• [ASH] REPOST: ASH #124 - City of Night Part 5: Between the Candle and t

    From Dave Van Domelen@21:1/5 to All on Mon Oct 11 17:33:56 2021
    [cover shows several figures silhouetted by the light of an
    intense energy beam that is being fired into darkness.]

    .|. COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED presents ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES #124 --X------------------------------------------------------------------------
    '|` /|(`| | City of Night Part 5 of 6 - Between the Candle and the Star
    /-|.)|-| copyright 2020 by Dave Van Domelen ___________________________________________________________________________

    ACADEMY OF SUPER-HEROES ROLL CALL

    CODENAME REAL NAME POWERS ASSIGNMENT -------- --------- ------ ---------- Solar Max Jonathan Zachary Spacetime Control AMERICA
    "JakZak" Taylor
    Meteor Sarah Grant-Taylor Superspeed AMERICA Poniente Esmeralda Colina Wind Mage AMERICA
    Scorch Scott Handleman Pyrokinetic CANADA Centurion Salvatore Napier Strength, Regeneration MEXICO
    Fury Arin Kelsey Concussion Blasts MEXICO
    Contact Aaron Zander Psi, Mind-over-Body DIPLOMATIC Breaker Christina Li Telekinesis DIPLOMATIC Essay Sara Ana Henderson Gadgeteer VENUS
    Peregryn Howard Henderson Jr. Elemental Mage VENUS
    Beacon George Sylvester Living Light VENUS
    Geode Unknown Living Crystal VENUS Lightfoot Tom Dodson Velocity Control TRANSIT ------------------------------------------------------------------------------


    [January 17, 2027 - Eurasian Union Regional Assembly, Prague]

    "In any case," Solar Max resumed, his summing up, "we're no closer to getting into Berlin. Does anyone else have any ideas?"
    "I may," replied a voice from the doorway.
    Filling the doorway was the enormous frame of a muscular man with a
    bull's head, dressed in a very well-tailored dark blue suit that did
    absolutely nothing to help him blend in with normal humanity.
    "What are you...scratch that," Gerhard Hesse of STRAFE frowned, "HOW are you here, in this secure location?"
    Q'Nos, the original Minotaur against whom all others are pale
    imitations, chuckled. It was a guttural sound that ended on a dismissive snort. "Agent Hesse, I spent millennia after my fall from divinity as an errand boy for the gods. Just accept that I learned how to go where I need
    to during that time, and let us return to the rather more urgent matter that
    is on my doorstep."
    "Has Sable expanded her reach beyond the Berlin dome?" Arc asked, untensing very slightly. She and many others would be having some long and pointed discussions about site security, but LATER.
    "Not that I am aware of, I simply consider my doorstep to be rather
    larger than you might find comfortable. The perspective of a very long life spent among the higher powers," Q'Nos shrugged, and the talent of his tailor was evident in how the suit didn't even strain at the movement of those
    massive shoulders. Even without exerting the fragment of semi-divine power left to him after his loss in the wars of the gods, Q'Nos was one of the physically strongest people on the planet. "Still, I am aware my presence is something of a distraction, and only wished to make an appearance to impress upon you all the seriousness with which I take this matter. I will leave you my vizier, Simon Smith, to continue the discussions."
    The minotaur stepped aside, revealing a slender old man in an equally well-tailored gray suit. Had he been standing there the entire time, and Q'Nos's presence distracted all eyes from him? Or had he only appeared at
    that moment? None could say for sure, but the mystics in the room suspected the latter. And then, between blinks of an eye, the minotaur was no longer present.
    "Mr. Smith...or would you prefer Agent Rush?" Gerhard Hesse asked, in an attempt to cover the awkwardness of Q'Nos coming and going with such ease.
    "Please, I've been Simon Smith for a lifetime now, the part of me that
    was Bennett Rush is literally another person," Mr. Smith then turned to Solar Max with a questioning look.
    "Have a seat," Solar Max gestured for one of the spare chairs up against the wall to be brought to the table, between Arc and Meteor, and his wife obliged in an eyeblink of her own. The planning group had only just gotten comfortable with the presence of Sadi Pasteur as Khadam's representative, but Q'Nos was another matter entirely. A fallen god, who quite recently was
    freed from a spacetime oubliette by Solar Max, and then went on to escape ASH and build himself a kingdom in the chaotic turmoil of god-damaged Greece. At least there were no representatives from the Muslim Confederation present,
    they had recently fought a war against Q'Nos.
    As for Smith, aka Bennett Rush, he was one of the rare superhuman survivors of the Third Age, like the original Solar Max had been. He had
    been the Lord of Living Light, Doublecross, but somehow he had been split off from that power and stripped of his memories shortly before the events of
    July 6, 1998. The intelligence agencies of all the world's nations were intensely interested in knowing how any of that had happened, and how he'd
    come to work for Q'Nos. Perhaps they'd be happy with the outcome of this meeting, even if no one else at the table was.
    "So, you have something to contribute?" Peregryn's mystically linked computer image asked.
    "Hopefully," Mr. Smith nodded. "Cards on the table: some of you may already suspect this, but I discovered and studied one of the laboratories of Iago Montessi, better known as Lord Ebon. The god who humbled me during the Godmarket had a sense of humor, I think, not only stripping me of my photonic powers and memories, but also dropping me in the neighborhood of Montessi's
    old estate. So I definitely have some insights into what Lady Sable is up
    to. I brought my theories to King Q'Nos, and he was able to fill in some of the gaps based on his experiences both as a god and as another of the god- humbled."
    "Is Nyx involved?" Poniente asked. "She never got into the Godmarket,
    but her fingerprints are all over the First Heroic Age if you know where to look."
    Smith frowned slightly. "It would be nice if that were the case, yes?
    Nyx is a primal god, she draws her power from the idea of darkness rather
    than depending on worship, that's part of why she stayed out of the Third
    Age. But she wouldn't want one of her servants to get too uppity and risk being displaced, so that would put a cap on Sable's ambitions. But no, I'm actually familiar with Nyx from my old life as a government agent. My
    photonic tech was derived from the Light Lance used by Beacon in the First
    Age, and many of its aspects were built specifically to counter her power. I can tell you that while the dome over Berlin is divine in nature, it's not
    run by Nyx's power. If it were, I'd have simply thrown together a Light
    Lance and mailed it to you with instructions...or just told you to find a friendly Photonic. You have one of those, I believe...Mr. Sylvester?"
    "So, assuming Sable ever was working for Nyx, she's got her own
    apotheosis gambit now," Terrastar mused. "Do you have any insights regarding her power source?"
    "Mostly in the negative," Mr. Smith held his hands up apologetically. "It's nothing Q'Nos or I recognize, which in turn suggests it is a divine
    power that has probably not been active in this reality during either of our lifetimes. A larger span for him than for me, of course. It could be a god from another reality...perhaps yours, Polla Hectrix?"
    Terrastar shook her head. "We killed all our gods long ago."
    "How Klingon of you," Daniel Tang smirked. "What? I like old sci fi flatvids." It had been difficult convincing Hesse that the young diviner should be at the table, but the STRAFE agent eventually agreed that
    divination worked better the more information one had to go on. It had been almost as difficult convincing Tang to get involved, given his inexperience
    and relative fragility.
    "So, it narrows our problem down to 'No one we've ever heard of,
    possibly from nowhere we've ever heard of,'" Solar Max sighed. "Which, I suppose, does help some. But if this power is useful prior to having local worshippers, doesn't that mean it's a primal divinity? And doesn't Nyx have dibs on darkness?"
    "Not really," Poniente interjected before Simon could answer. "The
    bigger the concept, the easier it is for more entities to draw power from
    it. My own power sources tend to be more primal than traditional...nature spirits and the like. A wind elemental could be considered a very weak
    primal god, a primal demigod perhaps, embodying part of the concept of wind."
    "She's right," Pasteur added, in a clear tone of "I am about to one-up you." "I've been digging into some of the oldest writings I can find about
    the nature of gods and spirits, and one thing that keeps coming back to me is the idea that gods started seeking worshippers because they were splitting
    the conceptual energy too many ways. There were a bunch of Sun gods, a bunch of storm gods, a bunch of death gods...too many primals latching onto a
    single concept weakens them all. But a god who didn't want to get involved
    in the market for believers might just satisfy themselves with the primal
    power source, and lurk in the corners."
    "And, while Sable may have found alliance with a primal god of
    darkness," Smith nodded like a grandfather quietly approving of how clever
    his grandchildren were being, "it's drawing on a sufficiently different
    aspect of the overall darkness concept, distinct from Nyx. That, or it's not
    a darkness power at all, but Sable is still 'digesting' it and is currently limited to her old powers. Still, if it were a power from this reality, I suspect Nyx would have come to blows with it by now, and someone in this room would have heard about it."
    "Yeah, gods are usually a real basket of crabs," Meteor nodded.
    Oni looked at her with a confused expression.
    "Oh, an old metaphor. You don't need to put a lid on a basket of crabs, because any that try to climb out get pulled back in. No idea if crabs
    really do that, but gods seem to. It's how we ended up stopping Rebus, after all. Broke his concentration so he lit up like a beacon, the rest of the godscape noticed the new player and immediately sucked him into the game.
    [More or less what happened in Capstone #3 - Ed.] Too bad we can't get Sable to fall for the same trick."
    "There's alguien ya forgettin," Hotspur interjected. "Dark is still
    dark, light is still light. Even if the Light Lance is keine Hilfe, who's to say it doesn't just need tuning? While all the hoodoo-jin work the primal
    god angle, maybe Mister Call Me Smith can figure out how to juice up a new Light Lance with other techies? Ain't Nyx, still sombra."
    "Good idea," Solar Max nodded. "We've tried light-based weapons, but
    now that we have one of the world's foremost authorities on photonics is
    here, maybe there's a nicely direct solution to just cutting through the dome that no one has picked up on yet but all of you could find together.
    Meanwhile, I think there's an angle worth exploring if this really is a
    primal god from another reality. Time to put in a call to Rhode Island...."

    * * * *

    [January 18, 2027 - Lansing, Michigan Sector]

    "Why here?" Meteor asked as they stepped through a portal into an empty lot. Essay and Gimble had been asked to come from Venus to join in on the
    tech brainstorming, but even with Lightfoot's powers they weren't on Earth
    yet. For now, she was just riding herd on "Mr. Smith" because the Combine government was profoundly uncomfortable letting him out of ASH's sight. "Did Beacon ever operate here?"
    "No. We probably won't find anything, to be honest, and that's my own fault. I was quite thorough in scouring all the official channels for
    Beacon's old technology back in the 1980s when I was transitioning from loyal government agent to embittered supervillain. But I wasn't a complete monster yet, and I left my old friends' house alone. This is where Dragonfly and Ladyhawke lived during the Second Heroic Age, you see. And it's possible Dragonfly kept some pieces of useful technology related to Beacon, acquired
    in the service of improving his own weaponry."
    "Aha. There's no house here now, should we dig?" Meteor had actually known the significance of the site, but her husband's involvement with an alternate reality's version of Dragonfly was not information she trusted
    Smith with.
    "No need to be so obvious," the old man smiled, closing his eyes and concentrating for a moment. "There is an underground vault over...there.
    I'm fairly sure it was added since the last time I visited, given its
    position. It would make sense for the Baineses to create an off-blueprints hiding spot for anything they didn't want to destroy once they retired." Gesturing, he opened another mystic portal, through which Sarah could see a darkened and cramped vault. "Wait out here, there doesn't appear to be much room inside."
    That was true enough, as Smith couldn't even pass all the way across the threshold of the portal. He carefully picked through the boxes and journals for a few minutes, before carefully returning them neatly to where they had been.
    He stepped back and held up a small box. "This might help. I think it could be one of Beacon's original lasing elements. It's burnt out, but I'm looking as much for mystic tokens as technology at this point."
    As the portal irised shut, Sarah took one last look at the stack of journals. Maybe once this was all over, JakZak would be interested in seeing what happened to the Dragonfly that he never met....

    * * * *

    [January 18, 2027 - Pawtucket, Rhode Island Sector]

    Daniel wondered if he was the only one feeling the weather, as he
    shivered in the coat that had seemed plenty warm enough back in Prague. He
    had many talents he kept hidden for Very Good Reasons, but his ability to tolerate hostile environments was only average for a superhuman unless he wanted to light up like a beacon to all the gods lurking outside the tattered Barrier. Contact could probably walk around comfortably in his old
    bare-legged uniform despite the biting wind, and this "M'emba" wore even
    less, a sort of patchwork mix of "witch doctor" costume elements and other
    bits whose symbology escaped him.
    Not much escaped him if he wanted to understand it, but that just underscored the fact that M'emba was a refugee from an entirely different reality. Without that knowledge, her outfit was almost laughable...but it
    just felt ominous instead.
    ++Remember, according to the others, she's one of the bad guys, member
    of a death cult,++ Contact telepathically warned him. ++She's been on reasonably good behavior, but she has no particular reason to cooperate with us. I doubt she'll start something, but you be ready to run like hell if she does. You're kinda fragile, physically.++
    At least, that was the impression he tried to give. Daniel suspected he could jump into the harbor naked and survive, but he would definitely not
    enjoy the experience.
    "Why do you wish to speak to me? What was so important that the mighty Academy of Super-Heroes would send one of its own rather than simply route
    the question through an agent?" M'emba opened her eyes from meditation and fixed Contact with a cool gaze. Then her eyes flicked over to Daniel
    himself, and he suddenly felt even colder. "You are interesting," she
    added.
    "Um, I try?" Daniel demurred.
    "We're here in person because the question is important, and we wanted
    to impress that upon you, and also show that we respect you enough to not
    leave it to agents," Contact replied. "What makes Mr. Tang interesting is
    that he has a talent for divining information, and he may find anything you know useful, even if you don't think it means much yourself."
    "You respect me, but do not trust me. Wise. I too respect your power
    but do not trust your end goals."
    "Our goal is to stop a mage who calls herself Lady Sable from attaining godhood," Contact countered.
    "That is your immediate goal, not your end goal. But no matter. What
    is your question?" M'emba raised an eyebrow.
    "We suspect Lady Sable may have acquired a patron who is not native to
    our world, and her sudden rise in power coincides with your arrival...that of your people in general. I'm not suggesting you personally are involved. But if mortals and supernormals could escape the death of your reality, could
    some of your gods have done so as well?"
    "It would explain how I still have power, but my god has not spoken to
    me. Why would any of the others court me so silently?" M'emba shrugged.
    "The others. Do you remember their names, or the name of your own god?" Contact asked. "All of your people have holes in their memories when it
    comes to names, but remember your own names and those of people with whom you escaped. Do you recall the name of your god?" Contact pressed.

    * *

    M'emba thought back to her conversations with Terrastar. Curious that Terrastar seemed to be working towards the same goal but had not informed her nominal allies of her activities...this pair clearly had blundered into M'emba's presence, rather than being guided.
    "If your god is in this world, you should be able to feel his presence more clearly with the right mental exercises," the speaking stone had
    promised. "While my own gods are long dead, I did learn from my time sharing
    a body with a semi-divine entity in recent months. Focus on the mental
    pattern I am impressing upon you...."
    It had taken hours of intense concentration, but oh yes, M'emba knew the name of her god. And she knew that while Terrastar felt her god was in
    danger, M'emba had more faith than Terrastar could ever imagine....

    * *

    "I am afraid I do not. It has vexed me since our arrival. Yes, I feel
    an echo of his presence, but I could merely be fooling myself, feeling what I wish to feel," M'emba replied, a tinge of sorrow to her voice.
    "Hm. I see," Contact frowned. "Different tack...would you say your god mostly gained his power from worship, or from embodiment of a concept?"
    M'emba laughed. "My god WAS power. He needed no worshippers, we needed HIM. He and his were banished because those gods who needed followers feared the loss of that faith to a greater pantheon. My god was death, who always wins eventually, for even gods must die."

    Nothing more useful than that came up, and Contact thanked M'emba for
    her help and led Daniel back to the suborbital craft.
    ++She was lying about not knowing the name of her god. She remembers,
    but she's too tightly guarded for me to have gotten more than that without making it obvious I was going through her brain,++ Contact projected.
    --I got that feeling too. Divination is as much about pattern
    recognition as anything else, and that bit didn't fit. She was definitely telling the truth as she knew it about the worshippers. Whoever her god was, he was a primal, or as close as her reality had to the concept.--
    ++I don't suppose you're willing to relax your barriers and let me take
    a look at what your brain's putting together? Two sets of mental eyes better than one?++
    Daniel shook his head slightly. --Odin's high throne situation,
    Contact. My brain's not safe territory for a telepath, other than the very surface stuff like we're doing now. Sorry.-- The truth was more complicated than that, of course, but he was pretty sure Contact's lie-detecting skills wouldn't set off any alarms. Daniel devoted a lot of his power to hiding his true nature, but he had to make his telepathic blocks look like something he couldn't control.
    A pity he hadn't been able to stay completely out of the Lady Sable matter. One would have thought that a "divination mage" would be able to predict that he'd be recruited for something like this. But then again, he'd picked the discipline specifically because he had no natural talent for
    it....

    * * * *

    [January 20, 2027 - EUROPA Temporary Depot outside Berlin]

    "Baseline test one, near normal incidence," STRAFE demolitions expert
    Greg "Tripwire" Sellack said for the recordings. While he had no particular skills with regard to directed energy weapons, he was very good at telling
    how much a target had been damaged, and finding ways to maximize that.
    "Firing Baby," Roger Langridge acknowledged. Formerly known as Roger
    Boom of the Jolly Molecules paragang, he'd grown out of that phase of his
    life (having your motorcycle taken out from under you by Hellhound tends to lead to a reconsideration of lifestyle) and now worked under parole for
    STRAFE as well, using his paranormal talent to create weapons. It was fulfilling work, and far less likely to involve road rash.
    While laser beams tend to be hard to see except in foggy or dusty conditions, the little extras Roger included on his ionized the air and
    created more of a cinematic "raygun" look.
    "Null effect," Agent Sellack observed. "Same as before." While the
    more high profile supers had been looking for esoteric solutions, the
    "grunts" had continued trying more mundane ideas, just in case. "Baby" had been used extensively on the dome of darkness, to no visible effect, which
    made it a good baseline for comparison.
    "Baseline test, glancing," Sellack announced. "Clear downfield!"
    "Downfield clear," replied a voice over the comms. This test was to see if the beam just went through without hurting the dome, so it could
    potentially come out the other side and do some damage. The straight-on shot might have blown something up too, but as far as anyone knew the immediate neighborhood was in ruins from an earlier breach attempt. [ASH #121 - Ed.]
    "Firing Baby," Roger announced, having aimed it to strike the edge of
    the dome. Once again, the beam hit the surface and vanished. Nothing came
    out the other side.
    "Null effect," Sellack said. "Downfield observer, confirm null effect?"
    "Confirmed."
    "Now for the experimental treatment," Mr. Smith chuckled as Essay
    prepared to fire the bizarre contraption she and Smith had spent the last day or so building. Gimble had decided to stay on Venus with her daughter, and claimed to work better alone anyway.
    The front half was rather similar to Langridge's weapon, function having much to do with form. But the back end was a crystalline sphere in which was suspended a burnt out lasing element, with rainbow-hued lines of energy
    dancing about its surface. Looking more closely, the sphere was carefully engraged with various solar signs, from multiple mystic traditions.
    "Near normal incidence trial one, ready," Essay finally announced.
    "Observer ready," Sellack replied.
    "Baby clear," Langridge added, having moved his weapon out of the way.
    "Firing!"
    If Baby's beam was brighter than it should have been, the new weapon's beam was like a slice of the Sun itself. Polarizing goggles blackened instantly.
    As soon as the beam ceased, Selleck pulled down his goggles rather than waiting for them to lighten. He paused. "Null effect. And...video record shows no transient effect while we were blinded."
    Essay growled, then turned the weapon to its alternate firing angle. "Glancing trial, ready." Sellack nodded and pulled his goggles back up.
    "Downfield observer ready," came the voice over the radio.
    "Firing!"
    Once again, a line of sunlight streamed towards the darkness. This time it pierced through to the other side, dumping its energy into a concrete
    block they'd carefully placed and drawn a bullseye on.
    "Hit!" Langridge whooped.
    Sellack removed his goggles. "No visible effect on dome integrity. Downfield?"
    "Zero deflection. Cut through as if the dome weren't there at all,"
    came the reply."
    Mr. Smith, who had been observing the proceedings with a more mystical eye, nodded. "Near as I can tell, the dome is unharmed. This weapon can penetrate it, but not open it. Not a complete success, but worth further study. Even if it's not useful as an entrance, it could make for an
    effective distraction if we're willing to risk hitting innocents inside."
    Some of the forces arrayed around the dome were comfortable with that.
    Too comfortable, as far as Essay was concerned. But even she wasn't willing
    to completely rule it out as a tactic.
    "Let's hope it doesn't come to that. Maybe a dispersed setting will weaken it, I've got some ideas," Essay said, motioning the others to gather 'round.

    * * * *

    [January 22, 2027 - EUROPA Command and Control outside Berlin]

    While no temporary C&C could be made as private as one of the dedicated rooms in the depths of Prague or Washington DC or Canberra, the three people
    in the room were reasonably certain no one was listening in. They had a decision to make...or to put off, but even that was a decision with its own risks. Each had consulted with numerous teammates, allies, and "others" but
    by the agreement of various powers above and below the decision came down to three people meeting on a Friday morning.
    "Essay says she's not out of ideas, but I think she's out of good ones. The modified Light Lance was a literal shot in the dark, anyway," Solar Max sighed. "Not completely useless, and Smith is trying to find a way to make
    us some portable units via techno-voodoo, which might help, especially if we can get inside the dome with enough people that armed troopers would be useful."
    "EUROPA support troops are already coordinating with STRAFE resources on the ground," Arc nodded. "And you have my list of recommendations for our supernatural resources in the event of more limited transport options."
    "And now for the elephant in the room," Agent Hesse frowned. "Even with what information our mystic researchers have...positive AND negative...it
    isn't looking like they're going to find the needle in this haystack any time soon. And while the dome has been stable, that just suggests Sable is gathering her strength for a big push. We could be lucky and she's waiting
    for the Equinox, but...."
    "But why reveal her hand on a magically uninteresting day like January 9 if she'd have to wait so long?" Arc picked up the thought. "I suppose she could have a ritual planned that requires that much time, but I don't feel comfortable assuming we have nearly two months. Especially if it's a blood ritual and she's killing off Berliners in job lots every day we fail to get
    in there."
    "And then there's the elephant. Do we try to get the attention of one
    of the gods and sic him on her?" Solar Max finally said what they were all avoiding. "I suspect I could get Baal Samin's attention again with help from Poniente or even go to Venus to get Peregryn in on it. But as friendly as
    he's been, he made it clear the times he's helped us were for his own
    reasons. He might look at the situation and decide that Sable's apotheosis would work better for him in the long run. Or we could see if Nyx is
    actually unaware of what her acolyte is doing...the dome might be to keep
    Nyx's eyes out. But that strikes me as insanely dangerous."
    "You got THAT right," Arc nodded.
    "We have some pretty strong 'person on the ground' authority from our governments, but I'm pretty sure that if we got one or more gods involved and survived the experience, we'd be hauled before the mast and hung from it," Hesse noted darkly. "Still, we all knew when we took this job that we might not survive it, no guarantees against friendly fire."
    "It comes down to this: how long do we wait before risking the god
    option? And which god to we risk our world by poking?" Solar Max rested his gauntleted hands flat on the table, denting the surface slightly in a display of his nervousness.
    The silence stretched uncomfortably, before being broken by all three of their tablets chiming to notify them of incoming messages.
    "What the...?" Solar Max blinked. "I had mine on do not disturb."
    "I, also," Arc frowned, picking up the device.
    "Please let this not be from a god who has decided to involve himself
    and spare us the decision," Hesse also picked up his tablet, reluctantly.
    All three displayed the same message, in simple text on a powder blue background:

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Whether she intended it or not, Lady Sable made Berlin a deathtrap. All deathtraps contain their own solution, it's what separates them from just killing someone and being done with it. There's always a reason: a who, a what, a why? Ask yourself: WHY BERLIN?

    DD ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "There's a whole lot of other questions there, 'DD,' like how you knew
    to send this to us, HOW you sent it to us, who you are, why do we even bother securing these locations..." Hesse's voice slowly raised in alarm.
    "But that's for another time," Solar Max cut off the reaction. "Our mysterious source is right. We've just been assuming Berlin was either coincidence or because Sable already had some cultists in town that made it easier. But it's not otherwise a place that fits her previous MO. No Lord Ebon plots took place here. It's sometimes called 'City of Night,' but a lot of locations fit that bill. WHY BERLIN?"

    ============================================================================

    Author's Notes:

    Yeah, so that "finish the arc before August 2019" prediction was wildly optimistic. Heck, at this point with only one more issue yet, I can't even
    say with 100% accuracy that I'm wrapping it up before City of Titans
    launches, since the avatar builder version is already out. (ASH #119, the prologue to City of Night, was written in *2012* as a reaction to the closure of City of Heroes.) This issue actually got written in bits and pieces over the course of more than a year, every time I picked it up the first step was
    to reread what I already had so I could remember what I was doing. And one reason I never got very far was that I still couldn't find a good hook for
    the solution...I figured out the basic plot device years ago, but just having the heroes stumble across it blindly or having a convenient flash of inspiration didn't really grab me. Finally, I realized someone who might get them on a more useful track, leading to the final scene (which was originally going to be the second to last scene, but I decided putting the answer to
    "WHY BERLIN?" into the start of #125 worked better).

    See "Hidden Under A Bushel" for more about Daniel Tang's background: https://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/ASH/Bushel

    A quick reminder, one reason I am cagey about names of entities from M'emba's reality is that they're trademarks of NCSoft.

    In case you didn't figure it out, "DD" is Doctor Developer. His
    specific status in 2027 is not yet revealed, but I cleared this idea with Utilitarian in case it might conflict with any plans he had kicking around (e.g. he can't have an open relationship with ASH by early 2027, has to still be alive in some fashion or have a successor who would identify themselves as DD, etc.).

    ============================================================================


    [continued in next message]

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Drew Nilium@21:1/5 to Dave Van Domelen on Sun Nov 14 06:45:38 2021
    On 10/11/21 1:33 PM, Dave Van Domelen wrote:
    <snip>
    Filling the doorway was the enormous frame of a muscular man with a bull's head, dressed in a very well-tailored dark blue suit that did absolutely nothing to help him blend in with normal humanity.
    "What are you...scratch that," Gerhard Hesse of STRAFE frowned, "HOW are
    you here, in this secure location?"
    Q'Nos, the original Minotaur against whom all others are pale imitations, chuckled.

    Holy shit.

    Just accept that I learned how to go where I need
    to during that time, and let us return to the rather more urgent matter that is on my doorstep."
    "Has Sable expanded her reach beyond the Berlin dome?" Arc asked, untensing very slightly. She and many others would be having some long and pointed discussions about site security, but LATER.
    "Not that I am aware of, I simply consider my doorstep to be rather larger than you might find comfortable.

    Heeheehee

    Q'Nos shrugged, and the talent of his tailor
    was evident in how the suit didn't even strain at the movement of those massive shoulders.

    X3 Applause!

    But no, I'm
    actually familiar with Nyx from my old life as a government agent. My photonic tech was derived from the Light Lance used by Beacon in the First Age, and many of its aspects were built specifically to counter her power.

    oooooh I see.

    Terrastar shook her head. "We killed all our gods long ago."
    "How Klingon of you," Daniel Tang smirked.

    I've been thinking it. X3

    "She's right," Pasteur added, in a clear tone of "I am about to one-up you."

    heeheehee

    "I've been digging into some of the oldest writings I can find about
    the nature of gods and spirits, and one thing that keeps coming back to me is the idea that gods started seeking worshippers because they were splitting the conceptual energy too many ways.

    Hmmmmm, I see.

    It's how we ended up stopping Rebus, after
    all. Broke his concentration so he lit up like a beacon, the rest of the godscape noticed the new player and immediately sucked him into the game. [More or less what happened in Capstone #3 - Ed.]

    I think about that final scene, with the recitation of sinlessness, every so often. Good and dramatic shit.

    "Good idea," Solar Max nodded. "We've tried light-based weapons, but now that we have one of the world's foremost authorities on photonics is here, maybe there's a nicely direct solution to just cutting through the dome that no one has picked up on yet but all of you could find together.

    Hell yeah!

    Meanwhile, I think there's an angle worth exploring if this really is a primal god from another reality. Time to put in a call to Rhode Island...."

    There we go. :D

    But I wasn't a complete monster
    yet, and I left my old friends' house alone. This is where Dragonfly and Ladyhawke lived during the Second Heroic Age, you see. And it's possible Dragonfly kept some pieces of useful technology related to Beacon, acquired in the service of improving his own weaponry."

    Ohhhhhh nice nice nice. :D

    That was true enough, as Smith couldn't even pass all the way across the
    threshold of the portal.

    leeeeeeeeean

    As the portal irised shut, Sarah took one last look at the stack of journals. Maybe once this was all over, JakZak would be interested in seeing what happened to the Dragonfly that he never met....

    <3

    Then her eyes flicked over to Daniel
    himself, and he suddenly felt even colder. "You are interesting," she
    added.
    "Um, I try?" Daniel demurred.

    Relatable

    "The others. Do you remember their names, or the name of your own god?"
    Contact asked. "All of your people have holes in their memories when it comes to names, but remember your own names and those of people with whom you escaped. Do you recall the name of your god?" Contact pressed.

    GASP.

    It had taken hours of intense concentration, but oh yes, M'emba knew the
    name of her god. And she knew that while Terrastar felt her god was in danger, M'emba had more faith than Terrastar could ever imagine....

    :D

    Daniel shook his head slightly. --Odin's high throne situation, Contact. My brain's not safe territory for a telepath, other than the very surface stuff like we're doing now. Sorry.-- The truth was more complicated than that, of course, but he was pretty sure Contact's lie-detecting skills wouldn't set off any alarms. Daniel devoted a lot of his power to hiding his true nature, but he had to make his telepathic blocks look like something he couldn't control.

    Innnnnnnteresting. I totally forget what his deal is. X3

    While laser beams tend to be hard to see except in foggy or dusty conditions, the little extras Roger included on his ionized the air and created more of a cinematic "raygun" look.

    Heeheehee. :3

    The front half was rather similar to Langridge's weapon, function having
    much to do with form. But the back end was a crystalline sphere in which was suspended a burnt out lasing element, with rainbow-hued lines of energy dancing about its surface. Looking more closely, the sphere was carefully engraged with various solar signs, from multiple mystic traditions.

    oooooh ahhhhhh

    The silence stretched uncomfortably, before being broken by all three of
    their tablets chiming to notify them of incoming messages.
    "What the...?" Solar Max blinked. "I had mine on do not disturb."
    "I, also," Arc frowned, picking up the device.
    "Please let this not be from a god who has decided to involve himself and spare us the decision," Hesse also picked up his tablet, reluctantly.

    That'd be hella creepy. X3

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Whether she intended it or not, Lady Sable made Berlin a deathtrap. All
    deathtraps contain their own solution, it's what separates them from just killing someone and being done with it. There's always a reason: a who, a what, a why? Ask yourself: WHY BERLIN?

    ...awwwwww shit :D I know who this is!!


    DD

    :D :D :D

    "There's a whole lot of other questions there, 'DD,' like how you knew to send this to us, HOW you sent it to us, who you are, why do we even bother securing these locations..." Hesse's voice slowly raised in alarm.

    X3;;; Well!!

    Yeah, so that "finish the arc before August 2019" prediction was wildly optimistic.

    X3; I know that one

    I figured out the basic plot device years ago, but just having
    the heroes stumble across it blindly or having a convenient flash of inspiration didn't really grab me. Finally, I realized someone who might get them on a more useful track, leading to the final scene

    Niiiiiiice :D

    In case you didn't figure it out, "DD" is Doctor Developer. His specific status in 2027 is not yet revealed, but I cleared this idea with Utilitarian in case it might conflict with any plans he had kicking around (e.g. he can't have an open relationship with ASH by early 2027, has to still be alive in some fashion or have a successor who would identify themselves as DD, etc.).

    :3 <3

    Drew "looking forward to the climax" Nilium

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