metalogs | CONFLUENCE 03

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CONFLUENCE 03

THUNDERSTRUCK

This time there was warning. Any being with precognitive abilities finds themselves brought to their knees a few hours before the event, plagued with a hazy vision of chaos and fear. There's not enough detail to say what is to happen, but at least they have the where and when.

Excelsior, Washington.

The people seem annoyed when they are told to evacuate. After all, Excelsior was built to last. This is a city exempt from the unpredictability of nature. They have weather control systems set up to ensure nothing disrupts their research. This a city built upon scientific advancement, with every inch of infrastructure reliant upon it, and they are confident that they are safe within its borders.

And even without the stubborn minority, the Alliance knows there isn't enough time for a full evacuation. But still, they try. They call upon every available hero to race toward whatever chaos may be about to drop over the city. The Society has sent a few faces too, more quietly. Whether to help or hinder is anyone's guess, as there's whispered encouragement to do both.

The city isn't anywhere near empty when the air goes very still. Everyone and everything pauses and looks skyward as a few drops of rain begin to fall, and the artificial sky fades to reveal roiling clouds.

The Confluence begins.

ITS RAINING (SUPER) MEN

Rain slashes sideways as the skies darken, taking unnatural colors with every flash of lightning. It's beautiful and awe-striking, but knowing that somehow this bizarre phenomenon is the calm before the storm keeps anyone on the ground from enjoying it. Even the those who lack self preservation in the scientific community don't want to investigate the cause of this.

There's a flash of light and a boom. Those still caught in the streets waiting evacuation brace themselves.

And then people begin to fall.

If you are one of these people, you awaken to find yourself hurtling towards the ground at breakneck speed. You come into awareness just in time to register you're about to make impact with the ground, or a car, a building, whatever is underneath you. The impact pulverizes the surface strike, leaving a sizable crater, and as you pull yourself up you find yourself unharmed. Yet there's energy crackling in the air around you. If there are bystanders near you they whip out cellphones to capture the occurrence for their followers or for scientific posterities, crowding around the craters a buzz of excitement. Some of the more fearful ones simply turn and begin running in hopes they can beat the storm.

CRYPTO OR CRYPTID

Confluences give people powers. That's part of the deal. And while those of you who just fell from the sky are discovering your new gifts, others are also suddenly uncovering their own brand new talents.

Excelsior isn't exactly known for natural superpowers. Most of its heroes are self-made geniuses, armed with metasuits or other augments. Those that do have powers got them from scientific accidents, transforming due to experiments gone wrong or accidentally tumbling into toxic waste. They have emergency medical protocols ready for that - not for random people on the street suddenly gaining abilities.

Newly empowered townspeople may jump in to help deal with the evolving chaos, but their lack of control of their powers makes them a bigger threat than whatever threat they were trying to stop. Others will shamelessly take advantage of the chaos to live their villainous dreams, robbing stores and taking revenge on their shitty bosses, landlords, or exes.

The reserve members of the Guardian Alliance spring into action. The heavy hitters are elsewhere, trying to deal with the loss of power and getting the city back online, and so you're left with the rookies trying to keep pace. Many of them are inexperienced and unable to keep up with the raw power and ruthlessness of newly awakened metas. Fantastic, an aerokinetic and one of the newer recruits, seems to be the only one even remotely holding his own.

It's clear they need your help to contain this!

The storm doesn't peter out after the new arrivals have all landed, either. The panic and chaos below seems to fuel it to a second peak. Clouds roil, electricity snakes, and the thunder builds into a deafening crescendo. Then with one final, blinding burst of light, everything goes dark and quiet.

The power is out.

More than just the power — Excelsior is out. The powergrid has been downed, its internal networks corrupted, anything that makes the city function is completely fried, that last surge of the storm apparently having acted as an EMP blast. All of Excelsior's internal systems are now offline. The lights are all out.

Vehicles are stalled out in the streets. And then comes the first crashing boom of a falling hover car. There are more still in the air, but anyone who might be in a position to save them will have only moments to do so before they smash apart on whatever or whoever is unlucky enough to be stuck below them.

And it's not just that. Hospitals are now without power.

VLOG SQUAD STRIKES BACK

In every disaster, the best and worst of human nature can be found. The best shines in every outstretched hand and combined effort, in every life saved. The worst is a gaggle of young adults that live together in the city's least favorite content creator house, known with equal parts irritation and secondhand embarrassment as The Vlog Squad. It seems five of the eight streamer/vlogger/influencers have developed meta powers, including one with the power to record, edit, and broadcast with her mind. The entire group made an on-stream pact to become (non-guild affiliated) supervillains, and their views are skyrocketing.

One of them jumps off a building to demonstrate how he can put holes in everything below him.

Playlist, the ringleader with a sizable following on Youtube and TikTok, has the ability to Freeze, Rewind, Fast Forward reality. Be unlucky enough to be caught in her gaze and find yourself frozen in place, talking in reverse, or zipping around faster than you can control. Good luck getting someone to understand you when you sound like a chipmunk.

Then there's there's the second in command, Filter, an up and coming Instagram star. Filter's powers seem to be tied to their phone. If they get a picture of you in the air - welcome to anti-gravity, you're now stuck floating like a balloon until someone can get you back to Earth. If they slap a sepia filter on an unflattering photo of you, you're now encased in stone until someone drops a compliment. Each filter does something a little different and the unfortunate effects are yours to find out.

The rest of their squad is less notable, both in terms of power and in terms of following. There's a young man who can project his voice for miles around. A young woman who can compel people to dance to the beats dropped by her literal soundcloud. There's one unfortunate fellow whose only real power seems to be to turn people's heads into emojis for 30 seconds.

They're targeting known heroes, but will settle for property damage if it means getting attention. New metas may find themselves accosted by a unpleasant young adult with a camera, mockingly asking if they plan to become heroes. No matter the answer, the result is the same - they'll mock your choice and reasoning and try to get away with a cruel prank.

POWER RESTORED

The power is restored. With it, a belated message makes it to guild and society phones: the guild says restrain the Vlog Squad however you can and await authorities.

Meanwhile a very different message hits the airwaves. Mechanima's digitized voice comes across official channels, torn between amusement and annoyance. He says deal with them, don't care how you do it, but start with the broadcaster.

Once that's done, the guild places a call back to its headquarters to bring everyone back with a teleportation spell. The spell reaches out for whatever metahumans it can find in the area and pulls.

All the metahumans who were involved in the Confluence — new arrivals and old — to a white training space that has already transformed into a luxurious waiting room.

Atomight arrives quickly and makes the following announcement:

Thank you for your help out there. The casualties would be so much higher were it not for those of you who risked your lives to save strangers. To those of you grappling with your new abilities, please rest assured that this room will give you a much needed reprieve. We have staff on site who can work with you to gain control of you new abilities, and nullifiers if you find it's still too much.

You are the third set of newly powered individuals this confluence has brought. Though many of you are native to this world, others among you have come from far off universes. To those of you who have been flung far from home, we'll put you in connection with the others. Many of them are here today and can advise you of what your new reality is here.

We of the Guardian Alliance are committed to doing everything we can to get you home, and to give you some time to get your feet under you. And as this may be your home for a while longer, I wish to formally extend an invitation to those of you who wish to use your powers to defend the innocent to join us.

They hand out cellphones to all present. Once everyone gathered has been looked over and attended to they're directed to the Diadem in and handed a credit card.

Later into the night, another message comes across those phones. The Society of Villainous Reformation formally extends an invitation to all those villainously inclined. Reply for more info.

IN SUMMARY

New arrivals are falling from the skies. They're unharmed despite what should be a lethal impact. People in the city also begin developing superpowers upon landing.

Players are free to create their own powered NPCs for these encounters and can use them.

A notable group of online content creators called the Vlog Squad have developed powers and are terrorizing the city and are livestreaming every minute thanks to their powers.

The Vlog Squad has declared on camera that they do not intend to join any guild and are already showing signs of disrespecting the code. For those already committed to guilds, this means:
Atomight will ask player characters in the Guardian Alliance to deal with them peacefully.

Mechanima demands that members of the Society of Villainous Reformation deal with them — whether this means incapacitating them, forcing them to join, or killing them is their choice.
If anyone wants to engage Mechanima or Atomight, HERE is a top level where we will summarize their responses to PC questions and comments. Please also reply to this comment with what your character plans to do with the Vlog Squad. We encourage you to make posts on the OOC comm plotting out conflict and responses. You may also use this top level to ask event-specific questions about the effects on this page! (Please refer general questions about the setting to the FAQ, and refer any player plots to the PLOTTING page.)

VLOG SQUAD ENCOUNTERS

For each event with a clear antagonistic NPC force — such as the Vlog Squad, in the February arrival — interested players can pitch their characters' encounters with those NPCs. Whether characters are heroic and suited to the role or not, the aim is the group effort of pitching in, so we highly encourage collaborating on these encounters. Once enough NPC encounters have been submitted, we'll determine if and how the trouble has been addressed, and select one of those encounters to be the final, conclusive one in the game. Everyone else's encounters will also have taken place, but may have been temporary stopgaps in addressing the conflict rather than a conclusive blow. For this Confluence, we are asking that submissions be finalized by 3/5.

How it works:

Reply to the relevant top-level comment with an encounter and/or questions about the encounter. The mods are happy to go back and forth with before locking in exactly what a character or group of characters does. Any conversations between characters and NPCs will most likely be happening prior to combat unless specified by the players.

The mods ask that players present two options. In one version, the character or group of characters kills, immobilizes, or otherwise apprehend the villain(s). In the other version, one way or another, the villain escapes or overcomes the character or group of characters. Players who wish to have a specific spot in the timeline (near to the beginning or near to the end) should make this request explicit, and the mods will make efforts to accommodate this.

The mods will RNG the results for the final encounter. For all other submissions, the escape/overcome option is selected. Open calls for collaboration which result in multiple player characters contributing to an idea or solution (see: Kamala Khan's solution to the Cerberus fight) have a much higher chance of being the final encounter, as we want to reward player collaboration and innovation. Please be sure that after everyone has weighed in you return to the top-level comment to report exactly what is happening and who is doing what.

The mods will reply to player submissions with a brief outline of how all of the run-ins go, whether it's a fight or a slapstick series of hilarious accidents that involves the character(s).

Request NPC encounters using the following form —

EXAMPLE—

Character(s) involved: The Iron Giant and Hank Hill
Details of the encounter: Hank will ride in Iron Giant's hand as they search the city for the Vlog Squad, eventually spotting them in a public park. They land explosively in the middle, throwing all of the squad off of their feet while the Iron Giant sends out a signal to scramble their livestreams and begins trying to catch the offenders up in both hands. Hank will try to tackle at least one of them.

How might the villain escape or overcome the player character(s)? Playlist slow motions Iron Giant and they easily duck its grasp, and Filter leaves Hank floating upside down as they make their escape.

How would the player character(s) kill, immobilize, or apprehend the villain? Iron Giant grabs Playlist before she can slow it, then picks up and captures all but Emoji; Hank throws a branch and beans that guy right in the head. Iron Giant gathers him up too, and they turn them in to the first batch of emergency responders they find.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

✦ i. for the 'gram;

[ It's certainly a bit annoying, to say the least, to be pulled somewhere without any word of warning. It's especially bothersome when the arrival is so abrupt. Fortunately, Fandral is able to shake it off, more or less unfazed until he starts to take stock of what's happening around him.

Probably Earth, he decides, based on how things look. And, really, if he's being honest, the level of chaos erupting is fairly on par for Earth, too. While the thought crosses Fandral's mind to try and seek out familiar faces (other Asgardians, maybe, or perhaps an Avenger), he decides it can wait. People need help. He's not the sort to ignore a crisis, and he's had enough practice helping lands on the edge of destruction that he feels particularly capable and qualified to rush in. Even if he doesn't know where he is or what it is that needs doing.

So he opts not to help those trying to organize what seems like an evacuation. Leading people to safety is a job more suited for someone familiar with the city. Quite literally yanking someone back by the collar of their shirt to keep them from causing severe property damage is much more in Fandral's wheelhouse. He poses enough of an intimidating figure that most of the wannabe-villains he encounters have second thoughts, but the Vlog Squad have a bit more bravado and certainty in themselves than the newly empowered.

Which Fandral discovers the hard way.

He'd point out that it's incredibly difficult to catch him looking bad at any moment, but it seems that one of the vloggers captured enough of one at just the right angle that he finds himself stuck in stone, unable to keep them back from causing more serious harm. ]

✦ ii. home sweet hotel // accidental roommate (one response only);

[ The cellphone is an odd thing. Not entirely foreign to Fandral (thankfully) but it feels strange and small in his hand, a symbol that he's found himself far from the place he calls home and all the familiar comforts of it. He's grateful he's not too sentimental. He can roll with the punches and adapt and make his way through the vast worlds set before him, but even the most stone-hearted men yearn for simplicity.

At least the people here are gracious hosts. They seem keen on supplying all the displaced peoples with comforts, and once someone explains what a credit card is, Fandral decides it could be infinitely worse. Perhaps some rest first, he thinks, and then he'll have a proper look at this cellphone and make use of this plastic form of currency. Even rest can't come simply, it seems. Once he opens the door to his assigned room, he stops, surprised to see someone else already there. ]

Pardon me, perhaps there's been a mistake.

✦ iii. one two three, drink;

[ It doesn't take too long for Fandral to discover the lounge. Any inn worth its salt has a decent tavern and he's pleased to see this is no different. More or less. The lounge of the Diadem is far more chic than any alehouse Fandral's found himself in, and instead of the usual ale or mead or wine, the drink possibilities seem endless. Most of it he's never heard of, let alone tried, but he's here and has no other plans and the bartender seems excited to discuss his knowledge of tequila and offer up generous samples.

It's a funny sort of drink. Punchy and warm in the back of his throat, lighter than most of what Fandral drinks. He seems amused that mortals are so effected by a spirit that comes in such a small serving. How charming humans are.

He's putting down a freshly emptied glass when someone sits nearby. He pats the bar stool beside him, beckoning you over. ]

Will you come share a drink with me? I am about to try a mezcal.

[ Go on, join him. What's the worst that could happen? ]

✦ iv. wildcard;

Choose your own adventure~ Open to anything from the prompts list or run ins around the city / at the pool / etc. Feel free to write something up or you can shout at me at blackspire to hash out deets.

[ Loki spots Fandral easily, the bar being one place she knows any Asgardian will gravitate to at some part of the day. When she slides onto her seat he spots her easily and her smile quirks as if surprised by the invitation, but she scoots over and makes sure to fold her legs in his direction without a fuss, familiar in the way her hand rests on his arm to steady the way she eyeballs the drinks behind the bar. Dressed in a short black skirt and a tucked-in tshirt, she tosses her long hair over a shoulder and leans forward to see which beverages are in the fridges, a booted foot bobbing to the ambient music. ]

Which one is that?

[ Her voice, while feminine, ought to give the game away. If not, the green eyes that slide his way (alight with mischief) will definitely do so. ]

[ He can't really complain about his sudden good fortune, can he? No, because Fandral would never have a bad word to say when a beautiful woman chooses to keep him company, and his smile comes easy. Though he can't quite shake a feeling of familiarity as she sits, the strength behind her hand on his arm.

Ah. There it is. At least he's in good humour at the moment, so he lets out a puff of a laugh. ]

Have there not been enough tricks today, or am I truly not to get a moment of peace in this place?

[ He's still not going to complain. ]

Which part of this seems a trick? You insult me.

[ Loki waves a hand at the bartender and orders a beer, in the meantime leaning over Fandral's arm to peer into his drink. ]

What have you been chugging so far?

You can hardly show up in such an exquisite form and expect me not to think something is afoot.

[ A shame she's settled so close, really, so he can't get a better look.

Fandral shakes his cup a little, the clear liquid sloshing a bit inside. ]

Tequila, I'm told. A peculiar sort of drink. Do mortals really enjoy it all that much?

I'm a little flattered you think I'm exquisite, never mind the drinks.

[ Nothing is as important as telling Loki how lovely she is! She turns in her seat, leaning up against the side of his arm
to reward him with the soft press of her bosom as she purrs happily. ]

Tell me more about what you are thinking of me right now.

It’s a shame these stools are so small, you’d be better seated upon my knee.

[ Somewhere inside is Fandral’s voice of reason reminding him that this is Loki, and thought he ought to be less amenable. But he loves the thrill of throwing himself recklessly into a bad idea too much to heed reason. Or maybe he’s had just enough tequila that it’s starting to slowly affect him. ]

The rest, I’m afraid, isn’t appropriate to speak in such a setting.

[ It's a nice change from being treated like a bother or an ill portent and Loki soaks up the good cheer like a sponge, flirting back over the straw she pops in her beer (just because it looks cuter when she pouts and she knows Fandral). ]

We had best stick to the part of that which is possible in such a setting, then. I spy a couch over yonder, and I like the promised comfort of your knee better than this stool.

Fandral ✦ Marvel Comics

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