Oct 18th, 2007
Isabel and Estaban's rented apartment
Houston. Tx

It was a bad week for everyone. After the rescue effort and the initial frantic activity, the physical pain set in for the newly erupted novas. Worse still was the emotional pain felt by Isabel and Estaban at the loss of their parents, and to a lesser extend by all the others at the general loss of life.

Surprisingly, none of you has been subject to the kind of media attention that you would expect after such a devestating event. Marcus' mentor and legal counsel, a gentleman named Witterquick, has handled the legal backlash of the situation. He also saw to it that you were each provided with the best nova pain meds that money could buy so that you wouldn't have to rely on Project Utopia, whom he seems to have a bias against. During the course of the week Witterquick was also very helpful to Estaban in making the arangements for his and Isabel's parents.

Witterquick is a moderately powerful nova who has a reputation as a legal genius. He is local to Houston, and perhaps that is why he took a liking first to Marcus after his eruption and now Estaban (Mentor).

In the aftermath of the blast all bodies were eventually recovered that were known to have been at the event, with one exception. A certain man that Estaban saw at the party earlier in the evening is unaccounted for, but there is doubt as to whether he was still there at the time of the blast.

Literally, the only things left intact were the things on your persons, which includes one photograph of a piece of artwork that Isabel was holding when the blast went off. The photo shows what is obviously a master work, but the artist is completely unknown to either of our ladies.

Moreover, Raina and Isabel were both very quick to understand what was going on during the explosion and after talking about it they are fairly sure the blast was centered on the woman they were speaking with.

Current scene:
You are all gathered in Estaban and Isabel's apartment suite, it is the evening of the one week aniversary of the blast. Their parents have been laid to rest and you've each been dealing with the grief in your own ways. Please make a post describing your characters current description after the eruption and placing yourselfs as you will in the scene.

Omar, who now calls himself Ziggurat, was feeling bad. He felt responsible for the deaths of the coach and his wife. Even worse, their only child Timothy, was now an orphan. Omar felt it was his duty to care for the young man.

The eruption caused some subtle, and not so sublte changes in his physical appearance. While it had made him stronger and sturdier, which was evident by a 10 kilogram increase in weight and bulk, he was still not obscenely muscled. He was however, even more intimidating and handsome than before. Of course, he relished the extra attention he now received.

Ziggurat had staked out the sofa in Esteban and Isabel's apartment. His large frame made the sofa look almost childlike when he sat in it. He was wearing eufiber, attuned to look like an expensive business suit. His light complextion and Middle Eastern features were very noticeable, yet extremely handsome. He was on the phone, speaking to someone in Kurdish. He would pause briefly to greet each person as they entered the room.

Raina had spent the week getting in contact with her family and community between bouts of agony in her head, spreading the word that if they would, could they try and find out information on Dr. Elisabeth Waters from the University of Texas - and to be careful about. Even someone without the major intelligence upgrade she had just endured would have figured that out.

She had become more graceful, preternaturally so, and even beautiful. But it wasn't that she focused on - her art was now selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars because she had become a nova-level artist. Between the paintings that she churned out and the search for information, she was busy, though she made it for the Mendozas' funeral.

She was grateful her parents weren't there, and regretted the deaths - but unlike some, she was not going to beat herself over the head because of events beyond her control. There were new horizons to pursue... and the possibility that this was something that had just happened.

At the apartment, she is detached and polite, her dark eyes half-closed in thought.

Morgan was still divided on his change.

He felt better than he had is years, and he knew the energy that powered his body. Sometimes, in the silence of the night, he could swear he heard a soft hissing noise of the alien quantum energy that suffused his frame. The glow took some getting used to as well. A soft, blue glow that eminated from him at all times. Difficult to see in light, but impossible to miss in the dark. He also had to get used to his new eyes. The whites had become a deep blue, a color that shifted with his moods. He felt more... aberrant than superhuman now when he looked in the mirror.

These people, all changed by a single event. A mystery that still confused him, occupying his thoughts. Was it a bomb? An attack by another nova? Or something equally bizzare. He still had nightmares about that white light.


Towards the others he was distant but polite. His features usually set into a neutral expression, Morgan frequently looked lost in thought. Only Omar could rouse him from his reverie, his familiar voice cutting through Morgans thoughts with ease.

He was still coming to grips with his change, and they can all tell he is taking it badly.

Discreet inquiries into Dr. Elizabeth Smith with the University of Texas indicate that she is an Archeologist, currently on a dig in Tanzania, Aftrica. She isn't scheduled to return to the states until March 08.

Marcus does his beat help comfort and offer advice to anyone who wants it. having been through this he understands a little of what happening to everyone.

This event has completly snapped Marcus out of his "funk". He is now ready to get on with his new life and see what it has to offer. With that in mind he will start looking into anything relating to nova's and golf as well as possible endorsment contracts.

At the news of Dr. Smith, Marcus suggest further investigation into her, and because he loves to travel he suggests a visit to the dig in Africa.

Hearing about digging in Africa, Omar perks up. "I would love to travel to Tanzania , and see an ancient culture." He then added; "If it would be ameniable to my friends? I would like to get us a charter jet".

"The sooner we leave, the sooner we can track down where Dr. Smith was digging. Hopefully we can get a lead there, which will help us find this evil person."

He began to dial his phone to have his agent set up a flight.

You sit around the apartment waiting for the next pizza delivery. Your appetites for the last week have been such that it's hard to keep yourselves fed without a near constant stream of pizza and chinese food. Romero's Bros italian restraunt around the corner has offered you guys a generous discount if you will occasionally make appearances and rub elbows with their customers.

There is a knock at the door, and Marcus answers it to discover that it is not the delivery boy, but a very nervous looking middle aged woman. "Please, may I come in?" she asks. Not waiting for a reply she darts inside and places her back to the wall next to the door panting. She doesn't appear to pose a threat to you. After a moment she speaks again, "I'm sorry for barging in like this, it's just that I didn't know where else to turn." She blushes slightly, "Where are my manners, I am Dr. Susan Flowers with the University of Texas." She takes the chair next to the door, practically collapsing into it.

"I think I'm the only one left. Everyone else that was associated with the dig has died in accidents, of natural causes, or in the case of Dr. Smith last week, blown to bits. If you all had not erupted, I'm sure that would have been labeled a gas explosion or something similar." Seeing the confusion on some of your faces she stops speaking and visibly tries to get a grip on her emotions.

"I'm sorry, let me start again." She looks to Raina and Isabel, "Dr. Smith whom, I believe you met last week, was a colleague of mine. We were on an archeological dig in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania when we discovered something remarkable; unbelievable in fact. We phoned the university immediately and told the dean of what we had discovered. He ordered us to secure the site until arangements could be made to fly in experts in various fields."

She pauses a second to catch her breath, "What we found was a cave complex the likes of which none of us had ever seen. The walls of the cave had been machined to a degree of perfection that I doubt modern science could duplicate, and this was in rock strata that dates back at least a million years. There was artwork on the walls that was the match of anything I've ever seen. If I hadn't been there when we uncovered the cave I wouldn't have believed it was ancient at all. But you should have seen it. The air was stale and dust covered everything, and the rocks and sediment covering the entrance were deposited during volcanic activity that occured at least 1.5 million years ago."

"On the third day of the discovery Dr. Smith and I were searching a nearby cave system for possible connections and other ancient artifacts. When we returned to the base camp that evening we discover half the team was dead and the cave enterance was covered by a landslide. We all hopped the first planes we could get seats on and headed back here, to report our finds. When we arrived we discovered that the dean was missing, and then one by one the members of the team started dying.

She gives the artists a searching look, "Dr. Smith had photographs of the cave walls, did she by chance show them to you before her death?" Getting her answer she continues, "Anyway, I just didn't know who else to turn to, or what to do. Can you help me?”

"My apologies maam, but I did not get a chance to see the photos." Omar's deep accented voice resonated through the apartment. With three steps, he covered the distance from the couch to the door.

Shaking the woman's hand, Omar volunteers to help protect her. "With my size and strength as protection, they will think twice about harming you."

Omar gives a big smile to the rest of those assembled in the room, before picking up his phone again. He calls his travel agent, to add one more to the flight.

"I and Isabel were shown them," Raina observes quietly. The photogenic Hispanic woman closed her eyes. "Give me some time to remember what I saw, please?"

(OOC: I know that Raina doesn't have Fast Sense or Enhanced Memory, but she does have the Photographic Memory Merit, which is just Eidetic Memory with bonus points. I am trying to remember what she saw before she erupted.)

Oct 18th, 2007
Isabel and Estaban's rented apartment
Houston. Tx

Estaban has been toying with names to distract himself from the absence of his parents. Isabel becomes much more the focus of his life, though he gladly accepts Mr. Wittershin's assistance in putting his parent's final affairs in order. Still, Estaban remains remote (to everyone but his sister), but polite as there remains a great deal of business for this young man (he's only 16) to deal with.
Estaban, with some delving into Isabel's sensitivities, decides that going home so soon would not be good for either one of their mindsets. Estaban knows he would be overwhelmed by extended family and family friends who would not understand that their help would neither be wanted, or needed. Isabel would so want to retreat into the solitude of her studio and Estaban is fearfully unsure that he has the strength to pull her out.

All of this is weighing on his mind when the stranger comes barging in. He minds his temper and idily decides to listen to this woman's rambling while hoping she will leave soon. All that changes with the mention of the death at the base camp. More deaths and dissappearances interlace her tale of mystery and woe, but one idea grows from a whisper to a roar in Estaban's mind. It becomes so powerful, it escapes his lips in a whisper.
"Murder ... they were murdered."
Once Raina and Omar speak, Estaban speaks in a low, clear, and menacing voice.
"Whomever is behind this murdered our parents ... among all the others who had the misfortune to be standing to close to their chosen victim."
Estaben's lips curl in a snarl,
"And we were nothing but collateral damage ... their price of doing business so silence this mystery."
Estaban stands and his fists clench,
"We need to go to Africa. We need to let them their price for doing business this way is far too expensive. We need revenge."
A light goes off in Estaban's eyes and he turns to Marcus.
"Marcus, who were you standing close to when the lightning struck? Who was their target that time around?"

{Let's not forget that Estaban is a teenager, with all that over-confidence and sense of immortality.}

The lady listens as Estaban speaks, then says, "I don't know about revenge; I'd settle just for being safe again. If you want to go to the dig site, I can give you the coordinates, but you'll have to take me with you. You'd never find where the cave entrance was without me. And, until this is over, I'd like to be protected."

Marcus looks confused for a second, "Standing next to me?" He pauses thinking for a moment then shakes his head. "I don't think it works that ways. I think Dr. Smith was the target and everyone else was expendable and we just happend to be in that group. Now don't get me wrong, whoever is behind this must be stopped and it would seems that we have been given the capacity to do that. What we can not do in rush into this blindly, we need to try and figure some stuff out. Not to mention it would be nice if we were all at least a little more familiar with ouselves and each other. I am still dicovering things I can do. Do the rest of you have a good grasp on what you can do?"

Omar listens to Marcus politely, and then, putting a large meaty hand on Marcus's shoulder, he smiles and looks down at his friend. "With respect my club wielding friend, but I disagree. I think speed in this matter is important. Whomever killed doctor Smith may also have wanted to destroy any knowledge of what was found. These killers might also erase any evidence of what the doctor found in Africa. If we delay, we lose the initiative."

Removing his hand from Marcus's shoulder, Omar continues, addressing the assembled group. "I know we all have these new powers, and that some of us may not feel confident in their usage. At times, I worry about hurting people around me by accident. However, in memory of our fallen friends and family, we must take that risk, lest the killers cover their tracks."

Morgan walks into the living room where the others are gathered, a steaming cup of tea in his hand.

He nods politely to Dr. Flowers before speaking.

"I've heard only bits and pieces from the kitchen, but am I to understand we wish to travel to Africa? After this Dr. Smith? If you all wish to go, I will as well, but I dont think we should get our hopes up to high." He looks at Estaban "Its just as possible that the explosion was caused by a random Teragen attack. Dont expect all our questions to be answered."

He leans into the kitchen doorframe and looks over the teacups rim at the others, occasionally sipping his drink.

Isabel has been quiet up until now. In fact, she's been exceptionally quiet, even for her, since the incident. It may just be the emotional weight of the situation, but it seems something about her powers has made her even more distant. She's even more beautiful now that she's a nova, but it's a cold, alien form of beauty, like a sculpture done by a master artist who somehow didn't understand humanity, human warmth or comfort. Her eyes are brilliant pools of light of many colours, of inmense beauty but ultimately emotionless. If eyes are windows to the soul, then it's almost disturbing to think that her soul could be filled with nothing but harsh lighting.

Without access to a real studio or materials, she spends a lot of her time simply sketching, but what she manages to do with a pencil and a pad of paper is beyond anything you've seen before, except maybe from another nova artist of this age. Mostly strange geometric shapes melting into each other in seeming defiance of normal dimensions cover most of the paper, but there are a few portraits: of her parents, in what seems to be a pencil rendition of a photo of their wedding, although Esteban knows well that there are many details changed or added, although he doubts his sister would make such mistakes; one of Esteban himself, which looks so alive you have to think it may literally move and talk to you; and one, in what's practically shades of black, of Esteban's strange form of inky liquid darkness he adopted after the explosion.

But at the moment of the conversation she's wandering about the rooms, minimally changing things around, from making furniture face a slightly different angle to piling pizza boxes in a very certain way, from the slightly odd to the completely nonsensical, but somehow making the appartment look itself like a piece of art. She's busy giving a certain painting hanging on the wall just the right amount of tilt towards the left when she speaks, without facing the others:

"I want to see the art in those caves."

"The artist behind the one picture I saw was a nova-level one," Raina finally adds. "The picture... it was too good to be a baseline's."

Unlike the moral outrage expressed by Estaban or the desire to see the art displayed by Isabel, her reason was sheer curiosity. "Estaban, you are a boy, and you think you are immortal. You are not. You also look for black and white... light and shadow... answers. You will not find them in this. The explosion killed your parents, yes. It could be many things. Not the Teragen, unless they were somehow involved with the dig. To immediately assume that it is an enemy is a stupid thing to do."

Her voice is calm, practical and cool.

Omar excuses himself from the group saying, "If am going to be in that part of the world, I will need to get some cash..I don't think there will be a bank at our disposal. Besides, if we have problems with the locals, bribery still works well. Does anyone wish to come with me to get supplies and other stuff"?

With that, Omar drives away in his convertible and heads to his bank. While there he withdraws US $5000.00 and gets another $1000.00 worth of Tanizanian currency. Also, while he is out, he picks up a large backpack and fills it with jerked beef and chicken, granola, assorted nuts, 2 gallons of water, and a bag of hard candy.

He hurries back to the apartment for departure.

After a couple hours Omar returns with his supplies, and meanwhile some of you have gathered a few items to take on your trip as well. The whole time Dr. Flower’s appears nervous and will not allow herself to be left alone even within the apartment. When asked about equipment of her own, she says that all of her gear is still at the base camp in Tanzania. “After the cliff face gave way burying the cave entrance we were in a bit of a hurry to leave. Some of the survivors thought it was just a natural occurrence, but subsequent events have proven them quite definitively wrong.”

Once everyone is gathered in the living room, Morgan directs people to stand behind him and opens a hole in the fabric of space through which you can see a dusty abandoned group of tents standing in front of an escarpment that stretches as far as you can see though the opening. Everyone files through into the much warmer and dryer climate of the Tanzanian springtime. The wind blows dust from the jeep path into your faces as you walk into the camp. Looking around you discover that nothing appears to have been disturbed in the dig teams absence.

Now that you stand amid the tents the scale of the place has become apparent. The side of the gorge runs as far as the eye can see in either direction, even to those with enhanced vision. In the early morning and with the light shining almost directly onto the face of the cliff it is possible to make out the recent landslide, but given the area that it covers, you would be hard pressed to find where the cave is buried without the help of Dr. Flowers.

"Dust. Wonderful," Raina muttered as she trudged along.

Looking around the dusty landscape, Omar notices the encampment. It looks abandoned. He then sees the gorge and the rock-fall that buried the entrance to the cavern.

"If you could, Dr. Flowers, show us where the cave entrance is located" his deep voice echoing off the face of the gorge. "It looks like I have some digging to do. But first, is there a safe place for us to store our gear"?

Omar directs his eufiber to expose his massive forearms, which are the size of a persons calves He then waits for the doctor to direct him where to dig.

Dr. Flowers nods to Omar, "Certainly, this way." She walks off in the direction of the cliff. It takes about 15 minutes of walking to get to the spot on the side of the gorge where she believes the entrance lies. "Here we are. It should be within a few meters of where we're standing. I'd guess about it'll be about two and a half meters deep, but that's just a hunch."

Omar begins to dig and after about an hour he has cleared a large area and finally uncovers an opening into the cliff.

Marcus looks around at all the sand, then turns to Dr. Flowers, ”What else can you tell us about the place? General layout? Anything?”

He then begins to wonder if it would be possible for him to simply turn into energy and flow down through the ground.

"Well, there are five rooms total. By the connecting tunnels and some aspects of the chambers, you can tell that it was originally a cave system that was adapted into someone's home. That's as simple as I can put it." She smiles at Marcus, "You'll understand when you see inside."

Omar peers into the cave and then turns around to to Marcus and Dr. Flowers. "How big are these caves? Is there lighting inside?"

After a moment of thought, he looks at the young female artist. "Miss Mendoza, can you light up the caves if we need you to?"

"Well, we did have a generator just outside the entrance and flood lights inside."

Looking at the ground you can still see the remains of the electric cables trailing into the opening. The next thing you notice about the tunnel is that it has a perfectly flat floor. Machine perfect. The tunnel is about three meters tall and 2 meters wide. (2 meters = about 7 feet)

"The rooms are about 3 meters tall, just like the tunnels."

(I'm trying to hold off posting about the interior until everyone has had a chance to pipe in and say what they intend.)

Brooding and silent, Estaban hangs to the rear of the group until now. He shakes his head as if waking from a dream and reaches reaches a hand out to a poorly-lit section of the wall.
'Mother and Father are dead, you idiot,'Estaban thinks to himself. 'What would Father think of me, acting this way. Isabel needs me. All of these people are in the fight with us and if I want to be treated as something more than a boy, I had best start acting like the man I know I am.

As his hand touches the shadows, the darkness creeps up from the wall and sweeps over his body. In the next instant, he is the Darkness personified.
"Omar, lend me a flashlight, and I will scout ahead ... if that's okay."

Isabel simply keeps on staring ahead at the darkness as she answers Omar.

"I can light up a whole room, when we get there," and, after a pause, "and call me Isabel." Miss Mendoza reminded her too much of her mother.

She wanted to press on, to see what was in these caves. In part to keep her mind thinking about less painful things, and also, although she wouldn't admit it, in case her brother was right, to find out who killed her mother and father. Because they were going to pay.

As Estaban begins to enter the tunnel, Isabel draws in light from outside and somehow wills it to flow into the tunnel lighting it up so that you can see in side as easily as in a brightly lit room. Everyone proceeds into the earth.

The tunnel stretches back into the cliff for about four meters before it opens out into a room. The first thing that strikes you is the how well the natural cave has been blended with the sculpted walls and floors. Those of you with art backgrounds and particularly the Artistic Genius enhancement feel that whoever or whatever created this room out of a cave really had a flare for blending the natural with the artificial in such a way that it just seems right.

The walls themselves have paintings or perhaps more properly, images which all but take the breath away. Beyond the images and the electric stand lights that are fallen over on the ground, there is nothing in this room but a pair of openings, one to each end of the rear wall.

"Son of a..." Dr. Flowers begins a string of very un-professor like cursing as she looks at the ceiling. "Those bastards took the fixtures!!!" She points to several places on the ceiling where you notice blank spots as though something has been removed. Seeing the questioning looks on some of your faces she explains, "There were what we assumed were light fixtures on the ceiling. We never could figure out how they might work, but we were pretty sure that must have been what they were given their positions. They were right where I would have put lights anyway."

The scenes on the walls in this room are of primative primates living their daily lives amidst the natural beauty of an area considerably more lush than what is outside the cave today.
Somehow as you look at the images, they evoke in you feelings of sadness for their primative state and yet at the same time hope. The artists in the group understand how this was accomplished, but the fact that it exists at all where nothing like this should be is amazing.

When you follow the tunnels they both lead in an arching fashion to the same room about five meters deeper into the hillside. This next room is perfectly round and there are no traces of natural cave here at all. More acurately, this room, with the exception of the precisely level floor, is a perfect sphere. The walls are covered with more scenes of nature, except this room has no primates depicted. Standing in the center of the room and turning around is like being in the middle of one continuous scene. Very much like someone painted a 360 degree view of some place in nature. It is a night scene, with stars above on the ceiling which glint and reflect light back at you. Also, and very realistically done is the moon in the sky, but looking slightly different than it should. Looking more closely you find that the stars are made of gemstones embedded in the ceiling.

From an artistic perspective this room is still very impressive, but seems more like an acruate representation of a real scene than a work of art.

Along the walls you see three other entrances to this chamber besides the two that lead back to the original room. These other tunnels are also blendings of natural and artificial. Each leads to another room much like the first. Each of those rooms have artwork equally as artistic and beyond the human norm as the first room did. In each room other than the sphere you see that there are spots on the ceilings where things have been removed.
In the sphereical room, Dr. Flower's points out four spots on the floor where things have been removed.

"هذا هو المكان الذي بارك الله" Omar whispers to himself in Arabic. "This place is beautiful. It is as if God himself drew these with his own hand." he speaks softly in English, as he slowly whirled in circles. His head was fixated on the stars in the ceiling.

"Doctor, what else can you tell us about the missing fixtures?" His voice now steady and focused. "I have a feeling that whoever took those things off the ceiling, is also involved in the bombing."

Dr. Flowers looks at Omar and the rest, "The ones in here were some kind of sconces, standing up from the floor about 5 feet tall. Kinda like a tiki torch actually, but of an alien design. They were of an unfamiliar metal that had no rust or tarnish at all after all the thousands of years sitting alone in here. At the top they seemed to have some kind of crystal or gemstone. We couldn't find any mechanism at all, but I'd bet my tenure those things were lights." She grins then continues, "The ones in the other rooms were capped by the same kind of crystal as the ones in here, but the metal was designed to look like it was part of the ceiling."