So, what does SolidState do to start breaking through, and how will he deal with the foot and a half of water he's in..

Can you call for backup?  construct something to bulwark the water away from a defined area?
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:53, Fri 10 Apr 2020.

  "Hey, Forsythe!" Cassandra's voice responded first. She sounded out if breath, but then, she had just put in ten minutes struggling through chest-deep water while they were talking. She'd made little progress in that time, and she was seriously considering giving up on defiance and just checking out where the water was going. But first~~

  "I need some accompaniment down here. Fugazi if you got it, but I'll take anything angry young and poor." She ended transmission before he could hear her sigh. The stuffy career officer probably wouldn't even get the joke. She had made her way to a locked door with a placard on it that she was wagering said "Staff Only", and she ducked briefly into the alcove next to it to concentrate. She might have to go where she was being steered, but she wasn't about to make it easy.

  It started slowly; she wasn't trying to overstress the building's structure, after all. Just a few low spots where the water flowed away faster than it filled in, or slower, causing a swell that would hang in place, sometimes after the water beneath it head drained elsewhere. The same things happening beneath the surface began to create chaotic eddies and cross-flow. As the patterns sped up, spread out, and became more disruptive, she stepped out into them and let herself be swept up.

It's her favored environment, so she usually moves through it very well (albeit at normal speed), but that's in air where only the time-warping itself is tossing her around. So an acrobatics roll for balance comes to: a healthy 25.

Flowingwater is going somewhere, and she's going with it to find out if that's a possible drain.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:25, Fri 17 Apr 2020.

Lachesis information was like a lot of what she said, he just didn't know enough to understand it but he understood the warning, a third party was interfering and time was of the essence. It also meant that largely he had to work on his own so whatever was interfering with Lachesis was not aware of his work.

Solidstate compartmentalized the information about the possible collapse of the concourse, that was information that wasn't helpful. Instead he set to work, settling on his feet he focused his attention on first sealing the room up, except for the roof and somewhere he could pour the water he was going to move. If he could seal this room he could lift the water out without it coming back.

Concrete, metal and tools from his suit flew around the room in a whirl of telekinetic motion, tools worked, seemingly by themselves and huge bars of metal were bent or twisted as needed, with Solidstate in the center seemingly still as he conducted the speedy orchestra of tools.

Once the room was sealed and a one way valve was in place all the tools went back to their assigned places on his suit and he started to move the water, huge globs of water being forced through the valve and out of the room till he had enough dry floor to start cutting out a hole above the people he was trying to rescue, just big enough to get them out quickly, but not too big he didn't have a space to put the rubble.

He'd prefer to get the people out straight, but if he had to he'd remove more water and get the people out separately but he'd prefer to be efficient and just get the people out.

OOC: Using Quickness 10 (floating tools are just a descriptor) and Move object to move and build (I have precise) and seal off the room, then remove the water before cutting a hole big enough to remove the people one at a time with the guy holding back the water last...if it's quicker I'll take the water out first.

@SolidState
It took precious minutes to move that amount of water out, but at least it stayed out.

I put the difficulty to move the water at about a DC20, which makes this a pretty routine task for SolidState.  Although it is still time-consuming moving that much water safely.

Drilling through the floor, SolidState is faced with the next level between him and the survivors.  The swimming Pool.

From the looks of it, the tsunami had hit while the pool was closed.  At least there was some small blessings.  But anything that had been around the pool was now part of the general miasma of  brown water that submerged nearly 2/3rds of the room.  Obviously, it would mean more of the same... a siphon engine would  be easy enough to rig to suction the water out.

But what caught SolidState's attention, mor than anything, was the roiling mass of bubbling water in the middle.  The brackish water swelled and undulated, and slow,y the middle seemed to rise toward him, as if the swell of water was reaching up toward the hole SolidState looked down through.

"Three of you?"  A distorted voice sand angrily from behind him. "Does everybody got to play the hero?"

In the doorway to the main lobby, a shadowy, semi-translucent humanoid figure stood.  It's body appeared to be made of the same brackish water that had flooded the entire place.

"This won't do." The figure sloshed into the room--it didn't step, it didn't appear to have feet... only oblong legs, as if creating a humanoid form with details might have been an effort. "This won't do at all.   The boy is so close to the final step.  If you interrupt it now, he'll only ever be mediocre.  He can do what must be done,  But he needs time.  And you, whoever the hell you are.  You and your friends need to back off!"

Normally, I'd roll for initiative, but since we're not running at a break-neck speed (though I am going to speed up... a few posts a week, I think), it should be worthwhile for you to roll initiative.

Also:
Reminder: according to Message #7:

2nd floor:	Concourse, ballroom A: abandoned triage center
1st floor:	The Nook - SolidState
Basement 1:	Swimming Pool
Basement 2:	Sub-Basement - Survivors

@Lachesis

"Roger that." Forsythe said.   "I've a three-man conflict team heading to your 20 now.  Also, Army Core engineers en route to SolidState.  ETA 10 minutes."

Traversing the current was certainly different from how she usually traveled and it felt oddly familiar.     The water was moving, albeit through a couple of debris-jams, to a stairwell.  The door had been wedged open--or it had come open during the flood, and while everything was dark, the stairwell was a yawning chasm.  She simply couldn't see what the possibilities were beyond it. SO, for all intents and purposes, it was a yawning chasm.

The pull of the current isn't strong enough to draw lachesis down into it, but it is very clear that this is where the water is going.

At the same time, some of the upper levels of water seem to be going in a different direction.

When Lachesis surfaced for a breath, she could sense thick rivulets actually streaming up the walls.

There was a sudden rumble, a deep cracking sound that reverberated through the water.  Somewhere, deeper below her, something had shifted, and the water flow moving toward the stairwell increased.  That's when Lachesis became aware of an intermittent rhythm.  It wasn't morse code, but it was a burst of impacts that didn't sound random.  Again, from somewhere below...

The stairwell.

Of course, I'm assuming that Lachesis has a diver's flashlight or some other form of illumination--for the survivors benefit, obviuosly--if you want it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 06:04, Wed 22 Apr 2020.

  "Blind me? Really??" the girl complained at nothing in particular while treading water far enough back from the stairs to not be sucked down. She almost sounded angry. "I can feel the simulation, you know! And hell, do you have any idea how many times I've drowned in the past five minutes?" She rolled her eyes, not that it was visible in the dark, or behind her blindfold. But she did it.  And then she rolled away from the wall and let the current pull her down.

  Cassandra hated swimming. It was fine, when she was younger. She didn't mind getting wet. She wasn't even bad at it. But she couldn't sense more than a few yards out, in the water. Swimming made her world very small. So her trip down the stairs was a dizzying rush of walls and railings emerging suddenly from the unknown. And at the bottom, something was blocking her out entirely. Almost nothing had that ability, and that was frightening, not that she'd ever admit it, so she struck back the only way she could, truly blinded: chaos. The choppy water around her became even worse, tumbling and churning until the current was almost lost in eddies.

She's far enough down to turn up the power on the Environment effect. She can only really use 1 rank without hitting the upper floors where SolidState is, but 30' around her is visibility -2, movement -2 ranks, DC11 Will to use Aim or things like Power Attack. And +2 to her active defenses for now.

@Lachesis

As she went lower and lower, the ambient sound dulled and for a moment, it felt almost like time she'd spent in a neutral bouyancy tank.   Except that this time, there was a real, distinct tap-tap-tap going on.

Halfway down the flight of stairs, she sensed someone, felt the tickle of bubbles being released.  An air-tank?  There was a muffled blur of noise, but it was condensed and distorted.

A number of thoughts raced through her mind, but it ultimately settled on one most-likely conclusion:  There was somebody down there.

As she drifted closer, it became mroe clear.  A diver.  a single man--woman?  It was hard to tell.  They were pressed under something heavy.  Maybe concrete?  It was difficult to tell (and what the hell was a slab of concrete doing in the stairwell, anyway?).   The diver seemed to be tapping away at the chunk of concrete, whittling away at it with a resolute patience.
This message was last edited by the GM at 01:55, Fri 24 Apr 2020.

@SolidState

"Interfere any further and you too will drown!"  The watery humanoid surged forward and extended both arms towards SolidState, blasting an enormous surge of water at him.


--
Initiative:
+20 Waterworks
+05 SolidState

Waterworks rolled 27 to attack SolidState with Water canon
Waterworks attacks with a power I'm calling "Water Canon"  a Cumulative Line Area Affliction that gives you Dazed/Prone (no third effect) if successful.
Please roll Dodge to resist.  If affected, Fortitude will apply to remove effects at a later round...

@Lachesis
There was a sudden surge of the current around her, as the water swirled and bubbled around her.   Something had changed, and for a moment, the pull of water in a different direction lessened the water-level in the stairwell.

{ "Comm check." } Emerald Star's voice calls over the comm channel, { "Lachesis, SolidState, this is Emerald Star.  What's your sitch?  Over." }

  The water took a few seconds to settle, but the distortions warping it vanished almost instantly. Lachesis played fast and loose with her own life often, with civilians' never, if she could help it. And speaking of help, she couldn't, or not directly, in any case.

  "Forsythe! You missing a diver?" she nearly shouted over the radio when she surfaced, driven by the urgency of gasping for air as much as by the situation. "I have one pinned under rubble here, and I'm not actually the she-hulk you'd expect. I need something in to get a slab off them before it's a headstone. Bottom of stairwell five. And push your timing to max; I'm gonna try to investigate before their air runs out. I hit about a thousand-x these days."

  As much of a smartass as she could be, and as often as she chased a hunch off-mission, her sit-reps were generally to the point and useful. She took another deep breath, then, and vanished from the surface in less than an eyeblink. She took a grip on the concrete without paying much attention to where she put her weight—she'd be gone again faster than thought, after all—and traced its fate backward for any clues that might help them free the diver.


Okay! Dropped the environmental effect. Pushing Speed and Quickness to 10, which is 1000x dilation like she told the chief. She's also giving up her predictive awareness for rapid tracking postcognition. She should be able to rewind the past 15min of that slab's life in the 90s or so she can hold her breath. And for the diver, that takes her 90ms. She'll go back as needed, but unless Forsythe's whole reply takes less than a second, she'll probably be finished before she hears the first word of it. And she'll be winded from several minutes of breath-hold diving in a current.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:32, Tue 05 May 2020.

Solid state was fascinated, the building was going well and he realized he'd need to make a second water removal system but seeing the dark swirling of something more than just water and he started to analyze it, getting lost in his though processes so he didn't even notice Waterworks coming up behind him till the wall of water struck him.

The force of the water was far more likely to affect him than the water itself, thankfully drowning Solidstate was almost impossible with his armor on but smashing him to pieces with water...that was a thing.

OOC: Rolled 16 to dodge, I imagine that's a fail and 17 for fortitude.

@Lachesis

Getting it all in reverse was always an odd experience.  A couple of minutes before, the cement slab and diver both rose out of the stairwell, further up to the surface of the water, then exploded outward.  There was air, then a searing heat and then comfortable solidity.

Evidently, the diver had been higher up, above the water-level, and something had exploded or knocked into the wall, blowing chunk of cement and metal down into the stairwell, pinning the diver.

Physical contact told Lachesis that he wasn't wearing a wet-suit.  And that he had a crowbar that he was using to chip away at the slab.  He was making progress and his breathing seemed surprisingly calm for someone in that position.  But the question still hung heavily:  Would his oxygen last?

Even as her consciosuness returned to the present there was a rush of noise and warmth, an oddly familiar scent and hum that presaged the arrival of an old friend.

As Lachesis surfaced for a breath, Forsythe's radio chimed in, Got backup en route.  Forsythe said.  I'm estimating... Oh.  Now.
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:29, Sun 17 May 2020.

@SolidState

The sheer force of teh water was overwhelming--knocking SolidState back and momentarily sending half of his suit into a soft reboot cycle.  Warning lights flickered and several of his seals were pushing their tolerance level.

Whoever this guy--girl?--was, he was vicious!  And not terribly honorable.  He didn't even give SoliState a chance to talk.  Apparently, whatever was going on, this water-works guy wasn't here to talk...

What do you do?

--
Round breakdown:

• +20 Waterworks
  
  • Waterworks rolled 27 to attack SolidState with Water-Canon
  • Cumulative Line Area Affliction that gives you Dazed/Prone
    
    • SolidState rolled Dodge(16) - Unsuccessful avoidance
    • SolidState rolled Fortitude(17) vs DC20. - 1 degree of failure
    • SolidState takes on the Dazed condition
    • SolidState may roll another Fortitude roll (DC20) to overcome the Dazed condition at the end of each round.
• +05 SolidState
  
  • Action forthcoming

Reminder: although SolidState is Dazed, you can still take Free actions and a single Standard action this round...

"soft reboot cycle" is strictly a narrative conceit and has no mechanical bearing on anything.

"So no jumping out of helicopters today, right?" there's a laugh in her voice as she hovers just above the water where Lachesis floated, "I know this is a simulation but I think we still loose points if any of us fall to our deaths."

Closing her eyes for a moment, a soft green glow begins to emanate from her body, "Okay I should able to see.  Let's go."

Plunging into the water, Emerald Star dives to the trapped man.  If he still appears conscious she'll take a moment to look him over: does he appear to be one of the divers? anything off about him?

Assuming he looks as expected she'll use her gravikinesis to move the chunk of concrete trapping him here and help him reach the surface.


I suspected I was going to add this:
Environment: Light(Bright) 2 points - light will always be emerald in color but otherwise provides same visibility as normal daylight; didn't really plan on taking a flaw or anything

Will update her sheet
This message was last edited by the player at 01:59, Mon 18 May 2020.

  Lachesis treads water and grins at the ceiling, even after Star dives under. "Well, I wasn't sure whether there was air down here, if that counts. I was wondering when you'd make it out west. So hey, you should know—" The girl takes a moment to maneuver upstream until she can grip an overhead stair.

  "Forsythe, you copy? I don't think he's one of yours. And it was an explosion that knocked him under, the kind with fire. Did you send munitions in?"

"Negative."  Forsythe responded. "My guys are accounted for.  I can't speak to explosions or munitions.  We don't have any reports of--hold on."

A few moments later, then Forsythe came back on-line.   "I've got three more heat-signatures.  I can get you a heads-up, but I need to hear you give permission."

@Alicia

Oh weird.  I thought I posted this...  I'm guessing that I closed the browser before posting. 

The front lobby was only about calf-deep with water, now.   The tsunami had settled and most of the water had receded, but there was still fear of aftershocks.  Still, it did nothing for the huge amount of water in the lower floors of the hotel.

It was going to take the hotel staff weeks to clean this place out, and even more, it was going to take months before they could get certification to reopen.

The large open space of the lobby was filled with all sorts of debris--most of it unidentifiable.  twisted steel , chairs, tables, the remains of glass and plaster and bricks and what might've been wall-coverings or ceiling-decorations.

"The Nook" Cafe, which served a light buffet and continental breakfast each day was a complete shambles.    The cupboards had been thrown all about and unidentifiable debris was just everywhere.

But a steady stream of water flowed--through the air--out of the Nook, through the lobby and out toward the ocean.  Forsythe's team, whoever they were, ere doing a job of pumping the water out.

In the doorway of the Nook stood a watery humanoid, brackish brown and shifting continually.   There was a brief moment of breathing, and the water-level dropped, then a enormous BOOM as a jet of water surged from the thing in the door3ay of the Nook into the Nook...   Alicia was behind whoever it was...

This would be a result of the attack on SolidState, whom Alicia can't see because Waterworks is standing in the doorway and he's composed of ugly brown water... that's not transparent or even translucent at this point.

  "Hear me give... Why the hell would I not want that information?! Why would it be my permission you need???" It was rare, these days, that Cassandra got to feel the prickling suspicion of danger, at least the normal way. She was in no mood to savor it, though. More's the pity.

  "Yes. Tell me what's out there. I can barely find anything in sims as it is, and this one has swimming. Come on already! Yoshi, you hearing this nonsense? Jeez."

OOC: Do comm units work under water

Solidstate muttered under his breath as the reboot icons whirred across his HUD, he knew it was simply a matter of time before it was all back up and running his computer was already screaming at him it was coming back online and apologizing. Blocking out the machine's noise he looked over at the creature/person/thing in the doorway and reacted like anyone who'd been slammed by a spout of water would.

He picked up the biggest lump of concrete with his telekinesis and threw it at him but somewhere along the way he'd hit his head and the double vision meant he had to guess which of the figures was his foe....and Solidstate hated guessing, so he did it twice, and wrong. The various systems in his suit started to green light and he pushed himself away from the wall, the various servos in his armor started to whine and whir again and he groaned,"Ouch....we have contact...and it's not friendly."

---

Standard Action: Use Move Object to chuck concrete or rubble. Rolled a 1 to hit, so 11, with DC 25 damage but I assume that's a miss
Free Action: Communicate over the comms to let them know we have contact
Fortitude roll to remove Daze rolled 21...so that's better.

11:03, Today: SolidState rolled 21 using 1d20+8.  Fortitude.
11:01, Today: SolidState rolled 11 using 1d20+10.  Move Object, hurl concrete Strength 10 (DC 25).

The description "calf-deep" for the water level in the lobby had a different meaning for Alicia Alvarado.  With her reduced size putting her at the calf level of most people, the shrunken super-heroine had to resort to swimming to navigate her way into the lobby when the shelves, ledges, and other fixtures that would otherwise have allowed her to stay above the water level were no longer available.

A wooden plaque floating by became a makeshift raft as she pulled herself aboard to give herself a momentary break from the discomfort of being in the water.  The level of detail on the made her wonder if the psychic putting this image in her mind spent a lot of time in hotels or pulled an image of a wall display that she may have seen at a hotel on vacation somewhere.

Another reason for wanting to get out of the water was her awareness of a current caused by the water being pumped out of the room.  Although a competent swimmer, fighting the flow of the current was going to be make getting around difficult until found another landing spot that was more permanently fixed.



"What the...?" Alicia said quietly to herself, not recognizing what this watery form was.



"I think I see it!" Alicia replied excitedly over the communicator.  "I'm moving in to assist."  Not sure what I'm going to do when I get there, she thought.  If this thing was made out of water like it appeared to be, it was probably going to just flow around her if she attacked it directly.

@Solid State
"Ouch....we have contact...and it's not friendly."

SolidState lifted an enormous piece of concrete--debris that had been washed in, a testament to the sheer unyielding force of the tsunami--and hurled it at the water-man.  His systems were already re-initializing.

The water-man flowed to one side. easily evading the forceful attack.  The concrete hit the side of the doorway, tearing a massive hole and ripping apart the side of the door-jamb leading into the Nook.  A shower of whitish plaster cascaded from the ceiling, after-effects from the damaging impact.

"That's it?"  The water-thing jeered, it's voice underscored by a strange warbling.  "I was told you'd be more of a threat.  Jesus.  This is amateur hour!"


@ Alicia
From Alicia's vantage-point, she could see that the water-thing never actually separated from the water it stood in.  But as it flowed to the right, away from the huge chunk of debris that came hurtling out of the Nook, she did notice that the water-level around her went down.


--
OOC:

@Alicia:   
Waterworks is not aware of Alicia at this time, so you've totally got the drop on it.  I'll allow one surprise action/attack up front (you can time it as you like), then you're in the initiative order.  I rolled 1d20(+16) + 8 = 24 on your behalf.  You can reroll if you like, but you'll need to live with what you roll.

• ROUND 1
• +05 SolidState
  
  • Move Object attack
    Allowing it this time because I took so long to respond.  But please see In-Play Mechanics discussion.
  • Dazed Condition removed
  
  
• ROUND 2
• +20 Waterworks
  
  • Waterworks rolled 14 to attack SolidState with Water-Canon
  • Cumulative Line Area Affliction that gives you Dazed/Prone
  • SolidState, Please roll Dodge to resist.
• +05 SolidState
  
  • Action forthcoming

This message was last edited by the GM at 03:01, Sun 07 June 2020.

"All right.  You've got the go-ahead."  Forsythe said.  "Show them what you've got."

At once, a wire-frame style 3D map of the area came into focus.   It was basic as hell, more like an ancient video game.  But the stairwell was distinguishable.   There was a fuzzy red blob at the bottom of the stairwell.  Two blue blobs were arrayed a few floors above (Lachesis & Emerald Star).

"Is this thing on?" a woman's voice.  Familiar but a little indistinct.  "Sorry.  I needed to hear it.  I can't do the mind-to-mind thing without actually getting permission. If you can identify any of the red entities, I'll label them.  It's the best I can do at the moment."

The stairwell became suffused with a soft green glow, illuminating everything.


The trapped man is still conscious.  He looked up at Emerald star with unmitigated awe.   His eyes wide and a series of bubbles erupted from around his regulator.

He isn't wearing a dive-suit.  He's wearing a black button-down shirt and a tie, of all things.  He's a twenty-something, probably, with brown hair and a big belly.

The chunk of concrete and rebar that Emerald Star lifts off of him is well under her mass tolerance, so she lifts it without any difficulty whatsoever.     The diver makes eye-contact and closes his eyes momentarily in thanks.  It's then that Emerald Star could see the duty-belt with a couple of packets, and a set of keys.   He was not wearing any shoes.

The diver nodded once then pushed off to the surface.  Emerald Star noticed an inky cloud left in his wake, blackish in the green of her light.



--
OOC:

There were other clusters of blobs:

• Group 1: Lachesis & Emerald Star and the diver at the bottom of the stairwell.
• Group 2: 1/2 a floor down and down a long corridor - a group of six red blobs.  (no callouts, presumably Mangatang and the other survivors)
• Group 3: One & 1/2 floors up--immediately above Group 2 - Two Blue blobs and a red blob  (callouts identify them as SS and AL.  The red one has no callout.)
• Group 4: A group of three red blobs one level above Group 3, at the top of the mapped stairwell, so... a few floors above Lachesis and Emerald Star.   None of them have callouts.

Lizette Thibodeaux.  She was one of the original NPCs of Starfish.   Had a sort of heat-map danger-sense (Blue = safe, red = dangerous).  She is an accomplished pilot.

@Lachesis
I imagine that Lachesis wouldn't actually be able to read the symbols on the callouts... not having actually read physical text since before the loss of her eyes at such a young age.

When the diver broke the surface he moved to the side and sat on the step just above the water-level.

"Holy fuck." He said.  "Thank-you.  You're...   I know you!  I mean, I've seen you.   You guys are superheroes, right?"
This message was last updated by the player at 02:53, Sun 07 June 2020.