Dramatis Personae

• 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. Arrogant and overconfident. Power: Telepathy. Tagline: “Of course I’m right. I’m smarter than you.”
• 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 (almost 6′) and big. Powers: Hyper-Strength and Technopathy. Tagline: “Oh. What does this button do?”

Previously . . .

It’s been two years since that week at the summer camp and things have changed. Harlowe’s grandfather, Ulrich Rosenkrantz, is far more perceptive and able to easily suss out that he had acquired powers and took it upon himself to train the group. What the group knows about Ulrich is that he was a Jew rescued from a WWII concentration camp that became a part of the Allies’ attacks. He’s very old, but has a lot of vitality and keeps up with the group as needed. The group was given a lot of physical conditioning and combat training alongside strength and agility training outside of their school hours. The group has been basically adopted into the Rosenkrantz/Hobbs’ family.

Harvey had grown quite a bit smarter with his accelerated learning ability and been inventing gadgets so his kyberic energy detector is built as a pair of goggles that can sense where someone has used powers and track them. He’s able to also learn things about physical objects among other things. Harvey has also learned more about the US Criminal law and has decided to try to follow it alongside learning more and more medical skills, some machinist skills for helping build his gadgets.

Benjamin has been trained by Ulrich as well, learning various combat and physical skills, some researching and scientific writing to go along with his more skills. His geokinesis abilities are far more pronounced, allowing for him to use his geokinesis at ranges as well as binding his enemies in quicksand as well as sensing vibrations through the ground.

Fiona has been coming into her own, coming into her own, playing a lot of basketball and swimming and breaking some records. Coming into some family wealth and quite a bit of less sleep. She’s also learned how to drain the fluids from a person as well as use nearby grit to create a water saw/knife. She’s also picked up some abilities to become one with a body of water as well as exhibit several attributes similar to water including the defensive abilities. She has also dyed her hair blue.

Harlowe has been trained quite a bit moreso than the rest, his lineage showing up and blossoming. His body has become stronger and tougher, his mind sharper and more able to detect patterns while he’s also gained several additional abilities involving force fields including a shield he can use. His military skills have also advanced alongside his physical skills and he’s picked up some knowhow to keep up with the hard science nerds.

Jamie has the ability to detect, down to the nanosecond, the passage of time as well as a different sense of time and reacting to things as well as determine the best outcome that he wishes to have happen and assist them. However when he uses his powers he becomes unstuck in time and space, getting sick and hearing and seeing things that are somewhat unreal. His mathematical skills have definitely improved

Lynn has become higher status and an heir to her family’s fortune. Her telepathy has improved, though she has to be able to touch the person to detect emotions and thoughts as well as find known minds and high jack their mental perceptions as well as a mind link with the rest of the group. Her powers have made a large impact on her personality though, causing her to be withdrawn if she can’t get enough privacy as she constantly hears people’s thoughts as a form of a dull roar.

Tabitha has really improved her mundane capabilities, though she’s shown several powers. One of which was Hyper-Intelligence in the form of mechanical aptitude. Her other ability is to detect Kyberic Energy Flows in far less resolution than what Harvey’s googles can work with. She can also call in other powers at random, she knows how to use them but cannot control what she can unless she meditates for an hour beforehand to try to get the one she wants. She’s also picked up a lot of scientific and musical skills, including some guitar playing and singing alongside basketball and Mexican Cuisine.

Warren also has two powers: Hyper-Strength and Technopathy. His hyper-strength makes Warren really strong and tough. His technopathy abilities allows for him to take over technology as well as build it really quickly. He was also taught how to box as Ulrich is trying to teach him how to control his strength through his ability to strike. He enjoys digital photography as opposed to Fiona enjoying the more analog wet plate process.

The group was brought in from the summer camp to the Meraki Institute for the Gifted over the past two years, living at the dorms there when offered and working alongside Ulrich during the mornings, evenings, and weekends at his café, Breakfast at Epiphanies, as well as his boxing gym down the street.

Fire! Fire! Fire!

Benjamin, Fiona, Harlowe, and Harvey
Meraki Institute for the Gifted
Monday, September 23rd, 2002 0830 hours
605 E 9th St, New York, NY 10009

The Meraki Institute for the Gifted consists of five floors aboveground, one of which has the offices, gym, and cafeteria all on a single floor. Several floors of dorms and classrooms, and goodness knows what in the basement. There’s a public park across the street as well that the group can use. There’s plenty of guest lecturers that come by for a week, they learn from them and the teachers move on while some teachers stay for a semester and then move on. They make certain that the kids learn what they need to and more.

Everyone is in the middle of a home room class during a September Monday, waiting for the teacher to come in. Class is waiting for things to happen as Harlowe and Fiona discuss the healthfulness of kale and its detrimental impact on rabbits. Everything is going fine and great until they hear the fire alarm and they can smell smoke coming from just down the hall, from the bathroom. Fiona runs down the hallway while Harvey grabs his backpack and asks why there’d be a fire in the bathroom. Harlowe shakes his head, grabs a fire extinguisher and follows the rest of the group down the hallway.

The smoke is coming from the girl’s bathroom which Fiona kicks the door open where several of the kids, Benjamin, Harlowe, Tabbs, and Warren, see what looks like a face in the fire for a flash of a second. Entering into the bathroom, there’s a lot smoke and an odd smell like burning plastic. Fiona notices that the sprinkler heads are melted and uses her hydrokinesis to force water through them causing the flames to die down while the smoke dissipates. It looks like a wall is melting as Harlowe pulls the trigger on the fire extinguish and they can hear the fire scream, vaguely like a high pitched animal like someone was playing a voice through a tape recorder at high speeds. Hearing the scream, Harvey pulls his goggles out and uses them, determining that it’s definitely powers related and can detect the energy manipulation while one of the fires that screamed seemed almost animate under his goggles before it died leaving no trail to track.

Fiona checks to make sure that there’s no one else in the bathroom, and there’s no one there. Fiona wonders when an adult will come as firemen come rushing down the hallway and the group decides that discretion is the better part of valour and moves out of their way. Outside the bathroom, Harvey sees a trail of energy floating downstairs which the group tries to follow until a fireman corrals them away and towards a faster exit.

Fiona drains the firefighter of liquids causing him to feel faint and having to sit down while they run away, though Harvey has his misgivings about it and leads the group outside instead. Fiona saying that she’s worried about there being more fires started inside. They’re still going to be waiting outside for the firemen to clear the building, while they’re out of school for about an hour, hour and a half. Harvey walks the perimeter of the building for more energy signatures.

Aftermath

Once they’re out of school for a break, they investigate the stairwell again seeing a smudged footprint that’s small and not like the firemen along with a bit of melted rubber like from a shoe sole heading down the stairs. Everything is energy reactive to his goggles as they see a trail going down the stairs and outside towards the back of the school where it stops near a garden hose and inspects it. Whoever was there was literally on fire, where the hose was melted slightly and pointed the hose at themselves. There’s soot on the ground and the grass is charred. It definitely smells like something is burnt out there.

Benjamin summarizes that there was someone unhurt and on fire and comments that someone may have manifested fire abilities accidentally and attempted to put themselves out, there were nine students missing from the role call during the fire, so as far as they can tell there were no students unaccounted for. It’s a fairly average shoe size it seems. Harlowe asks the obvious question as to where the nearest dumpsters are and checks them for discarded clothing, finding stylish but now charred clothes.

They still have lunch to go, Fiona suggests looking to the cafeteria while Harlowe investigates the fire escape to see if it was possible for someone to climb up it to get into the dorms rather than go through the school again.

After Action Report (GM)

As always when skipping a time period it takes a while to set everything up again and get the players moving. This was a good first session and the PCs seemed to be have fun. I introduced the setting as it stands now and a bit of mystery which they instantly latched onto. Christopher as usual did all the right things as he put together some clues I wasn’t ready to have quite so coherent yet. Harvey’s kyberic energy detector googles seem to be pretty useful so far even if he’s essentially inventing his own terms as powers are not a known thing right now.

Overall, really good game. Wish it had been longer, but that’s my fault.

Other Notes

Had to stop about half way through due to me being needed elsewhere.

Soundtrack

“Girl on Fire” by Alicia Keys
“Burnin’ For You” by Blue Oyster Cult
“Listen Before I Go” by Billie Eilish