THIS QUEST IS NEWBIE FRIENDLY

This plot summary:

>ironmaster.wikia.com/wiki/Plot_Summary

Should tell you all you need to know to jump in and start playing immediately. The quest runs daily at 14:00 and I also have a twitter account (IronMaster, @MCJohnnyQuest) that I toss an update to whenever the quest runs, since my schedule is sometimes hectic and I can't always be there. Note that I have never used Twitter before and have no idea how it works, so if I'm doing something wrong, please inform me.

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 4 (12)

Athletics: 2
Cunning: 3
Technology: 4
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost Whisperer, Deathless

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/cVXaZb4x

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 0/2
Julio Pedone: 0/3
Rica Rivera: 0/2
Red Death: 0/2

Resources: 9
XP: 4

When last we left off, you were speaking to a telepathic hivemind alien that has narrowly escaped the destruction of its home world at the hands of mysterious more different aliens who attack worlds where super powers are becoming more common. Apparently this event, referred to by your new alien hivemind buddy Eidelos as the Quickening, is coming soon to Earth and, thus, the alien invasion is likely not far behind.

Plus, Chimera's pissing in your cheerios.

>>21297763
Okay, So we are trying to get kestral to have team blue weaken Chimera. On the grounds that with all the damage that chimera inflicted on us, plus our recent expansion, and the need to watch our backs against the family, and maybe help out the Damio there is no way that we can expand fast enough to prevent the cops from reestablishing a bunch of precincts in long beach, giving team blue much needed cash and protecting the citizenry. Plus, we aren't the ones shooting missiles at the city.

So what are you going to do with Eidelos and the random hobo they're currently fused with?

File: 1351276276306.jpg-(1.45 MB, 1600x1162, Villain Quest Gang Map 3.jpg)

Oh, also, our map. It is presently outdated, as the Iron Guard has since seized the areas shown as under the control of the Hounds and Stalkers (and the Ronin have a tiny slice of that, too).

>>21297987
I think the plan was barrels of monkeys for Eidelos (at least until we get cloning have the bad doctors look into that) as for the random hobo, he's probably better off.

Question, last thread you said that we didn't have a bruiser set available to attack with but I don't see how that is the case:
We attacked first with the Lunatic hounds and steel guard hit the 1st agressors, then attacked 1st logistics with the silver guard. Then we formed the Radical guard and attacked the weakened 2nd agressors. But that left the Quicksilver Guard on Catalnia completely intact and unused. Chimera can attack Catalnia with their sets, can't the quicksilver attack too?

>>21298146

Oh, yes, I just forgot about them.

This is why I'd really prefer if you would tell me which sets are attacking where instead of giving vague statements like "now we attack Chimera."

>>21298057

Probably, but he's in the middle of your lab. Are you just going to let him walk out, or what?

>>21298315
Invight him to be our guest, on the grounds that chimera would do all sorts of nasty Things to the guy to get its tech.
>>21298178
Fair enough.

I am aware this is taking forever. Every gang is fighting all-out war, lots of die rolls, recalculating incomes, etc. etc.

>>21298920
The Family made a move? that can't be good.

>>21298375

Alright. You are now playing host to a crazy hobo symbiotically fused to an alien with superpowers. I think this will end well.

The glass turns yet again. The LAPD have actually been concentrating most of their resources on Chimera already, but it's really not doing much. They have no precincts to work with, their income is shot which means they can currently afford to maintain exactly one SWAT team. They also put most of their spare funds into repairing damage to SWAT Heat, since they don't regenerate that naturally like set Morale does. Team Blue is seriously on its last legs, but that one SWAT team can lend a little bit of punch and hit the Second Aggressors, so they go ahead and make a few raids in Long Beach proper and refound the precinct in the currently vacant Santa Ana, which hopefully Chimera will be too preoccupied to do anything about. The Second Aggressors are nearly destroyed by the SWAT raids, so there's that.

Running slim on cash, the Ronin refound the Bushido Ashigaru in Chinatown, shuffle the Samurai Ichi from Palms on Westside over to Exposition Park (yes, this is a real place) in Downtown, and redouble their attack on the Santos Espada, using their Shinobi and the Samurai Ichi together to destroy the Verdugos Segundo, and thus crippling the Santos Espada's capabilities for heavy attack, before having their two Ashigaru sets attack the exposed Cincuenta Segundos worker set.

It's beginning to look like the Ronin might have managed to seize the upper hand in the conflict when the Family steps in. They send a message your way explaining that they don't plan to pick a fight with you, but they can't let such a golden opportunity to seize more turf just slide by. It's nothing personal, just business. They bring down the Samurai Roku and the Ashigaru Roku, leaving the Ronin almost completely cleared from Santa Monica and Downtown half-empty.

The Santos Espada are, of course, only too happy to continue battering the Ronin away, patching up some of their damaged sets and then striking at what's left of their most hated enemy. The Terceros Calle bring down the Ashigaru Hachi, and then the Angeles Sangrientos finish off the Samurai Roku. The Noveno attack the Shinobi, but the set barely manages to cling to life.

The Chimera bomber attacks again, this time devastating the Carbon Legion all the way up in Santa Monica. Chimera then bolsters their Second Aggressor Division, and both them and the Garrison Division attack. The good news is that no sets get refounded. The bad news is that Chimera has apparently finished Project Beachhead, large, four-legged, tank-like mechs moving into your territory to attack, lending significant punch to Chimera's weakened sets. They're only around a few minutes before the city's last remaining SWAT team paints them for Air Force to fighters to hit with tank buster missiles, which bring them down just as effectively as your more regular tanks, but the damage is done. The Steel Guard and the Platinum Legion drop under the attacks. Fortunately your Droids Do in Playa Del Ray is unharmed; looks like Chimera doesn't know you run that.

Thanks to Chimera's shenanigans, the odds that the National Guard will move into the city on the LAPD's next turn (which comes immediately after yours) is something like 70-80%, so keep that in mind this turn.

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 2/2
Red Death: 2/2

Resources: 23
XP: 4

Okay, that's all taken care of. First week of June. Fun fact; Kestrel's birthday is next week. Happy birthday, Kestrel! We got you martial law!

>>21299052
So, wait, so Amp, Kestral, and Behemoth did nothing? Most of Team Blue's offensive capability is bound up in its remaining heroes

Whispers has been sending out increasingly panicked (for Whisper) texts stating that he believes someone has finally discovered a trial leading to his identity. He isn't sure how, but this person appears to be unfriendly and Whisper might not some sort of shelter in the immediate future, as it would seem secrecy has finally failed him.

>>21299071
Okay, so the plan this turn is to wipe chimera, then get everyone to agree to stop shooting, (and to announce a press release to that effect) so that the City doesn't call in the national guard.

>>21299095

Kestrel, Amp, and Behemoth attacking Chimera is business as usual. Yes, it happened, but I've been doing it literally every turn since like April. But, yes, that also happened.

>>21299141
Kronos or Asreal probably.
Okay, Rica leads the Radical Guard to attack the 2nd aggressors. Once we see how much damage that does we know which set to send in next.

>>21299190
Oh, okay, it just seemed like Amp was really effective when he was cracking down on us. I'm pretty sure that he one-shotted one of our bruisers once.

>>21299278

The TNs for these things are determined by the set's warfare stat, and Chimera has a lot of tricks (Photon weapons and walker-tanks and etc.) that boost their warfare into the stratosphere.

>>21299231

The Second Aggressors are finally defeated by the attack. The set ends up taking some damage from the walkers, each of which has a pair of machineguns slung under its belly, and even Aegis armor can't stand up against machinegun fire all that great, but in the end the Second Aggressors just don't have the numbers to resist anymore, and they evacuate Long Beach proper. It would appear as though they're preparing to vacate the city entirely.

>>21299397
...Chimera decided that they are going to lose, and are deliberately calling down the national guard on our head. Dicks. Still we've got a plan to stop that, time to play it through. Rica leads the lunatic hounds to wipe the garrison. They're footmen, they won't last long.

>>21299486

The Garrison Division gets crushed by the Lunatics, though their heavy reliance on drivebys and pipe bombs leaves a lot of collateral damage behind in Wilmington. All that's left of Chimera now is their Second Logistics Division in Westminster.

>>21299538
... wait a second, How did we not find the stealth aircraft at one of the sets we wiped out? Was it seriously hiding in the second logistics? Oh and I'm tempted to call (or more accurately have red death call (he has the cunning and insight) the mayor and basically tell him that if they finish off 2nd logistics we'll ensure that the other gangs stop shooting at each other.

>>21299639

Your tactics for attacking sets are pretty similar across all fights. Thus, it's not hard to figure out which set to stick something in if you want to stop it from being found as long as possible.

>>21299717
as far as martial law goes is there any thing we can do to be noticed less /hidden better ?

we got alien teck to learn now lets spent that xp and resources to take our Technology skill up to 5

>>21299717
True enough, punch through the shielding sets and target the enemies economy. Still impressive that they managed to read us so well. (I would have put it in the garrison division, on the grounds that it was shielded and we would probably ignore them, since they are basically the odd set out.) Lets use whisper to set up a meeting of Us, the Family, the Ronin and the Santos Espada. Item on the agenda: Stop shooting at each other so that the City doesn't call in the national guard because of Chimera's shenanigans and ruin everyone's day. We should warn the Damio ahead of time that there will probably be some territorial adjustments, but that if we can get a long enough truce, we'll buy the time to finish our little swordsman project and flatten everyone anyway.

>>21299921
I'd prefer to save it until we finish off chimera. Then we can buy Monster form, the Only remaining way to bump our Athletics using Powers. Oh, and how has the bad doctor's investigation into cloning gone?

>>21299926

It actually used to be in the Garrison, but they moved the bomber after you uncovered the Garrison Division.

Whisper has apparently stopped taking calls and instead just sends out about five texts every minute. Apparently it helps him juggle multiple people more easily and the city is going berserk. He says he'll make it work with the Santos Espada (no super villainous representation means they don't have as much respect for Whisper as most of Team Red). Obviously it's really important to everyone that the National Guard not move in.

He demands in return, however, a promise of shelter from whatever's coming after him should it get too close for comfort.

>>21300080
Granted, fair warning, if you rope me into a fight with the Artificer, Frightner or Paragon without telling me I will be most displeased.

Rolled 4

>>21299921
I like the Idea we need to do more teck stuff
cancel Chimera credit cards bank accounts WOW memberships we should buy the teck stat boost then digitally smash them any one we can fin any accounts they have, then go all SCIENCE on the alien teck


>>21300080
on the same note can we still use the jail break meck? to grab the Arificer? the more Science the better we got an invasion on our hands we need the whole human race to work together


and what were we going to do about telling any one about the alien threat?
I vote tell Kestra and have her some how break it to team blue and Whisper to team red

>>21300426
Can't use the jailbreak mech anymore. Also, freeing Artificer would basically bring down this worlds equivalent of the Justice league down on our heads. Like five Kronos level supers + Paragon. Also, we have absolutely no reason to trust Artificer, the longer he stays in jail, the more I like it.

>>21300505

Well, you can buy new mech builds for the relatively cheap price of 2 XP.

It is definitely true that a solid half-dozen or so major supers will be coming down on you if you break out the Artificer.

>>21300426
How about this, when we take out the Chimera stealth bird and defeat Chimera, we will have more then enough XP to do both. I'd prefer to use the XP to buff our insight, but we can use it for tech instead.

Rolled 38

>>21300505
replace him with a bot so it doesn't look like he escaped till its found out then it looks like he did it just make it a non standard bot he killed paragon
if any one can help repulse an invasion of things that killed a world full of paragon level people its him

>>21300566
It's a prison designed to hold supers. Also, he's a robotics guy the chances that the didn't make absolutely sure that he didn't replace himself with a robot are laughably small.

yea we should probable do something teck related to Chimera even if it is just an annoyance
so yea to use xp to up teck

>>21300566
is that even possible ?
and would he agree?

>>21300566
Or Frightener. The guy who controls an alliance of Countries.

Rolled 69

>>21300628
do they check every day? I could see the first few days but long term checks to se if some one is just a bot? I don't think so.

>>21300566

Yes. No one would EVER to check to see if the robotic mastermind had been replaced by a robot.

Do you plan on increasing your Tech score, then? It'll be 3 XP to bump it up to 5.

>>21300657
Okay, you break him out of prison and spend 2xp to do so. Assuming that they don't check the most notorious villain in the history of the world to make sure its really him and not a robot he is famous for. Someone, who I might add can probably break out any time he wants to. What then, do you expect him to thank you? If he does, great enjoy the justice league, who are probably going to kill you if not, enjoy the justice league who are probably going to kill you, and the most dangerous villain of all time also trying to kill you.

>>21300690
I'll agree, if everyone stipulates that the next 8xp goes towards Monster form (empathy and telekinesis) telekinesis is crap, but the plus two insight from empathy is critical to our defense.

Rolled 31

>>21300709
ok good point


>>21300776
sounds good yo me

>>21300776
sure why not

Alright, then, sheet now looks like this:

THE IRON MASTER
Health: 1 (3)
Power: 4 (12)

Athletics: 2
Cunning: 3
Technology: 5
Insight: 2
Observation: 3
Nefariousness: 2
Stealth: 1

Powers: Super Strength, Super Speed, AI, SynthSkin, Model T, Mobile Dolls, Ghost

Whisperer, Deathless

>Link to rules (including powers list): http://pastebin.com/cVXaZb4x

Action Points:

The Iron Master: 2/2
Julio Pedone: 3/3
Rica Rivera: 0/2
Red Death: 2/2

Resources: 23
XP: 1

Now what?

Okay then, assuming everyone agrees to stop shooting at each other, we'll spend the rest of our turn patching wholes in our gang and turning drug and arms neighborhoods into more profitable hooking neighborhoods. Furthermore, we'll found a buisness on the arms neiborhood before we improve it to hookers.

>>21300892
gang boss meeting

>>21300961
we got an invasion to prepare for

>>21300961

Right, let's go with that.

Whisper manages to arrange a meeting with the Santos Espada, the Ronin, and the Family. The meeting is to take place in Downey, which is technically Santos Espada turf, but the neighborhood is currently vacant and it's right on the border with the Compton area, so it's as close to neutral ground as you can get when the entire city has gone berserk.

Who are you sending to attend? A decoy bot of yourself is the norm, of course, but Julio's immortal now and has a better Cunning/Insight total. You might send him instead.

>>21301014

The invasion is presumably coming sometime in the near future, but you have no idea exactly when. It could come tomorrow. It could come in ten years.

>>21301266
Julio then

>>21301014
What the GM said, plus I refusse to let all of our charecter goals get sidlined by the crisis of the week, again.

>>21301340

Julio possesses someone who's skin hasn't been horribly burned up by Asrael for the meeting. It takes him a while to find someone respectable looking, but he feels it's worth the effort.

Whisper sends a few more messages your way while Julio is en route to the meeting:

-Intruders in the building. Not sure if they're looking for me. Extraction possible in case of emergency?

And then, before you can respond:

-Intruders are robotic. Are these yours?

>>21301494
>-Intruders are robotic. Are these yours?

no possibly ominous

When Julio arrives at the meeting house, the rest of the gang representatives have already arrived. Carlos Morales is glaring daggers at Daimyo Okata, who's looking smug, and the Made Man wears a poker face. An unopened package sits in the center of the table.

>wat do?

>>21301713
whats with the box? open it!

>>21301494
see if he wants assistance send Red Death to help him or bouncer

>>21301809

...You shipped Bouncer to Hong Kong.

Are done for today?

>>21302060
I'll be around for a bit,

>>21301494
I'll do my best, building location? Oh and its probably doctors Span and D, eden techs finest. Oh, and warn julio and the security at the meeting

>>21302315

Whisper wires you the location of the building. It's a skyscraper over in the Commerce District (it'll be the one with gunfire coming from inside it). He also gives you the password to the keypad so that you won't get hit by booby traps and turrets on the way in, not that there's many of those left with the mystery bots making their way deeper in.

What do you plan to do at the gang meeting?

>>21302513
Get a cease fire. The fact that the national guard might be coming in gives us insentive. The fact that there is an entire region ripe for the taking gives us a carrot. And the fact that we basically tabled chimera in a week gives us a stick

>>21302602
peace offer Made men super strong mobsters for a price

>>21302602

"Where's Whisper?" the Made Man asks, gesturing towards the blank monitor set up at the head of the table.

"He's busy," Julio says, "he might not be able to attend the meeting, but he'll be safe. Anyways, this is about turf wars. Whisper set up the meeting, but he's not a player here."

"Indeed," Daimyo Okata says, "we need a ceasefire before martial law is declared. We must make it known to the city that the cause of the trouble has been eliminated and that the rest of us have no intention of expanding our borders in the immediate future."

"That's terribly convenient for you," Made Man says, "seeing as how you're the one who's on the losing end of this war."

"Why do you need a ceasefire?" Morales asks, "Chimera's taken care of either way."

"The city might not see it that way, and a few thousand National Guard troops on our streets makes life harder for all of us," Julio says.

His negotiation is interrupted by the buzz of an incoming text. It's from an unknown number, but begins with URGENT, so he decides to check it.

-URGENT use spike immediately then flee building. At next opportunity check phylactery for damage or replacement. Then change location. -Jack

>>21302754
fuck do it run

>>21302996

Julio makes some excuse and heads out of the room where the meeting is being held, then down towards the lobby. The building is practically deserted, even though it rents out meeting rooms to two or three companies daily. Julio had chalked this up to the widespread (and accurate) belief that martial law was imminent, but now he couldn't help but worry there was something more sinister afoot...

And his suspicions are confirmed when a bomb goes off from the package, blowing out the windows, killing Carlos, and badly injuring Made Man and Okata. Julio pulls out the spike and pricks his finger on the tip, and the runes on it glow white while he runs for the lobby. He doesn't feel particularly different, but hopefully the glowing runs means it worked. And also that it's good. You never did get this one inspected by Whisper's contact.

Before Julio can get out of the building, however, it comes down on top of him. A controlled implosion collapses all five stories of it on top of itself, burying all four of the gang leaders. There are no survivors.

Well. Depending on how you count "survivors." Julio's not going anywhere.

>>21303159was okata a meta if so get his body

>>21303217

Retrieving bodies from that mess isn't like pulling them off a battlefield. Those guys are buried.

Two questions. First, are you sending Red Death to bail out Whisper? Someone mentioned it but I'm not sure if it was agreed on. Second, where are all these phylacteries stashed, anyway?

>>21303318
red death and mecks


I figure ours is in a bot with a fast car and reedy to blow town

er have every ones else like wise

Is suptg working for anyone else? I've been trying to archive this thread for an hour, but no luck.

>>21303318
I always figured that the phylaturies were well hidden in a deep hole in a different city. Call up the leaders of the gangs on the ghost phone and ask them what the FUCK just happened.

>>21303727
yep ghost phone time

as far as phylaturies go how about in side highly armed bots in a different city

>>21303727

Well, the package blew up, and then the building fell on top of them. What exactly are you expecting them to reveal?

>>21303832
Hell if I know. How to ensure there gangs don't go off like a nuke?

>>21303868

Okay. Which one do you plan on calling up first, then?

Also, are we confirmed for using this plan: >>21303513 I hesitate to use a plan from someone who can't spell "mechs" without confirmation.

Also, also, this phylactery plan: >>21303727

Can't be something you just declare to be true after the fact, you have to actually go and do it sometime. Which means that whatever your phylactery defense plan is, it has to involve being somewhere in LA.

>>21304009
sure y not

>>21304009
Under water cave? Terminators are water proof. So a cave accesible only from water is totally feasible. And call the Damio up first, and only send 2 mechs as backup for red death, rest stay with rica

>>21304074

You summon up the Daimyo's ghost. After he gets over being dead, he agrees to help you avenge his death and also demands that you honor your agreement and split the city with the Ronin even though he is dead. You agree, as whether or not you actually will, you have nothing to lose by saying as much.

The Daimyo says that so long as you can place the blame on someone other than the Santos Espada or the Family (should be easy enough, they were both hit by the bombing too), the Ronin will likely refocus their rage on whoever was responsible for the bomb. The hard part, after all, is to convince the people who are winning to give up the fight.

>>21304320
The hilarious bit would be if he would agree to work under us, and could bring his gang around we would get exactly enough XP to bring him back. Oh well, time to call up Made Man. Also, I think we should try to blame the bombing on Asreal, on the grounds that no one else has the balls to causally murder two members of Team Red. Also, he fucking did it.

Rolled 71

>>21304414
ask him see if he would be our retainer spend the Resources over the next few weeks to bring him back

>>21304488
Can't use resources, would need to spend three resources now for the "cancer Miracle cure" plus the four XP gained from the Blood and Honor event

>>21304414

Made Man is convinced you're the one who did it. The only people who knew where that meeting took place were the people involved, and of those, only you and the Santos Espada stand to gain from killing everyone inside. The Santos Espada don't even come close to having it in them to take down a whole building like that, that sort of ploy is way beyond them. As for Asrael, there's no way the Santos Espada would have told him about this, because they damn well know that if a bunch of gang leaders including two villains got together, he'd pull something like this. They're his regular allies, so they know how to keep secrets from him when they need to. If not through the Santos Espada, how else could Asrael have found out about it? Of course, there's a hole in his theory, specifically, you know for a fact it wasn't you, because duh. But then, how DID Asrael find out?

Regardless, your mechs take the stairs up to Whisper's location (drawing some surprise from the other people in the building, but Team Blue isn't in a position to be chasing down random mechs right now). When they punch in the keypad, the door slides open to let them inside. After they step in, they fail to notice a small but powerful bomb, which detonates and jettisons them out of the building with the blast. They survive the initial blast with heavy damage, and the fall finishes them off.

The Red Death glides in through a window after observing the blast from outside. He's reasonably convinced this is a trap, but hopefully if he investigates he'll find someone to punch for answers.

Rolled 15

>>21304645
point to Chimera they hired an hit before to kill to make it seam like some one else was trying to do it

>>21304645
Well, that and killing him and the Damio frankly isn't worth it. Especially given the risks that the other three gangs would unite. Point out that we gave him his powers, and frankly they aren't that great. Also, the Damio didn't have any anti-ghost defenses, so it's not like he was a threat. Fuck, we could just continually try to posses him until we rolled boxcars and there would be literally nothing he could do about it. Us and the Ronin had the firepower to take out the Family and the Santos Espada. Of course, my pet theory is that Asreal found out from whisper one way or another, assuming Asreal isn't whisper. Now call up the Santos Guy ask him how the hell Asreal figured out about the meeting.

>>21304645
Did we really lose all our mechs to a single trap? Or did we do like one poster suggested and keep 4 in reserve.

Julio's gone to check on his phylactery, hidden in an underwater cave a few miles out into the ocean. As far as he can tell, it's perfectly intact, but he has no idea whether or not it's been replaced, and the message has him jumpy. Anyway, it's a good thing he wasn't using his main body for this. Asrael just took care of disposing of the spare body, so that was nice of him.

Once inside, the Red Death begins to investigate. There's signs of recent struggle, some blood splatters on the wall...Looks like he might be too late. A glimpse of white catches his eye and he whirls around, hidden knives at the ready.

"Wait! Friends!" a woman in a white mask says, "I'm with Jack."

"Why are you here?" Red Death asks.

"Asrael has been watching this place. Later some people tried to attack it. When the booby traps in here went off, it tore off the skin on the attackers, they were machines. Asrael's never done anything like that before, so...Either he's a third party, or he has new friends. We want to find out which," the woman says.

"Who are you?" the Red Death asks.

"My name is Tory," she says.

"Right. Tory." He kicks her against the wall, then hold her up against it by her collar, a knife flicked out and pressed against her throat. "You're a terrible liar. Now tell me again. Why are you here?"

"Well she's certainly not a double-agent working for me," Asrael says from behind, "that would be preposterous."

Red Death spins around to attack, whipping out his staff. Asrael ducks under the blows and launches a ball of white fire at the Red Death, who leaps out of the way, the fire exploding and washing harmlessly over the room, clinging to various objects, but they do not burn from it. The Red Death attacks again, this time sweeping Asrael off of his feet, and then he kneels down, stabbing first into Asrael's chest only to find it armored, and then again into his shoulder, and Asrael's white clothes are stained red. Asrael kicks him off and throws another ball of fire out, consuming the Red Death.

The mics are still in operation, however, as Tory draws a sidearm and fires at Asrael. He ducks out of the way, grabs her wrist, and twists it hard until the gun falls out. "You shouldn't be playing with guns, Tory," he says, pulling out a knife and holding it in front of her face, "you'll shoot your eye out." Then he kicks her onto the ground. "Get out," he says, "get out of the city and don't come back." Tory gets to her feet and runs to the exit.

And then he tilts his head, and it seems like a call is coming in, because he says "go ahead." You can only catch one side of the conversation. "Yes, I can see him now. He has, they're west of the city. Ayup." And then you can hear a bit of a smile in his voice as he says "no, I cannot. We'll figure something out."

>>21304964

You've got the four in reserve.

>>21304863

Morales is willing to believe that Asrael was responsible, if only because the Santos Espada have a superstitious fear of Asrael and many believe him to literally be an angel sent to Earth to punish mankind for vague and ill-defined sins. Morales himself has no idea how Asrael could've figured this out. No one in their gang who knew about the meeting got near him or anyone they thought might be spying for him. One thing they can tell you is that Asrael is a telepath, but the power only works if he has direct skin-to-skin contact with the other person. That, or Asrael is actually a full-on telepath and the skin-to-skin thing was just a rumor he'd passed around, and he occasionally decided not to act on thoughts he'd read in order to reinforce the rumor...And maybe he doesn't even have telepathy and he actually found out the things he knew some other way, and the telepathy thing was just a rumor in order to get his enemies following the wrong path. Dealing with Asrael gives Morales a headache.

We done?

I'd archive the thread, except that the archive is still all messed up.

The archive continues to fail, and it looks like I'm not getting it to work tonight. So I've saved this as a .pdf file, which I will upload to the next thread, since that is a thing we can do now.