Monday was our first session of Wearing the Cape! And I know today is Wednesday, I didn't do the write-up yesterday, I was having a bad day, bleah.
ANYWAY. Our story is set in the Big Easy, the Crescent City, New Orleans! Our characters are:
- Magnus the Magnificent: Our hapless dimensional traveler fell out of a salt mine and wound up...here. Magnus has begun to feel pretty nihilistic; when you know there's literally a universe that encompasses any given possibility, it's hard to care about one particular world. He's beginning to feel that We Are But Dust. In this universe, he's an A-Class Magnus Type; no classification exists for what he can do.
- Levee: Kyria Deveraux is a NOLA Girl Through and Through. Five years ago, during Hurricane Dexter (a Cat-5 hurricane that flooded the city), she experienced her breakthrough and parted the floodwaters. She has since become a Local Celebrity, and can often be found in the city wearing sparkly jewelry made of water. She's an A-Class Aquakinetic Type.
- Styx: Styx has always been something of a Spooky Spy. She got into a coffin on a dare and became trapped, which led to (or exacerbated) Claustrophobia, but it also allowed her breakthrough as an A-Class Mentalist Type. More specifically, Styx can talk to and channel the ghosts around here (and in this city, there are a bunch) to give her information, and even to possess her to grant her skills that she doesn't normally have.
- Wing Diesel/Toby Miles: Toby Miles was reading a book out loud to a bunch of people in a bookstore - Wing Diesel's Road Trip by Garrett Keener. And then Toby experienced a breakthrough (A-Class Verne Type) and manifested Wing Diesel, the big, shiny, chrome dragon from the book! Wing is still around, and so it's not uncommon to hear "Let's Go, Wing Diesel!" when there's trouble in New Orleans. Toby, for their part, is just the Dragon Rider, and just as often is Stuck in the Stacks.
It's Mardi Gras, the World's Biggest Par-tay! The streets are full of Thronging Crowds (I'm not going to mention every single Situation Aspect that comes up, I swear), and the Breakthrough Float is rumbling through the French Quarter! Wing Diesel is sitting up front, tossing beads with his tail and candy with his snoot. (Toby is there, too.) Levee stands on one side, doing amazing water-conjuring displays, while Sgt. Andrew Guidry, a local police officer and Ajax-Type, stands on the back waving. Styx is in the crowd; she was invited, but declined to be on the float.
See, a new law just passed in New Orleans, called the Breakthrough Collective Responsibility Act (informally, the "Super-Krewe" law). It frees breakthroughs from civil liability from damage they might cause while doing super-stuff as long as it's for "the greater good." It also makes breakthroughs responsible for actions that other breakthroughs take - if, as a breakthrough, you see another breakthrough doing crimes and you don't at least report it, you can be convicted of a felony punishable by a big fine and a year in a "suitable penal facility." Needless to say, not everyone is quite in favor of this law, but there hasn't really been a test case yet, so no one's sure how well it's going to hold up. And opinion is divided even amongst the breakthrough community - Levee is in favor, Styx is decidedly not, and Toby really hasn't thought about it (Wing Diesel thinks "rar").
As the float slowly moves down the street, reality wibbles a bit, and a man in a tuxedo falls out of a rift in the air and lands on the float! Everyone cheers, figuring it's part of the act, and Magnus, never one to waste an entrance, bows and tosses candy from his hat. He mentions that he's from a different universe (he's never real shy about that), and Toby and Levee pretty much take it in stride. Styx notes this entrance, but then hears the ghosts around her whisper "they're coming."
"Who?" she asks. "the anguillites"
Styx isn't sure what an "Anguillite" is, but it doesn't sound good. She slips through the crowd to the float and Sgt. Guidry helps her up. She says that she thinks something is about to happen...and sure enough, the crowds start to scream!
Water flows in from the dark corners of the city, not enough to count as flooding, but enough to make everyone's ankles wet. But more important, bands of slimy, four-armed fish-creatures appear as well! Their lower, stunted arms carry what look like guns, and they terrorize the crowds, pointing their guns around and burbling in a weird, alien language.
Levee wastes no time - she leaps off the float to one of the mobs of Anguillites, scoops up a bunch of water, and flings it as daggers at the creatures! The pack of them falls dead (I was rolling so badly during this game). Styx calls up ghosts and has them box in another mob, and Magnus pulls a grenade out of his hat and flings it into the pack. It destroys the aliens, but also damages the building, and Levee scolds him - "That's a historical building! You can't just throw explosives around!"
Sgt. Guidry leaps off the float and lands in the midst of a third mob, knocking a couple of them down. Wing Diesel snarls at the last mob and shines light off his chrome skin, blinding and scattering them.
Suddenly, another alien - this one much larger and more muscular, and wearing claws on its hands, leaps from the dark and rakes at Levee! She blows it backwards with a jet of water, and Magnus hurls a razor-sharp playing card at its neck. Styx asks for help from the dead, and Frederick, the ghost of an expert pugilist, answers. With Frederick behind her eyes, she runs over and punches the alien lieutenant right in the gills, dropping it.
The remaining aliens in the mob fire their weapons at Sgt. Guidry, gumming him up with foul-smelling slime. The heroes quickly take them out (I honestly don't remember how, but it hardly matters at this point), and Levee washes the slime off Guidry ("ugh, smells like a po' boy left at the bottom of my locker!").
Guidry gets a call on his radio - that was just an early wave. There are lots more of these things in the city!
The heroes spring into action! Levee dips her hand into the water and listens to it (The Delta Sings to [Her], y'see). She learns that they are sliding around in the dark, using the water to increase mobility. She pulls all of the water from the shadows back and sends it down the drains, drying them out. Meanwhile, Magnus pulls a bright spotlight from his hat and aims it at Wing Diesel, who flies up into the air and spins, shining a million points of light into the dark corners of the city like some kind of Disco Dragon! The aliens thus exposed, Magnus pulls out a kind of dimensional vacuum and aims it at the body of the lieutenant, using that as a focal point to suck all the aliens back into their home world.
The crisis is averted, and while there are some narrowed eyes at the damage from the fight, the heroes aren't held responsible. The party continues, and Magnus is taken out for beignets.
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