# The 88th Floor: Episode 1 - Tesla's Radio (9/22)



## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 29, 2004)

The city of *Port Marlowe* has never been a stranger to *Crime*.  *Vice*.  *Murder*...  And *Fear*.

What Port Marlowe had never known, however, was ... a *Hero*.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 29, 2004)

Port Marlowe quickly embraced its new protector, and The Iron Vigilante embraced the media almost as quickly...  For it was true:   Wealthy entrepreneur, playboy, and political activist *Adrian Shale* WAS the city's masked benefactor *The Iron Vigilante*.  Shale quickly found that as much as he enjoyed the cold, hard satisfaction of crime-busting and street justice, he enjoyed the heated games of cat and mouse that heroism brought him with the media more.  Soon both he and his alter ego, *The Iron Vigilante*, were true media darlings, stalked relentlessly by paparrazi and investigative journalists, each one hoping for that million-dollar picture that would prove, once and for all, that *The Iron Vigilante* was really Adrian Shale in disguise.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 29, 2004)

And, as every hero has a secret ... every hero has an *enemy* that knows them so well, knows their fears and weaknesses so intimately, as can use that secret to destroy them _utterly_ ...


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 29, 2004)

*Modern Day:  11:04pm, Sunday, August 29*

The cold night rain dripped from the brim of his fedora in a stream inches from John Arm's crooked, oft-broken nose.  He'd lost two cigarettes to the downpour already, and would not risk a third.  He was on the outskirts of Redtown, Port Marlowe's old industrial wasteland, following up on a handful of leads as old and cold as the coffee he'd drank this morning.  Something was going down between the Birkhun and the Nasa Stvar, something *big*, and the word on the street was that one or both sides thought they could end the gang-war that had been raging between the two groups for almost a year.  Arm didn't figure either one had _diplomacy_ on their mind, for their kind seldom did.  He'd been beating the bushes in these old, scabrous apartment tenements for almost eight hours, but had so far stirred up nothing but a handful of attempts on his life or his wallet by desperate denizens of the slum.  

The German _Birkhun _had made Redtown their turf a few years back.  No-one knew why.  Nothing of much real worth was left in Redtown anymore:  A handful of chemical plants grimly clinging to solvency, a few steel mills, and decaying tenements stuffed full with the hard-bitten workers of the factories.  Much more common were the moldering hulks of abandoned buildings and factories, dead places populated only by rats and the occassional addict too addled and freakish to find refuge in a nicer slum.  Here the Birkhun had made their home, hiding amongst the refuge, their expensive BMW motorcycles glaringly obvious, startlingly loud, as they raced the slick night streets of that fallow place, their blonde hair and Aryan features wild with tumultuous delight.

The _Nasa Stvar_, the Serbian mafia, had made its own home along the Riverfront district.  Almost as old as Redtown, Riverfront still harbored a pulse within its ancient brick warehouses and businesses.  The Serbs had taken immediately to prostitution and the trafficking of methamphetamines imported on boats from the south.  Little was done by the local police to curb their influx of white slavery and white powder, and soon the Nasa Stvar grew fat and happy on its ill-gotten prosperity.  Redtown, however, abuts the Riverfront and shares much land with it ... and nothing fuels paranoia like greed and criminality.  The Serbs could not abide the strange German interlopers, and violence was as swift as it was inevitable.

The boss of the local Serb mob was one Mihajlo Neskovska, or "Little Micky" Neskovska as he was known on the street.  Little Micky was a lean, quick man who had proven to be far more intelligent than his low profession would have indicated.  Little Micky had a plan, it was said, and that plan was what John Arm was after.  He would find out, soon enough, but the man known as "Long Arm" would not find out tonight, for the sussuration of the rainy evening was shattered by the white hot report of machine guns!

Six men on motorcycles slashed past, shots ringing from waving pistols.  They harried and hounded four men in a dark sedan, its windows down.  Two men inside stuck shiny machineguns from their portals, chattering firey death at the bikers that chased them.  Even as he flinched, Arm saw an elderly woman *crumple* in a bloody spray of automatic fire on the stoop of her own apartment, an innocent bystander cut down!  The cab he had been standing near *rumbled* to life, the man inside scared for his own.  John Arm stopped the frightened cabby with a yell and a hand, and jumped into the back seat.

"Left, there, and step on it!"  He yelled, and the cabby obeyed instantly, just happy to get away from the gunplay.

But they weren't going AWAY from the firefight ... not really.  John Arm had to stop this madness before any more innocent people were hurt!!


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## Paxr0mana (Aug 29, 2004)

Woo! First Reply!

Aside from that, I like this story already, Heap.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 29, 2004)

Thanks.    I'm going for a very pulp-fictiony/comic-book feel with the writing, so it isn't my usual style.  Hopefully it isn't so purple as to become unreadable.  

Fun to write, though.

It was fun making the "Newspaper" clips, as well.  The story of The Iron Vigilante will become important very quickly, and I wanted to tell it in a very visual way.  

--fje


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## Peterson (Aug 30, 2004)

Hey Heap(not even going to try the rest),

Glad to see another one of your great Storyhours!

The newspapers are a nice feel, and I especially like the twist on the Iron Vigilante's suspected love life.

Looking forward to this!

Peterson


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Aug 30, 2004)

(( I've been having trouble seeing some of the images, specifically the first two.  If you didn't see three collections of newspapers hit reload and it should be visible.    Darn technology.))

--------------

*
Yan Fei-Chung* gritted his teeth behind the gleaming, mirrored visor of his motorcycle helmet.  Ordinarily he loved motorcycles ... the concentration, the skill required to ride at speed.  It reminded him greatly of Tai-Chi-Chuan, in its own way.  Tonight, however, he had spotted a group of motorcycle riding thugs hounding a black sedan.  Originally, he had set off in pursuit in order to stop the bikers, but soon it became apparent that BOTH groups were dangerous, as the windows of the car came down and two silvered machine-guns emerged, erupting gouts of lead at the pack at their heels.  As Yan wheeled a corner in pursuit, one of the gunners missed his target and sprayed a defenseless elderly woman with his deadly weapon.  The woman crumpled in a bloody spray on her own apartment stoop, another innocent victim of senseless violence.  Yan *gunned* his engine with renewed determination these madmen MUST be stopped.

He raced up to within twenty feet of the closest biker, whose pale blonde hair revealed him as one of the Birkhun.  With stunning sureness of foot, Yan stood on the seat of his bike, bent to keep his hands on the handlebars.  Another few inches closer, he knew, was all he'd need; and as his training told him the time was right he* LEAPT *from his bike with unbelievable speed and accuracy.  Through the air he flew, like a human arrow loosed from the surest bow, and *LANDED* with uncanny ease behind his chosen target.  His bike trailed behind them a full twenty feet and traveled some distance further before the tiniest of imperfections in the roadway caused it to shudder, sway, and eventually fall away.  The German cried out in surprise as Yan settled in behind him and craned his neck around to see what had landed on his back ... Yan cracked him in the face for his trouble, dazing the man.  Reaching around him Yan steered closer to the speeding sedan, but just then one of the gunment inside took aim at him and *FIRED*!  Yan leapt again with unbelievable speed, flipping a full turn and landing on the roof of the car.  Hot lead took the life of the German biker, who careened out of control at high speed, his bike flipping end over end to *EXPLODE* in a fireball behind the chase.  Bullets ripped through the thin roof at his feet and once again Yan was forced to move, leaping from the car to another of the bikes.  Just then Yan's preternaturally sharp hearing caught a familiar sound, and he knew friends were on their way.

****************

High above the firefight a sleek, fast ... odd machine sped through the rain-drenched night.  Part helicopter, part airplane, it was a light, high-efficiency gyrocopter of amazing design and skillful manufacture.  At the controls was a small, strange man.  His dark skin and prominent nose revealed him as an ethnic Sephardic Jew, a southern people seldom seen on this side of the wide, deep ocean.  This Jewish man, *Mordecai Solomique* by name, was a traveler and a famous adventurer, in his own way,  and yet to be present in Port Marlowe was no great travel for him, as he had made it his home.  Mordecai had plumbed the depths of deepest South American jungles, and had traversed the highest mountain plataeus of frozen Antartica.  He had even seen that strange, solitary temple where Yan Fei-Chung had honed his body and mind into one of the greatest living weapons man had ever seen, and he was one of merely a handful of outsiders that had returned from that breathless Tibetan retreat alive, a friend of the monks there.  Mordecai had seen things mankind had thought lost, and had lost, for hundreds of years ... and had seen things man had taken no part in, buried thousands of years, that should have stayed buried thousands more.  He had faced things that would turn any normal man's hair white with terror to merely gaze upon, with only his sword and pistol and wits to save him: and Mordecai had survived.  He piloted his small craft now with the sureness of long practice, sweeping lower toward the racing gunfight.  

Beside Mordecai in the open cockpit of the gyrocopter sat a small form in a bulky, brown bomber jacket.  The straps of a leather pilot's helmet flapped in the wind, and below that, rain-slicked round aviator goggles gleamed in the sporadic nocturnal lights.  The girl, for it was a girl, grinned with shining white teeth and leaned over the side of their craft, gauging the distance they had yet to close.

"Is that Yan down there?"  The girl said.  Her voice was little-louder than conversational, such was the quietness of the motor of their craft.  A motor she had designed and built herself.

Mordecai twitched the Gyrocopter slighty to one side and looked down.  "I do believe that's his helmet, yes."  At that moment the form they attended leapt a full fifteen feet into the air and skitted like a cat across the sedan.  "Definately him, yes."  Mordecai concluded.

The teenager beside him hefted a large glass caraffe filled with a swirling, purplish liquid.  "Hrm, it's going to be tough not getting him in the cloud."  She mused out loud.

"I'll just let him know we are here, then, Doc."  Mordecai declared and gunned their little aircraft into a masterful dive.  

When they had first met the girl, not so long ago, she had asked them to call her "Marten".  She offered no other name, and no matter how they pressed she would not relent on that matter.  She was, as far as anyone could determine, an orphan, as well as one of the most phenomenal mental geniuses on the planet, and had no peer in the sciences or mechanical arts.  She had amazed them with her aptness at inventing and creating mechancial tools and chemical substances, which she did with such creativity and regularity that she seldom seemed to be out of her laboratory or the cavernous garage and could be found in one or the other at almost any hour of the day or night.  In response, they had begun to call her "Doc" or, even more frequently, "*Doc Marten*"; a gentle joke that played upon her name and that of her chunky black shoes.

Mordecai sliced downward rapidly and leveled out just above the heads of the bikers below, buffeting them with the downdraft of his props as he *buzzed* forward and back up.  As they lifted up, Doc dropped her caraffe over the side ... another of her many inventions.

The beaker shattered into a thousand flickering pieces on the street and, with contact in the air, exploded into a cloud of thick, red-purple smoke.  Too fast to correct, three of the bikers drove through the cloud as the pack raced down the street.  As they emerged from that brume they weaved unsteadily and each slumped off his bike, wholley unconcious, tumbling like drunkards to the street and rolling like rag dolls along the pavement.  The substance was a harmless gas that caused almost instant unconciousness which lasted for several hours.  The bikers may break a few bones in their fall, but that would be the price they paid for their crimes.  Doc Marten crowed as the gyrocopter rose into the air and banked to come back for another pass, wiping water from her goggles with one sleeve.

At a corner several blocks up a cab screeched to a stop.  John Arm stepped out and resettled his fedora on his head, glancing over his shoulder at the cabby.  

"Leave the meter running, I'll be back in a few, pal."  He said and walked into the intersection.  Down the street the gunfight raced toward him.  Arm grunted and flicked open his trench-coat like a gunfighter's duster and drew a massive .44 revolver from somewhere inside.  Neither the bikers nor the men in the sedan seemed to notice a lone man standing in the middle of an intersection on a rainy night.  Between the shush of rain and the crack of gunfire, no-one heard his words as he grimly raised his gun.

"She wasn't anyone to you, and she didn't deserve to die."

He pulled the trigger.  Once.

The front left tire of the sedan *exploded* and the driver lost control of the car.  It swerved and plowed THROUGH a fence and *crashed* against the side of an abandoned chemical plant outbuilding.


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## ledded (Aug 30, 2004)

WooHOOOOOO!


Niiiice.  Very nice start there Heap.  Writing comic-style is fun, isnt it?  A challenge, sometimes, but it looks like you are having a blast with it.

I'm lovin' it so far, it's taking off like a cannon-shot.


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## AteoFiel (Aug 30, 2004)

Nice action packed start.

Also love the hero who retired for being shoved out of the closet.

Keep the updates coming...


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Sep 5, 2004)

*The Auction*

(( I'm going to try this a little differently for this part ... and describe a scene like a script for a comic book panel.))

==Cut Scene==

A ruined, black sedan - front end crumpled against an unyeilding brick wall.  Through a shattered window we see a brochure, spotted with wetness from the constant, drizzling rain.  The brochure is for a place called "Loveless and Kline", an auction house.  The appearance suggested is one of culture, luxury, and expense:  Entirely out of place with the dirty, blood-stained interrior of the gangsters' car.  One thing stands out in particular on the brochure, circled in a single bold streak from a red marker - an auction of personal items once owned by Nikola Tesla.

=============

Doc swept grandly into the main auction theater of the _Loveless and Kline_ house on Mordecai's arm.  Of the four, they were the two who fit most easily into the role as members of Port Marlowe's cultural elite, so they had been chosen to "get all gussied up" and infiltrate the interior of the auctionhouse.    Doc Marten looked quite striking in a long, full lapeled faux-mink coat and black evening dress.  Her  shoulder-length hair had been waved and styled all out of proportion to her usual hat-bedraggled, oil-streaked mop and expertly colored to a deep and burnished auburn.   Mordecai was no less resplendant in a very modern-cut, tailed tuxedo complete with hat and pristine white gloves, all of which fit his every proportion perfectly.  The completeness of their finery was in no small amount surprising, as Mordecai hadn't worn a tuxedo in several years, and hadn't seen a tailor's tape since before that; and Marten had been quite vocal that she had never, in her days, been under a hairdresser's ministrations ... and would never be so again.  

Their evening wear was thanks entirely to their enigmatic butler, Maxwel, who hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow when they asked if he could make them ready for a visit to the haute _Loveless and Kline_ house ... in under twenty-four hours.  Maxwell seemed iminently capable of performing minor miracles of logistics and cultural commerce, and had so far never once failed to come through on any request put to him, no matter how rushed or strange it seemed, in the year they had known him ... ...

-----------------------------------------

For, you see, Maxwell was central to how and why the four found themselves working together, as they were, toward common goals.  Each had been approached by the liveried spokesman not long after some incident in their lives that evidenced, individually, their extraordinary personal talents and their best intentions toward the citizens of Port Marlowe and the interests of equity and justice within that fine harbor city.  Maxwell appeared on those occassions, out of the rainy Marlowe evening, bearing an envelope for each.  Within each envelope was an *address*, a *key*, a *check*, and a *letter*.  The letter itself explained that the check, key, and address were an offer of employment or, more exactly, patronage, and was signed only with an ornate calligraphic letter.  The address, written on a white business card in the same handwriting, stated "_The 88th Floor, Imperial Building_".  The check was for ten thousand dollars, drawn on a Swiss numbered account.  That envelope was how each of them came to find themselves in the foyer of the suite of offices and adjoining penthouse apartment that made up the entirety of the 88th floor of Port Marlowe's most expensive office skyscraper, the surprisingly modern art deco Imperial Building, where they were greeted by the inscrutable Maxwell ... and welcomed "home".

----------------------------------------

John stood across the street from _Loveless and Kline_, secreted in an alley, out of the worst of the steadily hissing rain.  He had to admit, as far as alleys went, it was a rather nice one.  Apparently everything was better on the nice side of town.  He smoked a cigarette, leaning back under an small overhang to protect it from the rain, water spattering on his brown leather shoes.  He kept one eye on the auction house.  He didn't envy Mordecai and Marten at all, as this was wholley his element, and he was having fun.  

A little less pleased, perhaps, Yan crouched on a rooftop across from the rear of the auction place.  He had opted to watch the back entrance, and was quite glad he'd accepted Max's offer of a shiny, deeply-cowled rain coat with a hood.  Between its dark olivey color, and the general graying effect of the rain, he was totally invisible on his perch high above his watch.

Inside, Mordecai scanned the crowd for Little Micky Neskovska.  They were all quite sure he would be there, or at least some of his flunkies, based on the brochure they had found in the car the night before, and some rumors coming in off the Riverfront.  Unfortunately, as far as Mordecai could see, Micky didn't seem to be in the crowd, nor were any obvious Nasa Stvar goons.  

"Not seeing the mouse."  Doc said under her breath.

"Me either."  Mordecai replied.

They had been given dispensation to use up to ten thousand dollars of their patron's funds, according to Max, to purchase items to keep their cover, decorate the penthouse and, if they thought it necessary, to out-bid Micky for any of Tesla's possessions.  Not, really, that any of them seemed particularly valuable.  The most interesting pieces of the lot were a few journals (having nothing to do with any of Tesla's scientific research, and being concerned mostly with letters to friends and family), an old radio, and a pair of ragged leather shoes.  Mordecai's money was on the shoes ... Doc, as a scientist, figured that if Tesla had hidden anything of importance among his possessions, he would have secreted it within the workings of the tall, wooden-facade radio.

The night wore on, items of luxury and richness, and occassionally dubious value, changing hands with the quiet, arcane flickering of formalized auction.  Doc found nothing horribly interesting among the other items up for auction, but Mordecai bid on a handful of obscure art pieces and even won a handful rare, exceedingly old books.  Finally, though, the Tesla lot was wheeled from the cages in the back room and onto the auction stage; the next lot up for auction.  It was as two uniformed guards were wheeling the carts onto the stage that Mordecai happened to notice Little Micky Neskovska a few rows over and two in front of them.  They hadn't noticed him enter.  Mordecai nodded slightly.

"The mouse."  He said, simply.

"Indeed."  Doc replied ... but she was looking at the guards.  They looked enough alike to be brothers.  And they were Serbs.

--------------------------------------

Outside, John turned his head slightly to peer out at the street from under his hat.  The only things about him visible from the sidwalk were the tips of his shoes and the cherry of his cigarette.  A van had pulled up on his side of the street across from Loveless and Kline, a florist's van with "Ed's Roses" on the side.  He grunted under his breath and dropped his cigarette to hiss itself out in a puddle.  The van's sudden appearance was suspicious, to say the least.  He turned his mouth toward the tiny mic bud under one lapel.

"Yan.  Got a florist van in the front, here, just showed up.  Keep an eye on the rear.  If this is a move, they may hit both sides at once."  He whispered.

"I see."  Replied Yan.

Just then the rear doors of the van swung open and two men stepped out.  John's eyes widened under the brim of his fedora:  One of the men swung a portable rocket launcher tube onto his shoulder and went to one knee in a fluid movement.

"Holy sh ..."  His words were drowned out as the rocket ignited and roared toward the brick front of Loveless and Kline.

*TRWHOOOOOM!!*

The front of the building collapsed in on itself; bricks, dust, and glass spraying everywhere.

Inside, the whole room shuddered with the impact of the rocket outside, and the lights flickered and died.  Immediately, people began to scream and stand up in their seats.  At the same time the guards on the dias began firing their submachine guns in the air, further whipping the crowd into a blind panic.  Mordecai stood and began fighting his way against the press, TOWARD the stage.  He quickly lost sight of Doc Marten, and so it was that he didn't notice her coat and dress collapse into themselves ... *empty!*


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## Paxr0mana (Sep 5, 2004)

Ok, so on one side we have a ragtag band of misfits with unclear goals, and o the other, we have Serbs with heavy ordnance.

It's going to be a close call.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Sep 15, 2004)

Yan was in motion before the rocketeer had even pressed the trigger.  With a single bound he was speeding through the air, raindrops shattering against his face and coat like glass beads on marble.  He touched lightly upon the roof of the auction house, and within three strides was airborne again, even as the rocket struck the stone facade of the building.  He could feel the *overpressure* from the blast bouy him upward, billowing his rain gear out.  In reality, the blast knocked him slightly off his intended course ... but the gunmen below would never know that.

He *thundered* in, coat fluttering behind him like the ribbon off the hilt of a Chinese broadsword.  His foot struck the edge of the smoking launcher barrel, sending it *spearing* backward into one of the men, who had moved in after the backblast cleared.  It took the goon in the face, dropping him in a clatter of fiberglass and steel.  Yan landed with graceful ease behind the other hitter, who was still on one knee, and back-kicked him between the shoulder blades, knocking him prone.  With a start and a yell, the other men pawed for their weapons, small submachine guns appearing from under coats.  Yan dove to one side, rolled, and leapt, as leaden *fire* erupted on his heels.  He vaulted *UP*, onto the criminals' van, and rolled as bullets tore with screaming fluidity through the thin metal of its panels.  Several scored red heat along Yan's arm and flank, and he bit back a hiss of pain.

John Arm stalked forward as the firefight flared to life.  None of the combatants registered his presence, and he walked up and tapped one of the machine-gun weilding thugs on the shoulder, casually taking his hands out of his pockets.  As the thug turned, John laid a meaty, heavy-boned fist along his cheek with a dull *thwock*.  The Serb fell like a cut marionette.   One of the other gunmen turned, and John liften one eyebrow, fishing around in his coat pocket.  

"Hey, buddy, got a light?"  

The thug blinked, looked down at his partner, then back at John with confusion.  It was the moment John needed, and his arm uncoiled like a serpent, steely death in his fist.  His .44 reported like a cannon.  The mafia-man squeezed his own trigger convulsivly, for the bullet had taken him in the throat, and John dodged clumisly to the side as slugs chewed the asphault and punched several holes in his trenchcoat.  As the last slug whirled on him to draw a bead, John saw Yan illuminated in a burst of lightning, standing on the roof of the van.  Even as death stared him in the face from behind the barrel of a gun, John smiled grimly.

Drawing on that secret training of the Tibetan monks, Yan directed his chi with infinite carefullness along particular meridians and energy lines of his body.  With muscle-straining focus, his inner energies became manifest in the mystical Seven Dragon, Screaming Eagle Technique, which he released with a scream and a directive motion.  His power struck from a full twenty feet away, like a sledgehammer blow to the mafia hit-man's skull, bursting certain blood vessels and disrupting the bio-electric flow of life.  The Serbian criminal gurgled and blood rivuleted from his nose, and then collapsed to the ground ... stone dead.

"It does not please me that these individuals force me to utilize such skills."  Yan said, slipping down from the van.

"Neat trick, though."  John grunted, and levered himself to his feet.   

"Occassionally useful."  Yan said.  They looked toward the crumbling Loveless and Kline.

----------------------------

Mordecai shifted around, kept low behind the table.  He'd gotten to the dais, eventually, but had left all of his weapons at the Imperial Building.  Lucky for him, the lot before Tesla's items had included an antique cricket bat, which had come in quite handy, but was now lying broken beside the inert form of the first guard.  The second was, himself, hunkered down behind another overturned table, occassionally popping up to spray bullets in the Mordecai's general direction.

In truth, neither of them could see a whole lot.  The room was dark, and neither had a strong idea of where the other was.  Mordecai had stolen the first guard's submachinegun, and occassionally stuck it over the edge of his cover to blast a few blind rounds downrange.  Mostly, he hoped he could keep the other guy pinned down long enough for someone to turn the lights back on.


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## ragboy (Sep 22, 2004)

Holy crap, Heap(XXX)! You blew the lid off of super story hours with your very first post. Haven't read it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. Nice touch telling the backstory in newspaper headlines. Freakin' masterful, actually.

Edit - Excellent! I didn't care for the earlier 'panel' style, but it's recovered and very visual. I like the *bolded actions. *Very comic script/screenplay and effective.


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Sep 23, 2004)

Honestly I did the "Panel" because I wanted to move the story along to the next, more interesting part, and that particular visual seemed to do it best.  Unfortunately I can't DRAW the visual (being unable to draw a straight line with a ruler) so I decided to try that.

Honestly I'd love the synergy of drawings/text for this SH, but my utter lack of ability with one leaves me at the tender mercies of the other.  Didn't work out quite as well as I'd have hoped. 

Now ... for the unveiling of Doc Marten's secret, dear readers!  Tune in: same pulp time, same pulp channel...

--fje


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Sep 23, 2004)

*Nature of the Beast*

Doc had slunk, snuck, and generally *stealthed* her way to the dais and, from there, onto the cart with Nikola Tesla's personal effects.  It had been rather easy to avoid the people stampeding toward the exits, and even the guards and Mordecai, owing to her much-superior night vision.

Now she lay in wait, knowing that eventually one or more of Little Mickey's thugs would have to make a move on the Tesla artifacts.  When they did, she'd be ready for them.

Sure enough, within seconds a man crept out from the back-stage area and *groped* his way toward the cart.  Doc watched him come with smug satisfaction, and nestled deeper into her hunting blind.  The thug grabbed the cart with one hand and began dragging it, *crawling*, back toward the rear.  He was as disadvantaged as Mordecai and the guard, and the bullets whizzing back and forth through the darkness kept him timid and low to the ground.  Doc waited patiently for him to drag her and the items into the back room, drumming her nails on soft leather.

Finally the time to strike drew nigh.  The mafioso drew a flashlight and began playing it over the objects on the cart, obviously looking for one in particular.  *Suddenly*, he drew back with an oath as, from an old pair of boots, a furred form darted out at his hand.  He yelped as small, razor-sharp teeth *pierced* his skin and drew blood.  In the flailing light of his torch he could see that his attacker ... was a *ferret*!

He mumbled something in his native tongue and laughed at himself; _scared, of a ferret_?  Casually he backhanded the little terror off of the cart, fully expecting it to *run* for cover the first chance it got.  He turned his back and returned to looking for his prize.

A hiss behind him was his first inkling of a mistake.

He whirled in time to see the ferret double ... tripple ... *quadruple* in size in the space of two breaths.  The fearsome beast grew so quickly that, under its deepening rumble, he could hear the *wet* crackling sounds of unnaturally expanding skin and tendon.  Like a half-remembered bogart from a nightmare, the grotesque thing rose on two legs, all silken *fur* and *teeth* and *claws*.  His last human instinct was to scream in confused, primal terror ... a reaction cut short as Doc Marten's claws tore his throat to bloody *ribbons* of flesh.  

Doc's darker side exulted only a moment over her kill, her prey, before she turned toward the stage.  Another prey animal lay beyond the door, and she would kill it, bite its vulnerable *neck* with her her razor teeth ...

Unfortunately she missed the first thug's partner ... and his taser.

*ZZZZT!!*

She heard something in Serbian as the darkness swirled in ... 

"_What the hell was THAT?_"


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## Paxr0mana (Sep 23, 2004)

I was going to make a joke about it being "that time of month," but I think I'll restrain myself.


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## deranged DM (Sep 24, 2004)

*Doc Marten?*

I see that at least one of your players is an inveterate punster (for those of you in the peanut gallery, a marten is a variety of weasel - as are ferrets).


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## nobodez (Nov 26, 2004)

*Verdi Verdi Goot*

I enjoyed this immensely, and can't wait for the next installment.

Oh, and BUMP!


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## HeapThaumaturgist (Dec 6, 2004)

I've been intending to update this SH for a while.  I've got final seminar papers for this semester left to write, but should have some free time after the 19th of this month.

I've got several adventures stored up for SH, but the game ended several months ago because of players lost to work needs on the game day.  I hope to round out this adventure arc before I officially retire it, though.

--fje


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