It's now Monday evening.

If the newspapers' theories are correct, there may be a robbery at Manhattan's Museum of World History. (If the next theft fits the previous thefts, it will happen sometime between 11:30 pm and 2 am.)

There's sure to be more security than normal... but that didn't stop anything from being stolen on the last few Monday nights...

How will you approach the museum?
--Stealthily?
--Watching for trouble from a distance? Or from above?
--Will you approach the authorities and offer your assistance ahead of time?
--Will you visit the museum in the afternoon, and try to hide somewhere until after official closing hours?
--Will you just show up after 11 pm without warning and say you want to help?

About an hour before closing time, Gil came down from the sky and walked in the museum's front door. He was in a fresh, new copy of his costume. Yesterday's had been beyond salvage. There were three more hanging in his closet, and Grandma-Mom had promised two more would be in the mail in a day or two. She'd sewn so many copies of that shirt she could do it in her sleep by now, and the rest was pretty much off-the-rack, other than the cape. He'd long since lost track of how many copies of his costume had been destroyed in the line of duty. But that wasn't important at the moment.

"Hello," he said to the guard by the front door. He was going to take the direct approach. "I'd like to speak to your boss please."

Scraps followed along behind Goodwill ... and beside, in front of, over there, and generally always underfoot.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t always easy for Gil to look suave and potent when he was constantly tripping over (or, at least, trying not to) ‘NYC'S BRAVEST PUP’ (according to NYC best loved publication, no less).

Scraps spent equal time sniffing around the locals for wee-mails, and unintentionally getting under G’s feet.

As Goodwill spoke to the man at the door, Scraps used the opportunity to leave a message for the other dogs in the area ... introducing himself, and adding that he was, in fact, a Sagittarian who liked Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.



Quickie for Goodwill: is Scraps in his matching cape?
And please remind me, what are our Team colours?

The guard has seen Goodwill in the paper, and seems quite impressed. He leads Goodwill (And Scraps) to an inner office in the museum.

&&&&&&&&&&

There are a few weemails around the entrance of the building, although not many, but zero once Scraps is inside the door. What a strange place. He must be a pioneer, going where no dog has gone before.

Not that he needs to go again yet. But still.

The Stormforce wasn't exactly the sort of thing you casually unleashed inside a Museum.  Tempest was very good at keeping it in, but when she did let it out, when she afforded herself the pleasure of unleashing her powers, it tended to get ... messy.  Sloppy.  Rainy, windy, lightningy.

Was lightningy a word?  It was now, you philistine.

Tempest decided that she would be best appointed in a position above the Museum.  Flying high above and watching the roof.  Maybe the thieves used a rooftop entrance.  Or at any rate, maybe she'd be able to spot something suspicious from her Eye in the Sky position that people on the ground level didn't.

She was wearing her "costume", the one that her mother had made for her.  It was a bit racy, not at all proper, but, her mother had assured her, being a superhero was like show-business, and you had to catch eyes to catch hearts and earn respect, especially as a young woman.

She eeked the Stormforce out, a trickle at first, and the wind gusted up around her.  There was a Marilyn Monroe moment as the wind rose up around her feet.  Every instinct told Tempest to pull it back in.  That the Stormforce was going to slip through her fingers this time and destroy THE CITY.

But she had it.  Her brain told her she could control this.  She had been practicing control since she was ... well, as long as she could remember.  If it started to slip, for real, she'd lock it back down.

Another deep breath and she raised her arms.  LIGHTNING cracked in the clear night sky above, and then she was up and away!

TO THE SKY ABOVE THE MUSEUM!
This message was last edited by the player at 15:52, Mon 25 Mar 2019.

Last, but far from least, the teenager Saul would be on the scene. But for it to work, he had to make things work with his home. He called a friend and made them pretend they were having a study sleep over, then confirmed so with his parents. His father was quite steadfast, but eventually allowed it to occur.


Then came the day itself, Saul was going around, having a foreign thought in his head correcting plaques next to pieces of history.
So, after the school trip, Saul intentionally left something behind so it would be in Lost and Found. He returned to get it at the last minute of the museum being open. When the janitors helped him, he want for the door, looked for any eyes to be away, and slinked for the public bathroom.

So there he sat in a cubical, working on his homework with a torch and his thoughts for company. Finally, some time to catch up on the mountain of homework.
Saul couldn't help but feel stretched thin, how did anyone else make work, super work and a social life work? Saul suspected, they didn't. Something was going to give soon, he could feel it.

But the time had come, so Saul left the gear there and said his line for the mirror. "I'm fired up!" He roared as he transformed into Scorch Scale!

The museum director says he would be happy to have Goodwill's help, and says he'll clear it with the authorities, and to come back around 11 pm and could you pick up your puppy please--

Goodwill picks up Scraps right before the carpet would have met with an unfortunate event.


(Scorch Scale... hmmm... Roll an Insightful check, please...)

Insight
19:48, Today: Scorch Scale rolled 12 using 2d6+1 ((5,6)).

(Verrrry nice.) Saul manages to successfully evade the security guards, using tricks like perching on the toilet bowl with his feet up when they look under the stalls, and then listening carefully and silently sliding from one stall to the next under the partition as each door is opened and checked.

By the time 11:30 is getting near, Scorch Scale is ready to go-- and so far he's undetected!

What will Scorch Scale do next?


Where, as 11:30 draws near, are Goodwill and Scraps?

Scorch Scale makes one last glance at the paper, in case the previous jobs gives the hero an indicator to what display will be hit next.

Everything stolen so far have been small, easily handheld items of great age... sometimes showing great craft and intricately decorated, sometimes roughly made but even older... Nothing stolen has been less than 1000 years old...

(Give me another Insightful check if you want to try for a more specific guess)

Insight
23:24, Today: Scorch Scale rolled 9 using 2d6+1 ((6,2)).

This isn't the hill to die on with my new ability, so let's embrace this middling result

If Scorch Scale absolutely had to guess, based on what'd been stolen so far, he'd guess... something... British? Maybe?

I think Goodwill and Scraps should stay inside the museum and patrol the hallways.

(Tempest, give me an Insightful check, please...)

Today: Tempest rolled 8 using 2d6-1 ((3,6)).

Heavy clouds are moving in.

Thunder rumbles.

You didn't make that happen... It just happened.

Down below, just for 2 seconds, Tempest spots a guard entering the building.

But it's odd-- he was a guy, but with long, flowing white hair, even though he didn't move at all like an old man.

Sure, it's 1963 and these are modern times and all, but you wouldn't think that a security guard would get hired if he had long hair down past his shoulders, whatever the color.

But he's gone inside now...

Scorch Scale was mumbling to himself, unable to close down on what exactly would be the next item. But he had the idea.

He brushed his clothing and had a look. The tunic that covered his dignity had been restored, it had healed as their spiritually fused body did.
That was magic for you.

Sure he looked good strong enough, the Drake left the restroom, on the hunt for whomever this thief or thieves would be.

Patrolling the museum wasn't producing anything... until suddenly there was Scorch Scale, coming out of one of the Mens' rooms. It was like Goodwill couldn't go anywhere without running into that guy. They should probably formalize some sort of collaboration, maybe...? Gil wasn't sure they were the right two guys for a steady partnership, but they should definitely try to coordinate things like this, where they were showing up ahead of a crime for stakeout duty.

"Hey hey, dragon-man," Gil called. "What's the good word?"

Scraps gave a happy little “Bark”, and went racing off towards his favourite Lizard-Lord.
He leapt again up into Scale’s arms, and playfully licked the guy’s face.

Ah, of course Goodwill would be here. And here was Scraps, ready to display affection as always.

"Could be worse, boy-scout. We really need to sort some communication don't we? Kinda thought I would be alone on this one." Scorch Scale said with a smirk of mutual respect, as he gave a head rubbing to the pup.

"Maybe the Security office can spare us a couple of walkie-talkies," Goodwill suggested. They probably had a few extra in case of emergencies. "Might not hurt to just introduce you, too. We don't want them to mistake you for one of the dinosaur exhibits come to life or something, and start shooting at you."

Thunder.  It rumbled.  Tempest felt it, deep inside her.  She felt it call to her, to soar.  It wasn't just the Red Wig that was fake, put on, to hide the real her from the world, to present the false, meek, front of Libby as if it were the real her.  It was everything about her.  The material flesh, the banal thoughts and dreams, when what she really wanted was to become the Thunder.

One corner of her strawberry-splashed lips twitched upward in what might have been the beginning of a smile, but it turned out was also its end.

But then her eyes settled on the man below.  The thunder, was it trying to take her attention from the man, or draw her out of the pleasure of soaring and into the moment so she would notice him?  Or maybe she was reading more into it than she thought.

The doubt, the questions, they got in the way of the natural flow of the Stormforce through her, and she felt herself dip, excitingly dropping.  She let herself drop, as she cleared her mind.  When she emptied it of worries, doubts, inhibitions, whether her skirt was too short, not short enough, what people would think.  None of that mattered when she was Tempest.

She landed on the roof, a last moment gust of wind slowing her fall so she alighted with the weight of a feather.  She spread her fingers and drew back on the disguise.  Not all the way.  She left the costume on and the wig off.  But she stuffed the Stormforce back deep.  The part of her that was less Libby and more Goddess -- Tempest, she supposed in a brief moment of balance, the Superheroine.  She was somewhere between the two.

That smile, aborted previously, danced across her lips.  Her powers repressed again, she felt safe enough to go inside the Museum.  She wouldn't wreck the place.

Skylight, check -- but she wasn't going to bust a skylight!  What kind of art-and-history-hating-monster do you think she is?

Door -- there was always a door -- but was it open?  Why would they leave it unlocked when they had to be expecting someone to rob the place.  They just had to right?

She checked the door.  Because of course she did.

Scorch Scale might have made a comment about how no person looks at a dragon and insults them with the insinuation of being a dinosaur. But, just then, Scorch Scale feels something is wrong. The sensation squirms in the back of his spine. He had heard something from outside, though it was faint.
Someone must have tried to sneak about the place. Was it their thief?

Scorch Scale spins his neck, facing a door and warns "We've got a hostile."

Nope, it's locked.