"We should likely wait until we are ready before bringing Emerald along.  As for Knockouts, I'd think no.  If only to prevent sleepwalking style control."  So many crazy variables to deal with.  Something is totally going to go wrong, so most they can do is try to make less annoying things go wrong.

OOC: One of the Valentine's events had you resurrect Recluse's old girlfriend.  It implied he would mellow out a touch on the 'take over WHOLE world' end, at least.

Taking out a god is no easy task.... even in City of Heroes. DOABLE, but not easy. So the super group assembles as many of their members as possible for the "raid" of sorts. However, for the GM's sanity and everyone's sanity, GM requests we each pick one character to focus on for the "raid" and RP that character while everyone else is kind of on auto-follow, but feel free to flavor up whatever attacks and such your other alts would be doing in the attack as you see fit.

GM is choosing Emerald.
Mittens picks Mittens.
Joe picks Alloy

The group arrives at the appointed god fight. Lughebu walks into the room. He appears as a black man with yellow face paint around his eyes and mouth (painted like a frown). His hair looks more like straw, hanging down from the top of his terrifying, almost mask-like visage. He body is disturbingly skinny and he has many a tribal feather hanging off his biceps, thighs, wrists and ankles. His voice comes from everywhere in the cave and seems to "echo" inside the minds of the heroes. His voice sounds... sad. "Why have you come here?"

Closest thing I found to something that might resemble his face:
http://paragonwiki.com/w/image...anne-Trent-Caves.jpg
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:40, Fri 12 Feb 2016.

Even Kitau is intimidated enough that she refrains from charging first thing.  Raymond is far more used to this sort of thing and simply stands sentinel style with a grim frown.  Mits glances at the magic circle, her raid team, then the creepy tiki god.

"Honestly?  We were minding our own business setting up a magical ritual to help our friend when you showed up.  So...  why are you here?  And uh...  you sound sad.  Do you need help?"

Raymond, Kitau, Jake, etc. sweatdrop at Mits' last question.

  Melty has a great response for situations line this.  "..."  Thanks, Melty.

  Alloy Meanwhile, wishes the Scan Target devices provided more relevant information for longer than ten seconds.  Knowing how many millions of experience an Archvillain needs to level up isn't quite relevant.

OOC: Seriously, it did let you know that stuff.  Though it was very awkward to pop open your numbers info screen then open the tab for the targeted boss like how you could pop open tabs for mastermind pets, during it's short effect.

The ruins begin to be superimposed with a massive illusion showing the culture that once thrived there. Lughebu says sadly, "This... is my home. This is all that remains of my once prosperous kingdom."

The illusion then shows the culture being wiped out and taken over by some deific beings.

Lughebu says, "I am sad because this fate awaits all. It matters not if you are hero or villain: In the end, all face the same fate. You have come to defeat me to rescue your friend, yet I am not fated to die at your hands. I wish I could. No, instead, I will die at the hands of the most powerful and most merciless enemy of all, and it is the enemy of all the universe: Time."

Emerald says, "But there is time travel. I've seen it myself."

Lughebu says, "Which has a limit, if you recall. No one can travel farther backward or forward than a certain number of years. Some day, even time travelers will find the end is unavoidable."

"And this would be why Mittens never seeks immortality," Mits narrates before continuing, "Talk about depressing.

"Look.  We modern mortals are not that much different from those of your long-ago kingdom.  Like them, we're not too eager to meet an early end in a fight against deific power.  We want to avoid fighting.  We simply want to heal a friend.  So if you're willing to allow us to finish up our ritual without a fight, we'll be happy to leave this place in peace."

Kitau and Raymond remain on guard, doubtful Mits can persuade an evil god to not fight the group.

  Alloy isn't even going to think too hard about the time travel stuff, it's already a big enough headache dealing with magical theology without adding grand uncle paradox.

  Yes, Grand Uncle paradox.  We don't like to talk about it.

  "If you feel the end result today is unavoidable, then why not skip the part where both sides wish getting hit in the face didn't hurt so much."

Lughebu says, "To the flames who wish to burn bright and die quicker; I am here to help you embrace the way you wish to live, short though it may be. May your stories end in catharsis rather than dissatisfaction."

He gives a sad smile to Mittens. "If you wonder why I did what I did to your friend; I did this for you, Mittens. For all of you. You would not have been led about in a search to find and fight a god if I hadn't teased you all with the promise of your friend losing a piece of her heart. Be honest; you may not have wanted to die... but you wanted to fight me. Dying to a god is more than can be said for all those people out there who died laying in a bed while pathetically wasting away. Give me one good reason we should not fight."

Mits thumbs at Alloy.  "Well there's that good reason right there.  Getting hit in the face hurts.

"Your intentions and well wishes are generous and all, but methinks our motives and desires may be different from what you thought.  Some may care mostly about the destination, others more for the journey, still others for both.  So since you've been so accommodating, and you've pointed out that the if or when of a fight don't really matter in the long run, might I suggest that those who want to fight you right now step forward."

Mits, Raymond, Kitau, etc. stay put.

  "Honestly, the whole priority here is helping a friend.  Throwing rocks at a god is more of a 'If I have no choice' category."

  Gasp!  Kitau has been replaced by an impostor!... Nah we're just kidding, Kitau actually caring about her friends more than carnage is why we like the tiny ball of murder so much.

It was, after all, watching friends and family get murdered that got Kitau where she is. Unless the CoX Kitau has a different backstory...

Lughebu looks dejected and says, "After you came all this way... and all you care about is your friend." He waves a hand. "She is released. And yet, you have to take my word for it."

Emerald says, "Even if we fought you and won, there is no garuntee that would fix things."

This Kitau does not come from a sunshine and gumdrop background either.  So she and Raymond are still on guard, waiting for the inevitable, "Sike!  Too evil to let you encounter me without a fight!" turn-around.

Mits is staring in shock.  Did she just succeed at diplomacy?!  Wow!  She grins ear-to-ear with fists on her hips, proud of herself.

"Yay Emerald!  Fluffy fox glomp!"

She offers Emmy a big bear hug!

  Alloy gives the cute kitty first go at the cute fox.  Melty gives Lughebu as slow thumbs up, because even wooden voodoo masks are more expressive than he is.

Tiki-man vanishes and Emerald looks at the others, appearing quite stunned. "...a god fight belayed by talk?"

Angel says, "People normally just charge in and fight, you know?"

Emerald proceeds to take Mittens' offered hug. "He had a point, though. I don't feel any different and it worries me. But I guess there is nothing we can do."

Kitau and Raymond are stunned speechless.  Mits bashfully admits, "I honestly only expected to catch him in some hypocrisy I could tease him with.  But even though he was right that I consider big fights fun, that doesn't mean I consider my fun more urgent than Emmy's cure.

"But fret not that we'll just have an evil god's word at face value!  Not only can me and my bro detect evil when in paladin mode, we have couple of archmages here who can verify your 'No longer cursed' status."

Gale nods to Alloy and offers to split the effort with him, then does her part of the magical virus scan.

  "Sassing dieties is a much more common temptation than fighting them, it is true."

  He gets to work alongside Gale checking over Emerald for notable problems.

  You need to be tricky with false positives in this city.  Countless curse detection magics keep flagging 'Cursed with good looks' listings -oh see there it goes now with Emerald.

All studies show Emerald no longer has a curse tying him to Lughebu. Maybe the deity tried something new just out of boredom and thus was telling the truth? Whatever the case, it does seem that Emerald is back to "normal", including being her normal level of incarnate as opposed to being more powerful. But this is plenty and Emerald is super-grateful for it, giving many hugs to all who want them.

If Emerald could, she'd hug Alloy's player for the "cursed with good looks" comment, but sadly, she is a fictional character.

Emerald returns to the SG base with everyone and orders a huge pizza party!

Mits snickers and thumbs-ups at Alloy.

"One thing fighting sentient evil has over fighting mindless monsters - their ability to understand when I'm mocking them."

At the pizza party, she opts for the topping lover style.  Don't even hold the anchovies!

Jake brings some snacks that survived the last party.  "So um...  Eli and I had an idea for maybe reducing the risk of this sort of thing happening again."

  Mittens you are a kitty cat, you keeping the tiny fish on the pizza falls well within sterotypes.

  "Dark voodoo gods specifically, or something more broad?" Alloy is curious, and being both A Robot and having No Mouth (the larger barrier) means he's got time to spare to talk at a pizza party.

Eli goes to hide behind Jake when Jake mentions him.

Emerald is nomming on a meat-lover's. She eyes Eli, but then pretends not to notice him for his own sake. Instead, she takes note of the fact Alloy has not grabbed any pizza.

Jake is pleasantly surprised that instead of being immediately shot down, he's being asked for specifics.  In spite of being among super-heroes, it's hard to un-learn what has long been drilled into his head - that adults don't take seriously the ideas of kids.  Sometimes especially if that kid is a genius.

"Specifically that, yes.  At first.  But theoretically it should be possible to block other powers from taking control of people.  Such as The Well."

Mits perks up.  "O Rly?"

  "Hmm, that would be rather impressive.  I admit my views of The Well itself are less dire than some, but that is still a desirable outcome."

Eli asks, "Do you think Arachnos could be brought over to our side if the Well's influence was taken away?"

Emerald says, "It's a nice thought, but I doubt it. Sounds like a worthwhile endeavor, Jake, if you think it reasonably attainable. For now, though, we should ALL relax, given we just faced a god and are still breathing. I thought for sure I was going to have to die."

Shelly says, "We wouldn't let that happen."

Emerald gives a sad smile. "Thanks." She saw it happen. Emerald has died in her own arms before. After having to fight other alternate reality Emeralds. Watching herself die after heroic self-sacrifice was possibly even more sobering than what the depressing Lughebu had to say. Which isn't to say Emmy isn't chewing on that too.

Emerald says, "Whoever is interested, I'd like a big slumber party here in the base."

"Anything's possible, I guess," Jake answers, not sounding so sure.

He nods to Emmy. "I brought it up simply as a bit of good news.  I didn't expect anyone to stop partying and start working right away."

To the offer for sleep-over, Mits cheers!  "Woohoo!  Sounds fun!  Thanks for the invite!  I'll be there with bells on!"

She offers Emmy a happy, excited glomp.

"Pleasant things are a good change of pace, yeah."

Sleeping is another thing there is a distinct lack of for Alloy, but then that just means he gets to win at slumber parties where the point counter-intuitively to stay awake as long as possible.

Wizard robes are close enough to pajamas as it is, especially the ones with stars and moons on them that Ally is also surprisingly lacking in.