A Close Call

Oui, c'est moi.

The battle for the Akash’Flora tree wages into our third session of Freedom Five #801. Having scenarios presented in a comic book format is a very nice touch. It adds tremendously to the theme of the game: comic book super-heroics!

For this session we had a decrease in participants. This happen often enough during our weekly sessions at the club that I already had a plan in mind. The scenes scale the number of enemies to the number of players so I simply removed enough undamaged opponents to have the exact same number of them as if the fight began with the current number of players. This still didn’t save Absolute Zero from being overwhelmed by the spider-bots as the rest of the Freedom Five focused their efforts on the Spider Mother-ship!

Fortunately, instead of making a new character when you reach 0 Health, in Sentinel Comics you are only reduced to a single action per round. This Out Ability is specific to each superhero and in Absolute Zero’s case, he could only Hinder (provide negative modifiers) using his Cold d12. It is limiting to be reduced in such a way but it allows the player to still contribute to the scene.

Argent Adept, seen here before
the attack that left him hospitalised.

Legacy saved Argent Adept by lifting up the fragment of a wall under which he laid trapped. Unfortunately, in the heat of battle, he carelessly flung the piece of rubble without looking where it would land. Argent Adept was injured so he had to stay out of the fray. With his safety assured, Legacy joined the rest in facing the biggest and meanest member of the robotic swarm!

Our heroes fought valiantly against the enormous arachnid machine but they were running out of time. The scene tracker went past the Yellow Zone into the Red. At one point I couldn’t help but notice that the heroes had only one round left before the villains would get their way. Already, the Wraith was throwing knives and EMP grenades that reduced the Spider Mother-ship’s effectiveness. Unity had created a steel unicorn that was stabbing through the robot’s protective plating. Absolute Zero was strategically freezing its joints when Legacy flew through the machine’s legs!

A brief moment passed before gravity caught up with the robot and it toppled down but the smaller bots were still drilling into the Akash’Flora tree! With only moments to spare, Unity created two metal gnomes out of the surrounding debris. One went into the Spider Mother-ship and found the element sending signals to all the machines in its immediate vicinity while the other smashed it with a hammer. Only then did the spider-bots lose their directive. It was a simple matter of clearing up the damage in the midst of aimlessly wandering robots bumping into each other.

i miei appunti inutilizzati

Legacy flew Argent Adept to the hospital while I sulked internally as a GM. I was truly hoping that the players would provide him some first aid so he could join the fight. The issue said he would be giving one player a round a +3 modifier. It didn’t exactly specify what those modifiers would be but since his superpower derives from music and two of our players are Italian, I had the brilliant idea to use musical terminology for them. Even though I prepared a list, I didn’t get to use any of it. This only shows that even when the entire world is at your fingertips, the plot will still not go your way.

When Legacy returned to help his team members clear up, a couple of Megalopolis’s finest asked to speak with him. It appeared that the piece of rubble Legacy took off the Argent Adept and carelessly threw away hit a building which collapsed shortly thereafter. Although it was unoccupied at the time, it was still considerable damage to city property. Fortunately, Legacy promised to cover the cost of repairs. I don’t think the Wraith was happy with his decision but as they’re a government funded superhero team, maybe that’s something that his wife, a senator, will have to deal with.

Oddly enough, the police officer’s phone rang. He was shocked to have someone ask to speak to Legacy who was fortuitously standing right in front of him. As it turned out, Argent Adept gave this number to a nurse because he wanted to speak with the Freedom Five in person.

When they all gathered by his hospital bed, after thanking them for assisting him in saving the Akash’Flora tree, he confided in them that The Visionary had sent him a message through the Void asking for help. He was in no position to help her so he asked the Freedom Five (and Unity!) to go to Ravenwood and investigate what’s going on.