Fractal & Eddy – PART 2

SCENE 1 – Continued

Above them, they hear an explosion in the sky.
“What the hell was that?” yells Eddie.
FRACTAL can see in the dark and her mystic sight shows her a massive passenger jet that is trailing a thick line of black smoke from its right wing as flames lick from one of its engines! The plane is descending at an angle, clearly unable to maintain altitude.

“Eddie, I promise I will do everything in my power to make you famous. But right now, I need you to use everything in YOUR power to help me take care of something. Do we have a deal?”
Eddie doesn’t even pause to think before shouting, “DEAL! What do you need help with?”
FRACTAL wraps her arms around him in a tight bear hug.
“W-w-wait! I don’t think I’m comfortable with this kind of help!”
Without a word, FRACTAL takes off at full speed into the night air.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!”
“I thought fear is for people that CAN’T run 30 miles a second,” says FRACTAL dryly.
“PLEASE DON’T DROP ME! I WON’T TELL ANYONE YOUR SECRET!”
“Open your eyes, Eddie, the people on that plane up there need our help…”

This is a short adventure in the Basic Heroes Handbook titled, “Mid-Air Rescue.” It has rules I will get to after they catch up to the plane.
The lowest cruising altitude for a passenger plane is about 30,000 feet, which matches best with rank 10 distance. FRACTAL flies at rank 6, so the book says it will take her 2 minutes to get to it. The adventure text says the plane “moves at Speed rank 4 to 7” so I’m going to rule that catching up and keeping pace with the plane is a non-issue.

Don’t you just love superhero RPG physics?

The rules of this Challenge Scenario are:
“Using their various abilities, the heroes need to make checks to accumulate a total of five degrees of success before accumulating three degrees of failure in order to stabilize the jet and bring it down to a safe emergency landing. The Difficulty Class (DC) of the tests is 15.”

So when a character makes a roll against the DC of 15, here are the possible results:
1-4 = 3 degrees of failure
5-9 = 2 degrees of failure
10-14 = 1 degree of failure
15-19 = 1 degree of success
20-24 = 2 degrees of success
25-29 = 3 degrees of success, etc…

In addition to saving the airplane, the adventure has optional add-ins to make things more interesting, if necessary.

“This is crazy,” shouts Eddie into FRACTAL’s ear. He’s barely audible against the rush of air as they zip towards the plane. “I stopped a mugging one time, but this is BIG LEAGUE stuff right here.”
FRACTAL uses her enhanced senses to check out the situation.

I’m going to make a “GM Perception check” to see if FRACTAL will clearly perceive the situation now that they have caught up with the plane. It’s possible nothing shady is going on, but let’s figure that out later.

Perception 4 + Awareness 5 + d20 = 25. She can see everything. But what can she see?

Was this just mechanical failure? +,_ Yes. (Boring, but OK.)
Is the damage isolated to the engine? _,_ INTERRUPT/SCENE CHANGE (Now we’re talking!)
Let’s use the Mythic GME Variations 1 book’s ACTION/ADVENTURE table. D100 = 69 PC NEGATIVE (UH OH!)
Action/Subject = “Adjourn Illness” (Because one of the adventure options is “MEDICAL EMERGENCY,” that’s how I will decipher the result)

FRACTAL’s mask allows her to grab radio waves out of the air and decipher them. Now that she’s close to the plane, she picks up this message, “THE CAPTAIN ISN’T BREATHING! I THINK HE HAD A HEART ATTACK! THERE’S NO ONE THAT CAN DO CPR—EVERYONE’S STRAPPED IN FOR THE LANDING AND MY HANDS ARE FULL!”
“Eddie, can you punch through that door using your speed?” FRACTAL asks, pointing at the emergency door over the wing.
“If I can get a fast enough start, I can punch through most things,” he yells into her ear. “Drop me on the tail of the plane and I can try.”
“I’ll see if I can get you a good running start. Well, flying start,” replies FRACTAL as she zips towards the back of the plane.

The exterior doors of the plane are locked. Opening them from the outside requires a DC 20 Technology check or breaking a Toughness 8 object.
Eddie is going to use his Wall-Crawling to cling to the sides of the airplane and run in a spiral around the body of the plane from back to front. Then he is going to use the Finishing Attack maneuver to amp up the damage from his attack: Full-Speed Punch: Damage 4 + STR.
“If you choose to make your Attack Check normally against DC 10, a successful hit is treated as a Critical Hit, with a +5 bonus to the attack’s Damage or Effect rank.”
For this Challenge, however, the DC is 15. Things are harder to do in mid-air…

Close Combat 10 + Fighting 4 + d20 = 25 vs. 15… a successful hit with 3 degrees of success, so +5 to damage.
But FRACTAL tried to use her speed to help, so she makes a Team Check as a helper using her 6 ranks of Flight vs. DC 15.
Flight 6 + Teamwork 5 + d20 = 23 vs. 15… this gives no bonus to degrees of success.
CHALLENGE STATUS: 3 of 5 needed successes vs. 0 of 3 failures.

Eddie does 4 damage for the punch + 2 for his STR + 5 for the Finishing Attack = 11 Damage. The door’s Toughness is now used in a roll to see if he gets through in one punch.

Toughness 8 + d20 vs. Damage 11 + 15 = 27 vs. 26… NO EFFECT!
FRACTAL has the Luck advantage, but can’t use it here…

Fractal scoops Eddie up before he falls off the wing.
“I’m sorry,” he yells into her ear. “The door’s too strong, and I… I guess I’m… I’m not a hero.”
The burning engine sputters and goes completely dead. The plane begins to roll to the right.
Fractal is still listening to the co-pilot, and he is panicking, “I’M GOING IN FOR THE LANDING, BUT THE RIGHT WING IS DIPPING. WE’RE GOING TO CRASH!”

“Eddie, they are going to try to land. We have to get the wing up or they are going to crash. If I fly under the wing, can you use your hands as you did on the roof? Create enough wind to lift the wing and level it out?”
“I… I can sure as hell try.”

FRACTAL will be the leader on this Team Check. I’m going to give her a +2 Circumstance Modifier because of her Darkvision and Distance Sense. She will use Extra Effort to bump that to a +5 on this roll, but will become Fatigued afterward. This means her flight movement will drop to half and she will no longer be able to keep up with the plane…

Flight 6 + Modifier 5 + d20 = 17 vs. 15… one degree of success
Eddie adds his tornado hands (Move Object 7) to try to add more lift:
Move Object 7 + Teamwork 5 + d20 = 13 vs. 15… no help
FRACTAL uses her Luck advantage to re-roll the 6 on her check (and add 10 to a roll of 10 or less)
She rolls a 7, which becomes a 17!
Flight 6 + Modifier 5 + d20 = 28 vs. 15… three degrees of success!
CHALLENGE STATUS: 6 of 5 needed successes vs. 0 of 3 failures = SUCCESS!

Together they stabilize the plane and help it make a safe emergency landing. Eddie uses his speed to rush the pilot out through the emergency exit to the EMTs. They save his life. Everyone else is OK. And so once again, the day is saved.

FRACTAL is exhausted from the effort. She will sleep well tonight. But it’s all in a day’s work for a superhero… though she feels they might have gotten a little lucky on this day. But first, she gathers Eddie and gives the news reporters the interview they are looking for.

“Allow me to introduce you to my new teammate, EDDY,” she says. “And that’s EDDY with a Y… you know, like a whirlpool.”
She nudges him and gives him a “show them” head nod. He comes out of his deer-like trance and spins his hand for the cameras. The reporters closest to him gather their coats and hold onto their hats. A murmur of approval from a few.

“I’m so fast, I can run on water,” says EDDY, quickly getting comfortable in front of the crowd.
“Oooo, like Elsa!” says a young reporter. The old man standing next to her gives her a WHAT THE HELL? look.
“Oh, and I hear he’s quite the artist, too,” adds FRACTAL as she bows out of the interview and walks off.
As she takes flight, she hears EDDY plugging his upcoming opening at the Mandlebrot SETpiece gallery. She smiles to herself behind her mask.
A little cross-promotion never hurt anybody, right?