Dramatis Personae

• Allissa “Lisa” J. Zamarripa aka Dreamweaver (NPC): Annoyingly mysterious. Poet laureate. Sees the future Power: Dream Control. Tagline: “I had a dream about you.”
• Benjamin B. Bailey (NPC): A prodigy at earth science and an avid spelunker, Ben has the power to reshape the same earth and stone that he studies. Naturally optimistic, he sees the best in those around him…even when he probably shouldn’t. Power: Earth Control. Tagline: “With my friends as my foundation, I’ll never crumble.”
• Carol W. Pfeifer aka Burn (NPC): Pyrokinetic. Linguist. Very intense person. Power: Fire Control. Tagline: “I’ll show you how I burn.”
• Felicity E. “Flit” Chou (NPC): Talks to fast. Hopeless romantic. Musician. Loves to skateboard. Power: Teleportation. Tagline: “Here. There. Everywhere.”
• Jamie J. Billings (NPC): Nonverbal. Mathematics savant. Communicates via a PDA. Shy. Power: Time Control Tagline: “I Can Show You The Math.”
• Lynne C. Duane (NPC): Holder of Bachler’s degree in neurobiology Daughter of a famed neurosurgeon. Athletically gifted. Withdrawn and not herself. Power: Telepathy. Tagline: “…”
• Raymond J. Parrish aka Raybeam (NPC): TBA. Power: Hyper-Intelligence and Technopathy. Tagline: “This is going to be great. Look what I made?!”
• Tabitha E. “Tabbs” de Orellana (NPC): Latina from the Bronx. Aptitudes for mechanical engineering, chemistry, and materials science. Speaks her mind. Bossy and cocky, but not arrogant. Powers: Hyper-Intelligence and Kyberic Energy Control. Tagline: “No me respondas.”
• Warren P. Clark (NPC): Computer and electronics nerd. Very tall for his age (over 6′) and big. Powers: Hyper-Strength and Technopathy. Tagline: “Oh. What does this button do?”

Previously . . .

A small time skip later, the group finds themselves in the middle of what appears to be an elevator. They’re not sure why they’re down, they know they were going there intentionally but can’t quite recall why, their heads pounding and their mouths feel like the carpet in a movie theatre. It just feels off, like they’re just waking up from spacing out. They’re still wearing the same outfits from the party and it’s the same day, so it hasn’t been long and thinking back they know they’re below Geneva. The elevator is still going down and stops. Lisa is pretty sure that they aren’t dreaming and Hamilton tests it by pinching the person closest to him, which happens to be Fiona. Harvey is curious what floor they’re on when the elevator dings and the door opens.

Again!

Fiona, Hamilton, Harlowe, and Harvey
Beneath Building 40
Tuesday September 10th, 2008, 1600 hours 
1217 Meyrin, Switzerland

The walls are made from stone and metal, red lights. Fiona, not knowing where they’re at, calls out only to see Thulian soldiers aiming weapons at them. Fiona and Harvey step back while Hamilton calls out that they’re lost as they close the distance, shouting in German. As they get close, Fiona starts to gather water to blast them, knocking them back while Harlowe layers them in force field bindings. Fiona decides to dehydrate the men and suggests that Harvey and Harlowe put on their armor as a disguise when they hear a voice come over their radios asking their locations. Harlowe takes over the radio and fast-talks the person on the other end while Hamilton dons a guard uniform.

Harlowe tells Fiona to go limp as he dons the uniform quickly and drags her behind them. The guard asks what’s going on with the elevator as Harlowe tells him that some party goer found their way down, couldn’t even take a hit from an asp baton. The soldier tells Harlowe to drop the party goer by the machinery, looking at the giant machines with a chest full of processed orichalcum. Harlowe suggests one of the curious soldiers checks Fiona for a cell phone, one being really really eager to do it only for him to suffer dehydration and passes out as he checks Fiona’s body. Harlowe moves to help another solider move the dehydrated one, places his hand on his shoulder and freezes him in place before moving down, distracting another soldier and binding him with force fields.

He moves back towards the helpless ones, calling down the hallway to get some help from the soldier stationed at the doorway to change out the guards as these ones fell victim to the side effects. Fiona slips around the corner of the machinery, grabbing some of the orichalcum from the chest and speaks to one of the scientists that ask if they’re there to rescue them. They’re in a secondary secret collider, meant to generate a new type of energy and it was supposed to be a test run but after they put in a new package, they turned it on full bore and they can’t turn it off as something in the machinery broke.

As the soldiers coming to help Harlowe and Hamilton, seeing the men laying down on the job. They decide to get their help to move the soldiers, Harlowe clapping one of them on the back and getting bound while Hamilton distracts the other with a really racist story about a night in Cartagena. With opponents down, the rest are waved into place while Harlowe reinforces the door the last two soldiers were guarding with a good amount of force fields as Harvey gets filled in with what Fiona was told.

Looking over the side, they see a mechanism on one of the sides, broken emitter lenses causing the beam to go crazy instead of straight. There’s no way to shut it off without it going wild and causing an explosion. Hamilton reads the chest with his powers, figuring that they’re planning on using the collider to release enough energy to cause a chain reaction that turns the orichalcum into orichalcum that is heavily soaked with kyberic energy. A sudden pulse of kyberic energy comes off the device, knocking Harvey off his feet and knocks him out where Warren catches him before Warren and Ray move to climb down, hoping that sticking to the wall will get them close enough. Ray doesn’t get far before he gets woozy and starts dropping and has to go back up.

Warren continues down, his clothing singes off as he gets close and being too close to the emitter causes him to lose a pinkie. Harlowe asks how many it’d take to keep things running, and then orders the rest to get into the hallway for defense before he sets up forcefields to keep everyone else out. Warren climbs up, tells them that he can’t get the emitter off but that there’s an emergency shutoff switch that they require someone holds it down as the emergency catch is broken and it will take a lot of strength to keep it held.

Aftermath

Warren climbs back down with Carol who was visibly weeping, shielding him from the worst of the temperature problems but it’s still painful as Harlowe covers the overloading reactor with forcefields as he watches Warren disintegrate and Carol burn brighter than the sun. Harlowe continues to layer his forcefields as the explosion takes out a large amount of the tunnels below the LHC. Carol and Warren are gone as Harlowe is blown backwards.

After Action Report (GM)

And that’s it. Twenty-six episodes later and several months later season 1 for the C3-Team is done. It was too short. Felt a little on the rails. But I liked the ending. It made sense. Even Harvey passed out who might have been able to save Warren and Carol and that to me sealed the deal. Things happened the way they were always going to happen the way they were supposed to happen. I admit I’m a little teary-eyed at Warren’s death – he was a great NPC and funny as hell at times even if I do say so myself. Was he fridged then you wonder? Yeah, a little bit. But Carol joining in at the end was pure adlib and maybe there was something between them – or could have been – and it makes me think. The lives of NPCs when not being near PCs is something I often think about. How do they live? Who do they talk to? What do they do? The secret lives of nonplayer characters can offer a lot of depth if done right and shared right. Ah well. Time to get everyone updated and then start the final plotz of AEON’s current trip on the wheel.

Other Notes

None.

Soundtrack

“Solsbury Hill” by Peter Gabriel
“When Things Explode” by Unkle
“Where Are You Going” by Dave Matthews Band