For the New Year...

This year I intend to get back in shape, take up martial arts again, and become the ultimate badass. I will reform our political system, destroy our monopolies, and fund local governments and libraries. I will dye my hair interesting colors and punch Nazis. I will hunt down God Himself and kick him in the 'nads for letting His creation get out of hand like this. I will drink so much Irish whiskey that my body will start generating its own, and I will write stories to make women swoon and brave men weep. I will eat at least one salad! I will gather my army of crows and establish a corvid utopia. I will resume bicycling and climbing, and steal fire from the sun to give to mortals. I will abolish the abomination which we call Generative AI, establish a federal privacy law to protect the data of our citizens, and sew more patches on my jacket. I will cook bacon. I will cook so much bacon that the God of Pigs will swear vengeance against me. And I will do it all with a smile on my face.

What do you have planned?

Student: Shifter

Name: Truong Khang Anh
Nickname: Shifter
Age: 16
Appearance: 5'5" with thick, black hair and medium-dark skin, dark brown eyes, and features typical of his Vietnamese heritage.
Notable Skills: Swimming, Programming, Board Games, Bicycling, Math, Current Affairs
Quirks: no restaurant can ever measure up to his grandmother's cooking, hates using his power, keeps the news on in the background when he's working, enjoys fantasy stories and portal fantasies in particular, gets very involved in games and projects.

Truong came to Saint Vincent's following a couple of incidents that have been told and retold as urban legends; he is one of the very few anomalies who has cryptid hunters as well as human supremacists looking for him. He is capable of turning into a variety of powerful alternate forms -- but not of controlling what he turns into, and he is not always in control of whether he changes or not. Transforming frequently affects his personality and reactions; apparently his different forms come with different sets of instincts and dominant emotions.

When not transformed, Truong is a good student and pleasant to be around. He's prone to getting lost in his own interests, but loves nothing more than sharing those interests with other people. He's also a surprisingly good cook, and speaks/reads both English and Vietnamese fluently. He stays in practice using online forums and chats, and is very careful not to mention his condition to people who don't know about it already. He has taken up Tai Chi and Aikido, but not for combat; he uses them as a sort of meditation-in-motion, to keep himself calm and avoid involuntary transformations. 

Documented alternate forms include: a sleek, feral cross between a tiger and an iguana which is blind but capable of sensing its surroundings out to about fifty feet; a bloodthirsty aquatic form with both fins and tentacles; a purple-skinned humanoid form with a range of acid-based abilities; and a fifty-foot tall kaiju form with super-strength and virtual invulnerability.

Time's Almost Caught Us, My Friend

Well, we made it past Christmas and we're on to New Year's Day. To absolutely nobody's surprise, I'm not ready. But hey, here we go!

Got to spend some time with my friends online, which was a huge relief. Some of the family are back in town and others are coming into town -- Christmas is dragging out this year -- and I didn't take any extra time off because we've got a few things that need to happen right at the end of the year. It's nothing near what came up at year end at the last job, though, so I'm grateful for that.

I've been working on a story that's basically a tribute to a lot of my early X-Men/New Mutants/Generation X comic book reading; I still think there was a lot of interesting stuff going on there that never quite made it over to the X-movies. 

Meanwhile, I'm reading Jennifer Crusie's Maybe This Time, and I have to say that while I would not have expected gothic horror from her, she's done it really well here. She's also done an excellent job with writing the two kids, and (as always) with the romance.

Onwards to 2025! Here's hoping it turns out better than it looks right now.

The title of the post comes from this clip, from the classic movie Highlander. Damned good thing they never made any sequels to it; that movie was complete in itself.

Faculty: Monk

Name: Sarah Leslie Brigham
Codename: Monk
Age: 31
Appearance: 5' with red hair, pale skin, freckles, green eyes, and a compact, muscular build.
Job: Physical Education, First Aid, martial arts

Though nominally the school's Physical Education teacher, Ms. Brigham's primary role at the school is training students in melee combat, both armed and unarmed. She also teaches basic health and first aid, and her PE classes cover a wide variety of activities, including the basics of various sports, ropes courses, parkour, rock climbing, and yoga. She is encouraging with students who aren't naturally athletic, and has helped a lot of students who always thought they hated PE to get in shape. She also knows how to challenge more athletic, experienced students -- and she's always ready to cheer on her students' accomplishments, physical and academic alike. 

She was initially recruited by the Wonder Women after briefly going viral for fighting through a half-dozen fraternity brothers to prevent a sexual assault at a party, but they parted ways when she found that their idea of how to protect women included preemptive assault. Saint-Vincent found her shortly after that, helped her finish her degree, and recruited her to teach at the school he was founding. 

As Monk, Ms. Brigham is both physically adept -- strong, tough, and gifted with ungodly reflex speeds and the ability to learn physical skills almost at will -- and capable of delivering other effects through a combination of physical and mental techniques: she can paralyze or stun with a blow, absorb the damage from attacks, and heal with a touch. She has no ranged powers, so she's leaned it on learning close combat instead; fortunately, that's exactly the area in which she excels. She knows how to use weapons but generally disdains them; she can do more with a touch than she can with a blade, and sees guns as an easy way to kill people that you weren't actually trying to hurt.

Christmas Eve Eve

Well, we're almost there. I don't know if I'm ready, but like so many things it's going to happen anyway. Here's hoping that all my lovely readers have a safe, enjoyable holiday filled with plenty of good cheer in whatever form bests suits you. 

Friday Reflection

With Christmas bearing down on us like a freight train, I'm finding myself increasingly baffled by just how much I do not want holidays. Like, how long has it been since I looked forward to a holiday celebration? When did I move from tolerating them to dreading them? The ones I do enjoy -- like Halloween -- are the ones with basically no social obligations.

Since changing jobs, I've been trying to take advantage of being less stressed out: get my sleep schedule under control, eat better, start getting real exercise again... 

What I'm finding is that in order to even attempt that, I'm having to try to roll back what turns out to be a whole bunch of unhealthy coping mechanisms that I've apparently accumulated over fucking years of being low-key miserable. It's hard. It's good, but it's hard. It's like I'd forgotten how to not be miserable -- or, now that I'm not so much so, I don't remember how to stop acting as if I am and need this stuff to get by. 

It starts with putting in the work, I guess. (And it's complicated by the fact that I am not looking forward to moving into 2025, but that's -- say it with me -- another post.)

Anyway, Firstborn's back home, Secondborn is finishing up his last school day of 2024, and I -- once again -- am mere days out from the holiday with no idea what we have planned and what I'm going to need to be ready to do. Which is, to be clear, mostly on me. 

But I think I'd like, at some point, to get back to anticipating holidays. I'd like to be able to look forward to getting together with family and friends. I'd like to be interested enough to be planning for the holidays, instead of basically hiding from them. I'd like to go into them feeling rested and prepared.

I'm starting to remember that that might be possible.

StV: Sudden Onset, part three

The bedroom was untouched, so much so that the smell of smoke was still cloying. Cody opened the door, and Em waited beside him while Ryan went inside. "I'm sorry," she told him. "I can't imagine how hard this is for you."

Cody kept his eyes on Ryan, but said, "It doesn't even seem real sometimes. Like, if he just walked back out of the bathroom I wouldn't even be surprised. And then other times, it's a knife through my heart."

Ryan was moving around the room, touching things here and there before finally stopping beside the bed. The burnt linens were still there; the scorched mattress still in place. He bent down, touched it, and froze. Then he straightened, blinked, and swallowed. 

"Well?" asked Cody, as Ryan came back out of the room. 

"It wasn't--" Ryan swallowed again. "He was more surprised than anything. He wasn't even in pain, or if he was he didn't feel it. I just got this flash: light and heat, surprise starting to turn to worry, and then nothing."

"So he didn't suffer," Cody said slowly.

"No," Ryan told him. "No, I don't believe he did. As far as I can tell, it was over almost before he realized what was happening. He didn't even have time to be scared."

"Get out," said Cody.

Em drew back, startled, and Cody added. "Sorry. Thank you. But we need to be alone with this. Get out."

"Done," she said, and led Ryan back outside.

StV: Sudden Onset, part two

"We've answered a lot of questions already," Mrs. Donaldson said. 

"Those fucking cops," Cody put in with quiet fury. 

His mother quieted him with a look, and he looked away, swallowed, and then turned his attention back to Em. She paused, choosing her words carefully, and said, "Mrs. Donaldson, we're Anomalies. We think Evan might have been one too."

"Well," said Cody, and gave a bitter, strangled laugh. "That's better than thinking that he somehow committed suicide by setting himself on fire in his own bed."

Mrs Donaldson was staring at them, though. "Show me," she said, quietly commanding.

Em met her eyes. "All right." She let her own strange ability drift out of her, forming a mug out of shimmering green force. She poured her soda into it, then took a sip; the burst of sugar and caffeine was a profound relief to her system. 

Cody said, "They're telling the truth, Mom." He glanced at Em. "That's my thing. I can tell when somebody is lying. You're not."

She nodded, trying not to get distracted by his cheekbones. "I just make these shapes."

Ryan sighed. "But I'm a sensitive. I can see and hear things in other places, and sometimes I can pick up impressions by touching objects." 

Mrs. Donaldson drew in a deep breath, held it, and then sighed. "All right. I'm going to tell you something that we haven't told anybody else, and I'm trusting you to keep it to yourselves. You're right; Evan was an Anomaly, just like Cody is. It skipped me, but my mother had a bit of the Sight and my grandmother was supposed to be a witch." She swallowed, then wiped at her eyes. "Evan had the gift of fire. I mean, he could warm things up, but when he called to the fire it came. We all saw it. The whole family knew. We just... didn't say anything, after he..." 

Cody crossed to his mother and knelt beside her. He looked at Em again, and this time there was something like resentment on his face. "So what do you want from us?" he asked. 

Em drew breath to answer, but Ryan put a hand on her shoulder. "Will you let me see his room?" he asked gently. "It's okay if you say No. But we'd like to know what really happened, and I think you would too."

Cody said, "Mom?" 

"Yes," she said,  then choked off whatever she might have said next. 

He stood up. "All right. Come with me."

StV: Sudden Onset, part one

Jade paused outside the door to compose herself, and Snoop took a moment as well. This wasn't a situation she wanted to walk into lightly; the family was grieving, after all. The rest of Team Phoenix was around, but staying out of sight; they were there because school policy said they had to be, but they wouldn't be part of this mission unless something went very, very wrong. 

"All right," she said quietly. "Let's do this." She rang the doorbell and waited. 

The woman who opened the door was wearing shorts and a rumpled t-shirt, and had her sandy blonde hair pulled back into a simple ponytail. "Can I help you?" she asked. 

She'd made her voice polite, even friendly, but there was something fragile underneath. This was a woman who was holding it together by an act of will, maybe because she had no other choice. 

Jade asked: "Mrs. Donaldson?" When the woman nodded, she added more cautiously: "Emily Hubbard. My friends call me Em. We came about Evan."

The woman froze, and for a moment her face was a raw study in grief. Then she stiffened, and looked the pair of them over. After a moment she asked, "Were you friends of his?"

Jade shook her head. "No. We just... look, this is going to sound crazy, but we just came to check on something." She looked around. "Can we come inside? It's not easy to explain."

Mrs. Donaldson only came up to her eyebrows, but the look she gave Jade made the younger girl feel about two feet high. "You aren't reporters, are you?" 

"No," said Spook firmly. "Not even for a school newspaper." He paused, then added, "Ryan Darling."

"Good," she said, looking him over. "All right, come in. You want some water? Or a soda?"

"We wouldn't want to impose," Jade said, as she followed the grieving mother into the house, "but if you don't mind, I could use a soda."

"I offered," said Mrs. Donaldson, in a mild tone that suggested that she wouldn't have done so if it had been an imposition. "Wait here in the living room, and I'll be right back." She turned to Snoop. "What about you?"

"Water would be fine," he said quickly. 

"All right." Mrs. Donaldson crossed to a doorway that apparently led into the kitchen and disappeared. 

Jade took a quick moment to look around. The house was nice, but not ostentatious; thoroughly middle-class, with a fireplace against the far wall and a flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. There were posters for the Lord of the Rings movies hung on the wall, along with some of the weapons from the movies; Jade found herself smiling at that. 

"Who are you?" asked a new voice, this one male, young, and curious. 

Jade turned to face a young man -- her own age, or close enough -- who'd evidently come up from the back of the house. He was lean, with a rangy, broad-shouldered build; he had his mother's sandy hair, also in a ponytail, and striking blue eyes. 

"Ah," said Jade, to cover her hesitation. "You must be Cody. I'm Emily Hubbard -- Em. This is my friend Ryan. We, um..." She swallowed. 

"They came about Evan," said Mrs. Donaldson, coming back into the room with a trio of glasses on a small tray. 

"Oh," said Cody, suddenly downcast. He moved to join them as they sat down, though.

Music: Adeste Fideles

 Dan Vasc with a metal cover of this Latin classic: 

Villain: Preacher Strong

Name: Reverend Nicolas Webster Strong
Alias: Preacher Strong
Age: 52
Appearance: A tall, imposing man in his early fifties with neatly-trimmed salt-and-pepper hair, always dressed neatly in a suit and tie.
Job: Preacher, Human Supremacist

Nicholas Strong is a man who has never questioned much of anything. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; Humanity is living in the End Times and the End of Days is nearly upon us; Satan and his demonic servants are everywhere waiting to tempt the faithful from the narrow path of Truth. The Judgement could come any day, like a thief in the night, and the only way to be ready for it is to repent your sins and dedicate your life to Jesus. 

A fire-and-brimstone preacher with powerful convictions, Preacher Strong moved from street preaching to traveling ministry, touting his expertise on defeating evil spirits and actual demons; he claims to have faced down monsters through the power of his faith in God. He preaches against those who have traded their souls away to the Devil in exchange for power, and in favor of those who turn away from such evil and give their lives to God. He is not a faith healer as such, but there have been a few incidents reported and one of followers is supposed to be a former Anomaly.

He has a wife and daughter in Royse City, Texas, but with the demands of his ministry he seldom sees them.

Den of Thieves: Telk's Reckoning, part two

"What's this I hear?"

Orek Silverfist was too large for the office door, but he came through the doorway with a graceful twist, lowering his body for a single step. He wore loose clothing in shades of gray, covered with a loose, gauzy mantle that looked vaguely like a funeral shroud. It wasn't the plain-but-nice suit he wore when he was in the office; this was what he wore when he was doing work. A black cap covered his silver hair, but the mask that would have hidden his nose and mouth hung loose around his neck instead.

Telk looked up from beside his desk, where he was inspecting the lump on the back of Smash's head. He swallowed, then pressed forward. If this disgrace meant his fall, he could at least meet his fate with some dignity. "It's what I said in the note, boss. I've been taken -- completely. Chest's empty, money's gone. There was fight earlier -- a big one -- and by the time it was over Smash was missing. Then Vik showed up, and when I went to give him my cut the chest was empty."

Orek frowned, but the expression was thoughtful rather than angry. For all his size, Silverfist wasn't a berserker; he was calm, disciplined, and precise. He wouldn't lose his temper; he wouldn't make an angry mistake. Telk had been counting on that, but seeing it in action was reassuring and terrifying in equal measure. 

"You're not trying to play me, are you?" Orek shifted just a little bit, a panther flexing its claws as it lined up to pounce. 

"No, boss," Talk said quickly. "We're loyal -- both of us. And even if we weren't, we aren't stupid enough to pull something like that."

Orek studied him for a long moment. "All right. Walk me through it. A fight broke out... who started it?"

"One of the dockworkers," said Smash. "It was real crowded 'cause of the bard -- like, I had to turn people away crowded -- and one of 'em punched the guy next to him. With all the people, it was a brawl before I could get to 'em."

"I see," Orek came forward and gestured for Smash to turn around before taking a moment to examine the massive goose egg on the back of the hobgoblin's head. "And this is why you were missing?"

Smash nodded, and from the sound of his voice he was fiercely embarrassed. "I was knocking people over the head and throwing 'em out, trying to break it up, and somebody knocked me over the head." 

"I found him a few minutes ago in a sling under the bridge," Talk said. "Had to do a bit of work with a rope ladder to get him back out."

Smash shuddered, and Orek stepped back. "All right, turn back around. So somebody took out Smash and stashed him under the bridge. Where were you?" 

Telk gestured. "Just outside the door, slapping people around to get their attention. By the time I did, most of the crowd was gone. I was lookin' for Smash when Vik showed up, and that's when we found out the money was gone."

"How did you find out?" asked Orek, calm and relentless. 

Telk swallowed. "Well, I... I unlocked the chest and I opened it, and it was empty. Vik saw--"

"I already heard Vik's piece of this," said Orek, quietly. 

Oh, yeah, he's furious. Telk forced himself to straighten. "So I sent you that note, and went to ask the bard if he'd seen anything. He hadn't."

There was a moment of silence as Orek considered this. "Could the bard have done it?"

"I don't see how," Telk said reluctantly, because it would have been extremely convenient if the bard had done it and happened to be sitting out there with the money still on him. He knew better, though. The Sacred Twins didn't love him that much. "I could hear him playing the whole time, and Edwin -- he's the server -- swears the guy kicked the bench over and kept them both safe behind it."

That earned a grunt from Orek. The big man looked at the windows, clearly noting the metal bars, then said: "So somebody was fast enough and quiet enough to get in and out during the fight." 

Telk nodded nervously. "It was either that or magic, boss."

Orek looked around. "Very well. I believe you. You're forgiven this month's cut, and I'll send funds so you can pay your people. And then we'll find the people who did this, and make an example of them. Nobody cuts in on the Guild." He hesitated, then added: "If you think of anything else, send a runner. Otherwise, I'll let you know."

Telk nodded. When he looked up again, Orek Silverfist was gone.

Music: Where It's At

Beck:

Den of Thieves: Telk's Reckoning, part one

Telk led the courier Vik into his back office, then stepped forward and bent down to open the chest -- pad in place to avoid the needle trap, and key inserted confidently as he always did it. He lifted the lid, regarded the empty interior, and then closed it again. 

"Telk?" asked Vik. 

Telk lifted the lid again, confirming that the chest was empty. "I'm fucked," he said under his breath, and then: "Goblinfuckers! We've been hit."

Vik shifted forward, looking over his shoulder. "Oh, shit." 

"It must have happened during the brawl," he said, and straightened. 

"Can you make it good?" asked Vik. 

"No!" Telk was shouting, but he didn't care. The door was closed, and Vik would understand. "This was everything. I can't send my cut, I can't pay my people, and on top of that Smash is missing."

Vik took this in with the imperturbable calm of somebody whose problem it definitely wasn't. "All right. What do you do?"

Telk sighed and pushed past him to the desk. Business was still business, after all. His immediate boss was Orek, but this might go all the way up to Orallia. He pulled a fresh sheet of paper, plucked his pen from the inkwell and gave it a quick wipe. Just the facts, he thought, and started to write.

I've been hit. Funds are gone completely. Must have happened during the brawl tonight. He sprinkled sand over the ink, gave it a moment to dry, and then shook it clean and handed it to Vik. "Get that to Orek. Don't say anything to anybody."

"You don't have to tell me," said Vik. "I wish you luck."

Could have used that earlier, Telk thought, but he only said, "Likewise."

He looked around, but the bars were still on the windows and the chest had been locked. Could someone have removed the money by sorcery? And if they could, why would they? No, it had probably happened during the fight. The lock on the chest wasn't the best, but it was enough to turn away anybody who knew what to expect from the Guild. If Smash still lived, if Telk could find him, that might tell him more. Had the bard seen anything?

Frowning, he went outside to ask.

Student: Team Leader Spark [Team Dragon]

Name: Gregory "Greg" Alan Hendricks
Nickname: Spark
Age: 18
Appearance: 6' 1" tall, broad-shouldered, and athletic; his brown hair is neatly trimmed and fashionably styled, and he carries himself with an air of authority.
Notable Skills: football, hockey, basketball, strategy and tactics, eagle scout, driving
Quirks: rules-oriented, quick to make decisions but has trouble changing his mind, prone to mansplaining/sharing expertise, loves anime and video games, prefers dogs to cats

As the captain of Team Dragon, Spark is self-assured, decisive, and goal-oriented. As when playing sports, he wants his team to win -- and he wants to take care of his people. This makes him an ideal leader in most sorts of contests, but becomes a challenge when the goal is less clearly defined. He does not deal well with nuance, and gets angry with situations that he can't easily categorize. His saving grace is that he is willing to listen to his team; both Veil and Catapult can offer insights that he lacks. 

As a student, he is attentive but not always insightful; he remembers facts and narratives but doesn't always consider them critically. As a friend he is loyal and prone to giving and receiving a certain amount of good-natured teasing. His tendency to be competitive in interpersonal interactions rubs a lot of the other students the wrong way.

Student: Haunts

Name: Amanda Marie Williamson
Nickname: Haunts
Age: 16
Appearance: 5' tall with curly black hair and extremely pale skin that makes her eyes seem even darker than they are, medium build, wears a lot of black
Notable Skills: Drawing, Writing, Poetry, Tennis, Driving, Swimming
Quirks: speaks in a dull monotone, writes a lot of fanfic, loves horror movies/books/stories, bisexual, has a tarot deck but doesn't actually know how to read it

Amanda has been having nightmares and adding them to her sketchbook for as long as she can remember. It's a daily ritual for her, binding the nightmare to the page and trapping it there. If she doesn't, the nightmares come out. She's also very protective of her sketchbook, because anyone else looking at the drawings in it calls the nightmare out to come for them-- and the creatures she dreams of can be very dangerous. After a couple of incidents in middle school, Amanda started leaning in on her reputation as The Spooky Girl, adopting a very goth style of dress and finding catharsis in the horror genre. She makes it a point never to sound particularly interested in anyone or anything, but she quietly enjoys her studies and gets good grades. Her parents collect her for holidays and hold to the hope that someday she'll gain some sort of mastery over this peculiar ability. So far though, she's never been able to conjure a monster deliberately; it only happens when she's dreaming.

Student: Goblin

Name: Vic
Nickname: Goblin
Age: 15
Appearance: 4'3, wiry build, indeterminate gender, with a wide mouth and teeth like a shark. Soft, black hair in a ponytail. Toes and fingertips are equipped with short, black claws.
Notable Skills: Hiding, Biting, Exploring (Good Sense of Direction), Well-Spoken, Good with Numbers, Climbing, Computer Helpdesk
Quirks: draws maps, keeps a collection of camping supplies in a daypack in their room, likes exploring hard-to-reach places, good listener and keeps secrets, doesn't want to own anything more than they need

Goblin claims that they'd been living in the school for nearly three years before they emerged from hiding and started attending classes. Before that, they'd been living in the forgotten corners of a library before a newly-installed security system tripped them up, and before that there might have been an orphanage. Despite their somewhat feral appearance, Goblin has a rather serene, unflappable air about them. 

Their anomaly is notably unusual in that it combines some physical changes (small size, green skin, teeth and claws) with minor telekinesis and short-range teleportation. The telekinesis is enough to lift a couple of books, gum up a mechanis, or work a lock -- and it includes feedback, so Goblin can actually feel what they're doing with the power. Their teleportation can take them as much as ninety feet in any direction, but requires a three-second warmup.

Goblin's companions are mostly the other physical misfits -- Nightfox, Troll, Magehand, Tendril, and Leaves, among others -- but that doesn't seem to come from being shy or uncomfortable around people with more conventional appearances. Those just seem to be the people that Goblin thinks could use a friend.

StV: Sneaking Out

"Hey, Fox." Goblin perched on a high branch, looking down at the fire that really shouldn't have been burning here in the small wooded area at the back of the estate. "You're out late."

"Couldn't sleep," she said, then drew a breath and forced herself to speak in a friendlier tone. "Come on down, if you like."

Goblin was her own age -- at least, she thought so -- but looked younger, young enough to make their gender impossible to determine at first glance -- and Nightfox had never asked. It wasn't her business. They kept their own schedule and the teachers allowed it, which was already more than she needed to know. 

There was a quiet whump as Goblin landed beside her, their descent softened by their abilities. "Ah," they said. "Fire. I don't see real fire very often."

Nightfox shrugged. "It's cold enough now. And it gives me something to stare at."

"Yeah," Goblin told her. "Me too."

At the moment, Nightfox's configuration was a mix of feline and humanoid. She could change that by an act of will, or it could change by reflex. When she'd first arrived here, she'd felt like she was finally gaining some control over her power; for the last several months, though, it had felt more like she was coming to terms with the ways in which her power controlled her.

"I miss fire," Goblin told her. "I've missed you."

She glanced at them. "You're still my friend."

"You're still mine." They turned their eyes back to the flames. "But you haven't been around."

"No," Nightfox admitted. "I haven't. Not for you, not for anybody."

Goblin was quiet for long enough that Nightfox thought they weren't going to speak further. Then they said, "Can I help?"

Nightfox growled -- frustrated, not angry. "I don't know. I just wish... I wasn't like this. Sometimes. Sometimes it's magnificent and I don't want to give it up. Sometimes I wish I could do this and still be beautiful."

"You are beautiful," said Goblin. "Furry, sure. But look at you. Even with the fur, you're beautiful. Like me, and being short and green. Still beautiful."

Nightfox was surprised by the tears in her eyes. "Thank you," she said after a moment. "And yes, in case you need to hear it from somebody else. You're beautiful too."

"I know," said Goblin, and went back to watching the fire.

Voyages of the Dauntless: Imperial City

Pre-game notes to myself...

The capital city of Domitas is visible a full day before your arrival. The city itself has spread well beyond its three sets of gleaming marble walls, expanding to fill the whole of an ancient valley. At its center, the palace sits atop a single stone peak, surrounded on three sides by steep cliffs but angling down gently to the north. You're still too far away to see the details, but you remember the city's five districts from earlier visits: the aristocratic enclave of the central peak, the temple district to the north at its base, the trade district to the west and the artisan's district to the east. To the south, hidden discreetly behind the palace and deep in the shadow cast by it, is the warren. You'll be there before too much longer; what are you doing? 

The last time you came through here, the public airdocks were located at the western edge of the trade district. The district, it seems, has now grown around them, but the clean heights of the marble towers are exactly where you remember them. A flash of light catches your eye; one of the Guides is using a mirror to signal you in the Imperial Code. Who recognizes it? Roll for piloting. 

They're directing you to Tower Seven, East Dock. What are you doing?

There is a delegation waiting, with a smartly-dressed human woman in front. She marches out from the tower as soon as the ship is secured, trailed by a half-dozen armed men. "This is the Dauntless?" asks the human woman, looking around at the deck of the airship as if she owns it already. "Who is the captain?" What are you doing?

"I am Harbormaster Jade Tanisborn," she tells you, "and on the authority of his supreme majesty King Augustus Agrippo, this ship is now formally impounded on suspicion of transporting illicit goods." She glances at the small troop of guardsmen who have crossed the ramp behind her. They are all holding cocked and loaded crossbows. "If there is a gnome present, have him step forth. It will not go well for you if you do not." What are you doing?

The note reads, Check the rat. The Dauntless doesn't have a rat, not since you threw Scratch over the side. What are you doing?

The Temple of Xandria is a simple brick building in a district of marble, basalt, obsidian, and granite. The wide single door sits at street level and is already open, spilling the day's light into the interior. Large, arched windows of clear glass add further light. There is an unusually wide desk just inside, with four people sitting along it: three humans and one half-elf. The half-elf is speaking with an elderly human, who is apparently complaining about his landlord; a human woman is filling out paperwork, and the other two human men appear unoccupied and (roll Perception) might be engaging in a discreet game of cards hidden by the desk. What are you doing?

"I am Darek Frostbreather," says the robed dragonborn, as he looks you over. "What brings you to the Temple of Xandria?" How do you answer?

Villain: Sandman

Name: Augustus "Gus" Anthony Wilson
Alias: Sandman
Age: 47
Appearance: 5' 6", with sandy blond hair cut short, clean-shaven, light brown eyes, pot belly, light skin
Job: Aspiring Criminal Mastermind, bank robber

Gus Wilson was a building inspector for the city of Greenville, TX until he discovered that he was also an anomaly. Tired of dealing with irresponsible and recalcitrant contractors, departmental politics, and the constant scrimping and saving that came with his undersized government paycheck, he turned to robbing banks instead. To do this, he uses the simplest and most direct of his powers: the ability to put other people to sleep by an act of will. 

With everyone in the building unconscious, he simply walks in, empties the registers, and leaves. With gloves and a ski mask, he's able to avoid identification by video footage and other security measures. Victims of his power report restful sleep and pleasant dreams, which are also a result of his influence. He's quite capable of producing nightmares instead, but chooses not to. 

A couple of jobs back, he happened to hit a bank where one of the patrons had telepathic defenses strong enough to resist his power; as a result, Gus has now caught the attention of a mob boss in Dallas who would very much like to recruit him. 

Gus' other abilities are dream-based: he can influence the nature of someone's dreams, enter them himself, or even travel through dreams to emerge elsewhere -- though his one experience with the latter suggests that it's extremely dangerous, so he saves that for serious emergencies.