhhh…’
Deep breath, steadying himself
'Ok, ok. I… ok. We’re all a little stressed here I think its safe to say. Yes, Brad, I’m going to put on your performance review that you spontaneously burst into flame and kicked a scissor headed madman in the nethers. Meanwhile I turned into some demigod, and another person a ghost. I can see it now, psyche evals for the lot of us.
No, let me tell you what it will say. It will say that you acted decisively and put yourself in harms way in order to help evacuate students. It won’t say shit about sabotage, superhuman powers, or voices in your head.
Maria I do take your suggestion seriously, after all it is no less outrageous than anything else that happened today. What I’m saying is we need evidence. Some proof. Naturally I won’t trust the police to fill us in, but as administrator they can only hide things so much. What I reccomend is this, we start seeking clues on our own, and try and find the others who were affected. As best I can tell there were at least two others who did not panic. I’d start there.
Brad I am at your disposal on this. You are to discharge your duties as before, but I want you to keep an eye out for the others. If I’m not mistaken they will turn up sooner or later. But we need to control the information. To that end I would try and keep this from circulating until details are known.
Maria I want you to listen as well. See what the students say. Track rumors. I’m going to start poking into the details of the lanyards. I’ll chase down the supply chain, and see if I can connect it to the Triskadecaphobia members.
I’ll also keep in contact with the police. If I sense them hiding things, and I suspect I might be able to do so better these days, then I might ask you to help me go where they don’t want us.
As for our forms? The confusion and shock will help us this time. I doubt they will be able to put this on us, but I would recommend each of you start thinking of an identity and costume. It wouldn’t be a good look for it to be us openly acting as supers.’
Thomas will spend the rest of the day tracking what info about the lanyards he can by going through records and orders. Also trying to get any info on the bus barn from police.
Fair question. Jose is also in a form of denial. No talking with Lou right now. He will head over to the local library and borrow their internet to see what he can find on how people get powers.
Sorry, I keep getting distracted. I’ll try and get a post doing wrap up stuff for the game day up tomorrow and then whenever we’ve fully resolved that stuff I’m planning a timeskip since the next adventure is set a few weeks later.
Sounds good. I’m busy today anyhow (yay baby girl!!)
Quick OOC question/comment. BTW, sorry that I’m being a wordy, rules lawyer in this.
I didn’t want to push too far forwards with Jose’s actions since I didn’t know what sort of skip there would be until the next scene. On the other hand I had things that Jose would want to work on if it was going to be days or weeks later.
I’m probably overthinking things as far as Better Angels is concerned (in the old threefold model I"m mostly a simulationist) but I’m going to keep harping on it. Jose wants to get a retrocognition look at things. My reading of the retrocognition rules (particularly the hatchet example) says that it should not be limited to just seeing through the eyes of someone. I get to know what happened. Rereading the rules (http://arcdream.com/home/2013/10/retrocognition-a-new-power-for-better-angels/) indicates that Jose should have no problem with “5 min. ago, right over there” and even “One month ago, at this specific place” is no problem. Note that handling an object allows its history but it also seems like being in a spot would allow that spot’s history to be seen/known.
So Jose is going to be researching on people getting powers and the laws surrounding people with powers but he’s also looking for a moment to get to the bus barn site.
As a player I’d also like to know how “realistic” we want to play this? Knowing what I have experienced with crime scenes, construction sites, and schools (both during school hours and outside of school hours) it seems very likely that Jose could get a minute in or right around the bus barn in all sorts of ways. I can also see a narrative/game side of things where you want to do one contest (opposed? unopposed?) to see if he can get in and assume that is the “best shot”
Finally, and in a different direction, you may assume that if Tio Lou is willing Jose wants to fly one night. He’s not going to be all blatant about it but he wants to see what flight is like. He’s also thinking about costumes but he’s got enough going on that I can’t see him getting a good idea in a week.
Here’s the thing. You can absolutely read things other than people. What I am trying to do is figure out how to keep Retrocognition from completely spoiling the entire plot because being able to just know what happened there could very easily do so. There’s really nothing in the campaign that seems to acknowledge that, either. My thinking is that a) the police aren’t going to want you there. but you are right that you might be able to sneak in anyway. so b) you get a big read full of stuff and would have to know a lot more to drill down to the important moments.
I figured it was something like that. I don’t even really mind it as an answer but I wanted it to be out in the open. Especially due to the earlier response that felt like “you can’t do that” instead of “here is a police npc that you can interact with or work around.”
Actually I love option b) as a solution except that it is a ton of work for you to give the info plus the obfuscation info plus checking it to make sure that you aren’t opening up another can of worms. You might have been thinking about just abstracting the info and perhaps feeding out snippets later. That is much less work but somehow seems unsatisfying.
If you want to pick option a) and just have the site patrolled enough that Jose can’t (reasonably) get in I’m fine with it but I might have to run with it a little IC as a conspiracy unless all super powered stuff gets similar treatment. I don’t see Jose as willing, at this point, to risk a big confrontation with cops over getting into the site so it would work.
Well, what I mean is that you get potentially years worth of what’s happened to whatever your source is, so if you don’t know the specific time the important thing happened (which is not the explosion, you already saw that, essentially), it would be really hard to pick out. If you get a good enough roll it lets you pick through based on some other criterion but you don’t really know what that would be necessarily.
I do think a big explosion with multiple fatalities and high profile supervillain involvement would be a high priority for the police, though. So I mean, I could see you sneaking by (especially with powers / aspects), but it’s not going to be a cakewalk.
Alex
As the afternoon wears on it begins to be increasingly obvious that the police aren’t aware that the school even has those lower levels - they’re not on the official plans since the Channing Education Group aren’t advertising the corner cutting they’ve done in getting this place “ready” to hold a bunch of children. And if anyone besides you and your…contact…know about them they are apparently keeping their mouths shut. You should keep an eye out for any structural damage that might have arisen from the explosion, though. The lower levels haven’t exactly been maintained, after all.
This isn't intended to be something you need to address right this second but it's on my list of possible complications for the future. Also I just realized I said they looked undamaged a couple posts back. So they do look that way...but you never know.
Brad
You swing by the station, one-handing most of the steering, and check in with your sergeant (name?) for a debriefing. And the expected round of paperwork. He looks at your arm, and winces a little. “No rush on that, Stevens. I’m sending you home for a few days, give that arm some time to heal up. I don’t expect Better Futures to reopen in the next week or two anyway, between our investigation and the repairs.” Once you’re dismissed, with folder full of forms under your uninjured arm, you swing by the bull pen and get commiseration and some good natured ribbing from the friendlier end of the room. When the conversation turns to superpowers, most of them have some tale to tell about near brushes or some news story or other they saw, but when you ask if anybody in the force had ever turned super, you get shrugs. “You hear rumors, now and then, but I mean, you’ve seen those crazies up close and personal, right? There’s a reason they wear costumes. So who’d know, if one of us did turn?” You think maybe you would. If they were actively using powers near you, at least. But nobody is right now, that’s for sure.
Thomas Albertson
You speak with the officer in charge of the investigation (name?) in the hopes of teasing out information on what exactly happened, at least from the police perspective. He says that he can’t comment too much on an active investigation since, although you have a stake in the matter, you are still a civilian, but he does note that it is likely to drag on at least a few more days due to the level of disorder in the scene and the involvement of powers, particularly since the security cameras were shorted out when the sprinklers activated. He also warns that there was apparently one Triskaideka survivor and that until he is either caught or enough time has passed to surmise he has left the area, there might still be some danger to the school. He assures you they are actively looking.
In the meantime, they would like you and the rest of the staff out from underfoot for the next couple of days, so you bring the records home with you and spend some time poring over them. It doesn’t take terribly long to trace the lanyards themselves: they were sent over by the Channing Education Group for the new school year, a fairly standard practice. Following up with staff at CEG reveals that they were purchased from a website recommended in a direct email solicitation as part of the CEG’s cost-saving mandate, and the website in question turns out to be a truly tacky Geocities site for a “business” supplying lanyards and a few other miscellaneous scholastic supplies at rock bottom prices. Poor font choices, typos, and a conspicuous lack of any contact information or individual names present themselves - just a passthrough to a dodgy third-world payment processor. The email address they got the email from now bounces, but it was one of those disposable webmail accounts. Not anything as fancy or popular as Google or Yahoo, either.
Takeaway is that this was probably a front developed specifically for the purpose but not the work of a master hacker or computer expert. Also, they clearly knew how easy it is to get CEG to skip due diligence to save money.
Jose
A few other kids head to the library in sort of a loose cluster with you, since it’s as good a spot as any to snag some computer time and/or horse around with an unexpected day off. You find more than a few sites dedicated to powers talk, but your research is inconclusive. Plenty of theories, from radiation, to space aliens, to genetic manipulation, but not a lot of hard facts. You do find a website promoting a “Ministry of Strength” who tour performing amazing feats of strength in the hopes of inspiring people to turn to Jesus as they credit their abilities to God. Not in the “God made me and gave me the capacity to become so strong” sense, either, but more in the “God is directly infusing me with this strength” sense. There’s also a corporate-sponsored super team called the Brands of Justice who claim their sponsors are giving them their powers, though the method varies. And a few villains have been reported apparently talking to themselves, though the general consensus seems to be that you’d have to be crazy to be a supervillain in the first place.
Maria
Nothing really to add to your last posted action but I didn't want to leave you out.
We will now skip ahead three weeks or so as the school is being repaired, the police are finishing up their investigation, and the hunt for the Headsman winds down. If there are any significant things you'd like to get accomplished in the meantime (such as Jose's attempt at the bus barn), or anything you wanted to address in my narration of the wind-down of this adventure, let me know (although there's not a lot more to discover on the mystery right now), otherwise I'd like a kind of overview of what these weeks look like for your character, and a budding issue that is cropping up for your character as we transition into the next adventure. Ideally something that might be easier to resolve with superpowers and probably to do with one of your significant NPCs - e.g. Maria's sister/boyfriend, Alex's wife/killer "friend", etc.
I didn’t get back to this last night. You and I aren’t quite dealing with the same things. While I as a player might think in terms of looking back for longer stretches of time Jose is still focused on the recent explosion. Thinking out loud - he knows that the explosion surprised the Alliterative Avenger but he didn’t see what the explosion was, if someone else set it off, or the fate of others in the blast.That makes a lot of sense when he’s using the power on a person who was at the event. Clearly he can’t get any more info than the person had. So now* he wants to see the event.
Note the *. I’'m writing this after your update but before reading your update. Due to work I might not be able to read the update until later this afternoon.
Sure, if Jose wants to check out the explosion that shouldn’t spoil anything major. It also won’t be super informative but as a character choice that’s just fine if you’re okay with it.
So it’s been a week with zero movement. What’s the issue? Is something (the system, my approach, the scenario) sapping enthusiasm? Is this just a bad time and we should take a hiatus for a bit? Would folks rather just call it? We did at least tell the first adventure’s story, so if we did need to close up shop it’s not the worst timing in the world.
Bad timing for me. Your last update came just hours after my daughter was born ;)
Just kind of waiting for something to happen, I guess. For better or worse, I kind of set myself up as a separate entity at this point. Assuming something will change that shortly.
Congrats @CraigM!
I posted what I was looking for from all of you! You shouldn’t be waiting for something to happen. :)
So now that you reminded me (my memory is shot at the moment), I’ll start answering your questions.
Thomas Albertson
Officer Kevin Labrie wasn’t much help, but even so there were places to look. Though there was one thing Thomas had full confidence in, or at least no interest in meddling with, and that was catching the Headsman.
CEG, however, was a lead to chase down. And the fishy website meant that, while not convinced Maria was right, he certainly wanted to look deeper. However, if there was something fishy, he didn’t want to flag it for CEG. So he would do independent investigation. He searched his records, and called Maria and Brad. They may be able to help him track down the supply chain…
Basically next time I want to try and have us work on getting into CEG’s records, and get more info on the supplier. Bank routing, address, anything like that. There is a paper trail somewhere. But no rushing, I want to give time for the others to find us.