Sickle-cell

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

@GardevoiranI did, actually. Well played :-P

Should be getting a post up later today ^_^

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

@SkinnyTyOne of Maxwells escorts. Shadow-bender, effectively.

Update for you all - I shall return on the 3rd or 4th of January. Work has been changing my start times on an almost daily basis, and I haven't had more than 3 hours unbroken sleep for two weeks. Then my family guilt trip me into being sociable. In public.

Eugh.

Apologies again from my absence, but I will post that week. Promise. ^_^

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

Alright, first things first. I have screwed up with my wording in the last post and apparently terrified everyone, so let me clarify.

When she said "Kill them all", she meant "kill them all that you can actually, feasibly kill". Talion is in the arena atm, and the nullification field is still in effect. Ergo, the only people Talion has a chance against are the other 5 people in the ring with him. And of those, he's only going to be gunning for the three that are already classified as his enemies - Knight, Ifrit and Gamble - and anyone who actively gets in his way. The audience, and Tony, are completely safe. Feel free to edit your posts to reflect this, or what not, but i'll be editing mine to make that last part more clear and offer the mic back after Conflux is done with it shortly after this.

Again, my bad, I'll be clearer in future.

Next order of business.

---

Why does Conflux's persuasion ability work in the power nullification field? However she's exerting her will, it seems like it would be coming from where she's standing (in the audience, which is within the nullification field), not from where the target is standing (in the arena, where the field is absent). Even if it is based on where the target is, Tony is in the field, and so should be unaffected.

@Kiddo

This I'm unwilling to answer in telling you specifically how, but I shall confirm a few things. I have specifically hinted at how she does so in my post, but it's fairly well hidden unless you make a few assumptions of your own. It does come from where she is standing and has no bearing on the location of her target whatsoever. The best and most obvious answer I can give is the she cannot negate or ignore the field herself.

---

but the "there's no save from this you just have to do what the person says for the convenience of plot" has never been one of those working solutions.

If you're using mind control and don't know how the players can defeat it, you're using it wrong.

@Kiddo

*Darth Vader Breathing Noises* I find your lack of faith...disturbing.

First off, I have no plot. I believe I've said this before, but I mean it. All I have are characters with goals and motivations and PCs with the same, and utterly no idea where any of this is going. Conflux isn't using her power to advance any plot, she's using it to advance her own goals.

I know exactly how the players can defeat it, and was planning to slowly introduce countermeasures over the course of the saga involving her, but I shall post a text dump of stuff here I was going to reveal later but have hinted at most of this stuff already.

First off, for those who have actually read Worm, Kingmaker and Conflux share the same shard. For those who haven't, this basically means that their powers both share the same overall semantic theme and function. I called them 'Arbiter' in a previous post, as in Arbitration, persuasion and working out solutions with people.

Conflux's power has two parts. The first is a passive field around her that slowly - over a period of several weeks, months or years - makes a target more susceptible to her control. Her second ability is actively telling people what to do and works as thus:

- She can instruct a target to carry out a command. The target will then attempt to fully carry out this instruction ONCE via the most convenient means. "Kill yourself" may mean jump off a bridge, or shoot yourself in the head. This may then be stopped by other people or through circumstantial means. A jumper may be saved from jumping by a passing civilian or caught by a flying hero. The person trying to shoot themselves in the head may have just run out of ammunition. Either way, this marks the command as 'complete' - even if the outcome is not what Conflux desired. Completing the task - such as handing her the microphone - also completes the task.
- Once a task is 'complete', the target regains all control over their own actions and is only then aware of everything that transpired from when she used her power. This is caused by the target's brain being allowed to perceive the alteration to his consciousness, and allows the target to build up an immunity to this power because it has become hyper-aware to any changes. As such, her power can be used once on a target, after which they cannot be controlled for around three or four in-game days. This is increased when dealing with Thinker-powers by a factor of their PRT rating. Low-level thinkers will be unaffected for about a week, whereas high-level thinkers may gain years of protection. Since they both have the same shard, this 'cooldown' is shared between both Conflux and Kingmaker's powers.

Speaking of, Kingmaker also has two abilities. The first is another passive ability, in that he instinctively knows the best thing to say to make a target agree with his point of view. That does not always mean it is successful, but he can usually talk people into doing things without using his secondary power. The active ability of Kingmaker's power is far more limited than Conflux:

- He can command a target to follow an instruction, and the target will do so to the best of their ability while being completely conscious of what they have to do. As such, if the thing goes against their core nature, such as killing themselves, stealing from a close friend or betraying a faction, they simply will not do so. When the refuse to carry out a command - as happened with Geist in his penthouse - the target suffers crippling headaches and becomes completely aware of what Kingmaker asked them to do, and gains the same immunity to his power for roughly 3-4 days. As before, this is shared between both him and Conflux, which is why Geist refused to carry out both Kingmaker and Conflux's instructions during the post in the penthouse.

---

I have no intention of forcing a character to do anything that would cause any serious implications for them without the player being completely on-board. As such, while I may give instructions to PCs as I see fit, I am fully aware that any may be prevented by a number of means - be it active support from an ally or NPC, or merely co-incidence. In any event, Conflux will not be involved in many battles personally besides the Circus, as her entire power set revolves around preparing others to fight for her. She's only here to deliver an ultimatum to the city, once Talion is finished.

I shall have my post edit done soon, need to go prepare soup quickly first. Will likely not be around at all for the next few days, so have a very merry chrstimas, and I'll see you all again soon. ^.^

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

It feels a BIT weird to have a conversation that takes place BEFORE an established posted post that is before the conversation

@PlatinumSkink

DW about that. I deliberately did what I did to give you time to have a conversation, head in then react to your opponents. One giving a rough indication of what will be going on, not ushering your characters into the ring quite yet ^_^

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

There we go. Reactions to events should be enough to keep you all occupied for a while =P

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

The Zenith - Xoxi's Super Cool Fortress of Awesome

Above Boston

_{21st January, 2011}

The projector began to display the rather shoddily captured footage from a old and battered camera set up somewhere around the arena to showcase the spectacle to the world at large. As of this second, there was no-one in the arena, with the feed filled with the hustle and bustle of countless angry people demanding that their bets be made void as a result of Sickle’s surrender.

Of course, Wonderland disagreed.

Naturally, the people continued to whine and moan - at least until Sickle entered the room. Afterwards, they still complained, but did so much quieter.

Kairi grimaced slightly at the display. “Sickle-Cell. He’s the one from earlier today. I wish he’d just stop this crusade of his.”

“Fat chance of that,” Aedan replied. “You’ve got to admit, though, it’s working. I’ve never seen a city full of criminals so utterly scared of one man.”

The Ward leader shook her head. “It’s not one man. It’s the group as a whole. Not even the people, but the ideology behind it. Death and terror as tools to keep the population in line. It works, sure, but it isn’t any different from the sort of stunts the Nazis pulled.” Glancing at the screen, she furrowed her eyebrows. “You can’t tell me he wouldn’t wipe out the entire criminal population of Boston in a heartbeat, if he could.”

“Even if he had the chance to take them alive.”

@Gardevoiran

---

The Circus Maximus

Victory Road

_{21st January, 2011}

“Luckily, you can leave,” Sickle said with no small amount of disdain. “I have to go and suffer through the rest of this charade knowing full-well I can’t do a thing to stop it.” Turning, he made his way back into the darkness of the Circus. Luckily for him it was dark. It meant no-one could see the slight hobble in his walk.

After the hoo-hah had died down, the Pipeline announced a slight alteration to the night’s line-ups. Knight and Ifrit’s battle against Talion and Kaze would be pushed back to the last of round one, with both sides getting another contender. It was fully intended to become the headline match with the addition of Gamble on the Protectorate side and Zabaniya for the independants. This brought the number of combatants on each team to three in what was a relatively small arena.

And it promised to be one hell of a fight.

In the next fight, Arms Race made a valiant effort at defeating Vegas, what with his teleporting weapon-play, but it was cut short by her hard-light shields locking down his mobility. She took the victory in the second match - much to the dismay of the betters who assumed she’d follow suit and throw the match.

Askaryan and Vector went at one another’s throats more violently than any cape that night had tried to seriously injure one another. On the other hand, Nightlight wiped out the entirety of Geryon’s clones with only a handful of blasts. By the time Vector had settled her win over her rival, she fired a single shot at Nightlight - which he absorbed and used to scorch the arena as a whole. Many people had assumed Vector to cinch it, but her fixation on Askaryan had proved her undoing.

Round number 4 went to Switchboard, by essentially making everyone else defeat one another. Careful and well-planned use of his ability to switch their vision upside down, or trigger muscle-spasms from pain resulted in a very easy victory, even over the feared Caustic.

Achlys and Pipeline dominated their match against the hard-to-hit Funhouse and the hard-to-defeat Painkiller by using the perfect combination of their two powers. Pipeline fed Achlys’s mist form with liquid of his own creation, giving her a variety of properties to choke and gas their opponents with.

Finally, the main event came. As the competitors assembled in the arena, the heroes on one side came face-to-face with their enemies. Black Kaze, still proudly wearing her inmates outfit from Japan from years ago. Zabaniya, the shadow-manipulator dressed from head-to-toe in black studded leather. And the unheard of Talion, standing in an almost aristocratic jacket of crimson. Underneath, however, was a much more combat-oriented sleeveless black vest top. His mask was simple white porcelain, with a cracked black motif over one eye. Through it, his face could be seen, if only slightly.

He visibly took in and sized up his opponents. As his gaze fell on the last of them, the girl in the armour, a barely-audible whisper drifted across. “You shouldn’t be here.”

As Poker Face stood and prepared to announce the beginning of the final match of the first round, a number of figures approached him. The leader of whom was a woman, dressed all in black. Only her mouth was visible beneath her mask.

With a smile, she extended her hand towards the microphone. “My dear, would you kindly hand me that?”

Each word slammed into Tony’s senses like a sledgehammer. An uncanny pressure crushed his very mind, his will, and buckled the world around him. Every syllable was a discordant mess, broken and spoken by a hundred different voices from all directions all at one. The sentence alone stretched on and on, seemingly taking an eternity to actually be finished, even though it should only have taken an instant. Finally, the words began to dull, the ache began to subside.

And the woman stood, with microphone in hand.

She fondly caressed his cheek and blew him a kiss, as she took pride of place looking down on the arena below. One member of her entourage - another girl, all in black - held her hand tightly. Her voice boomed across the room. “Tsk tsk, Talion. We had a deal.”

“Now, be a good boy, and kill them all.”

As his eye glazed over, Talion's shoulders slumped. The sound of his heavy breathing was all that filled the arena, until a quiet growl rose from the man. When he finally looked back to the heroes, it was obvious that whatever restraint had been there was now gone. With a hideous roar, he took off at full=pelt, aiming a solid punch at Gamble.

Conflux, on the other hand, offered the mic back to Tony with a saccarine-sweet smile. "Your co-operation was much appreciated, sweetheart."

@Migyudon@Lasrever@Old Amsterdam@SkinnyTy@PlatinumSkink@Duoya

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

About to get a post up in the next half-hour. Afterwards, I'll be taking about a week's break over xmas. Work has me in basically every day for longer than usual, and the few days I actually have off is the 24th, 25th and 26th.

Which my family would kill me if I fobbed them off on. =P

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

Right, will post again to advance the Circus on my next IC post in a couple of days time. ^.^

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

The Zenith - Xoxi's Super Cool Fortress of Awesome

Above Boston

_{21st January, 2011}

After several intense rounds of Smash, Vector glanced at the time on her HUD once more. “Damn,” she said. “I’ll better get a move on. Got some heads to knock tonight.”

“I think they said the Circus was going to be televised.” She snorted. “Somehow I doubt it’ll be on primetime tv, but someone’s probably streaming it online. I’m sure Praetor wouldn’t want you all to watch in on the Protectorate stooping as low as the villains to mop up the city.”

“So you should definitely try find it. Later.”

@Gardevoiran

---

The Circus Maximus

Victory Road

_{21st January, 2011}

The woman chuckled. “I have no problem,” she said, pushing the slip over to him. “But you might.”

“A friendly word of advice. Might be a good idea to stop people betting on the other team in these sorts of matches.” She smiled behind her mask. “Especially with people like Sickle around.”

Glancing at her own odds in the next fight, she paused before leaving. “While I’m here, put me down for £50 on myself winning the next one. Who knows, I might even try.”

@Duoya

---

Pulling some blood tight in around himself, he used the leverage to rise from the ground. His flame had been well and truly quenched, and he wasn’t looking forward to the next few days until he could source a parahuman capable of healing the cracked rib. Or ribs. A hospital wasn’t an option, his scars were too plentiful to be anything less than a tell-tale sign of someone who really shouldn’t get into as much trouble.

Shouldn’t, but did.

The woman was a strange one. She still had fire, even now. He could definitely respect that. Liking her was another matter entirely. It would seem her reason for this battle was barely known, even to her - yet her movements were sure. The entire situation made no sense. Her motives seemed to be fighting for the sake of fighting and little else, which was something Sickle always found abhorrent. He’d bathed the streets in blood, and would countless times before all was said and done, but always for a reason.

He’d clean up this city, but things would always get worse before they got better.

His eyes flicked back and forth between the two people before making a conscious effort to stand up straight, despite the pain. “Well, skipping isn’t really my thing, but I’m sure I can manage it, if you insist.”

“Nevertheless, I agree,” he said, voice growing more serious. “We’ll continue this another time, when we’re both at peak condition. After all, a victory over a handicapped opponent wouldn’t satisfy either of us, would it? We share that, if nothing else.”

@Migyudon@Lasrever@Old Amsterdam@SkinnyTy@PlatinumSkink

Worm - The Malfesant Throne

@Old AmsterdamWill post again on that tomorrow. For some reason have become violently ill over the last few hours. Family had something similar last week, so guessing it is a really delayed bug =P