The Guardians

OK, I must be bloody mad to run this alongside the NSBFL, but I said Id do this when The mentorn Conspiracvy was over, and that looks like happening soon, so here goes anyway.

This is an online RPG thats spent some time in the planning, and is (very) loosely based on a book of the same name Im writing. That is, although the location and theme will be the same as the book, none of the characters will be the same.

The setting

This takes place in the 26th century, in the city of Southside, the capital city of United Europe. Despite being a large and bustling city, Southside is still largely under construction. Therefore everyone lives in the centre of the city, and the outskirts are a ring of building sites. Due to World War 3 happening a couple of centuries ago, technological development was brought to a standstill for a long time, and is only just beginning to creep forwards again. So while its not the high-tech utopia as seen in most futuristic games, its still got a few knick-knacks we dont.

The story

Due to something about five years ago which Im not going to tell you as it will spoil major events in the book if I ever finish the bloody thing and get it published but you dont need to know it for this anyway *deep breath*, a number of people have gained super powers. For the most part, these people are ordinairy people who just want to get on with their lives. However, they tend to associate with each other more than with normal people, and hold regular meetings, similar to Robot Wars live events but without the fighting. They call themselves the Gifted.

However, due largely to the problems of trying to restart an organised government, Southside isnt the most efficiently run city, and crime is rife. A number of large gangs openly own the street, and a large number employ Gifted whenever they can. Added to the fact that other Gifted arent as peaceful as the majority and abuse their gifts in order to gain wealth or power, Southside isnt the safest place to live.

In order to handle those criminals the police couldnt, a volunteer force called the Guardians was set up. They had rules, though, and would only tackle crimes commited by Gifted, leaving the regular criminals to the police.

This takes place some time after the events of the book. The original Guardians are disbanded, but the police have decided to reform the group, this time under police pay.

Gameplay

Entering

I need six people to enter, with the following stats.

Codename: What your character calls themself.
Real name: Optional.
Power: What they can do.

Please note that all Gifted have weaknesses. The more extreme their gift, the more extreme the weakness. Also note that this weakness will be supplied by me to stop any smart-arses entering uber-characters.

Also, divide 20 points between the following stats:

Strength: Determines how much punnishment you dish out in hand to hand combat.
Stamina: Determines how much your character can be hurt before falling unconcious.
Speed: Determines the athleticism of your character.
Intelligence: Determines how smart the character is.

These stats will not increase via experience in any way, shape, form or etc. You may find items that grant a bonus to these stats, like brass knuckles adding some to strength, but thats it.

Also note that the base stats may affect power usage. For example, if you want to have super speed as your power, it becomes less effective if you give them a low speed stat.

Martyn saved a place when I told him about this a while ago, so five places remain.

Using your powers

Each character has a proficiency level of 0-100, which determines how good they are at using their power. Raise it by training (detailed later), or by trying out more and more complicated ways of using it. However if you never train, or only ever use basic moves, this will lower. The higher your proficiency is, the higher the chance of sucesfully using your power.

Public opinion

Like Proficiency, this is a 0-100 meter, starting at 50. This is how much the public likes the Guardians.

Raise it by:

Capturing supervillains
Saving citizens from harm
Making public appearences

It can drop if you:

Kill supervillains
Damage public property or hurt innocent citizens
Act like a jerk

There may be other ways to make it rise or fall.

If the meter is high, you will gain more public trust. NPCs are more likely to help you, you gain more police backup and other beneficial results may happen. If the meter is low, the opposite is true.

Warning. If the meter hits 0, you will completely lose public trust and the Guardians will be forced to disband, ending the game.

Moving around

There will be a list of locations you can visit in Southside. This will start off small, but as the game progresses, more locations will be added to the list. Just pick one to move to, and it will be done.

How to play

You are limited to one action a day, and I will be updating once a day, even if its small. While moving to a place counts as an action, if you change your mind and want to move somewhere else before I update, it will cancel the previous move.

Training counts as your action for the day. Basically you use up your chance to act that day in exchange for some proficiency points. You may only train if your character is in Guardian H.Q

While the Guardians are a team, you can split up and go to different locations if you want. Please note though, if the team splits up, I may keep one characters updates a secret from the other players and update via their e-mail instead. What that character learned will be made known to the others when the team re-forms.

Bear in mind, the Stamina stat only applies to hand to hand fighting. If you are shot or stabbed, you will either be wounded or die.

This will be unforgiving at times. If you screw up, your character may be badly hurt and taken out of the game for a while as they heal, or killed and taken out of the game altogether.

If a Guardian dies, another can take their place after one supervillain is caught. However, the same person is not allowed to immediately re-enter if their character is killed, and must wait for another character to die before they can rejoin. Also, cloning dead Guardians is not allowed. Be creative, people.

The main objective will become clear as the game progreses. Complete that objective to win the game. Please note, I will not give you any help or clues beyond how I describe something, so you may need to get your thinking caps on.

Guardian H.Q contains a database of villains past and present. If it is mentioned that the Guardians have had a run-in with a certain villain before, you can look them up to discover their powers and weaknesses, plus a short bio on them. If you meet a villain for the first time, that info will have to be worked out.

Have fun:)

Codename: Mephistopheles
Power: The ability to controll fire, includign breatihng it, blastign it from hands and creatign walls of it. And lighting his trademanrk cigars.
Appearance: tall, scrawny and always looks sunburnt

Strength: 4
Stamina: 7
Speed: 3
Intelligence: 6

Codename: Funky Junkie
Power: Ability to manipulate any physical object (Not including lifeforms) to use as a weapon
Appearance: Average height, very skinny, pale, Japanese anime-like hairdo, always wears ripped jeans and faded t-shirts.

Strength: 3
Stamina: 6
Speed: 5
Intelligence: 6

Mephistopheless weakness:

He can only control fire so much before he loses control of it. Manipulating it for too long will give him headaches and eventually make him pass out.

His power is Stamina based.

Funky Junkies weakness: His power is Strength based, so not too effective.

Name: Stomper
Power: The ability to sap life from another [DUnno if this is Strength or Intelligence Based, if it is intelligence based, can i redo my stats?]

Strength: 10
Stanima: 10
Speed: 0
Intelligence: 0
[take one from Strength and Stanima and add them to speed and intelligence if I need one point in each stat]

CODENAME: Mr Marathon
REAL NAME: Kyle OMyters :proud:
POWER: the ability of super speed. Also a very quick thinker to compensate for his lack of strength. :wink:
APPEARANCE: Blue crash helmet with goggles, red scarf, blue old-style pilot jacket, jeans and and red boots

STRENGTH: 2
STAMINA: 3
SPEED: 10
INTELLIGENCE: 5

Tony is redoing his stats, so his wekaness later.

Marathons weakness: When going at top speed, cornering is a big problem, as is stopping. Also if he gets hit by something while at top speed it can do a lot of damage.

Frank has told me my power is power and intelligence based over MSN, and since i have only 1 intelligence, he gave me permission to redo my stats.
So...
Power: 7
Stanima: 5
Speed: 1
Intelligence: 7

Stompers weakness: Not only does he need to be right up close to use his power, its very limited in usage. Because of this, building up proficiency is pretty worthless for this character. Also hes as slow as a brick :p

CODENAME: Blur
POWER: To turn himself invisible if in trouble.
APPEARANCE: All in white, Blur emphasises purity and cleanliness.

STRENGTH: 7
STAMINA: 5
SPEED: 3
INTELLIGENCE: 5

Blurs weakness: Only completely invisible when hes standing still. If he moves, he can be seen as a blur in the air.

I will use my reserved place to bring in a girl character as there is a lack of them

CODENAME: Psy

REAL NAME: Laura Hewes

POWER: She has psychic abilitys meaning she can levitate and can lift other people and items and stop them in their tracks. Psy isnt that strong as her power requires strenght of mind not strenght of body.

APPEARANCE: She always wears purple, she has shoulder lenght blonde hair, her face isnt pale which is what most people expect psychics to have.

STRENGTH: 2
STAMINA:4
SPEED: 4
INTELLIGENCE: 10

Having read the above has it occured to anybody that there are marvel characters with all the above powers. for example:

Mephistopheles - Fire control - Pyro (X-men)
Funky Junkie - Object to weapon manipulation - Gambit (X-men)
Stomper - sapping from others - Rogue (X-men)
Mr Marathon - running speed - Quicksilver (X-men)
Blur - Invisability - Susan Storm aka The Invisible Woman (Fantastic 4)
Psy - Telekenesis - Jean Grey (X-men)

Not that theres anything wrong with that Im just saying its been done b4.

I know Ceri, I did a lot of research on what Marvel have done with their characters when planning the book. There are over a hundred X-men alone, so thinking up things Marvel have not done during their 40+ years in the business is near impossible.

Anyway, Psys weakness: Same as Mephistopheles, only her power is Intelligence based rather than stamina. As her intelligence is better than his stamina though, she can use her power for longer.

As we have the entire team together now, this will begin upon my next post. I will update at nights to give everyone time to plan their action for the day. If someone doesnt give an action, theyll basically just go along with the team.

Im Fantastic!!! :proud:

The door of Guardian H.Q opens slowly, and the first thing to hit Psy as she walks in is the musty smell. The place hasn€™t been aired since the original Guardians split up two years previously. Like most people, she heard some of the events surrounding the Guardians, but nowhere near the full story. All she knows is that after finally breaking the Firm, the oldest and most dangerous gang in Southside, so called due to making as much money as a large business, the Guardians just€¦ Vanished. After a quick look around, it becomes clear she is the first of the new Guardians to arrive. She remembers Chief Inspector Lamberts words upon her recruitment. €œGo to this address, meet your team mates and wait there for your next instructions.€ While she is thinking, there is a waft of foul smelling smoke in the air. She turns around to see a tall red skinned man has entered the house. In his hand is the source of the smoke, a cigar.

Psy and Mephistopheles introduce themselves, and briefly discuss the situation. With The Firm now ancient history, the smaller gangs, long kept in check by The Firm have started to grow and are competing to take The Firm€™s place. Like The Firm, they hire Gifted whenever possible to give themselves an edge over both the police and the competition. Despite introducing a wide variety of new equipment and policing methods, Southside€™s police force is still outmatched by these criminals, which is why Chief Inspector Lambert decided to set up a new group of Guardians as soon as he was promoted to the position. The two decide to investigate the house they will be using as a base of operations while waiting for the four other members to arrive.

Mephistopheles soon finds the lab, where the uniforms were made. Looking inside one of the helmets, he finds they did a lot more than just making the wearers look like power rangers gone wrong, as they have some pretty advanced audio and visual equipment hidden in there. Still, he€™s grateful that as the Guardians are now official, it won€™t be necessary to go to the extreme lengths the originals had used to stop enemies like The Firm finding out who they were. Switching on a nearby computer, he finds the database, records of all the enemies the Guardians had faced. He reads through it a while, absorbing the information. Some names like Jerry Hewlitt and Karma he recognises, as their exploits were well reported by the Southside Times, but other names are a mystery to him. It dawns on him that reading through the database is futile. All the villains described have either been put behind bars or killed one another off, or in the cases of Hewlitt and Karma no longer a threat for one reason or another. A few like Metamorph and Flint are listed as €œUnknown€, but as they have not been heard of in some time it is assumed they are also no longer a threat. His reading is interrupted by his name being called from the lounge. He leaves the computer running and sees what€™s going on.

It turns out that the other four Guardians have arrived. They are Stomper, Mr. Marathon, Funky Junky and Blur. The meeting is awkward at first. It€™s like Big Brother. None have ever met before, although Blur thinks he once saw Mr. Marathon at a Gifted meet, yet they will have to live and work together, watch one another€™s backs and trust one another with their lives. The ice is quickly broken though, as it turns out Mr. Marathon and Mephistopheles both have a penchant for showing off with their powers, and things go from there. It seems the Police have been careful with their choice of Guardians. Not only is there a good mix of powers, but none of the Guardians have any family which could be used against them.

Soon after, the messenger from the Police station arrives. Lambert would have come himself, he explains, but he is far too busy. Because of this, he has sent an information pack, containing a short list of people you can contact and details of the first thing Lambert wants investigating. The list of contacts has just two names on it. Ace and Jerry Hewlitt. It has become common knowledge that John Ericson, otherwise known as €œAce€ due to his uncanny luck at cards, can actually see a short way into the future, explaining his good luck skill once and for all. He runs a bar called Aces which is exclusive to Gifted, and is also where the meets are arranged. He hears most things that go on in town, and is a good source of knowledge. Hewlitt has retired from his criminal life, and is also a good source of information if you catch him in the right mood.

Your first assignment is a biker gang called the Shadows. They used to just hang around pubs, and while they could be violent if provoked, were never much bother. All that has changed now though, as two days ago they robbed two jewellery shops in two days before going to ground. Their current whereabouts are unknown, but it is believed that the leader is Gifted.

Current locations you may visit are:

Aces
Swiss-Anglo Jewellers
Southern Gold
Police station

Im heading over to Aces.

I will go to the Swiss Anglo Jewellers in case they try another jewellery heist.

Ill accompany Stomper along to visit Ace. Were a nice little balance in stat terms and with me, hell get there a lot quicker :proud:

Im with Dan. I can hide, and he can stand still. If they then turn up, I can use my powers to unmask them, and we can find out who they are. Plus, we can find out the type of van, and its numberplate. Could we buy some sort of tracking device? If so, attach that to the van. If not, then bugger :-P

If not, then we still have some idea of who they are, and we can go to that John dude and find out about them.

Psy will go with Dan and Scott, she can stop them or the van with her powers and cause a stir cause the gang probly wouldnt expect a girl to be able to do anything to them.

Just to be different Ill go to southern gold. Someone has to. Clues cant just be from one place.

Deciding to split up, the Guardians head in different directions.

Southern Gold

Mephistopheles€™ target is nearest, and so he arrives there first. Flashing his badge at the police officers present, he is allowed past the police tape. Before heading in, he spends some time looking outside the shop. The windows are intact, and the only clue to be seen is some graffiti. It might say €œShadows€ but then the writing is so bad it might also say €œCheese and pickle sandwiches at low prices€. Mephistopheles decides to enter the shop.

He is greeted by a portly man of around fifty years old. Looking around Mephistopheles notices not much seems to have been stolen. He mentions this to the owner.
€œIt€™s true, they didn€™t steal much,€ the owner confirms. €œThey went for anything that had a night crystal in it and ignored everything else. The words night crystal ring a bell in Mephistopheles€™ mind. He thinks he might have seen something about them in the Guardians database. He asks the owner about them.

Night crystals are only to be found in one area, which was badly affected by the DNA wars which are responsible for the Gifted, among other things. Some experts believe that before their DNA was altered, they used to be mushrooms. Now they are beautiful gems, often used in jewellery, and sell at a high price. Mephistopheles decides to ask about the thieves.

They were six men, dressed like bikers. They€™d just come in, two of them held the owner down, the others grabbed all the night crystals they could find, stuffed them into sports bags and drove off. By the sound of the engines, they were riding quite powerful bikes.

Mephistopheles can go to the following places:

Guardian H.Q
Swiss-Anglo jewellers
Aces
Police Station

Swiss-Anglo Jewellers

Blur, Funkie Junkie and Psy enter the jewellery shop and start looking around. They are greeted by an elderly man with a shock of white hair. Of some note is his black eye. When asked who they are, the Guardians introduce themselves and ask about the theft. He tells you that the thieves were four men, dressed in biking leathers. They pushed him over, grabbed any jewellery they could find with night crystals inset and left, using sports bags to carry the stolen goods. When he€™d gotten up and tried to stop them leaving, one of them had punched him, resulting in the black eye.

Psy then asks if he€™d seen the van€™s registration number. €œVan?€ he asks. €œThey were riding bikes, there was no van! You people ought to do your homework more carefully in future!€

As the man is becoming quite agitated, the three decide not to ask any more questions. You lose 1 public opinion point.

Current public opinion: 49

Your next possible destinations are:

Guardian H.Q
Southern Gold
Aces
Police station

Aces

Marathon has been to Aces before, so knows what to expect. Stomper on the other hand only found out about his powers recently, so has never been inside before. The first obstacle is a man on the door called Henri, who stares for a while at Stomper in a way he finds quite disturbing.
€œHe€™s with me,€ Marathon tells him.
€œJust making sure,€ Henri tells him. €œAce is very particular. You can go in.€
€œWhat was all that about?€ Stomper asks.
€œOnly Gifted are allowed inside Aces,€ Marathon explains. €œHenri€™s gift is the ability to sense other Gifted.€

The inside of Aces is quite pleasant, with soft music being played and a large non smoking area. There is a pool table in one corner, currently occupied by two men in biking leathers. A middle aged couple are sitting at one table, while off in the corner sits a man in a wheelchair. Behind the bar is what appears to be an upright, humanoid looking lizard, who Marathon introduces to Stomper as Johnny.

If you want to leave, your possible destinations are:

Guardian H.Q
Swiss-Anglo jewellers
Southern Gold
Police station

Otherwise, what do you want to do next?

Start playing pool with the guys in biking leather, and in the middle of the game, ask them if they know anything about the Shadows.

Well, what can I say? My character was probably stoned at the time :proud:

Im going to the police station. Im doing my homework, and Ill look over all the evidence found by the police to see what they found, and whether its relevant.

Go to Aces and subtly enquire where i might be able to get some night gems if you catch my drift. ie. see who might be able to sell them to me.

While Stomper is getting aquainted with the bikers, Ill use the time to catch up with Johnny and get the current scoop on the Gifted, mainly any details of suspicious activity on their half.

Also, if things end up going pear-shaped with Stomper, I can give him a hand at clobbering the bikers before whisking him and our new prisoners to the police station. We might even meet the Funky Junky there :proud:

Dan and Martyn are out of time to act, the update will be with my next post.

Police station

Upon exiting the Swiss-Anglo jewellers, Funkie Junkie announces his intention of heading to the police station to compare notes. Psy and Blur haven€™t made any plans of their own, so decide to follow him.

Your requests to see Chief Inspector Lambert are denied, however. He€™s a busy man and doesn€™t want to be disturbed until you have some results. You instead meet Detective Sergeant O€™Hara, a no-nonsense thirty something woman with a dark complexion and brown hair. She takes you through what the police have discovered thus far.

1) Both jewellers reported that only items featuring night crystals were stolen. The reason why is unclear, as they aren€™t significantly more expensive than diamonds. It would have been easy to grab more than what they did, so selling the stolen goods can be ruled out as a motive.

2) As far as the police know, only one thing makes night crystals different from regular gems, and that is the way they glow in the dark, which is where they gained their name. In fact they are highly prized by the kind of people who lose their jewellery around the house, as they are easy to find by simply turning off the lights.

3) Although the thieves wore scarves around their mouths, one was caught briefly removing his on CCTV until chastised by another and replacing it. The image was successfully matched to Arnold Harris in the police mug books. He is known to be a member of the Shadows, a medium sized gang of bikers who are notorious for bar brawls. This is believed to be the first time they have committed an act of robbery, a fact corroborated by the un-professional manner in which the robberies were carried out.

4) Although it is believed the Shadows comprise of regular men, there is evidence that the gangs leader is Gifted, as he has been seen going into Aces, making this a task for the Guardians rather than regular police.

Unless there€™s something else you want to do at the police station, your possible destinations are:

Guardian H.Q
Swiss-Anglo jewellers
Southern Gold
Aces

Aces

While Marathon goes to chat to Johnny, Stomper strikes up a conversation with the two bikers. They are a little wary at first, but soon warn up to Stomper and start chatting about various subjects, such as sport and the part time barmaid. Not only is she described as dead fit, but it seems her gift is the ability to control liquids, making her cocktail mixing a sight to behold. Despite their tough appearance, they seem to be genuinely nice people. Eventually, Stomper manages to get the topic around to the Shadows.
€œYou don€™t wanna get involved with them,€ one of the bikers mutters. €œShow €˜im your arm, Dave.€
Dave, the other biker, takes off his jacket. His upper arm has possibly the biggest bruise Stomper has ever seen. It seems Dave and Ed were drinking in the same bar as the Shadows once. Dave accidentally knocked over one of their drinks, and the next thing he knows he€™s thrown against the slot machine so hard it€™s knocked over, nearly landing on a young couple who€™d mistakenly thought the bar was a good place for a date.

Speaking to Marathon, Johnny tells a similar story. The Shadows seem to believe the streets belong to them. Anyone provoking one in the slightest way had better be wearing armour, because they€™re in for a kicking. The leader comes in occasionally for a drink, but never stays for long without his cronies. Like all bullies, they seem to be cowards at heart, and would never attack someone without superiority in numbers being on their side.

Marathon then tells Johnny that apparently they€™ve taken to robbing jewellery stores. This puzzles him somewhat. Random acts of violence are more their style, he says. Of course sometimes one of the gangs hire them to rough someone up a bit. Thought of that way, maybe this new direction isn€™t as random as it seems? Unfortunately, he doesn€™t know where they go. They don€™t have a particular favourite place to hang out, it seems, and never seem to go home either.

While all this is going on, Mephistopheles arrives on the scene. Seeing how empty Aces is, it looks like his plan might not be such a good idea, but he looks around nonetheless. He sees Stomper and Marathon talking to the bikers and Johnny respectively. The only other people in the bar are a middle aged couple, who are ignoring the other patrons completely, and a man in a wheelchair who looks vaguely familiar. He€™s discretely watching Stomper and Marathon.

If you wish to leave Aces, your possible destinations are:

Guardian H.Q
Swiss-Anglo jewellers
Southern Gold
Police station.

Ill go back to Guardian H.Q

Ill get a quick drink and see if the middle aged couple knows anything.

Ill dash over to the Police Station and try to find out anywhere else that deals these night crystals. Maybe that can help pinpoint the Shadows next target.

Bugger. I couldve done with going to Swiss-Anglo Jewellers now, but I dont think itd be wise to do that. Could someone else who isnt Blur or Psy go instead?

Ill stay at the police station with Steve, and find out some more about these night crystals, if theres anything else to know. Also, Ill have a coffee and chat up Sergeant OHara :wink:.

Bear in mind, the Guardians who arent Blur, Psy and Funkie Junkie dont know about what you learned at the police station yet.

Good point. I suggest a group brainstorming session at Guardian HQ. If no one else agrees, then continue as I previously planned.

Ill go to the hq

Psy will go to the hq aswell if there is a group meeting

On the plus side Ive just realised my flame abilities should make me very good against bikers. They contain petrol after all...

And yes I know In not meant to kill, that doesnt mean I cant blow up their bieks when they are NOT on them. Anyways in future Ill go alogn with anyone intending to confront the bikers.

But i nthe mean time I wish to look into any gifted who are confined to a wheelchair while I am at HQ. That wheelcahir person is suspcious and I want him identified.

Police station

Funkie Junkie chats with Blur and Psy about their next move. All three agree it€™s time to head back to H.Q to compare notes with their team mates, but Funkie Junkie says he wants to talk to D.S O€™Hara some more first, and he€™ll catch them up. The two leave, and Funkie Junkie takes off after O€™Hara.

He catches up with her in the caf, and offers to buy here a coffee. Her eyes flick to the steaming cup already in her hand, and politely declines the offer. Undaunted, he buys himself one from the vending machine. O€™Hara by this time has sat herself down at a table and is reading a paper, but Funkie Junkie sits opposite and quickly makes with the charm offensive. After a while, she excuses herself as she has to make a phone call. Mobile phones are no more, as the technology no longer exists to send satellites into space, but the canteen has a pay phone. She spends some time chatting with the person on the other end, before returning to sit opposite Funkie Junkie.
€œSorry,€ she says. €œI just had to call my husband and tell him our son was bringing some mates over tonight,€ she continues, and smiles sweetly with her mouth while committing murder with her eyes.

Taking the hint at last, Funkie Junkie gets down to business and asks about night crystals. O€™Hara sighs.
€œWe told you all we know about them,€ she says. €œThe Southside police may not have a reputation for efficiency, but we do sometimes manage to cover everything in a brief. Now if that€™s everything, I€™d like to be left alone on my lunch hour.€
Funkie Junkie starts to leave, but is almost knocked over by the canteen door being opened by Marathon. He asks O€™Hara anywhere else where night crystals can be found, as he thinks the information can be used to prevent another robbery.
€œJust about any jewellers in Southside,€ O€™Hara replies. €œI must thank you for pointing out a routine investigation,€ she continues acidly. €œIt certainly would never have occurred to us to send police runners around every jeweller and pawn shop and advise them to keep any night crystals they have under tight lock and key until such time as the thieves are caught.€
Marathon and Funkie Junkie realise they are wasting their time, and the only thing they€™re contributing to at the moment is D.S O€™Hara€™s eventual heart attack. They decide to go back to Guardian H.Q together. As he leaves, Funkie Junkie drinks his coffee, and instantly regrets it. In the future, vending machine coffee still isn€™t drinkable.

Aces

Mephistopheles stands in the doorway of Aces for a short while, watching the man in the wheelchair suspiciously. After a while, the man sees Mephistopheles, and gives him a thin smile. Realising he€™s been seen, Mephistopheles leave Aces, vowing to find out as much about the man as possible.

Stomper meanwhile has finished his drink, and sat down with the middle aged couple. They look at him quizzically as he introduces himself, and quickly asks about night crystals.
€œWe just came in here for a quiet drink!€ the man protests. €œCome on, Alexis, let€™s go.€
The two finish their drinks and leave Aces in a hurry. Public opinion down by one point.

Guardian H.Q

Mephistopheles is the first to arrive on the scene. He immediately heads back to the lab and opens up the Guardians database. He immediately finds what he€™s looking for, as the man in the wheelchair is among the first records.

The man€™s name is Jerry Hewlit. Before he€™d gained his powers, he€™d already been arrested a few times for fraud and petty theft. After he found out about his powers, he thought they would help him move into the big league, and started robbing shops before being caught by the Guardians and sent for trial. He then attempted to escape conviction, by claiming that he wasn€™t human, and requesting a DNA test be taken on him. It€™s noted that while he€™s quite devious, he€™s not all that smart. How he became crippled is not on record, but since he relied on his high agility to escape his crime scenes, it forced him into retirement. It€™s believed he now makes a living as an information broker.

While he€™s reading up on Hewlit, the others arrive and the brainstorming session begins. After notes are compared, you realise you have learned the following things:

1) The Shadows are indeed the most likely culprits in this matter, but then you knew that already.

2) Despite robbery not being their usual offence, they have been known to do jobs for money, giving a possible motive.

3) Nothing special is known about night crystals save that they glow in the dark.

4) The leader has been allowed into Aces, which confirms he is Gifted. He has only ever gone in there alone, confirming his gang aren€™t.

5) However, they€™re very hard to find, and very rarely even go home. If you can find where they sleep at night, you€™ll find the Shadows.

6) D.S O€™Hara is easy to annoy, and has no time for amateurs. If you want her to take you seriously, you€™ll need to prove you are capable of doing the job.

The investigation still has a ways to go.

Current public opinion: 48.

Possible locations:

Swiss-Anglo jewllwers
Southern Gold
Aces
Police station

Go to aces, and persaude Hewlit to see what information he can give me on shadows, night jewels and their leader.

I dont want to kill him, but I could saw, warm up his wheelchair a little should information not be forthcoming.