>>4419412
>to meet with an informant of yours in Hob’s bay

>>4419412
>about a fairly recent missing persons case ending with a mummified corpse

>for your interview with the District’s Senator Henry Ballard

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QM's Note: I intend this quest to run very slow boil. Not active posting every other hour on my end. Long voting window ahead for this opening act of our quest as I lay down to dream myself. Good luck figuring out what you've just writ, where you're about to go, and figuring how those two issues may yet intersect...

And please, take your obvious stabs about what these things are leaning toward. It should all be telegraphed a bit obviously.

>>4419412
>on a rash of late night acts of vigilantism by a man in brown hockey pads
>for your seat on the maiden public demo voyage of Lex Corp’s SubOrbital Commercial Jet

When will we meet Clarke?

>>4419471
Now that all depends on how this vote goes by morning.

>>4419412
>>implicating three sitting district of metropolis judges of being on Intergang’s take
Early Lois? I'm betting staying up late working on the story that'll ruffle the most (dangerous) feathers, while Perry has her assigned to a fluffier piece in the morning trying to keep her away from the danger she's bound and determined to charge headlong at.
>>for your interview with the city’s educator of the year recipient
Flexible on this one, demo voyage and experiment coverage are tempting too.

>>4419412
>implicating three sitting district of metropolis judges of being on Intergang’s take
>for your coverage of a Star Labs experiment/technical demonstration

>>4419412
>>about a fairly recent missing persons case ending with a mummified corpse
>>for your seat on the maiden public demo voyage of Lex Corp’s SubOrbital Commercial Jet

>>4419412
>promoting an upcoming experiment/technical demonstration at Star Labs
>for your seat on the maiden public demo voyage of Lex Corp’s SubOrbital Commercial Jet

Writing.
Looks like you're upsetting more than one person's apple cart and then going to be heading to the Metropolis International Airport on Hell's Gate Island.

Rolled 1, 2 = 3 (2d6)

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Lois Lane currently has [Hold 1] on her unique move Minor Celebrity. You can spend this move to make someone you meet in the story ahead have heard of you as a local reporter in a positive light having been exposed to your work...well unless your work was about them in an unflattering manner...If you want to use it ahead of interacting with a new NPC, say so in your vote ahead of their introduction.


Checking your watch, you see you’re running late for your seat on the maiden public demo voyage of Lex Corp’s SubOrbital Commercial Jet. This is supposed to be a big deal, from America to Europe in under an hour. Lex Corp has been pushing this as phase one to getting the Metropolis International Airport as the Metropolis International Space Port within the next decade.

The proposed costs are low enough for this to be a world wide game changer in shipping and commercial flight. Though Lex is a major presence in the promotion of this project, this vehicle was the brainchild of multiple scientists and engineers, not chief among them but critical to the project’s design is a rising star in the aeronautics world Charles Brown.

You’re hoping to get quotes from him and Luthor before the day is done.

Making sure you have your transit authority pass, you rush out to catch the monorail at the University/Centennial Park station. As you’re crossing the length of New Troy Island, Midtown speeding by, your cellphone rings. It’s the Chief Editor!

This isn’t the first time you’ve gotten a call from Perry White early in the morning after submitting a rather daring article that started as a puff piece. The conspiracy you’ve broken open exposes several seated judges for the city and district over financial ties to Intergang, a powerful organized crime ring operating on the bleeding edge of crime in this city.

Everyone knows Bruno Manheim calls the shots for Intergang in this city, but no one can prove it concretely. The exposure of these judges amid what started as a soft piece about an award one of these judges was about to receive for their publicly distinguished career might go a little further to driving that rat bastard into a less deniable position in the public eye.

“Morning Chief,” you chirp into your phone with a sly and perhaps smugly satisfied grin.

“LANE! Would it kill you to actually run a spell checker?” Perry White barks on the other end of the phone.

“That’ll just slow me down,” you wave off as the city’s skyline dips out the window as the train your own switches to the upper express track.

“Be happy this hit my tray when it did,” he grouses as you hear the squeak as he sits hard in his office chair, he’s on speaker, “I just sent it to legal for their professional opinion. I’m reorganizing the afternoon edition and dropping this on the front page of the website, you ready for the heat pulling this trigger is gonna put on you,”

>>4419662

“Wouldn’t have written it if I weren’t ready, chief,” you narrow your eyes seriously.

“Alright Lane,” your chief sighs, “Piece of advice, keep your head down for the rest of the week. Not that I don’t want you working, but I want you alive and working,”

The Express line itself begins to dip, now heading at a steep angle midway through the Central Business district at the isle’s end. As the train car glides to a stop, you quickly make your transfer for the tunnel line to the airport.

“Well, this morning I’m practically skipping town,” you laugh before offering a sardonic question, “I’ve got my ticket for the L-60 KTE and my passport in my pocket. Should I stay in the French Riviera on an expense account instead of finishing the round trip?”

As you pass through the elevated exchange, you are waved down by an intern you’ve been using for their sharp eye.

Choose your Olsen and their stats
>Jimmy Olsen, Bowtie (-1 cool, 2 sharp, 0 tough, 2 weird)
>Jenny Olsen, Bow (1 cool, 2 sharp, 0 tough, 1 weird)
>James Olsen, No tie (1 cool, 2 sharp, 1 tough, 0 weird)
>J. Olsen, Extra Bowtie (0 cool, 1 sharp, 0 tough, 3 weird)

“Like hell, Lane,” huffs the Chief, “I’ll see you and Olsen after your flight,”

Relaxed (HA!) Producer: You’re Employed, with a regular paycheck and little or no oversight. As long as you send in a story every few days, no matter how bizarre, you’re set. Every now and again they’ll send you somewhere in particular, and when that happens it usually involves supernatural activity. Unless they need human interest, in which case it will be a kitten show or agricultural fair or something.

Joined by your intern with an eye for photography, you hop the line toward the Airport. It’s tight but you make it before the ceremony. Within one of the terminals that’s been rented out by Lex Corp for the event you look out the massive bay windows to see that the mysterious commercial spaceflight jet isn’t even on the runway yet.

>Mingle during the reception, relax until the story actually arrives
>Snoop to see if you can find someone from traffic control, your sister used to work there
>Try to find Lex Luthor and ask a few questions, about today’s demo or something else?
>Look for engineer Charles Brown and see if you can get anything useful out of him
>Got a different hot tip or lead?

&

Chat with Olsen?
>Still chasing getting a photo of the Guardian Angel?
>Any development on catching sight of the city’s purple cryptid?
>Are they still trying to sneak onto the set of the latest Major Comics flick?
>Eh, you’ve got a quiet professional relationship with the kid.
>write in

>>4419663
>>Jenny Olsen, Bow (1 cool, 2 sharp, 0 tough, 1 weird)
>>Look for engineer Charles Brown and see if you can get anything useful out of him
>>Are they still trying to sneak onto the set of the latest Major Comics flick?

>>4419663
>>J. Olsen, Extra Bowtie (0 cool, 1 sharp, 0 tough, 3 weird)
Bowties are cool.
>>Look for engineer Charles Brown and see if you can get anything useful out of him
He'll likely be more honest than the businessman, maybe see if he let's anything interesting slip.
>>Any development on catching sight of the city’s purple cryptid?
Ridiculous, sure, and likely to turn out to be a pet some kids got into the hair dye with, but more likely to turn up a story than that silly "guardian angel" business.

>>4419663
Jimmy Olsen, Bowtie (-1 cool, 2 sharp, 0 tough, 2 weird)
Classic Jimmy is the only Jimmy
>Look for engineer Charles Brown and see if you can get anything useful out of him
>Still chasing getting a photo of the Guardian Angel?

Rolled 6, 6 + 2 = 14 (2d6 + 2)

And standby for one of the olsens to have two votes. Working on charlie bit and rolling Lois's Investigate a Mystery.

I assume the vote for olsen will also solidify the chat with Olsen option...I mean, I don't assume, I hope.

And question. Do you want to spend your Hold from Local Celebrity on Charles Brown?

Rolled 3 (1d3)

Eh, I'm ready and rolling for your olsen from the choices so far voted on and their chat

1 >>4419669
2 >>4419694
3 >>4419744

“So, Jimmy,” you look the young red headed bowtie clad young man up and down, cleanly made up and perhaps overdressed for his role as a photography intern, “Still chasing after that guardian angel story?”

He nods, excitedly whilst fiddling with his phone to show you a few pictures he took of the aftermath of these guardian angel sightings. These are obviously pictures he took with his professional camera, rather than on his phone. Melted street lamp base. Crumpled hand gun. Flattened bullets. An old woman holding a cat standing next to a tall tree on her block and pointing up at it. A building fire snuffed out with what firefighters on scene described as a thunderclap. The ripped off door of an otherwise burnt out car with a hand print embedded into it. A small girl with cornrows adorned with an excess of colorful clips pointing up toward a thirtieth floor apartment.

You remember that one from the other day, it made the local newscast. Kid did fall out of the window, at least according to the nanny cam.

“I figure the best thing for me to do is camp out a few nights on a rooftop in midtown at the going rate. I got a ton of eye witness reports but they’re just so outlandish that the chief won’t give me the time of day on it,” he starts out energetic but eventually seems dejected.

You haven’t seen this angel yet, but you know there’s a story there. There’s a story to all of it happening in this city.

“Cheer up Jimmy, we’ll catch them eventually. I really want to see the look on Perry’s face when we expose the hoax or find a real modern wonder,”

“You still think its a hoax, Ms. Lane?” he asks in some worry.

“I mean, more likely than not,” you shrug, “though I’m not jaded enough to not want to be pleasantly surprised,”

Arriving at the airport terminal and coursing through to the reception, you zero in on the man you’re looking for. Perhaps even the man of the hour, despite all the pomp Luthor is throwing behind himself and the company proper. Aeronautics Genius Charles Brown, the man behind the design of the Super Structure of the L-60 KTE.

The propulsion is a hybrid series of conventionally applied jet engines inside the superstructure, which is a massive delta wing with an adjustable parafoil with multiple configurations between lift off, orbital coasting, and reentry descent. That was all in the press release, but you really want to get something from Brown for your article.

Taking out your tape recorder, while turning on the digital recorder in your pocket, you approach the engineer as you grab sight of him in a corner by the back with one empty champagne flute and another that will soon be empty.

“You can do this, Brown,” he repeats to himself a few times in mantra, setting the empty glasses on a passing waitress tray while looking out over a railing of the bustling terminal below.

>>4419859

“Charles Brown. Lois Lane, Daily Planet,” you offer and lead with an offered handshake as Olsen snaps a few quick pictures which initially seems to startle the buzzed engineer before he tries to flash a genial if nervous smile, “I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about today’s flight?”

“Certainly, Ms Lane,” he offers and begins talking about his baby, the biggest kite he’s ever built.

“A Kite, Mr. Brown?” you question as the vehicle is rolled out onto the tarmac, broad and golden in the morning sun.

“I’m deftly afraid of flying,” he offers in a small admission with a chuckle, “Hence my third drink this early...but I love watching things soar. I love understanding how and why things fly. This was a challenge and a wonder to create. A lot of people don’t appreciate the flying wing design anymore, but for our purposes of weight distribution and propulsion it was ideal. Was ideal...I know the boss is touting this as a revolution, but I’m happy having just made the thing. The odds of it taking off, culturally, I kind of feel are against me,”

“Why would you say that?” you query which seems to bring him to stumble.

“Oh, you know,” he downs the rest of his drink, “I haven’t exactly hit a fair wind. Excuse me, Ms. Lane, time to take the stage,”

There is a rambling here, an excitement only possessed by the eccentric or obsessed. The kind of genius’s history forgets unless they can absolutely prove they changed the world. You don’t like thinking of this earnest man as another Tesla to Luthor’s Edison.

Charles Brown moves to stand beside their boss, Lex, as they take the Podium.

Choose your Lex Luthor
>Middle Aged Heavy Set Cigar Chomping Tycoon
>The muscular business wonder from down under with full head and beard aflame
>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire
>The young, sporty, long haired tech bro who inherited an empire
>The built scicillian american magnate with a haunting, menacing voice
>Alexis, a certified genius frequently critiqued for her apparent instability

Choose carefully
>You’ve Dated Lex before
>You’ve never met Lex directly before
>You met Lex when you were awarded a graduate student grant

“Good Morning, one and all, for this historic flight!” Luthor opens to the floor as they take the mic at the podium up and start walking down the line of presented crew, scientists, and engineers, “Here today we are so proud of what we’ve collectively accomplished here as a Lex Corp Family. The L-60 KTE is the first in a new generation of speedy air travel, before the end of the decade you can expect to not see commercial air traffic lanes thick with our broad smiling wings soaring overhead. Between more silent running engines and altitudes that belay noise pollution or disturbances we stand on a precipice to make air travel something it hasn’t been in at least fifteen years; comfortable,”

>>4419861
This elicits a laugh from the crowd.

“Just ask Ferris Air,” Luthor offers again causing a more measured chuckle from the audience.

Through you’re paying attention to everything, everyone, and everything you gleaned from Brown as the press and ticket holders begin boarding the plane. Olsen for their part hung back long enough to get a flurry of pictures of the wing before joining you on the boarding arm.

Finding your seat, front row of the clear curved viewing wall windows of the wing, you have to admit Lex was right about it being comfortable.

You parse through all the information you have, between your research for today and your conversation with Engineer Brown...what else do you know or have realized?

You can get from the QM answers to 2 of the following questions
>What disputes surround this project?
>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous?
>Who would benefit from today not going perfectly?
>What is Luthor trying to do, breaking into commercial air?
>What is most dangerous here?
>What is being concealed here?

During the Flight, What Goes Wrong?!
>Nothing bad happens
>While coasting, a murder is discovered
>Almost immediately after take off during the rapid ascent, engine failure!
>Strange beams of light cascade up and out of Star Labs!
>As you breach the stratosphere, something falling to earth collides with the L-60 KTE
>Terrorists, The Kult of Kobra, take the Plane!
>On approach for the return trip, someone launches missiles at the L-60 KTE

>>4419861
>>Alexis, a certified genius frequently critiqued for her apparent instability
>You’ve Dated Lex before

>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous?
>What is being concealed here?

>>4419861
>>Middle Aged Heavy Set Cigar Chomping Tycoon
>>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire

>You met Lex when you were awarded a graduate student grant

>>4419863
>>Who would benefit from today not going perfectly?
>>What is being concealed here?

>While coasting, a murder is discovered
I was fully onboard with expecting a crash, but a murder mystery could be fun.

>>4419861
>>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire
>>You met Lex when you were awarded a graduate student grant

>>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous?
>>What is Luthor trying to do, breaking into commercial air?

>>On approach for the return trip, someone launches missiles at the L-60 KTE

>>4419863
>The young, sporty, long haired tech bro who inherited an empire

>You’ve Dated Lex before

>Who would benefit from today not going perfectly?
>What is being concealed here?

>On approach for the return trip, someone launches missiles at the L-60 KTE

My tired brain somehow read this as planet express quest and was super psyched for a Futurama quest. Can someone with talent please make a Futurama quest?

>>4420103
I'm sorry anon, I don't think I have the chops to do a properly funny futurama quest. You'd be better off posing that query over in /qtg/ to try and snag someone. Still, since you stopped by I would appreciate your vote here and maybe any feedback to the situation at hand. She may not be a cyclops, but we still feature a tough as nails action girl with purple as one of their defining character colors.

>>4420133
Sorry, actually too tired to read up on this now. Will give the quest a proper chance tomorrow, you seem like a cool guy QM!

>>4420143
Entirely understandable. Rest well and thank you for the compliment. I guess even after a two year hiatus I'm old hat at this now, this is just a side spin to really get my head back in the game and get used to QMing at /qst/ speeds as opposed to the speed I remember nostalgically from /tg/.

>>4419861
>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire
The only kind of acceptable Luthor.
>You met Lex when you were awarded a graduate student grant

>>4419863
>What is Luthor trying to do, breaking into commercial air?
>What disputes surround this project?

>Nothing bad happens

>>4419861
>>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire

Michael Rosenbaum Lex if possible.

>You’ve never met Lex directly before

>>4419863
>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous?

>As you breach the stratosphere, something falling to earth collides with the L-60 KTE

>>4419833
the dice agree with me

>>4419861
>>4419863

>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire
>You’ve Dated Lex before

>What disputes surround this project?
>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous?

>Terrorists, The Kult of Kobra, take the Plane!

>>4420615
>Michael Rosenbaum Lex if possible.
Partial to Clancy Brown myself.
But not opposed to breaking out some hair for a bit of John Shea.
I could also enjoy going ham with some Hackman/Spacey version in the mix, but I won't push hard for it.

>>4419861
>The arrogant, bald, and genius self made tech billionaire
>You’ve never met Lex directly before
>What is most dangerous here?
>What is being concealed here?

>See comics based quest
> Might be cool
> It's by Artemis
> YEAH BOOOOOOIIIIII!!!

>>4420695
Don't get me wrong DCAU is amazing and his Lex is definitely iconic.

Wait a second...Charles Brown...kites...IS THAT A PEANUTS REFERENCE!?

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>>4420716
The character is a reference in the source material.

Hell Yeah

>>4420731
Oh, right! I was not expecting to like him so much on Harley Quinn.

Also, does a LexCorp flying wing remind anyone else of the DCAU World's Finest crossover?

>>4420743
That was intentional

>>4420745
Thought it might be. I'm just hoping we don't have to deal with the Clown Prince of Crime hijacking it.

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>>4420716
>>4420731

>>4420750
youtube.com/watch?v=l8WfNn6c5lg
Apologies for shit quality

Tallying and writing.

>Arrogant 4
>Dated Lex 3 & Grad Student Grant 3 Fusing
>Why is Charles Brown really so nervous? 4
>What is being concealed here? 4
>Missile attack

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Why is Charles Brown so nervous?

You know for a fact that even while he’s being touted as a genius engineer, Charles Brown is at the end of his kite string. This project has taken a decade to finish from the inception point, and from your research you know that his personal life had recently taken a rocky turn. For the long hours and constant stress of termination, his wife divorced him and left him as the sole caretaker for their son. Sitting on ten years on a project millions over budget means that this is his do or die moment. If today doesn’t go smoothly you suspect that Charles Brown will just be another dreamer Lex Luthor has ruined.

And you know something about Lex Luthor ruining people.

What is being concealed here

It’s only because of your history with Lex Luthor that you can read the expression and intent on Lex’s face. That arrogant self important bastard is trotting Charles brown around like he’s about to dump a bucket of blood on her at a prom.

Charles Brown is nervous for all the right reasons, because Lex looks at him like he’s beneath him. Like he’s no longer useful. He talks big and flexes the right inflections about company and family...but he’s lying. He is going to throw Brown under the proverbial bus after today. He’s already gotten the best work of Brown’s life out of him, by his reckoning and he’s lining him up for slaughter. A slaughter he is gleeful at the prospect of. There will be some kind of severance deal, but you can only imagine the kind of crippling NDA, Gag order, and Proprietary Technology Intellectual Property Ownership Lex will slap the man with if he ever tries to do anything with his passions ever again. And as it happens in real time, you’re going to write about all of it.

You’re going to do something to try and save this man from Lex.

That vindictiveness. That cruelty. That’s why you and Lex never worked out. Despite what some people may say about you behind your back, you’re relatively sure you still have a soul.

You don’t regret what happened; just maybe how it happened. And you’re glad for the perspective it gave you against men like Lex Luthor. When you first met, when you were awarded a scholarship grant by his company to pursue your masters at Metropolis University, he had taken an interest in you and after being asked out for a drink the two of you had seemed to really hit it off. Seeing a glimpse, but not the whole picture, of the man behind the public relations and super science facade you thought you found something.

Someone. Someone challenging to you intellectually. Someone who would change the world as a rising star. Someone who interested you. The man who would make tomorrow.

But no...no. While boarding you steal a glance over to Luthor. He sees you and offers a smirk. In the distance between you a familiar figure gives you a disapproving glare as they step just so to break the line of sight between you and Lex.

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>>4421153
Choose Lex’s attache
>Mercy Graves; a former prostitute turned personal bodyguard and chauffeur
>Mercy Graves; a mysterious woman who turned up out of nowhere as Lex’s Chief of Security
>Mercy Graves; a disquieting professional bodyguard who is ever silent and seems stiffly robotic
>Tess Mercer; Lex’s half sister, protege, and executive assistant
>Otis; Lex Luthor’s older, bumbling, but loyal Director of Social Media.
>Mercy & Otis Graves; The terrible Graves Siblings are Lex’s Head of Security and Head of Special Operations.

The flight goes smoothly. The curved forewindow, and the gap between the seating aisles and that exterior lens, allows you an impressive view above and below during takeoff and the immediate banking corkscrew turn before the non conventional atmospheric thrusters kick into gear. It’s actually exhilarating thinking you can go to space.

Jimmy, seated next to you has had their digital Camera up in their lap recording video the second you sat down. It’s a breathtaking demonstration, and you exult in what you’ve uncovered and take it all in. It makes you wonder if he saw this before everything went dark. There you go, Lois, making yourself sad. Pressing the button for your stewardess once you reach the coasting altitude, you order a shot.

It’s not quite drinking on the job, as your job today is to enjoy two back to back transcontinental flights, but you still tilt one back to the memory of Titano. From the peaking at the endless black of space to the approach overhead upon the city of light.

The imagery you’ll write in the article will frame the meat of your article with a beautiful tableau as in less than an hour from lift off the plane touches down in the Charles de Gaulle Airport.

It takes longer than the flight to enjoy the concourse, where the title of a french newspaper catches your eye.

“Jimmy, you read french, right?” you question your photographer friend as you swipe your card at a news stand and grab a fresh sheet.

“Yes Ms. Lane, what have you found,” your photographer asks as he adjust his bowtie while waving flirtatiously at some local women who seem to take notice of him in the promenade of the terminal.

Holding up a newspaper featuring a photograph of a fluffily dressed and feather capped masked swashbuckler squaring off against a menacing literal gorilla in a barrette with a chain gun? You give your intern a questioning look, perhaps even pleading.

“Uh...well it says ‘Monkey Business. The Musketeer foils an attempted robbery of the Louvre,’ Wow. This is a good shot, and a really realistic gorilla costume for an art thief,”

“Jimmy, that’s a real Gorilla,” you sigh deeply.

“What Ms. Lane? How can you tell?”

“The wonders of an esoteric childhood spent on military bases where my dad managed all the eggheads,” you grouse and think wistfully for the second time today of the tragedy you witnessed as a small child, also space related.

>>4421160
At this point in your life you’re breaking even on good and bad things happening in space.

“Read it to me on the flight,” you sigh and decide you’d rather get back to the boarding area than wait for Lex to start speaking about the wondrous accomplishment of the LexCorp family again. Sparing a glance toward Mister Brown you see him excitedly, and perhaps still a bit buzzed, using Lex-Time to video chat with his son given what you can overhear.

How hard is he biting back tears?

Sitting down for the return flight you are regaled by Jimmy stumbling through the translation of the story. You tried to study French years ago, but just the way the language structured its use of letters threw you off that project. As your editor will ream you about, you seem like you can barely write a word correctly in english. French was right out. Well, as a typist you may be underwhelming but the words you choose and their order is where your strength lies.

Briefly you imagine how you’d write this story out, as from the details Jimmy is able to parse out an unknown party letting loose a trained Gorilla on the Louvre for some kind of terroristic art theft. Then a detail hits you form the photograph. That gorilla is wearing a custom fit transmitter in his ear and at least as he’s swinging the machine gun meant for a vehicular mounting like a club, he has trigger discipline.

Nope. You let Jimmy keep stumbling through the translation, including the notation of The Musketeer being a local vigilante beloved by the populace. It conjures a thought in your head of the controversial hockey pad armored figure of your own city, or the ever changing and terrifying urban myth of Gotham’s Batman.

You’re maybe halfway across the atlantic when you see blue beams of light lancing out into space in what is perhaps the world’s most expensive planetarium light show...not that anyone miles below would even be able to see it during the daytime.

“Whoah,” Jimmy whispers before explaining, “Those must be from the Star Labs demo, Dr Erdel’s matter transmission experiment,”

The boy quickly snaps away with his camera as you are momentarily entranced by the light. The splintering beams are erratic, some bounce off a satellite and down again toward a destination in the midwest where you briefly recall the end point of the experiment waits in the Central City Star Labs branch. They persist, a few beams going off into the infinite black, one bouncing off and instead bearing down toward South America before bouncing back off again into space.

Though something strange happens, one of the beams that shot out into the black bounces back onto the starting point after about a minute. Well, it wasn’t your story so you don’t know too much about whatever that is.

>>4421162
Still, the skies are clear and within a few minutes time the L-60 KTE pitches forward and you are again treated to the spectacle of watching the fire of something close to reentry break over the heat shielded, auto tinting, and ultraviolet filtering forward facing curved window. As the smoke clears at subsonic speeds you speed over the ocean, the Delaware Bay, Cape May, and in turn the District of Metropolis looms shining in the noontime sun before you...until you see something moving toward your vehicle through the wide view of the domed frontal windows. You aren’t the only one to notice as the other passengers cry out.

Choose the missile on intercept
>Rockets being launched off the shoulders of jetpack clad soldiers backed up by high tech sky bikes approaching from straight ahead [Kaznians]
>An older rusty esoteric missile launching from a bleak black diesel submarine breaking the surface miles ahead of you [Devil Ray]
>An absolute battery of missile fire coming from St. Martin’s Island [Intergang]
>The tip of a yellow ICBM coming into view overhead, catching up with and overtaking the L-60 KTE from somewhere behind behind [H.I.V.E]
>A perfect life sized model of the miscaled cartoonish and pink Darci Doll Pink F-4 Phantom Fighter Jet...launching real missiles at the L-60 KTE [Toyman]

Lois Lane, what do you do?
>Strap in, air mask on Jimmy first before applying your own, floatation cushion in hand, tray table up. Brace for it.
>Find Lex, you’ve no idea how much time is left but there’s no way he’d leave this flight unprotected...or make sure his own ass had a way off.
>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
>This...this is it, isn’t it? Call your dad, you don’t know if you mean to say you’re sorry or forgive him but you can’t face the end without speaking to him.

???? ????’s actions
>arrive in time to try to swat the projectile(s) out of the air or move them off course manually
>arrive in time to try to move the space plane out of the way manually
>arrive in time to try to freeze the projectiles in midair
>you didn’t arrive in time, but the space plane is still in one piece, you’ll have to guide her down manually
>write in

>>4421160
>Mercy Graves; a former prostitute turned personal bodyguard and chauffeur

>An absolute battery of missile fire coming from St. Martin’s Island [Intergang]
>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
>arrive in time to try to move the space plane out of the way manually

space jesus take the wheel

>>4421160
>Mercy & Otis Graves; The terrible Graves Siblings are Lex’s Head of Security and Head of Special Operations.

>>4421168
>An older rusty esoteric missile launching from a bleak black diesel submarine breaking the surface miles ahead of you [Devil Ray]
>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
>arrive in time to try to freeze the projectiles in midair

>>4421160
>>Mercy Graves; a mysterious woman who turned up out of nowhere as Lex’s Chief of Security

>>4421168
>>An older rusty esoteric missile launching from a bleak black diesel submarine breaking the surface miles ahead of you [Devil Ray]
>>Find Lex, you’ve no idea how much time is left but there’s no way he’d leave this flight unprotected...or make sure his own ass had a way off.
>>arrive in time to try to swat the projectile(s) out of the air or move them off course manually

>>4421160
>>Mercy Graves; a mysterious woman who turned up out of nowhere as Lex’s Chief of Security
>>4421168
>>An absolute battery of missile fire coming from St. Martin’s Island [Intergang]
>>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
>>arrive in time to try to move the space plane out of the way manually

>>4421160
>>Mercy & Otis Graves; The terrible Graves Siblings are Lex’s Head of Security and Head of Special Operations.

>>>4421168
>>The tip of a yellow ICBM coming into view overhead, catching up with and overtaking the L-60 KTE from somewhere behind behind [H.I.V.E]
>>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
Drawn between Lex and Pilots.. but the piloting feeds into nosy reporter more, while being can-do and lacking in self-preservation.

???? ?!?!
>>write in
>blast the lead missile(s) before they strike, but what's that, there's more?!? Whoever is behind this wasn't messing around. Deflect and tank the other missiles in an impossible display of strength and toughness.

Does the plane get clear of the blasts? Or still need help after mild damage? Hopefully the question before this got it clear.
Maybe a great photo op for those quick with their camera.

>>4421168
>An absolute battery of missile fire coming from St. Martin’s Island [Intergang]
>The Pilots have to see this, why is the course steady? You played your share of flight sims on base as a kid, see what’s up on the control deck!
>arrive in time to try to swat the projectile(s) out of the air or move them off course manually

>>4421160
>Tess Mercer; Lex’s half sister, protege, and executive assistant

Forgot this vote.

>>4421160
>Mercy Graves; a mysterious woman who turned up out of nowhere as Lex’s Chief of Security
> >you didn’t arrive in time, but the space plane is still in one piece, you’ll have to guide her down manually

Rolled 2, 3 + 1 = 6 (2d6 + 1)

Rolling dice + Lois's Sharp

Rolled 3, 1 + 4 = 8 (2d6 + 4)

Rolling ???? Tough for Kick Some ass.

Also,
>Lois Lane Takes 1 Exp for a failure and the QM takes a hard move
>Lois Lane Takes 1 Exp for failure, but the QM offers you a difficult choice
>You can spend a Luck for a success.

Rolled 3, 1 + 4 = 8 (2d6 + 4)

And ???? follow up for Helping Out

>>4421821
>Lois Lane Takes 1 Exp for a failure and the QM takes a hard move

>>4421821
>>Lois Lane Takes 1 Exp for a failure and the QM takes a hard move
where can I find info on the system this quest is using?

>>4421821
>>Lois Lane Takes 1 Exp for failure, but the QM offers you a difficult choice
Is this the difficult choice?

Writing

>>4421921
Powered by the Apocalypse Engine, Monster of the Week for the Chasis. Lois is a Snoop.

>>4421926
No. But moot for now.

Horrified to grasp your own mortality ahead, something else strikes at your awareness. The pilots would have seen this before you did given their placement on the craft and other considerations like radar, so why the hell are there missiles flying at you from over a mile away while you’re still sitting level on approach to Metropolis International?

While the sinuous smoke trails of the numerous small missiles speed your way from their launch point amid the skyline of St. Martin’s Island, you’re bolting from your seat in less than a heartbeat. Jimmy, seeing you rise, is shaken from his own initial terror and looks down at the camera in his hands before rising and taking after you a few steps shy. Running to the stairs toward the control platform; the stewards and stewardesses are in a state of not panic but tense rushing as they run down their training list for this unexpected act of external terrorism. It amounts to securing people and preparing for a rough water landing…

Remembering the pathway from the initial tour you make your way to the cockpit with speed and confidence. You briefly catch sight of the mysterious, tall, and muscular Mercy Graves ushering Lex toward the back of the plane.

“Miss I’m going to need you to return to your sea-”

“Out of my way, I’m doing journalism!” you brush past the prototypical Lex Air employee before finding the right hallway.

The door is locked, you guess even for a prototype plane certain safety regulations are enforced. You bang on the door.

“Hey! Evasive maneuvers!” you shout expecting to be thrown by the plane banking.

No response.

“Wait, what’s that!?” someone on the passenger/observation levels below cries out above the din of growing panic.

“Back me up Jimmy, we’re gonna have to shoulder check this,” you grouse and tense up and lower your shoulder.

Sure, the kid is probably 90lbs soaking wet but you’ll need some help forcing this door open.

“Wait, Miss Lane, I have a key!” a familiar voice catches up to you as you see Charles Brown running up and undoing his tie, by this point given his missteps reaching you he may actually be tipsy above buzzed, “Did you notice we were still level too?”

You nod while he slaps his Lex Corp employee badge against the door’s console roughly, it swings in to reveal the cockpit. The pilot and co-pilot seat is empty as only a side seat is filled by a frantic looking communications crew officer weeping into their headset about not knowing what to do.

The missiles are getting closer, but they aren’t alone in the sky. A dark shape is speeding from New Troy island in this distance with no smoke trail.

A bird? A propeller plane trying to be a hero? Not your concern as its still so far off.

“Where the hell are the pilots?!” Jimmy joins the comm officer in tearful worry.

>>4422045

“Luthor had them disembark in Paris,” Charles explains angrily, “After it landed in Metropolis he was gonna tout his fully automated weather reactive p-AI-lot,”

You haven’t even registered or given him time to explain, you’ve already jumped the chair and taken hold of the stick. Charles follows your lead into the co-pilots chair and slams a button on the center console. This layout looks unlike any airplane you’ve ever seen, a simplified dettup with massive graphic user interface alongside analog controls.

“My decision making skills aren’t great right now,” Charles cries out, murmuring briefly for his therapist, “I’m following your lead,”

You take a moment to think, and lean forward to push on the stick, your best bet is going under. That barrage of missile fire isn’t on a completely stable course, but true to your instinct they aren’t tracking your movements as you begin dipping toward the water. Charles follows suit, hitting the air brakes so that you aren’t nose diving at full speed into the water and can still pull up afterwards.

Looking up, to laugh at the missiles you both realize your folly and see a miracle.

“Holy cats,” Jimmy Olsen balances leaning against the back of the captain’s chair you occupy.

Speeding away from the back line of smoke clouds, Jimmy would later tell you they swatted them out of the sky before they veered off and exploded, the thing you saw approaching from New Troy Island keeps course darting between the rockets ahead of you just as the forward most missiles careen overhead. You took precious seconds too long figuring out what to do, and even with the thinned line a few strike and explode along the top surface of the plane and you imagine the parafoil. Still...better than if they had all impacted against the viewing window...

Lois Lane, those in the cockpit, and passenger deck take 3 Harm, injury but not severe. Top deck flight crew and passengers there take 4 Harm, some are significantly injured

That impact rocks the cockpit but you couldn’t care less despite the jostling hurt as this miraculous figure slows down matching speed with the descending space jet. Planting one hand against the glass dome window ahead for you and all the passengers to see, they lock eyes with you and point up with their free hand before it plants itself on the glass alongside the other.

File: Superman Returns Plane Crash.gif (1.64 MB, 500x288)

1.64 MB GIF

>>4422047

You pull. You and Charles pull for all you’re worth as Jimmy ever holding his camera where he fell snaps the shutter on what you can only imagine will end his internship and land him a salaried position. If you live through this that is. They beyond the class plant themselves against nothing and with impossible to understand physics gently but strongly guide and lift. You wonder if they strain at the weight or staring not to break what they hold asunder.

Describe this miracle
>Barrel chested stern faced caucasian strongman exuding a confident smile
>An athletically built caucasian man with a gentle reassuring smile
>A muscular and broad shouldered caucasian man with a calm strong jawed face
>A resolved serious faced hispanic man with short hair, a moustache, and stress lines
>A dark haired caucasian woman with significant shoulders and a pixie cut
>A younger looking blonde caucasian woman of athletic build face scoured with worried excitement
>A blonde haired caucasian woman with awkward worry but resolved confidence on her face.
>A short haired blonde caucasian woman with a confident smirk and broadly set shoulders
>A short haired muscularly built african american man with a serene confident expression

What are they wearing
>Jeans, white t-shirt/babydoll tee, black riding jacket
>Jeans, white t-shirt/babydoll tee, Long trench coat, stylish S belt buckle
>Jeans, boots, a blue T-shirt emblazoned with a stylized S shield
>A red caped strongman’s outfit. Blue bodysuit w/ red Trunks/Skirt and the S shield
>A red caped form fitting bodysuit of strange unknown material
>A red caped segmented armored bodysuit of strange make
>A red caped white bodysuit.
>A grey cloak over some unknown bodysuit
>Blue Pants and shirt under an open red jacket
>Black jeans, paintball armor sprayed with a white S, a pilots hood, and a tattered black cape
>A bomber jacket, goggles, a trailing red scarf, and sturdy rough hewn pants and books.

>>4422054
>A younger looking blonde caucasian woman of athletic build face scoured with worried excitement
>Jeans, boots, a blue T-shirt emblazoned with a stylized S shield

>>4422054
>>A resolved serious faced hispanic man with short hair, a moustache, and stress lines
>>A bomber jacket, goggles, a trailing red scarf, and sturdy rough hewn pants and books.

>>4422054
>A muscular and broad shouldered caucasian man with a calm strong jawed face
>A red caped strongman’s outfit. Blue bodysuit w/ red Trunks/Skirt and the S shield

>>4422054
>>A bomber jacket, goggles, a trailing red scarf, and sturdy rough hewn pants and boots.
>>A dark haired caucasian woman with significant shoulders and a pixie cut

>>4422054
>An athletically built caucasian man with a gentle reassuring smile
>A red caped form fitting bodysuit of strange unknown material

>>4422066
>>4422092
>>4422054

Well, if no one is going for mine I still want to go with a female option. Let's have a woman break the DC Masquerade this time.

>>4422128
Not opposed to your female option either, actually.
Split the difference and go for the short haired blonde?

>>4422109

>>4422143
Okay with me. Girls with short hair just do something for me. Also, to paraphrase Spike Spiegel, I love a girl that can kick my ass. A Super Girl would definitely be a thumbs, among other things, up.

>>4422150
Agreed. Remember to tag back the voting post too.

>>4422054
>>4422092
Switching to
>>A short haired blonde caucasian woman with a confident smirk and broadly set shoulders

>>4422054
>>4422066
>>4422166

Switching to this as well.

>>4422054
>>A muscular and broad shouldered caucasian man with a calm strong jawed face
>A red caped segmented armored bodysuit of strange make

>>4422066
I'll support that.

>>4422054
>>A short haired blonde caucasian woman with a confident smirk and broadly set shoulders
>>Jeans, boots, a blue T-shirt emblazoned with a stylized S shield

>>4422216
We worked out an alliance for the short-hair blonde option.
Whether you want in or not, remember to tag the Artemis' post with the vote options or it might not get counted.

>>4422054
>>A bomber jacket, goggles, a trailing red scarf, and sturdy rough hewn pants and boots.

>>4422244
>A short haired blonde caucasian woman with a confident smirk and broadly set shoulders
Forgot a part of that.

Calling it and art commissioned.

File: Daily Planet Quest Supes.png (1.46 MB, 1920x1080)

1.46 MB PNG

Succinct.

>>4422385
Nice.

>>4422395
I said surprise me with the poses for two pieces. One in the DCAU artstyle. The other in the artist's own artstyle.

I am expecting at least one to be a Superdickery pose...which would be fine.

She provides leverage and balance in helping to lift the nose of the massive flying wing, seemingly surprised things are going so well under her ministrations until all of you feel a shuddering throughout the vessel while the world inside the cockpit levels out.

“She was...flying,” Charles whispers before the sobering effect of the emergency takes him more fully and he reads out components of the GUI, “We’ve lost primary and half of the support turbines. Parafoil is too damaged to control properly. All we have is the main wing controls and the chance to glide back to the airport, but without thrust we may be too heavy,”

Beyond the window, she’s reacting and nodding to what he’s saying. Her blue eyes seem briefly iridescent as they sweep across the distance of the wing with the quick pan of her head from side to side. She grits her teeth, inhales deeply, and nods before flashing the two of you a thumbs up.

Leaning back, she pulls ahead and away from the slowing aircraft. With a spin and a turn she’s facing forward and sinking ahead of the now gliding wing. There is a triangular shield insignia on her back housing a stylized S. She raises her arms above her head as if to carry something on her back as she slows down and slowly lets the wing overtake her.

There is another shuddering, but the glide of the L-60 KTE seems to stabilize and the altimeter stops dropping.

“She’s doing it,” you and Charles Brown say in unison before he continues, “We’ll...I think we’ll make it to the airport...THE AIRPORT! Hey, what’s our status with Metropolis International?”

The comms officer, who had been staring with the rest of you, shakes themselves from an apparent stupor and returns to their direct line with the control tower at Metropolis International.

It’s easy flying from here on out, that the tarmac is clear and emergency services are en route. You drop the landing gear when you roughly imagine it’s appropriate on the final descent, but forces other than wind and gravity are keeping you at speed here. Charles observes as much in surprise and wonderment.

You have so many questions. That comes naturally to you as a reporter.

“Jimmy, come on,” you rise from the chair and leave Charles to finish breaking to complete the emergency landing.

In the scant few minutes of this final descent many of the staff who aren’t too hurt themselves are applying some measure of first aid ahead of the necessary triage to be done. For the moment you assist in preparing to help a few people who can move to the emergency exits and slides. The parabolic approach of sirens stirs you momentarily from your haze as the emergency door depressurizes and ejects itself from the wall, deploying the inflated slide in the process.

>>4422707
And there you see her. Just a ways off from the SubOrbital Wing on the tarmac, facing away from you and given a wide berth by the first responders as police officers among them slowly break off to surround her. She is leaning a bit forward, as if catching her breath or nerves with her knees bowed and her hands against her legs to support her torso.

Do you want to spend your Hold 1 on Local Celebrity that this Strange Visitor might know who you are? We are nearing the end of the first event and to start the next mystery...
>Y
>N

“Who are you?” you wonder aloud as Jimmy throws himself down the slide with a nervous eagerness.

She turns, rises at that, while an approaching police officer maybe fifteen feet away from her raises one hand at her in a cautioning matter and says something you can’t hear while he and a few other hands reach for side arms and cuffs alike.

She gazes out at the scene around you, shrugs and sighs while laying hands on her hips. Taking a sweeping glance she seems even at this distance self assured and confident, proud of what she did here today before sparing a glance toward the handful of officers surrounding her and on approach.

She rises again, but not to her height. Again floating she tucks her arms behind her back with a smile before turning in grace while the long red scarf continues to trail in her wake before she turns again away toward the rest of the city and picks up speed until above the water an away from everyone as with a sudden burst a vortex ring breaks across and off of her frame casting the thunder of a sonic boom to echo across the skyline as she rockets away.

As Charles staggers up alongside you to look out after her retreating form in awe and wonder, you offer words you’ve been sitting on all night to break your own tension.

“You’re a good man, Charlie Brown,”

>Daily Planet Quest Prologue Complete.

Daily Planet Evening Edition Top Stories
>Dr Saul Erdel dies from heart attack during field test, collaborators say Zeta Beam project pushed back at least 5 years by loss of principal scientist. Byline Ron Troupe [J'onn J'onzz is stranded on Earth]
>Intergang Weapons Smuggling Implicated in Attack on LexCorp Flight. Byline Clara Kent
>Stuck in the Middle: Teacher of the Year Target of Gang Violence, Protection Detail Denied by MPD. Byline Cat Grant.
>HEADLINE. Panic in the Skies. Byline Lois Lane


Lois Lane Mark 2nd Experience Point

Next Post, The First Mystery

Back Issue Story Vote
>A dying man’s warning [Erdel]
>A Strange Adventure [Adam Strange]
>Training Begins Now [Dick Grayson]
>Life on the Farm [The Kents]
>100 Ways to Die [Jefferson Pierce]
>No small Mercy [Lex Luthor]
>What’cha Name, Man? [Doctor Emil Hamilton]

>>4422709
>Y

>Life on the Farm [The Kents]

>>4422709
>>Y
>A Strange Adventure [Adam Strange]

>>4422709
Y
>No small Mercy [Lex Luthor]

>>4422709
Y

>>4422709
>Y
>Training Begins Now [Dick Grayson]

>>4422709
>>Y
>>What’cha Name, Man? [Doctor Emil Hamilton]

>>4422709
>Y
>100 Ways to Die [Jefferson Pierce]

>>4422709
>>Y
>>No small Mercy [Lex Luthor]

>>4422709
Is that a vote for or just a list of top stories?

>>4422709
>Y
>Life on the Farm [The Kents]

File: fd3ebcf116809b44955a7f66f(...).jpg (63 KB, 754x419)

63 KB JPG

>>4422709
>>Life on the Farm [The Kents]

>>4422709
>No small Mercy [Lex Luthor]

>>4422916
Also
>Do you want to spend your Hold 1 on Local Celebrity that this Strange Visitor might know who you are?
Y

>>4422709
>Y
>Life on the Farm [The Kents]

>>4422884
List of top stories as of this point

Wow...I seem to have garnered a LOT of attention with the end of this prologue.

How did everyone find the start of Daily Planet Quest?

>>4422976
Was fun. As with PPQ once upon a time, I like the idea of collaboratively creating our own universe in the wider multiverse of the comics. The fact you let us mix and match or just outright go nuts with the versions of the characters helps with that.

>>4422976
It was good. No surprise given whose writing.

Point of order, had you gone with Hernan or Calvin Ellis as your flavor of Kryptonian, I would not have been as subtle as I usually am with social issues over in my Sailor Moon fanfic quest.

>>4422709
>>Y
>>A Strange Adventure [Adam Strange]

Don't know what options you'll have on the story hunt, but instinct is to follow the being shot at with missiles story. That's a lot of hardware and a high value/visibility target. Looks like Ms Smallville managed to land an Intergang angle on that, though a bit much for it to be targetting just us and our Intergang piece wasn't public yet.
Maybe see if we can get at her sources and find out more.
While sending Olsen pull everything he can find on reports of playing people and the guardian angel to review for clues/leads to chase later

>>4423125
-if it was just for us, we must have really cheesed someone off, and probably a mole, leak, or hack somewhere trying to kill the story and us.
Going to take it on faith that Perry is good, in which case the leak isn't on his end or he/files would have been targetted too, they didn't know the story was turned in already, so that narrows it down.

>>4423125
>>4423134

Perry said he was dropping it on the front page of the website ahead of the Afternoon edition.

>>4423140
Was probably the article then...

>>4423140
With the morning flight, figured it hadn't been up yet before we were up in the air.. but yeah that was on the return trip, so then it would have been up.
So, we either really pissed someone off, just happened to be in the crosshairs of someone else on the flight that Intergang sold the missiles to, or Intergang offered missiles to someone else at a discount to encourage taking us out along with another target.

>>4422709
>A dying man’s warning [Erdel]

Alright, gonna write [b]Life on the Farm[/b]

File: Kent Barn.jpg (109 KB, 1280x720)

109 KB JPG

Rolled 3, 6 + 2 = 11 (2d6 + 2)

Life on the Farm
>https://soundcloud.com/search?q=Somebody%20Save%20me%20smallville

It is approximately 11:30 am in Lowell County Kansas, one hour behind time on the east coast somewhere like the District of Metropolis between Delaware and New Jersey. Time isn’t so much behind, that’s just how the zoning works, but compared to the big city most things here move pretty slowly.

Not bothering to fish out a wrench from the nearby toolbox, Jonathan Kent takes hold of a rather large metal bolt on his tractor with just the oil rag in the barn workshop. He takes a deep breath and centers himself, he isn’t as young as he used to be but he is relatively certain he can still pull this trick to save time rather than hauling himself up and out from under the tractor and laying himself back down.

That back and forth can be rough on the back, might as well just do what he needs while he’s down there.

“Johnathan!” his wife, Martha, calls out as she enters the barn with a hurried voice, “Johnathan are you in here?”

“Under the tractor,” he calls out and sighs in relief, “Mind handing me the spanner while you’re here?”

He hears the sound of metal clanking and after a few short steps a weight is placed in his hand. Right tool for the job in hand and no risk to the lower back in retrieving it.

“Everything alright?” he questions while loosening the bolt and moves a drip pan into place.

“It’s Clarabelle,” she sighs and sits down next to where he lays leaning against the forward wheel of the tractor, “She’s finally done it, bless her heart. Weeks of growing bolder and she goes and does it, and only days after she landed a job too!”

Re-tightening the bolt he pulls himself on the roller out from beneath the tractor and looks up and over at his wife.

“By it, I’m gonna assume you mean she did something that can’t be plausibly denied,” he questions with a from but then smiles broadly, “So, what’d our girl do now?”

Martha holds up her phone and taps it, more than a few times trying to get the cursor back to the start of the very recently very hastily posted video. He watches as the smoking flying wing wobbles on approach from someone’s video of the landing less than an hour prior, zooming in as it passes overhead of an outer roadway on Hell’s Gate Island in Metropolis.

And there she is, holding up the damn plane.

He whistles, he laughs.

“Jonathan, don’t laugh. This is serious! What if the government goes after her...I’m so proud but I’m also so worried,” Martha grouses but then deflates, “but I’m not gonna scold her for doing the right thing,”

>>4424013
“No...no I don’t think we ought to read her any riot acts over this one. What’s that she’s wearing? Looks like a smaller cut of my Grandpa Eben’s flight jacket,” he reminisces, “Remember how I put it over her shoulders the night we found them, shivering in the crash. I swear that girl wore it for three years straight,”

“I am not looking forward to when he finds out,” she finally laughs too, “We can’t keep them from the world forever, can we?”

There is a rush of air, the oil rag and the loose detritus of hay kicks up and flutters around the barn as a young man bounces on the balls of his feat ahead of them. Most things move slow out in Smallville, this boy was not one of them. He’s tall for his age and for now a bit lanky, maybe eleven or twelve years old, and a look of absolute excitement covers his features.

“Ma! Pa! Did you see! Did you see what Clara did!” he is an excited ball of joyous energy in this moment, some would swear he could rocket into the sky with that much juice, others knew he could.

Or at least would once he got over his worry about what happened when Johnathan and Clarabelle had gotten the bright idea to tow him like a kite behind the pickup to help him learn.

“Clark Kent! You should be in school right now; we can talk about Clarabelle when the day is done,” Martha hauls herself up with the aid of the tire, Jonathan considers a moment asking her or Clark for a hand one she’s up.

“I’m sorry Ma, since it’s lunch I figured I could just be here and back after I saw it on Pete’s phone,” the boy scratches the back of his head embarrassed, “Also I may have forgotten my bag in the fridge,”

Martha sighs and smoothes the boy’s hair out before kissing him on the forehead.

“Well then go get it and get back there,” she scolds lightly, “I’m sure we’ll either hear from her or see her tonight,”

>>4424021
Ah, I see that QM has decided to go for the scenario where both Kara and Kal reached Earth-??? at the same time.

>>4424091
Yes. By circumstance of their ships not getting separated: Kara & Kal arrived in Kansas later than he would have alone but earlier than she would have alone. The cousins were adopted by the Kents as siblings, and when Clark started noticing he was different Clara was there with experience and guidance alongside the Kents supportiveness so he feels a little less the unsure outsider.

File: portrait-a-girl-with-glas(...).jpg (18 KB, 238x250)

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Daily Planet Quest. The First Mystery. (Rolling Local Celebrity for the Mystery)

It is the day after the world changed. Or at least, the day after the world knew it had changed. Your initial article was written and out before the afternoon edition even hit the streets. Back to back you wrote pulitzer worthy stories. One an investigation into judicial corruption and blackmail by intergang. The other about the Panic in the Sky, the miracle, and the events and circumstances leading up to it both in the sky and on the ground.

Some new staffer had actually been working on a story about the weapon smuggling Intergang was doing that allowed them to try and shoot the experimental craft out of the sky. Though motives in the attack were yet unknown, she did her leg work well. While you dominate the front page with this, she managed the top of her article down page.

You wrote with a fury, demanding everything Jimmy had on the previously mysterious Guardian Angel who had been doing the impossible by increasing steps in the city. Appearance as described is consistent, except for one where a mugger said her face was clad in clinging dark shadows while her eyes glowed like the fires of hell.

Her eyes were blue, a hauntingly piercing blue. Like they could see through you...could they see through you? She seemed like she could hear you in the cockpit over the wind, explosions, remaining jet engines, and screams through the insulated glass meant to secure things in space. That cockiness and that smile, she was excited to be there. Was she excited to show off how strong she was? Excited to help people? Excited to be seen without fear?

People don’t come out of nowhere, unless they’re Mercy Graves. They have lives that lead them to the people they are...who was she and if she can do all this where has she been all her life? No, the things she did could be something she acquired. You’re lost in thought, asking the wrong questions.

Because you’ve just barged into the meeting room early to speak with the Chief.

“Good timing, Lois, I want you to be the first to meet our new hire on the city desk,”

Walking into the room behind you is a bespectacled woman with short blonde hair tied back…
>carrying herself in awkward excitement, wearing a baggy sweater with shirt tails and slacks (Mellisa Benoist style)
>carrying herself in gentle confidence in a modestly cut blue pants suit holding a laptop bag in front of her (STAS Clark inspired)
>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>carrying herself confidently and brash in a short blue jacket and torn red pants (Lauren Faust, what have you wrought?!)
>carrying herself with an open friendly confidence in a blue suit & tie with provocative fit (Karen Starr comics style outfit)

“Clarabelle Kent,” Perry introduces you.

File: James Earl Jones as Frank(...).jpg (34 KB, 811x624)

34 KB JPG

Rolled 6, 1 - 1 = 6 (2d6 - 1)

“Clara, please,” she offers in response with a nod to Perry before turning to you, “It’s nice to meet you, and work with you, I’m a big fan!”

You spent your Local Celebrity Hold 1 on her- I mean the unexpected heroine. Why am I bringing this up here?

“I’ve been reading her stuff, she’s good. I want you to let her tag along with you, get the lay of the land after this meeting,” Perry explains.

You’ve read her work, well you read her story in yesterday’s issue especially how it related to your experience and it got your brain working.

“Have we met?” you question of the girl.

“Ever been to Kansas?” she offers in a tone that matches her presentation and style.

>No. (not polite or impolite)
>God No. (impolite)
>Can’t say I have (polite)
>Say nothing and sit down (dismissive)
>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)
>I’ve been meaning to (endearing)
>Yeah, no, strictly flyover (aggressive)
>Write in

The rest of the City Desk filters in, not every writer at the planet but some of the most important ones by your metric. Perry bids Clara to take a seat at the table, she seems an up and comer one article in. Seats are taken. And projecting on the monitor on the wall of the meeting room Perry starts a picture and video slideshow.

Perry white clicks pause on his tablet after a few minutes of silent and intense observation as the screen shared video from Jimmy’s digital camera rests on that woman mid action.

“What is that?” Perry White asks, jerking his thumb at the screen with a pained and frustrated mean, “Can anyone tell me?”

The room is silent. Ron Troupe looks on in reflective curiosity, deep in thought about these things in a similar manner to your own considerations. Steve Lombard leans back in the chair, munching a protein bar while flipping through photos on his phone shared from Jimmy’s cloud of the woman. Cat Grant leans over a spread of those prints of the same with an eye more critical than appraising. Richard White flips through print outs of the witness accounts from Jimmy’s research and witnesses to the L-60 KTE incident. Max Mencken just shakes his head and looks positively done with this, you agree because his beat is society and theater. Come to think of it, Steve is sports. Why are they even here?

Franklin Stern, the paper’s owner as of 4 months ago, stands at the back of the room, having taken an interest in these matters.

>>4424976
“A flying lady, Chief!” Jimmy himself offers excitedly, in the middle of a long table meeting of most of the assembled writing staff.

“No kidding,” Perry sighs and approaches Jimmy and shakes his tablet in the blazer and bowtie clad ginger’s general direction admonishing him, “I know she’s flying but who is she? Where’d she come from? What does she want?!”

The room remains silent as Perry White pulls himself back, going over some calming mantra in his head. It makes you happy he’s taking his doctor’s advice on trying to de-stress himself.

“Look who I’m asking,” he lays a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, perhaps thinking better of berating his newest staff photojournalist, “Sorry kid, anyone else?”

You were there and you have some things to say…

>Write in. Try to reach a consensus, or I’ll fold things in as a strange stream of conscious rant.

...Local Celebrity fails

Lois Lane marks 3rd Experience.

>>4424972
>carrying herself in awkward excitement, wearing a baggy sweater with shirt tails and slacks (Mellisa Benoist style)
>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)
>>4424978
>Write in.
ask about previous sightings? I got nothing.

>>4424972
>carrying herself in gentle confidence in a modestly cut blue pants suit holding a laptop bag in front of her (STAS Clark inspired)
>>4424976
>Can’t say I have (polite)
>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)

>>4424972
>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>Can’t say I have (polite)
>I went over the testimonials and coverage of the Guardian Angel Jimmy has done over the last few weeks. Honestly, that girl is our angel from the looms of it. That means that they were building themselves up to this.

>>4424972
>>carrying herself in gentle confidence in a modestly cut blue pants suit holding a laptop bag in front of her (STAS Clark inspired)
>>4424976
>>Yeah, no, strictly flyover (aggressive)
>>4424978
>>Write in. Try to reach a consensus, or I’ll fold things in as a strange stream of conscious rant.
"Nice 'S'..."

>>4424972
>>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>>4424976
>>Write in
Rarely, have some family out that way.
>>4424978
>>Write in. Try to reach a consensus, or I’ll fold things in as a strange stream of conscious rant.
(Brain is a bit fried, I'll come back to this)

>>4424978
>>4425285
>Woooooooords
From what we can tell from Jimmy's research, she's been helping out with little things around Metropolis for at least <X time>, ramping up as time passed. More sightings, bigger crimes.. while still helping get cat out of trees.
I dunno Chief, if i didn't see it myself I would've written it off as a new social media craze of people copying each other says they were helped by this "guardian angel".
..we might want to work on that branding or we'll have religious nuts writing in to us if we plaster "angel" all over our articles.

>>4425376
"Pretty enough to be one though.."
"Nah, no wings and the getup is earthly enough."
"Metropolis Guardian?"
"Sounds like a competing newspaper."
"Can you zoom in on the chest?"
"Stuff it Phil, I know what you're about."
"No really, look."
"...Nice 'S'"
"Savior?"
"Ugh, almost as bad as angel."

>>4425392
"Could try asking-"
"Sure thing, you have her number?"
"Maybe put an offer out to interview the.. er..?"
"See? We need at least a placeholder to get started."
"Flying Samaritan?"
"Levitating Lass?"
"Scarfy McScarfface?"
*groans and thrown objects*

>>4424978
>carrying herself in awkward excitement, wearing a baggy sweater with shirt tails and slacks (Mellisa Benoist style)
>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)

other than that, full support for the Guardian angel connection and probing a bit about the S. I like Scary McScarfface

>>4424976
>carrying herself in awkward excitement, wearing a baggy sweater with shirt tails and slacks (Mellisa Benoist style)
>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)

>>4424972
>>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>I’ve been meaning to (endearing)

>>4424972
>>carrying herself confidently and brash in a short blue jacket and torn red pants (Lauren Faust, what have you wrought?!)
>>Can’t say I have (polite)

>>4424976
>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>Can’t say I have (polite)

>>4424972
>>4424976
>>4424978
>>carrying herself in friendly aloofness in her jeans and open flannel over a Smallville Crows Tee
>>No, somewhere else... (suspicious)
>>Write in.
We know she's playing the good samaritan schtick. Any connections between incidents? How's she getting her info?

Rolled 3, 3 + 2 = 8 (2d6 + 2)

Gearing up for a big post before day’s end.

We have Flannel Aloof Crows Tee for Clara’s initial look and feel.
And Lois, you are suspicious.
You also seem to be leading the room in a discussion rather than stealing the floor yourself.

Rolling another Investigate a Mystery

Alright, an 8

You get to ask 1 question of the QM to represent Lois’s investigation in going back over everything she’s read and researched since yesterday.

Also, I should note, its been 1 Night so Lois’S accumulated Harm has dropped from 3 to 2, she’s okay but still a little bruised and rattled from yesterday.

Your Questions on Deck

• What happened at the building where rockets were launched?
• What sort of Person is this Guardian Angel?
• What can that Woman do?
• What can hurt her?
• Where did the missile guys go?
• Where did she go?
• What was is she going to do?
• What is being concealed here in the room?
• What Is being concealed by Clarabelle Kent
• What Is a common connective thread between the Angel sightings?

>>4425702
>• What Is a common connective thread between the Angel sightings?

>>4425702
>What happened at the building where rockets were launched?

>>4425702
>• What happened at the building where rockets were launched?

>>4425702
>still a little bruised and rattled from yesterday.
ergo
>• Where did the missile guys go?
Have wonder where the people blowing us up went.

>>4425702
What sort of Person is this Guardian Angel?

Writing

“No...somewhere else?” you question while looking the woman up and down.

She lacks professionalism in her attire, you can’t tell if that’s just a symptom of your generation as you had to whip yourself into looking the part once you landed this job. And it is such a chore. No, she’s aloof in her overworn tee you figure she’s had for years, and the jeans aren’t torn in the way you expect these things to come pre frayed. It matches the initial roughness of her handshake, which just sells her post farmgirl hipster chic. Though, she isn’t being entirely forthright about herself and you can’t place why.

“Smallville?” you question the name on her attire.

“Yeah, hometown. Even after college and time abroad I still wave for the home team,” she shrugs, “They got a pretty good lineup this year and I think they’ll go state,”

“Cheersquad?” your question pokes over her investment.

“No, enthusiast,” she shrugs.

You sit down and consider the girl with a nod before the others start filtering their way into the room. Ruminating on what you gleaned from her article about Intergang’s weapon smuggling and security footage from the building you were able to get access to with a few phone calls to a few friends you’ve managed to keep in the MPD.

Nothing for nothing, Maggie Sawyer owes you as much as you still owe her.

Clara’s article was good. Well researched and feet in the muck of things, asking the right questions, the right places about the wrong shipments and bribery in the back alley ways of hobb’s bay. Turns out the two of you have a mutual informant in down on his luck shoreman Bibbo Bibbowsky.

It tracks that the rockets came to intergang by way of Kaznian traders, a different ship than the currently moored Diplomatic Vessel on the other side of the city, by way of Bialya. Among those setting the battery up on that St. Martin’s Island rooftop was an Intergang Enforcer you recognized, Whisper A’Daire. Someone who is supposedly in the gang’s inner circle with Bruno Manheim and a number of otherwise unknown nerdowells. Actually, you can see the rooftop from here. It makes you a little uneasy they could have just blown out the Daily Planet...but why Lex’s flight?

A hired hit? Corporate rivalry or sabotage? Lex himself looking to bank in on the insurance money? All good options, what’s certain though is that the missile attack on the L-60 KTE had nothing to do with you.

-

>>4425904
Well, if no one else is going to do anything, you may as well start up. You and Jimmy are the eye witnesses here and he hasn’t volunteered anything useful besides the research already done. Though it’s now or never, considering that percolating look on Cat’s face.

“I went over Jimmy’s collection of the testimonials and notes on this Guardian Angel from the last few weeks, and it looks like she’s our it,” you jerk your thumb at the screen and narrow your eyes, “She’s been helping out across the city for at least a month and a half. And she was ramping up over time, initially she was in and out of whatever crime she was foiling or rescue she was doing like a red blue blur, but the longer she was at it the more sloppy she was with being hidden,”

You get up and out of your chair and motion for the chief to give you the tablet controlling the monitor. He acquiesces and sits with a thump into his chair at the top of the conference room before swiveling to watch.

You swipe through to one of the later incidents. A car crash at the intersection of Siegel and Schuster in the middle of the night, car fire. A handprint on the top of the car like those found on the bottom of Luthor’s KTE.

“Right here, she didn’t need to grip like this, given what she did in the sky she was frustrated with holding back. She was building herself up to this, to do something she couldn’t take back,”

You let it hang in the air.

“And now, with everyone and their mother coming out with a new Guardian Angel story, like some new age social media meme craze, it’s gonna be hard to figure the real accounts going forward from the chaff. Maybe even religious zealots if we keep calling her an angel,” you hum.

“She’s more than pretty enough to be one,” Steve crinkles his moustache, tossing the wrapper for his protein bar over his shoulder haphazardly, it doesn’t hit the trash.

“Well, why even angel. She doesn’t have wings,” Clara offers (insert persona qualifiers here)

“Yeah, I can’t imagine how that’ll play in the pews this weekend,” Max grouses, “Probably not in her favor if she’s lucky, probably worship if she’s not,”

“Worship?” Clara asks with uncertainty.

“She definitely does need work on branding,” Cat questions holding up one of the prints, “Can we see number 35 on screen again,”

She who holds the tablet leads the meeting, and is sometimes led by it.

There, when she’s turned away from the cockpit. Jacket and cape fluttering behind her, your eye is immediately drawn to the shield emblazoned across the back of her jacket.

“Nice ‘S’...” you offer and consider.

“Excuse me?” questions the new girl, looking down and over her thick glasses somewhat scandalized, before leaning back and closing her flannel overshirt over the Smallville team tee which goes unnoticed by most including yourself.

“Savior?” Rich offers setting down the witness accounts.

File: Cat Grant by way of Ally (...).jpg (82 KB, 996x1000)

82 KB JPG

>>4425906
“Samaritan?” Ron looks over to him answering his question with another question before making a declaration, “Flying Samaritan!”

“Those are almost as bad as angel,” Cat interjects, “and still too biblical,”

“What’s to say we aren’t in that territory?” Max considers with a frown, “Between theoretical science, magic, and some old testament shit at least. What about Saint?”

There is a quiet again at the table as a few of those assembled consider those implications and Max’s suggestion for a name.

“Scarfy McScarface,” Steve offers with serious finality before chuckling over his own joke to a chorus of boos, “What, thought it was funny,”

A few errant hastily crunched paper balls whing past Lombard’s head.

“I thought that was funny, Steve. Might even win an online poll. Seriously though, she’s Nietzsche’s ideal all wrapped up in a red scarf. Confident, driven, strong, fast, and impossible,” you break back into the momentum of conversation as you tap your chin, feeling a burgeoning contest between yourself and Cat Grant across the room, “The Superhuman. The super hero. Superwoman,”

“Superwoman?” Clara asks with an uncertain shock.

“What about Levitating Lass?” questions Jimmy, whose suggestion in this matter will go ignored until the thirtieth or thirty first century, not that he or you for that matter will be privy to that information for quite some time.

“Seems a bit, ostentatious?” Ron offers and rolls it around on his tongue a bit more comfortably with a more positive nod, “Superwoman...hmmm,”

“Agreed,” Cat Grant nods to Ron’s initial statement in quick critique before posing you a counter offer with a snap of her fingers, “Supergirl,”

Both you and the seemingly aloof girl regard Cat with a critical question.

“Are we trying to minimize the importance of this, of her? Doesn’t that come off as anti-feminist?” the new girl seems to roll her eyes and drolls at Cat.

Hmmm, though you’re suspicious of her you have to admit it will be nice having someone more Cat Grant’s polar opposite to draw her attention. Cat seems like she has this whole response prepared, probably originally aimed at you, but now redirected toward Kent before Lombard cuts her off.

“She’s got that whole tomboy thing going,” Steve considers while cracking open a can of Diet Zesti one handed, “Who’s to say she even identifies within the binary?”

A brief silence falls over the room as everyone looks at Steve Lombard, yourself included, in surprise.

“What, just cause I’m a meathead doesn’t mean I’m not aware. There are conversations about this left and right in athletics these days,”

“Anyway, what’s honestly wrong with ‘girl’,” Cat asks before gesturing to herself, Clara, and you, “I’m a girl, we’re girls. We’re professionals, powerful, capable of swaying public opinion. Let it be empowering,”

>>4425909
>Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)
>Agree with Cat’s reasons for Supergirl

“Alright, it’s catchy. Now do we have anything other than a name that we didn’t have before?”

“I’ve already collected and trimmed Jimmy’s research, it and a selection of the best photos are already in your tray,” you offer Perry with a wave, “Slap the name on it and we’re as good to go as we’re going to be until she shows up again,”

“Well, I then I hope we won’t be sitting on our thumbs until she pops up again,” Franklin Stern, the owner, speaks up from the back, “Because I think I have a tangentially related lead for all of you,”

“Go ahead, Frank,” Perry gestures at his long time friend and collaborator as you return to your seat to contemplate what you parsed beyond Clara’s article on Intergan’s attempt on the SubOrbital plane.

“Less than ten minutes after the incident, a worm activated on almost every system on the planet,” he explains and places a jump drive onto the table, “No one knows about it broadly yet because it did squat. It's an old one, regular upkeep was done on it but the eggheads at BrilyantSoft, where I sit on the board, think its older origin point is why the current generation of baseline OS security wiped the floor with it. If it cropped up two months ago we wouldn’t even have known about it or what it did,”

“What did it do?” Clara and Rich question at the same time and shoot one another a brief look before turning back to Stern.

“It tried to systematically wipe every photo and video of our Superhero here,” he shrugs and places a hat on his head before heading toward the door, “I thought I’d leave it in all of your hands, the drive contains everything Byrna was able to lift out of that virus and it’s cache. Perry, are we still on for golf Saturday?”

“I’ll let you know after this pans out,” Perry says before taking in the room before pointing at the frozen image on the screen, “So, you’ve all got your own leads and jobs to work on, but keep this in mind if you stumble across anything else weird,”

Well, there’s a lot to do and you’re going to follow some leads on…and you’ll have Jimmy and the new girl helping or crowding you depending on whether or not you try to ditch them.

>>4425916

[b]Choose your Assignment[/b]
>The intergang connection, Whisper A’Daire is a tangible lead you can follow
>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super
>You’ve got a connection at Star labs who might be able to answer the how of the Super
>If this guardian angel is real, there are more monsters to chase. The purple Cryptid!
>Take Perry’s earlier advice, get out of the city for a bit.

[b]Choose your support[/b]
>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked
>Take them both with you, but your suspicion has you keeping Clara at arms length
>Try to ditch just Clarabelle (a difficult task)
>Try to ditch just Jimmy (relatively easy)
>Try to ditch Clarabelle with Jimmy (does the work for you)
>Write in

>>4425916
>>Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)
>>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super
>>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super

>>4425916
>>Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)

>>4425918
>You’ve got a connection at Star labs who might be able to answer the how of the Super
>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked

>>4425916
Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)
>If this guardian angel is real, there are more monsters to chase. The purple Cryptid!

If qe get in trouble good chance of meetig Superwoman and scoring an interview. Could make our career.
>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked

We have out suspicions of Clara for some reason, sure. But, she has shown she can offer and second front against Cat. A sometimes ally would be better than none.

>>4425918
>>The intergang connection, Whisper A’Daire is a tangible lead you can follow
Seems the least safe option.
>>Try to ditch just Jimmy (relatively easy)
Jimmy, try to find an egghead that can crack this nut. *gesture at drive*
Kent, time to follow up on our Intergang stories.

By choosing the Suspicious option, you had the opportunity to ask questions about Clara in the previous investigate a mystery

>>4425916
>Superlady?
Middle road suggestion.

(Though part of me wants to push for Wonder Woman and really mess with the naming conventions.)

>>4425906
>red blue blur
> Siegel and Schuster
Nice

>>4425916
>Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)

>The intergang connection, Whisper A’Daire is a tangible lead you can follow
>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super
>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked

>>4425909
>>4425916
>>4425918
>>Stand your ground for Superwoman (Resulting from the Nice S line)
>>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super
>>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked
Lets see if the vote goes through this time.

Rolled 2, 6 + 2 = 10 (2d6 + 2)

Jimmy Olsen Investigates a Mystery!

>>4425918
>Agree with Cat’s reasons for Supergirl
just sounds more catchy really
>Snap up the jump drive and dig into who might be interested in suppressing the Super
>Take them both with you, show Clara the lay of the land like Perry asked

>>4426014
Also, with Clara, bringing her with lets us keep an eye on her.

File: Superwoman Logo.jpg (112 KB, 880x391)

112 KB JPG

“Superwoman is the name because it’s already my article,” you shoot back at Cat, “and I agree with Smallville there about finding it a bit reductive,”

Cat fixes you with a glare and then leans back in her chair. There is a promise in her eyes, that she doesn’t think this is fully over and it’ll be the court of public opinion that settles things.

Clarabelle for her part mouths out the name of her hometown as her face twists a bit, as if to ask if this if the name thrown at her is going to stick now.

The matter settles, you snatch up the jump drive and look at it excitedly, you manage to snatch it up before Rich can and the two of you share a momentary staredown before you smirk at him. Your eyes dance at him that it’s a finders keepers sort of day. The chief’s nephew gives a glare of resignation back. He’s never tried to pull rank at you, and you know he worked his way up from the bottom of the mail room, so you’re not gonna dance back at him over a claim of nepotism...but it's nice the two of you at least have some stability of conflict with one another.

And as far as other conflicts in the room go, your ongoing frackas with Cat, maybe it’ll be nice to have a sometimes ally with her in Clara.

“I’ll take the new girl with me on this Chief like you want, and Jimmy,” you haul up the slight built and overdressed lad, “I need someone who speaks better nerd than I do to parse this,”

“Uh, it was nice meeting everyone,” Clara offers a wave to the table and rises up to join the two of you before shoving her hands in her pocket and following with a slouch out of the room.

Behind you there is talk about dividing up other assignments. Troup wants to follow up on his last story with the new director of Star Labs Metropolis with Dr. Erdel’s passing.

“Soooo...do you make it a habit of throwing nicknames at people you’ve just met,” Clara catches up to the two of you and falls in step.

“Oh, Ms. Lane sure does,” Jimmy offers with a sigh while adjusting his bowtie, “I’m here less than a day and the entire floor was calling me Jimmy when I’ve always preferred James,”

Clara gives the garishly overdressed boy a once over and lays a hand meant to be comforting on his shoulder and fixes him with a sympathetic and soft glare from behind her square framed coke bottles. He is hopeful in this moment of found shared experience and kinship, but what she says next is a bit of a dick move. Perhaps even a super dick move.


Clarabelle Kent joins your Crew

“Sure you do, Jimmy,” she finishes and then turns to you, “Between the three of us, is this the best use of our time? I mean our Intergang stories have some overlap, with the inspection authorizations waved by one of your subject’s judicial signatures. Shouldn’t we focus on them?”

>>4426700

“Listen Smallville, I know where that goes. While it’s worthwhile, I’m fully confident the Intergang story is going to come to us no matter what we do. I’d much rather sink my teeth into a global digital conspiracy,” you’re giddy as you shove the jump drive into Jimmy’s momentarily sullen hand, “Was this related to our mystery woman? Is it someone trying to suppress anything like this from gaining media traction? Have there been others? Oh I can practically feel the article forming,”

“Okay...you’re the seasoned reporter,” she makes a backing up/halting motion with her hands, “Show me how you work and Perry’s lay of the land,”

After a brief stop in IT for an off network laptop, you and Clara hover on either side of Jimmy as he opens the drive and begins poking around.

Fred Stern said Byrna fashioned the contents from the code writ of the computer worm that was supposedly everywhere. Considering the company he name dropped you imagine he was talking about Byrna Brilyant herself. Everything Jimmy looks through is all greek to you, between sections of code, cached txt files, and Byrna’s own notes. She must be a genius to have done so much with this matter since just yesterday.

He’s tinkering for a solid hour, occasionally humming to himself, and fidgeting as he tabs through various files and then checks for this or that on his phone. Clara for her part seems to be able to follow exactly what he’s doing.

At some point he takes out a thumb drive of his own and copies some garbled lines of text and runs it through some kind of...base 65 nonsense that you don’t understand and the bunching this or that into a browser search engine.

“Huh,” Clara says leaning a little further, perhaps uncomfortably, over his shoulder before turning to face him, “McCarthy?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Gaps match up with dates that are missing from our digital archive,” he says with some serious concern.

“I’m sorry, what’s going on?” you question between your two attaches.

“This thing, yeah it was primed to try and wipe all digital evidence of this…” she pauses and sighs to say it, perhaps she has some misgivings about the name after all, “Superwoman from the internet, and it definitely has done stuff like this before,”

“The kicker is, I have a bunch of dates in the activity cache that it was apparently looking for during previous runs that line up with some inconsistencies in our digital archive,” he nods and smiles proudly, “Which means we need to hit microfilm storage!”

“Or we could hit an address in the city that it was also erasing in earlier activity periods,” Clara suggests.

“So, what about McCarthy?”

“Dates line up with some hearings in 51,” Jimmy shrugs and then sighs, “Even more than half a century later this jerk drops work in my family’s lap,”

>>4426701

Which lead will you investigate?
>Into the Microfilm Archives, currently hosted for manual restoration at Metropolis University across town
>Investigate the address Jimmy found; a condemned brownstone in Midtown either named or once owned by someone named Carter Hall
>Try to set up(by hook or crook) a meeting with Byrna Brilyant. The tech mogul may offer more insight to her find, and a quote for print
>Try to set up a meeting with your informants who might be relevant to these investigations

Do you want to chat with Clara or Jimmy about anything? Any general small talk?
>Write in

The wheels of Intergang even ignored turn, and a hit on Lois Lane was placed…
>in house, they can clean up their own mess
>with The 100 Gang, as a local outsourcing
>with Honor Guest, The Silencer
>with Slade Wilson, Deathstroke the Terminator
>with Floyd Lawton, Deadshot
>with Sandra Wu-San, The Lady Shiva

>>4426703
>>Investigate the address Jimmy found; a condemned brownstone in Midtown either named or once owned by someone named Carter Hall
Microfilm should be there later, if there's someone behind this at the address they might be realizing it didn't work this time.

>Do you want to chat with Clara or Jimmy about anything? Any general small talk?
Connection between Jimmy's family and McCarthy?
Smallville's tech literacy?

>The wheels of Intergang even ignored turn, and a hit on Lois Lane was placed…
>>in house, they can clean up their own mess

>>4426703
>>4426726
I can back this.

>>4426703
>>4426726
I'll back this combination.

>>4426726
+1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JU2hKAnz9w

>>4426726
+1

>>4426703
>>Into the Microfilm Archives, currently hosted for manual restoration at Metropolis University across town
>>with The 100 Gang, as a local outsourcing

>>4426703
>Investigate the address Jimmy found; a condemned brownstone in Midtown either named or once owned by someone named Carter Hall
>Write in
ask Clara about the name. any different suggestions?
with Sandra Wu-San, The Lady Shiva

Rolled 4, 1 + 3 = 8 (2d6 + 3)

Rolling Manipulate Someone on Clarabelle Kent. Applying an existing hold from the prologue's use of Local Celebrity for no reason since Clarabelle Kent isn't who you applied it to, what are you talking about?!

See if you can get a little closer to understanding Clara Kent by having her open up a little.

Rolled 5, 5 + 2 = 12 (2d6 + 2)

Rolling Jimmy's Weird for no reason or actual in game move. Just because he's said something that tempts certain fates in his future.

“Microfilm should be there later, if there's someone behind this at that address they might be realizing it didn't work this time,” you say with dedicated finality and a firm grasp and understanding of the situation.

“Wait, that’s not what I meant,” Jimmy says, closing the laptop after taking the time to properly and safely eject the jump drive while you put your jacket back on and check the fit of your shoes for some abandoned building urban spelunking, “I explained it poorly!”

“Yeah, the address wasn’t an origin point, it was another target parameter within one of the date ranges,” Clara expresses while smoothing out her flannel overshirt, “Like, in the previous activity cache. The worm was erasing information about it from fourth quarter 1940 through to the mid sixties,”

“Still worth investigating if there’s something there whoever is behind this doesn’t want people knowing about,” you reason after parsing what the two of them have to say and check that you have one of the most important pieces of equipment, your Metropolis Transit Authority Card.

“Well, yeah. Plus if it lines up against anything good we find in the archive later it’ll be nice to have photos of the place for comparison shots,” Jimmy excitedly slots a chip into his digital camera and a fresh roll from his desk drawer into his analog bruiser.

Clara checks over his gear appraisingly.

“Why two cameras?” she questions.

“Well, digital has its place but I adore analogue and its associated techniques,” Jimmy smiles broadly, “Plus, this was my dad’s camera...so I consider it my good luck charm,”

A surprise tool that might help us later? Jimmy’s dad...
>was/is actually secretly a secret agent with the N.I.A
>was/is a part time car mechanic and full time drunk in Oklahoma City
>was/is a Vietnam Vet who fathered Jimmy later in his life
>was/is an Operation Desert Storm Vet
>was/is a career soldier MIA believed KIA in the opening weeks of the Afghanistan
>write in

“I’m getting a he’s not around anymore vibe,” Clara offers sadly as the three of you exit on the planet’s first floor and move with haste toward the elevated monorail stop, “Commiserations, I lost my folks when I was still a kid,”

“Thanks, Clara,” Jimmy replies with a broad smile, “Though trust me when I say I love the work this thing can do over a purely digital device. The best shots I have of the Superwoman all come from this bad boy for sure, and I haven’t even finished developing the whole roll,”

“You darkroom it yourself?”

“Not all the time, but I’m not gonna leave these particular bad boys to any old photolab when I know I can trust these hands,” Jimmy shines talking about his professional acumen.

“That’s actually pretty cool. I’d love to see them some time,” Clara offers to the younger man with a smile, undercutting her earlier dickery, “Also, I liked Levitating Lass,”

“Really,”

>>4427161

“Call me a sucker for alliterative names,” she whistles as you close in on the station.

The three of you wind up a bit delayed in your late morning travel as you have to wait for Clara to purchase a rechargeable MTAcard. St. Martin’s island isn’t flush with tourists like New Troy island normally is so there’s no line, but still it's an obtuse and obsolete second generation touch screen interface whose screen’s are reliably off by an inch or two. Doesn’t seem to slow her down any, though.

“How have you managed without a card if you’ve been here two weeks?” you question of Clara as she does hit a snag struggling to feed bills rather than a debit card to the machine.

“Hoofing it, usually,” she explains with some exasperation as a bill is returned to her for a third time, “I like the exercise and frankly country girls make due,”

She kicks the machine a little this time and she pumps her fist when it accepts her bill and she is presented with a shiny new Metropolis Transit Authority Card.

Making your way up to the platform, you regard the girl carefully.

“You seem far too tech savvy and hipster for a country girl who just has to make due, Smallville,” you observe, not insultingly, toward the girl as she checks her glasses before pulling her flannel tight over her tee-shirt and buttoning it a little.

Manipulate Someone Rolled an 8
On a 7-9, another hunter can mark experience if they do what you ask.
Clara marks ??? experience.

Clara thinks about it a moment and sighs a bit. You have more questions about her, but learning she lost her parents at a young age has waylaid some of your strangers instincts to distrust and be suspicious of her.

“I wasn’t always a country girl,” she says with some guarded worry but relaxes, “Like, my parents were pretty smart people and that rubbed off on me I guess, and then my folks made sure to try and foster what I was good at as best they could after I was adopted. Did a comp sci minor in college too so...”

She shrugs within the too large flannel and quirks her head.

“Anyone can be anything, right? Doesn’t matter where we come from. Gained the hipster label just mixing farm and nerd in college,” she isn’t slouching as she says that with more than a hint of pride, “I actually think I own it pretty damn well,”

There is this hint of an accent that isn’t a drawl or twang that you can’t place, and you realize now that she isn’t slouching or being a faux slacker that she’s actually pretty tall. Taller than you for certain. How she manages to hide that is impressive, you knew some champion slouchers in your time but this is impressive. Still carrying on.

“And since we seem to be in a sharing mood, what about you Jimmy?” you query.

“What about what Ms. Lane?”

“What about your family and McCarthy?”

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>>4427164

“Oh! My grandpa, great grandpa, great uncle, and the list goes on were all called in different hearings by the House Un-American Activities Committee back then,” he says, “Apparently someone got it in their head back then that the Olsens were a red menace,”

“That’s a little intense,” Clara observes.

“Yeah, well like my mom always warned me. Olsens don’t get to live ordinary lives,” he smiles and laughs, “And I think the most extraordinary thing to happen in my life already has in witnessing yesterday’s miracle,”

Jimmy Olsen’s Weird rolled a 12...choose his first incoming ignoble solo adventure
>A Giant Turtle Boy rises in Hob’s Bay!
>The Wolf-Man of Metropolis is on the howl and on the prowl!
>Stealing the Bat-Mobile entirely by accident and circumstance
>Stranded for a week & a half in the old west
>”When you get a Ruby, it is always cursed!”
>”By right of trial by combat we crown you KING of Gorilla City!”

“I was serious about seeing some of those pictures,” Clara affirms as the monorail pulls into place and the lot of you board toward Midtown.

“So, if the information was erased, what do we know about this place?” you question the two.

Clara is on her phone sorting through some quick searches.

“Just that it exists and either it was named or the last owner was named Carter Hall,” she shrugs, “It’s otherwise just a bigger than normal brownstone from the Lex Maps look of it,”

One tunnel dip and the passing of many high rises later you reach your destination. Clara admits she hasn’t seen the city from the monorail’s angle before, seeming kind of entranced by it.

After being let off with no transfers needed, you lead on foot toward the destination. An imposing brownstone with boarded windows in the middle of an otherwise nice neighborhood a few short blocks from the West River.

How do you want to snoop around?
>Find a way to break in on the first floor
>Find a fire escape to break in from the roof
>Spend some time asking around the neighborhood
>Buildings like this were taller, try the old city tunnels above the sewer
>Bang on the accessible but glass boarded with wood from door and see if anyone answers
>Write in

>>4427165
>Stealing the Bat-Mobile entirely by accident and circumstance

>>4427165
>Buildings like this were taller, try the old city tunnels above the sewer

>>4427161
>>was/is a career soldier MIA believed KIA in the opening weeks of the Afghanistan
>>Stealing the Bat-Mobile entirely by accident and circumstance
>>Buildings like this were taller, try the old city tunnels above the sewer

>>4427161
>>was/is actually secretly a secret agent with the N.I.A
>>4427165
>>Stealing the Bat-Mobile entirely by accident and circumstance
>>4427165
>>Find a way to break in on the first floor

>>4427161
>>was/is a Vietnam Vet who fathered Jimmy later in his life
>Stranded for a week & a half in the old west
>Find a fire escape to break in from the roof

>>4427161
>A surprise tool that might help us later? Jimmy’s dad...
>>was/is actually secretly a secret agent with the N.I.A
>>was/is a Vietnam Vet who fathered Jimmy later in his life
Soldier then Vet was cover identity.

Should make note for Jimmy to go through his pictures at some point for stories he's used both for, missing digital ones could be clues to more stories.

>>4427165
>>Stranded for a week & a half in the old west

>>4427165
>Spend some time asking around the neighborhood
>>Buildings like this were taller, try the old city tunnels above the sewer
Betting folks have been trying to buy/complain about it for years, but worm kept quietly erasing records of it.

>>4427161
>A surprise tool that might help us later? Jimmy’s dad...
>>was/is actually secretly a secret agent with the N.I.A
>>was/is a Vietnam Vet who fathered Jimmy later in his life

Can back this write-in mashup.

>>4427165
>The Wolf-Man of Metropolis is on the howl and on the prowl!

Werewolves of Metropolis doesn't really roll off the tongue well though.

>>Buildings like this were taller, try the old city tunnels above the sewer

>>4427165
>Stealing the Bat-Mobile entirely by accident and circumstance
>Bang on the accessible but glass boarded with wood from door and see if anyone answers
Always start with the obvious

Writing, very slowly.

Commissions looking good.

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Jack Olsen was/is a Vietnam Vet who fathered Jimmy later in his life who also happens to be an Agent of NIA

Next time Jimmy Olsen is sent off on his own on assignment for the Daily Planet or any other reason he is going to steal the Bat-Mobile by accident & extenuating circumstances

Before the impressive brownstone, Jimmy whistles. Clara takes a moment to look at it over the top of her thickly framed glasses, you guess she’s nearsighted, and she frowns in certain dissatisfaction.

“So Ms. Lane, how’re we doing it this time?” Jimmy says with a sigh as he kneels down to dig through his shoulder bag, “I bought a grappling hook and nylon cord so I don’t get hurt jumping to pull down the fire escape and a short pry bar if we’re forcing our way through one of the boarded windows,”

In his time as your intern, Jimmy has learned to be prepared. More so than you usually are despite being the one who actively decides to do this things to her own risk, but that’s besides the point.

“Building this old probably used to be taller,” you smile considering where on New Troy Island you are, “No, we shouldn’t need to break anything until later if we take the undercity tunnels,”

“The undercity?” Clara questions, perhaps in ignorance as she glances down.

“Big pieces of the city, especially on New Troy Island were heavily redeveloped before the turn of the century. Like, literally the streets were raised fifteen or twenty feet in midtown against both concerns over coastal flooding and the construction of the original Metropolis Subway,” Jimmy rattles off with the practice of a local history buff, “The project also involved replacing the islands previous sewers with the superstructure of what would be hailed until the fifties as America’s most ambitious public water works system,”

“They don’t always map out to the streets above, and lot changes and modern foundation construction have made a bunch of overlaps and dead ends,” you shrug, “it's a labyrinth down there unless you’re next to where you’re going, or have a city worker or someone from the plumbers union as a guide,”

Clara nods, glancing down at the street appraisingly.

“That is, good to know,” she rocks back on the balls of her feet shoving hands into the pockets of her ripped jeans, “So, B&E a normal part of the job on your end?”

“It is under Ms. Lane,” Jimmy sighs and stops rooting through his bag, “Pry Bar it is for the nearest manhole then,”

“Lay of the land, Smallville. Its how I get some of the stories you’re a fan of,” you shrug and power through the street for the alleyway between your intended brownstone and the block of properties behind it, “Fortune favors the brave, sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty, dig for hidden truths, etcetera etcetera,”

>>4429421
“Those old manholes though,” Jimmy seems crestfallen as he offers complaint falling in step into the alleyway as you find your undercity point of access, “they’re just so heavy,”

Clara continues to look down at the street in thought, even after following the two of you into the alley. Probably nervous about your going above and beyond attracting the wrong kind of attention. Seemingly satisfied that no police are looking directly at you she follows suit into the alley; again sparing the building another frowning glance over the rim of her glasses.

“Well, I’ve chucked plenty of hay in my time,” Clara offers the sleight built photojournalist, “Lemme give you a hand then,”

Jimmy of course accepts the offer of help, getting the prybar in place and then setting up to throw his weight against it with both arms. Clara stops him.

“Let’s do this smarter,” she offers with an arm placed suddenly across Jimmy’s shoulder as she places a foot onto the short pry, gesturing with her other arm low, “Maximize both our weights on this lever,”

There is a confused beat as your former intern sputters in confusion before realizing the scheme. Looping his arms around Clara’s neck, and swinging his legs up into her waiting arm, Clarabelle Kent stands with Jimmy in a bridal carry before shifting their weight off of their back foot and stands on the prybar alone with the other.

They sink, readily as the cover pops up. With a twist of her waist, the pry bar swivels on it’s balance enough to force the manhole cover aside and out of the depression it’s been raised from. Setting Jimmy down the two of them glide it far enough to the side to clear the path for all of you down the metal ladder rungs below.

As the three of you descend, none of you see the black town car pull to a stop at the corner. None of you take any special notice of the woman who steps out of the car in understated black clothing and shock red hair. Whisper A’Daire is joined by a handful of large yet discretely suited professional goons.

Jimmy’s sense of preparedness included two red lensed flashlights, small handheld LED affairs with adjustable heads for diffusion. He had a more standard maglight in tow, but time and experience with you had rendered him with the knowledge to not utilize it just yet for sake of preserving natural adjustments of night vision.

This manhole ladder descends a fair distance into the curving turn of the century brickwork arches, shored up and supported by more modern superstructure components laid in the last thirty years, the last vestiges of Metropolis’s once advanced for the era Gaslamp Past before Tesla and Edison brought another stage of their Current War to the City of Tomorrow.

It’s like stepping into another world, as the ladder becomes a freestanding bridge between the top of this artificial cavern and the open manhole of a forgotten thoroughfare into the more recently updated sewers below.

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>>4429424

This is a hidden world known only to a guildhouse of tightly knit brothers and sisters of the city’s myriad duct, electrical, plumbing, inspection, and public utility works. Occasionally the city itself sticks a gopro on the head of a utility vet to make fun videos for the kids, and a section near Metropolis University is open for Guided Tours...but the rest of this catacomb is a mystery.

At least here, you’re looking at the original first level and partial foundation to the brownstone above. And there is a chain locked pair of handled double doors before you up a short climb of stairs. Graffiti spread across the doors reading “"Cei-U". Between the three of you, and the positively ancient rust of the chains you snap and find behind the free swinging old doors a deployable ramp and metal segmented garage wall. Beyond these easily opened and only moderately rusted barriers you find a once forgotten foyer converted into an equally forgotten garage and gym space. Dust coats every surface, as free weights sit and a lazy heavy bag drifts to the rhythm and bustle of the city above.

Front and center of the converted garage space is long untouched dust covered old motorcycle from the forties, the frame of the headlamps and the wind guard stylized like the face and whiskers of some predatory cat.

“Holy Cats! A cat bike?” questions Jimmy.

You’re inside, before Intergang Goons interrupt you, from here you’ll...
>Search this mysteriously sub basement level
>Head a level down and search the original basement
>Head a level up and search the more recent basement
>Head back out to search other subterranean entrances
>Write in

What is waiting for you here besides errant and strange clues?
>just the clues you find...
>the Presence of an unbound specter
>electricity in the air; drawn for now to Jimmy’s aesthetic
>a beacon, in green flame, a message left for the extraordinary
>a fateful encounter

>>4429428
>>Search this mysteriously sub basement level
>the Presence of an unbound specter

>>4429428
>>Head a level down and search the original basement
>>a beacon, in green flame, a message left for the extraordinary

>>4429428
>>Head a level down and search the original basement
>>a beacon, in green flame, a message left for the extraordinary

>>4429428
>Search this mysteriously sub basement level
>just the clues you find...
>a beacon, in green flame, a message left for the extraordinary

>>4429428
>>Head a level down and search the original basement
>>a beacon, in green flame, a message left for the extraordinary

>>4429428
>>Search this mysteriously sub basement level
>>a fateful encounter

Well, I'm writing ahead of tomorrow so this dead heat means we're scoobing this part up at least.

Rolling Lois's Investigate a Mystery for this space.

Rolled 4, 3 + 2 = 9 (2d6 + 2)

>>4429949
I SAID ROLLING LOIS

Rolled 1, 2 = 3 (2d6)

>>4429953

Alright a 9, you may pose 1 question for Lois relevant to the situation's list beyond what you're getting in basic flavor text.
>What happened here?
>What sort of person does...this?
>What was the person who operated here going to do?
>What is being concealed here?

Now let me roll Clara's Protect someone at 2d6+??? as she and Jimmy splinter off.

Alright. The questions will be answered in the update after this upcoming update as I'm writing up a storm presently.

Rolled 6, 6 + 2 = 14 (2d6 + 2)

Act Under Pressure

>>4429958
>>What was the person who operated here going to do?

>>4429958
>>What is being concealed here?

Parsing through the space, you observe the livery on and hanging above some of the exercise equipment, ‘Grant’s Gym,’. The bike itself, after quick comparative search on your phone, is a heavily modified 1928 Indian 402. You’re not a gearhead but you imagine with the number of pictures Jimmy is taking he’ll manage.

“Alright, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, and I wasn’t expecting this,” you explain with some authority, “Clara, you and Jimmy take a look in the original basement down those stairs at the back. I’ll sweep up here and then we’ll take care of the rest of the place together,”

“Sure. No problem,” Clara puffs her cheeks and takes a broad gander around the room and frowns again, pausing to tear a bit of peeling paint off of a nearby wall and crumbling it in her fingers before seeming confused yet somehow satisfied with what she’s found before slipping into the hint of drawl you’ve noticed with her, “Old as this place is I reckon this is lead paint or something. We should probably have masks,”

“I’ve got bandanas that’ll do in a pinch!” Jimmy offers and passes some to you and Clara before affixing his own.

Clara tightly smiles and looks down at the cloth and nods. Proffering an uncertain and perhaps aloof thanks to Jimmy she double wraps her lower face and chin while you do likewise.

“See you guys in a few,” they descend with one of Jimmy’s lights while you take the other.

There isn’t much here, in all honesty. Free weights, used and back up heavy and speed bags, boxing gloves. All of it still bears the ‘Grant’s Gym’ designation. Pegboards with maps of multiple cities...faded newspaper clippings. An investigation. Its old and dust covered as the disparate pieces hang over a workbench in the more garage partitioned section of the space, along with keys for the old bike. You read what’s still legible and even find a few faded graphite notes that you’re still trying to parse when you notice it on the workbench stool.

A small old rusted railroad lantern, sitting on the chair of this would be snoop from another time.

As you’re drawn to it, you noticed the outline of something beneath it in the dust. Lifting it, to find it weighs an inconvenient amount, there is a mostly dustless photo underneath.

Four people look back at you in the faded grey picture, maybe from the early forties if the different and older bike of the same theming is any indication.

(keep voting on that Investigate a mystery until tomorrow friends)

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>>4430048
A tall fair haired man in an oddly adorned double breasted shirt and high collared...cape? Carrying a larger lantern than the one you hold on a ringed hand. The ring seems to be the cause of a slight flare to the picture.

A tall woman wearing an armored bodice and leather skirt, the motif of an eagle and stars feature prominently on them respectively. A tiara holds back her densely curled hair, a lasso or whip rests on one hip while a sword adorns the other.

A with darker hair than the other stands smiling in a tight shirt with a broad lightning bolt pattern rising from the side of his waist to above his opposite breast. Smiling, he holds a broad flat helmet with wings on it under one arm.

The last man sits on the bike, cigar in his mouth and a cocky grin on his face with a black and white cat faced cowl pulled up and above his face. Clad in a black bodysuit with white wrapped wrists and shallow claws on his knuckles.

Flipping to the back in faded ink it’s written ‘Home sweet home with the gang, 1941,’

Your musings on what you’ve found are broken by the sound of shearing metal below and a cries from both Jimmy and Clara. Jimmy’s is an unintelligible scream, Clara’s is a word. No, it’s nonsense.

“[Babootch!]” though it has the cadence of a swear, quickly followed by a pained shout.

Clara Kent managed a Protect between 7-9 of Jimmy, and has taken the blow meant for him. However one of the tags reflects one of her Weaknesses and she takes 3 harm outright. So it just looks like a big sword fell on her and did what it would do to anyone else. What weakness? Why are we even having this discussion.

Pocketing the photo and racing downstairs, lantern still swinging in hand, your light shines on a room full of empty racks and display cases...save for a large statue of a knight that with a sword swing down and embedded into the cracked stones of the foundation.

Jimmy has hands on Clara trying to apply pressure to a large gash across her arm. Clara seems in this moment entirely in shock and disbelief at the dark liquid seeping between Jimmy’s fingers.

“Ms. Lane! There’s gause and disinfectant in my bag,” Jimmy calls out to you while Clara looks up pleading with worry.

Lois Lane ACTS UNDER PRESSURE flawlessly, 1 additional harm removed from Clara by way of first aid

“I leave you two alone for five minutes,” you’re angry the new girl got hurt on your watch, angry at yourself and frustrated as you set the lantern down and retrieve the tools requested.

Between the two of you proper first aid is applied and Clara’s wound is properly bandaged. Though you do ruin her flanel further by cutting part of her damaged sleeve off rather than even trying to roll it away from the wound before you can properly clean and apply a canister of Lex Med Dermoplast to help set things as best they can be without stitches. It’s a long cut, and it could have been deep. Luckily at least it was superficial.

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>>4430059

Your legacy as an army brat strikes again, for the attention you paid to your father’s lessons in field medicine.

Clara Kent Harm reduced by 2 by first aid applied by Jimmy Olsen and practically perfect act of field medicine by Lois Lane

“I’m sorry Clara, hey, are you still with us,” Jimmy asks worriedly.

“Yeah...yeah...thank you...I just...” she mutters out, shaking herself out of the mental shock, “I saw the thing coming down on your head and I had to get you out of the way,”

“This thing?” you gesture over to the large Knight statue, “This swung on Jimmy?”

“Pressure plate, old gears were loose enough to still get the drop on us,” frowns Jimmy, “I’m sorry Clara, even with the Lex Med that’s probably gonna scar,”

She shrugs. Pauses to collect her thoughts, and tries to downplay things.

“I’ve gotten by on clearer skin from worse on the farm,” she offers, maybe not fully appreciating she got her arm sliced by a real ass goddamn sword, “Thank you Jimmy. Thank you Lois,”

“Hey, I save you after you saved my favorite photographer,” you pat her on the shoulder, “That makes us square, and friends if you aren’t put off by my methods,”

“Oh no, I think I’ll get the taste for this part of the work yet,” she offers a smile and flexes her hand a bit.

“Don’t push it, we don’t want anything peeling off the bonding agent yet,” you scold, “Try to take it easy from here on out, okay Clara?”

“Yeah. I think I can manage that,” she offers you a genuine smile, despite her blood everywhere on her, you, and Jimmy.

“Here, lemme help you up,” Jimmy offers and then helping her steady herself for the momentary loss of blood reaches with his free hand for his bag on the table.


Jimmy bumps into that rusted old railroad lantern where you left it. In quick reflex Clara grabs it with her uninjured hand.

“Careful,” she explains setting it back down on the table lightly and unbothered, “I doubt we want to draw anymore attention to ourselves than we already have,”


The three of you start to make your way back to the stars up to the garage and personal gym space of a bygone era, though before you have the chance to get much if any distance the room is bathed in flickering green light. Through the cracks in the rusted lantern bands of light fill the room, and from it’s conical hood you see the sparking free floating Green Flame swirling and then floating atop no discernible wick or fuel.

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>>4430064
It projects out a range of light, that bathes the walls in compressed flickering fractals while standing there, hand on the back of a chair near a table which disappears into a nearby wall is a well appointed man in an anachronistic style of suit, the kind of proto modern fair of the late fifties or early sixties. All freestanding in color and cast of the green flame. You recognize him as one of the men in the photograph, though perhaps years older. The light feels hot, uncomfortably hot as you step out of the beams and into the dark beside it, as do Jimmy and Clara after being visibly caught in the same phenomenon. Wouldn’t take very long for that to burn or scald.

“Whoa,” Jimmy yelps in surprise before in his composure parsing out what he’s seeing, “Wow, what a projector!”

The man looks forward mournfully, looks down at a ring on his hand, and then looks up toward the lantern projecting his image.

“This is one of several messages stored in this imprint. If you’ve found it, you’re someone special. Either you’ve got the potential to do amazing things, are capable in and of yourself of the impossible, possess something that can do the impossible with a certain intent, or the flame recognizes something in you...my name is Allan Scott,” the emerald phantom says as he spins the chair to face away from the table and takes a seat to look in the direction of the lantern.

“What is happening?!” Clara asks with an incredible uncertainty as she rubs her injured arm with an unexpected worry.

Clarabelle Kent’s WEAKNESS to MAGIC applied again, she is aware that the heat of the light could harm her and she finds that unnerving.

“You may know me as the President of the Gotham Broadcasting Company, formerly Apex, and CEO & Founder of Scott Telecommunications...and I’m tired. Since the hearings I’ve tried to play by their rules, I stopped using the ring and it’s powers, and I walked away from it. I did it to keep the people I love safe and because I honestly believed our galavanting masquerade in the shadows was doing more harm than good. I bought into Senator McCarthy's notion that we were escalating things just by existing, and needed to be accountable to the government or stay out of the way. I stayed out of the way,” he sighs deeply, his shoulders drop and he looks so tired, “Rex didn’t keep his head down, he couldn’t tow that line. I don’t know if it’s because he was addicted to ‘The Life,’, addicted to his damn Miraculo, or if he couldn’t live with himself if he didn’t do something. He died last night in Gotham, he ran from them for ten goddamn years without backing down and his hour ran dry mid chase,”

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>>4430067
You’re taking notes and recording the whole thing. You know exactly who Alan Scott is. As a media mogul he was an outspoken critic of McCarthy era politics until he disappeared in the early sixties. No trace beyond his will, explicitly changed before witnesses and with a video recording at his behest. One of the great modern mysteries, the question of what happened to Gotham’s shining beacon before the city turned into what it is today. He holds his head in his hands, then raises them to smooth out his hair.

“I know the story, I run the paper and the broadcast company, they couldn’t get their censors to stop me just from knowing. He fell, and I can see from the pictures that even after the railing broke and they were in the air, he was reaching for the men who were trying to arrest him for helping people,” his fists ball up, the emerald fire flickers with remembered rage and then calms into a baleful sorrow and regret that you can feel pervade the room, “I could have caught them all, it didn’t have to be this way...but Argent is watching, Faraday is watching for any sign of us...making plans and paper clipping our old rogues,”

The projection of Alan Scott rises, and approaches the wrought iron lantern. Jimmy’s been snapping a few pictures for good measure, his old flashbulb causing the green light to distort slightly before it snaps back into place.

“Everything we did, everything we fought for...I want to do good. I want to do right. I can’t do that here anymore. If you’re finding this. Don’t let them hold you down. Don’t let THEM hold you back. You use what you’ve found, what you are, or what you can do to help people. You do it to protect people. Show the people a world of wonders we didn’t. Maybe if we stepped fully into the light things would have been different, but we didn’t and now if I’m going to help anyone I have to go,” he straightens up to his prodigious height, and speaks sternly, “I’ll protect the world from beyond if I have to, through the Starheart I’ve heard a voice. It beckons the Lantern far away, welcoming it. For now I’ll search that out, with it in hand I won’t have to worry about recharging out there in the black. Maybe even pluck Grundy out of orbit so I can have the company and he can’t cause anyone else trouble,”

You are very confused, but this is going to net you some entirely useful and worthwhile information.

“Take care, and save the world,” he smiles and reaches his hand into the lantern, phantom memories of green flame shooting from his ring into the iron as he reaches past it with his other hand and holds up a larger and solid looking one cast the same light as the rest of this phantasmagoria.

“What is happening?!” Jimmy cries out in a mix of joy and fear, “Ms. Lane, this is big. We gotta get to that microfilm!”

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>>4430070
You agree, but not before finishing things here. Who knows what else you’ll find inside this pla-

“Sorry, darlings,” a voice calls from the top of the stairs who you recognize for her crimson hair and unfurling whip as Whisper A’Daire, “I’m afraid you won’t be making it to any libraries today, tomorrow, or ever Ms. Lane, Ms. Kent,”

“I told Perry the Intergang stories would follow us up,” you frown.

Behind the whisper are two burly goons with extended batons. They hold the stairs. There are two other interior doors in this emptied round tabled room. There is a door that looks to go up to lead to exterior stairs to the undercity street. You’ve no idea how any of them are barred if at all. Jimmy looks tense, Clara looks angry.

Lois what do you do?
>Try and fast talk Whisper into letting you go
>Try to fast talk Whisper to distract for the others
>Try and flee door A with Clara and Jimmy
>Try and flee door B with Clara and Jimmy
>Try and flee exterior basement Door with Clara and Jimmy
>Try and force your way, knock them off the stairs
>Should scatter
>Write in

>>4430072
>>Try to fast talk Whisper to distract for the others

Rolled 6, 6 = 12 (2d6)

>>4429958
>What sort of person does...this?

>>4429958
>>What is being concealed here?
>>4430072
>>Try and fast talk Whisper into letting you go
>>Try to fast talk Whisper to distract for the others
Letting us go isn't likely, but makes a good topic of distraction.

>>4429958
>What was the person who operated here going to do?

>>4430072
>Try and flee door A with Clara and Jimmy

Also, general query of feedback; what do you guys think of this quest so far? How’re you enjoying it? And any comments on this version of a DC Earth being set up? How do you like being Lois in this quest? Critique, comments, presentation?

Also, please feel free to ad-lib how you’d like to try and distract whisper since that seems to have traction.

>>4430089
+1

>>4430072
>Try and fast talk Whisper into letting you go

>>4429958
>>What was the person who operated here going to do?
>>4430072
>>Try and flee exterior basement Door with Clara and Jimmy

>>4430136
my knowledge of DC is very limited, I have little idea what is going on and how it is different from normal

Rolled 2, 4 + 2 = 8 (2d6 + 2)

Rolling [b]Manipulate Someone[/b] Against Whisper D'Aire.

And adding the answer to the question "What was the person who operated here going to do?" to the next update.

Rolled 6, 6 = 12 (2d6)

Clara acting under pressure with a +???

[b]What was the person who operated here going to do?[/b]
From the pegboards and personal notes present you deduced that the person who used this space, probably the man pictured with the cat cowl in the photograph, was initially tracking illegal fight rings but also a different investigation. It looked like a manhunt over the course of a decade, notes searching for The Yellow Wasp. Articles about the kidnapping of a kid named Jake Grant, son of heavyweight boxing champion Ted Grant. You’d bet that the man in the cat suit is Ted Grant, you are able to confirm that because pictures of the former champ still exist online. He was gearing up to go after the man who kidnapped his son, sometime the last updates and notes leading to Hub City sometime in the 1960’s.

[b]Manipulate Someone: 8[/b] You’re asking Whisper what it’ll take to let you go as a distraction for Jimmy and Clara. On a 7-9 they’ll do it, but only if you do something for them right now to show that you mean it. If you asked too much, they’ll tell you what, if anything, it would take for them to do it. Not that you have any intention of it.

You glance over at Jimmy and Clara behind you, the nervousness of your photographer and the usual unreadable expression of your new coworker and back at whisper and her goons. They’ve come down here armed for a beat down and not a shoot out by the look of things...they might not want a murder on their hands, especially one as high profile as your’s. Especially after the inexplicable attack on the SubOrbital plane. You hope.

What you need is to distract them from the other two, considering how Clara is injured. You drop to a resigned body language and begin sweeping wide toward the stairs away from Jimmy and Clara, keeping their attention.

“Well, you’ve got me dead to rights,” you sigh and lay you hands on your hips, “Yet for all the gear I know Intergang has now I’m surprised you didn’t just lob a grenade in here with us or cut us down with something automatic,”

“Hmmm,” Whisper hums to herself while pulling the end of the whip taught in her other hand as she descends a few stairs, “I’m much more about the personal touch Ms. Lane, it won’t do for you to spend too much of what time you have left trying to be clever,”

[b]Clara Kent gets 12+ Act under Pressure. She accomplished her goal of getting her and Jimmy out unnoticed AND managed to do something to leave some confusion in the wake of their leaving[/b]

“Say I wanted to be clever, Whisper A’Daire,” you say nonchalantly, “Say I wanted to play ball instead of being a thorn in your side. Would that be something worth my life?”

She pauses, looking down her nose at you in superiority. Letting go of the end of her whip she cracks it out to the side off the stairs into the open space of the room.

>>4430434

“Oh, this is a tempting offer...but I’m not sure its worth as much as the damage already done,” she muses to herself before she puts her best foot forward, “But maybe if you beg for it, I’ll begin to consider it at least in the long term. Not that you won’t suffer, and not that I can say the same for the blon-”

Whisper pauses. You pause. The two of you notice that Jimmy and Clara aren’t in the room anymore. More than that, all three doors out of the room hang quietly open.

“DAMNIT! YOU, DOUBLE BACK OUTSIDE! AND YOU, CHECK THE ROOMS!” Whisper roars over the reveal of the subterfuge, “I’ll deal with Lane,”

One of the goons begins to barrel down the stairs while the other heads back up through the gym and garage of the long absent Ted Grant. Whisper stares at you humorlessly with a frustrated sadism.

[b]Lois Lane, what do you do?[/b]
>Try to book it for the exterior basement door
>Try to run for Room A
>Try to run for Room B
>Try and stop the Goon coming down the stairs
>Try to take on Whisper A’Daire head on
>There was one trap, are there others? Try to use the room?
>Write in

>>4430436
>>There was one trap, are there others? Try to use the room?