>>18726973

Or, How do I get out of this chickenshit outfit?

>Previous Threads:
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive.html?tags=Metahuman%20Renaissance%20Quest

PREVIOUSLY, ON METAHUMAN RENAISSANCE:
Dan did some research on the matter of Anna's ritual, before concluding that he probably wasn't going to figure out exactly what she's trying to do, since it had to be pretty off-the-wall, but tried to hedge his bets anyway. After talking with Ashwood, who is down at the museum, Dan decided to talk with Miles, the necromancer, to discuss Anna's museum heist. While not getting anything definite, he did get some more leads to track down before leaving the police station, when he got a message from Roxy. After talking to her, Dan discovers the Evokers are waiting back at campus to discuss something with him.

And to answer a poster's question from previous thread, Miles is about as strong, magically speaking, as Dan is. He's pretty good at a couple schools of magic, but that's it.

Also, since I can see what you're thinking about anyway, I'd like to point out that Miles is also contained inside an anti-magic circuit in his cell.

And Anna has an If/Then on her bending space you guys don't know about.

>>18727081

You stand at the monorail station, read to get on the line back to the Campus station.

The real question is, what are you going to do when you get there? The museum is there, if you want to talk to Ashwood directly, but maybe its better to just phone him the information you have. You could also check in with Blackstone, see where he's at with his problem, and see if he knows where detectives Howard and Philips are. The Evokers, of course, want to see you. Or you could forget all those people, and go see Jeanne in the Hospital.

>What do?

>>18727150
Call Ashwood while heading back to campus and discuss things.
At campus, check in with the Evokers.
Next priority is heading to see Jeanne, and maybe sending Blackstone a message. We don't have to meet him in person.

>>18727113
>I can see what you're thinking about
Oh shit, you can? Please don't tell anybody about that thing I was just thinking, I beg you.

>>18727169
Sounds good.

>>18727169

You call Ashwood on the way back. "News, Fortesque?" It's only been like half an hour since you talked to him, to pleasantries would be pushing it. "Anna didn't tell her accomplices anything, but Miles reckons she was at least having a gander at other items while he was distracting. If you can, check the background for the Norse stuff, those Jade Tablets, and the Dragon Statue." You say. Ashwood makes an affirmative sound. "As soon as I can. I think they're about done with the full inventory, but I should help anyway. As soon as I put back these notes on the Minoan objects." "They any help?" "Don't think so. But I can't read Linear A." You exchange goodbyes, and hang up.

You arrive at Campus, and realize you don't really know where the Evokers are. But since there are five of them, plus Naomi, you have a good solid guess, and head to the room set aside for their club meetings. You enter the now familiar room, and are greeted by the Evokers, who all kind of stop whatever they were doing, and look up at you. Huan and Summanus actually stand up from their chairs. Like Roxy said, they seem kind of, anxious. Reserved. None of them say anything, and the room kind of gets awkward.

>What say?

>>18727393
Hi!

>>18727407

"Uh, hi guys." You say. "You wanted to talk to me?" Summanus clears his throat. "Yes, Dan. We... that is to say... err." He stumbles. Anya swoops in to save him. "Dan, you're a cool guy, and all, but given Jeanne's recent hospitalization, we're reconsidering actively helping you." "Oh?" You say, more surprised than anything else, honestly. Huan speaks. "It has become clear to us that alone, we are not a good match for Anna, and it is unlikely that we will all be able to fight her at once. And some of us are not combatants." You nod slowly. Seems only fair. Their help was nice, but you can't really expect people to endanger themselves for you. That's what you're for. Anya jumps back in. "We just don't have the right balance of skills. Jeanne's as skilled an evocator as you can get at her age, but she's not a martial artist. And Huan's well trained, but Anna has too many tricks up her sleeves." "It's alright guys, I understand." You say. "I never wanted you guys to put yourselves in danger on my behalf anyway. If you guys feel that you're safer and better off doing your own thing, do it." There's almost a collective sigh of relief. "What are you guys gonna do now?" You ask. "Go home," Sunshine says. "Call some people, get our things in order." Summanus speaks up again. "If we can help when the time comes, we will, but right now we're only likely to get ourselves injured, or get in you or the Police's way."

rolled 8, 2, 3 = 13

>>18727667

"Sounds good to me. Forgive me for unintentionally drafting you guys. Do me a favor and keep an eye out though, will ya?"

Time to flash some Dan suave and make things less awkward, lol.

>>18727667
"Look after Jeanne for me"
I guess that means that plan where Sunshine seduces Anna is off the table, huh?

>>18727821

That plan was never on the table.

>>18727828
I snuck it on there when you were looking the other way. It's hidden under the plate of snacks.

>>18727756
>>18727821

"Fine with me," you say, sounding a little relieved yourself. "Sorry I kind of drafted you all into this." Summanus shakes his head. "No, Dan, we volunteered. We just didn't realize we were still in over our heads." "We're all in over our heads." You admit. You look at them all, and decide to shake hands with each of them. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's been a pleasure working with you, and I hope I have the opportunity in the future. Call me if you see or hear anything that might be important." After getting a couple handshakes in, you say, "Oh, and look out for Jeanne for me, guys?" Anya nods at you. "I'm going back to the hospital. The police kind of accidentally gave me permission to act as supplementary guard on her room." "Your parents wont mind?" "Nah, I'm just going to tell them I'm crashing with friends. They wont mind." You nod slowly, and shake Anya's hand as well. Naomi steps up to you. "I'll admit I also don't have the skills to stop this girl, but I told my brother I'd look out for you like he would, so I can watch your back for a while longer." You smile and shake her hand. "Well, good to have you on the team, I guess."

>What now?

rolled 10, 7, 9 = 26

>>18727667
>>18727828

Alright, so in light of this, what else can we do to prepare?

I know we should probably limit our contact with Gespenst, but I feel like at this point, we should ask him for any general pointers.

After all, he's had the most experience with magical apocalypse scenarios (being that he was probably directly responsible for a few of them himself, hehe), and can probably offer us some general tips. Also, he's a freaking fun character and I love his input.

The Ashwoods may not like it, but I'm sure they'd understand our reasoning.

>>18727982

>Alright, so in light of this, what else can we do to prepare?

Well, Blackstone was still working on some stuff, and it's been like an hour and a half since you talked to him last.

Or you could do like you said and call Ashwood and see about talking to the skull, I guess.

rolled 3, 8, 2 = 13

>>18728088

Ring Blackstone first, and see what he has to say.

Ashwood next.

>>18728347

The Evokers all depart, leaving you with Naomi, standing in a hallway in the Parapsychology building. You pull out your phone, and decide to call Blackstone, and check up with him. He answers the phone quickly. "Daniel, just who I wanted to talk to." He sounds kind of chipper. "Err, hello, Professor. I take it your work has gone well?" "Yes, yes it has. Sadly, out-right prevention of Anna's bridging ritual is out. I simply don't have the time to assemble a proper shielding ward over such an area. I could do, like a room, but I doubt by the time we've actually found the right room I'll have much opportunity to do it. If I had a legion of Seekers, maybe, but they don't always answer my phone calls." He jokes. "You're digressing, professor." You say, calmly. "Right, right. Anyway, while prevention is impossible, I can level the playing field a little. And this means I've got a job for you, if you can spare the time. Meet me out on the lawn in front of Parapsychology." He ends the call.

rolled 10, 2, 6 = 18

>>18728531

Hop to it.

Sounds likes he's got something solid.

>>18728588

You quickly exit the building, and find Blackstone standing outside, carrying a bundle of long metal rods over one shoulder. They're capped with what looks like a lamp or tiki-torch style thing, except they have big pinkish-white crystals.

"Heya, boss." You say, by greeting. "Alice." He says to you, tipping his hat. Then he sticks a hand out to Naomi. "Miss Naomi, I don't think we've had a chance to meet yet. Professor Blackstone." They shake. "What's with the rods?" You ask. "Well, you mentioned that in the museum with Anna, she summoned up some servitor creatures. Local extraterrestrials or weak outsider servants, sounds like. Well, I was thinking that if tonight, we have to move fast to get close enough to stop her ritual, more such summoned creatures would be rather annoying. Don't you agree?" You cock an eyebrow. "Well, I hadn't really thought of that before, but yes, that would kind of suck." He nods, and pats the rods. "Which is where these babies come in. I whipped up a little Anti-Summoning Array." "And I come in where?" You ask. "Well, I only have a dozen here. And I'll need 24. Plus the control rod. So, for the sake of expediency, I'd like you to go set these up to form a general ring around campus, while I go back to my workshop and make more."

>You in?

>>18728870
Of course we're in.
I'm assuming that this anti-summoning array is not a thing which is available with enough power to just stop Red Star being summoned. Because that would be kind of useful.

rolled 3, 9, 4 = 16

>>18728870

"Aye aye."

Move out at double-speed; use air parkour for sweet speed bonuses too!

rolled 3, 4, 9 = 16

>>18728944

Seems like it'll just keep the annoyances of smaller minions popping up, which is still fine for me.

>>18729032
>>18728944

"Yeah, okay, I'm in." You say. "Good." Blackstone responds. "I was afraid I was going to have to find some poor intern or grad student to do this for me." He passes you the bundle. "Okay, two rules. One, each rod has to be in line of sight of at least one other rod. Well, technically two rods, but you worry about one, you'll get the second when you place the next rod. Next, try and get the widest diameter possible around campus you can, following that first rule. The cordon will work only inward. The instant you're past the invisible line, summoning comes back. On the plus side, anyone entering the area with summoned creatures will be cut off with them, so that's a plus." You take the bundle, and sling it over one shoulder, making sure to be careful with the crystals. "Don't suppose this would stop the summoning of the Red Star anyway?" "No, sadly. That's a different, more specialized magic." He pauses and gestures upward, toward the afternoon sky. "Also, from what I understand, the actual magic happens up there in the sky somewhere. This think mostly hugs ground level. Makes a kind of dome, I think, actually. But its only as high as the posts themselves at the edge." You nod at him. "Alright." "So, place those twelve then meet me back here, and I'll have the rest, and you can go set them." Blackstone departs.

>Anything you want to do to make this go quicker, or are you just going to take your time and do this conventionally?

rolled 10, 8, 8 = 26

>>18729204

Would that mean placing the rods on top of campus buildings would cover a greater area underneath?

We should ask Blackstone about this.

>>18729410

But it means a narrower zone of no summoning. He's telling you to set them up at the farthest limits of campus you can, so the largest area of it is covered. The larger the diameter, the bigger the bubble of protection becomes.

>>18729459
If the range is LOS we should launch them into space and surround the whole planet. Get Roxy to build a load of rockets, quick!

>>18729493

You lack sufficient rods to ENCIRCLE THE EARTH

>>18729568
What. We only need three of them.
I thought there would be problems like "Roxy cannot launch rods into finely crafted orbits from nothing in a few hours" or "that would piss off everyone else on the planet who's legitimately trying to summon stuff on the equinox and is probably illegal", but I wasn't expecting that one.

>>18729683

Magic. It needs to be a circle. No triangles. Triangles are not magical.

Also, that other stuff was assumed. I mean, seriously, that's just obvious. As is the problem that you have no idea if these rods can survive just hanging out in space. Unshielded, exposed to cosmic radiation.

>>18729817
We will invent Triangle Mancy!
But yeah seriously we should just set them up around campus. Maybe on top of small objects/lamp posts if we can.

>>18729817
But you can't make a circle with points. Points are joined together with straight lines. 3 points is actually enough to describe a unique circle if you know you're making a circle. How many points do you need before magic goes "that looks kind of like a circle I guess?" However many it is, if we have enough rods to do it on the ground, we have enough rods to do it in space - just the same thing but bigger.
Whatever, let's stop arguing about an idea that won't work anyway and just put these rods around campus with parkour, which is unfortunately not quite as awesome as rockets but will have to do.

>>18729987

My own fault really. I say something simple, put the rods in a circle-like formation around campus, and /tg/ is like "Can I launch them into space and encircle the world."

And of course, you guys are serious. And you can't see my ಠ_ಠ face through the internet.

Also, to continue my train of negativity, Parkour without stuff to parkour with is just running down sidewalks and over lawns. Is your intent to just spring around campus and set the rods, then?

>>18730106
Will it expend a noticeable amount of energy, compared to strolling about?
As long as we're not magicing around using air evocation, we should be fine.

>>18730135

I'm going to make a body+endurance roll for Dan if you run around, and if you don't do well enough, you won't save any time doing it.

>>18730106
>Anything you want to do to make this go quicker or are you just going to take your time and do this conventionally?
>With "solve it with magic parkour" image
I thought you were hinting at parkour fairly strongly which naturally led me to believe there was stuff to parkour on. Come on, we can't just WALK. Walking is boring and for chumps.

>>18730159
Well, nothing to lose their.

But does anyone think we should do the Air Evocation thing in addition? Save some extra time, but honestly there's not a huge time limit and we have to wait for Blackstone to finish the other ones once we get back anyway.

>>18730163
>>18730135

(2x8 and 2x6 on Endurance)

You go about the business of setting the rods, sprinting when needed, moving quickly through crowds. If anyone objects or is startled, you just say "Professor's orders!" and go about your business. Luckily you've gotten practice at running with short bursts of speed. It takes you a while, simply because of the ground you have to cover, but you do manage to get each rod set in place properly, and configured the right way. Halfway through you get a text from Roxy, who says she's refit the tool mounts on the Hammer, and they're going to set about working on the electric power plant for the system, as soon as Johnny gets back from running his copy to the school paper.

(cont)

>>18730369

You wrap up the rod business, and arrive back in front of the Parapsychology building almost exactly at 6 o' clock. Blackstone comes out a moment later with another bundle of rods, which he hands you. "Okay, call me when all the rods are in place. I'll activate my master control rod, and then the system will be in place. As long as the rod, and by extension, I, am inside the radius of the field, it will keep working." You take the bundle, and say "Couldn't we have set this for a longer range? Like around the city? Or around the entire earth?" Blackstone looks at you funny, and scratches his chin. "Err, maybe. But do you have four hours to go around the city? Also, I built them, y'know to see each other. It's magic. It's not like radio waves or laser beams. Magic." "Right..." You say. If Blackstone designed them with encircling campus in mind, then that's the only thing they're 100& guaranteed to do. "Also, don't know about the space thing." Says Blackstone, after a second or two. "Magic can be funny outside of the boundaries of the Earth. Or maybe just wizards get funny outside of earth, which would be like the magic getting funny."

>>18730388
Okay, get back to setting up the other ones, and then call blackstone.

>>18730106
Ok what if
Guys what if
Are you listening guys
What if
We got Anna and Red star to help throw the rods out of this dimension and surround the entire universe so summoning stops working completely everywhere for ever. You know what they call somebody who changes the rules of the universe like that? A god. We could fight Red Star on even terms if we were a god.
Nothing could possibly go wrong.

>>18730528
>getting red star
>to help us ascend
>by stopping all summonings

Nothing wrong there, Parkour!Anon.

>>18730528

>assuming there is a "place" outside of the universe to surround. that isn't just more universes.

>>18730574
I'm not ParkourAnon, but I'm glad you agree.

>>18730599
Well we could put them in the universes next to our universe if we had to I guess. They'd be more vulnerable though. And we'd need permanent little portals to give them LOS, which from what you've said would take incomprehensibly large amounts of energy. That's not really a BIG problem though, is it? Every plan's bound to run into a couple of hiccups.

>>18730388
BACK TO RUNNING.

>>18731157
>>18730388

(Insufficient height to pass check with a 2x4 and 3x1)

You make your way around campus at a decent clip to set the remainder of the rods. You're more relaxed this time around since you've done this before, but unfortunately any time made up in your movement is spent when you make slip ups with being cautious setting the rods, setting them in the ground improperly, dropping them, or forgetting to spot at least one, and having to go back.

You report back to Blackstone at about six-thirty, and tell him the rods are all set. He nods, and produces slightly thicker, but shorter rod. The crystal in this one is much more red than the others, and arcane symbols are scratched up and down it. "Alright, now that they're in place, I can do the spell, and so long as me and the rod are here, we're all set." He turns around and does magic things with the rod, which involves lots of muttering and finger waggling. And you feel a strange buzz, like static on a TV, on the edges of your mystical perception. You presume that means it worked. Blackstone sticks out a hand. "Thanks for the assist, kid. Would have taken me way longer if I had to do the work all by myself." You shake his hand. "No problem, professor."

>>18731500
Let's make sure our arm thingies for our pacts aren't disrupted by being in this area.

>>18731560

You check your wrist and upper arm. The blue-white bands of power which only you can see pulse there, as normal. Maybe a little blurry around the edges, but still there. They also remain the normal color, so you guess everything is relatively okay.

>>18732409
Okay, so check back in with Ashwood?
It's been around an hour, right?
And we might want to head to see Jeanne, right?

>>18732409
Well, that's good. Ask the prof if he knows enough about feng shui to point out some magical hotspots on campus/throughout the city using Google Maps. Those would be good places to search-and-find-her-at-the-last-one-in-the-final-hour.

>>18731500
"No Problem, Prof, it was easy thanks to Parkour. Have you ever considered doing parkour? It's a great way to stay healthy and no offense but your waist is looking a bit flabby."

>>18732506
Do not say this. Ever.
It has none of the suave. None of it.

>>18732506
Antivote this.

>>18732533
>>18732520
you don't have to samefag just because you disagree. i can take a hint ;_;

>>18732506
Nice one, ParkourAnon.

>>18732506
I lol'd. Have another version.
"No problem Prof, but it would have been easier with rockets. Have you ever considered building rockets? It's a great way to keep the mind working and no offense but you're getting a bit old."

>>18732441

Calling Ashwood presents no problem. But it's about 6:30 in the late afternoon/early evening (It's early summer though, so the sun wont set until around 8), and I don't know a whole lot about hospitals, but I suspect that that might be past conventional visiting hours. Thus presenting a challenge to get in.

You can still head there though, and try and see her in person anyway.

>>18732506

Also, this would have kind of been a lie, since running and jumping actually slowed you down on that last check. Or rather, it cost you the time you saved by moving faster.

Since interest has apparently petered out tonight, and it's already late, we're going to call it early, rather than have me start some new story thread only to just cut it off. I have no good cliffhangers for this particular moment.

There will be no thread Tuesday. However, on the flipside, there shall be one on Thursday. In fact, I might switch it so there is always no thread on tuesday, and we go to thursday. At least for these last three weeks of semester.