A message and a mission

Shade will intercede. "Oracle ID is good enough for me. If he's just down for the count, I'll claim him." Shade moves to the gurney, checking on the figure.
"Tremor, if you're joining us, do you mind if we load him into your car? I don't want to try and keep an unconscious guy on my motorcycle while I ride. I'll pick up your tab to compensate for the favor."

Constance looks quite alarmed at Shade's intercession.
"We... They.." She leans in closer to him and whispers, "They shot someone without .. too much provocation. Are you sure you want him waking up in a full car? I doubt he would react well."

"It's not going to be a full car. It's going to be Tremor's otherwise empty back seat, he's going to still be costumed and reassuringly armed, and the only person he could shoot is Tremor. I'm having a hard time thinking of a better way it could go. An unfamiliar hospital, possibly undressed and hooked up to machines  sounds way scarier to me. Besides, hopefully we can wake him up when we get to the Domino Mask, and he can chase his headache with his choice of poison." Shade seems unworried.

Tremor gives a fairly accurate story of what happened, though he'll be sure to point out that he only busted in the back door because he heard the alarms go off and assumed the thieves were inside. Which, technically, they were.

"So what, we're just putting this guy in my car and leaving him in the backseat while we go grab drinks? We don't know how he landed or if anything's broken... I've got a first aid kit in my trunk, let me at least take a quick look at him before we go anywhere. See if he's bleeding." Tremor shifts back to his more human form as he walks down the block to his car. "Besides, I don't drive armored up. Fine control is a little harder with hands made of concrete or stone or whatever." After fishing around for a minute, Trevor pulls out a new black shirt, puts it on, and pulls out his first aid kit. The case looks beat up, but it's fully stocked with bandages, stitches, and a handful of pill bottles.

Tremor walks back to where Fear is lying on the ground and starts checking him out - checks his pulse, uses a flashlight to check his pupils, and looks him over for injuries as best he can without stripping him down.

[Healing d4(1), Wild(3) - Wounds(1) = 2 at best]

Nadia, who had followed Shade to see what's going on, moves next to Tremor to examine the body as he works...

{Notice d6*: (1,2)}

... But can't make heads or tails of the situation.

Tremor examines the black clad figure but doesn't come up with anything more than what the officer had said previously. The man was clearly alive but looked in rough shape.
"The EMT's said possible broken bones but his insides seemed intact. It looks like he might be healing faster than the average fella but they couldn't tell for sure. I wouldn't recommend tossing him in a car unless you know he's made of tougher stuff than he appears to be. I was more offering if any of you wanted to ride with him or had your own way of dealing with this kind of situation. If not he's going to need some medical attention." the officer comments while Tremor takes a look.

Agreeing that he is probably best left with the authorities for the time being Constance leaves her not with them and they agree to meet at The Domino Mask. Nadia being somewhat new to all of this asks for directions to their destination which Shade gives. She rockets off with Archangel following just behind they become just blue and orange lights moving through the sky. Trevor and Raphael leave to collect their vehicles and make their way toward the bar. Constance sticks around for another moment or two to ensure everything is well in hand, then speeds off toward the rendezvous.

Nadia and Archangel, both turning off their jetpack and wings respectively, arrive first to find a nice enough looking building recessed between two other newer looking buildings. The only thing noting it's identity is a large sign above the door bearing an image of a black domino mask. The outside is older looking grey stone blocks but it seems clean and in a relatively nice neighborhood. The few small windows in the front are tinted allowing only a few shadows to bee seen moving within.

Archangel steps inside and after a moments hesitation Nadia follows. Inside the walls are paneled in wood with a dark finish to match the bar and the carpet is a deep red, combined with soft yellow lighting it gives the place an old fashioned feel. Sitting on a stool next to the inside of the door with a lamp beside her is a small Asian woman in a floral print sun dress who looks up from reading a magazine about farming equipment as the two enter. She eyes them up and down and then nods to the interior giving them the go ahead to enter. The apparent bouncer then returns to her magazine.

With the lateness of the hour, now well past midnight, The Domino Mask is pretty empty. A handsome looking man with dark skin and a shaved head gives the two a quick smile from the bar and gestures to the available booths and tables. The clientele consists of some kind of lizard man and an individual in a purple jumpsuit and matching motorcycle helmet sitting together enjoying the juke box in one corner as well as a woman dressed like an acrobat in a circus with a red and gold sequined leotard.

Archangel surveys the room and says to Nadia in her guttural voice "I'm gunna go powder my nose." and stomps her way to the restrooms in the back.

Nadia picks a large booth that gives a good view of the door and waits. She looks around at the walls seeing them covered in news articles and photos depicting various Capes some she recognized others not. Many of the photos seemed to have been taken in this very bar but others were action shots of heroic deeds or the occasional one of someone in a rather embarrassing situation. A few moments passed before Constance zips in, acknowledging the woman at the door, and takes a seat at the booth.

[Shade and Tremor feel free to join the scene as you see fit]

While she waits for the others to arrive, Nadia asks the bartender for a bill for the value of a rusty nail, and asks him to tell the server not to offer her any consumables should one come to take orders for the table once the group arrives.

A few minutes later, Trevor walks in the front door. He'd heard of the place, but had never been in before, and was caught slightly off-guard by the decor. He greets the bouncer on the way in, stops by the bar to grab a double bourbon, and makes his way to Nadia's table.

Nodding as he sits down, Trevor picks a seat across from Nadia. He picks up a drink menu and starts picking through it, sipping from his whiskey for a few awkward moments of silence. Still staring at the menu, he says, "So... I'm Trevor, or Tremor, whichever you wanna use is fine. I'm assuming you got the Lord of the Rings guy too?"

Logan digs out her phone. It's an old one; it has a slide-out keyboard and no gps (that she's aware of). She uses it to text Aunt Mavis, mostly. But this time, she's going to make a call. She knows there's a number you can punch to block your number. Logan takes a seat in the dark and tries to think of what it is... *67? Mavis is going to be 67 soon. She hopes she's right. Logan types it in and dials Constance's number.

Logan uses the number pad to type out a series of sounds. She messes up a couple times, fumbling at an adjacent key, and it takes a while, but eventually she works out a rhythm.

If/when Constance picks up, she will hear a series of beeps and pauses. They go something like this (the threes she holds longer; the ones are quick, and the dots are pauses):

. . . 33331 . 11133 . 33311 . 1333 . . . 133 . 1111 . 13333 . 33111 . . . 13333 . 11333 . 33333 . 11111 . 13 . 33 . . .

She painstakingly repeats the pattern until Constance decides to hang up.

Constance listens to the call with furrowed brow for a moment before frantically moving to Nadia and Trevor's table and grabbing around for napkins and a writing utensil.

She writes the code in dashes, long ones for long tones and short ones for short tones. She separates the pauses with slashes and puts multiple when the pause seems longer. She listens carefully to make sure she gets every tone correctly.

She pushes the napkin to the middle of the table and points at it while continuing to listen to the message for awhile to make sure nothing new pops up.

"What--" Nadia starts to say to Trevor, when Constance sits down. "What are you talking about, which Lord of the Rings guy--what's that?" She glances at the napkin with Constance's notes. "Look, there's a lot of details to discuss. Also where did Shade go, didn't you drive here together? And where the frack is the girl with the sword, do you think she ditched us?" She cranes her neck to look in the direction of the bathroom door.

Archangel returns from the restroom to see Constance on her phone. Sitting in the booth she looks down at the napkin and snorts, "When did she buy that phone?" raising her gloved hand to the side of her helmet miming a phone she continues "Hello yes? Okay I'll tell her." hanging up her hand phone with a click she says "That was President Lincoln he wants his archaic method of communication back."

Constance hangs up the phone, satisfied with her notes. She very obviously ignores Archangel's comments, and points at the napkin again.

"I got a call from a private number, they were using phone tones to try to convey a message. These ones are long tones and these are shorter..." she points to the dashes as she explains.
"Do any of you have experience cracking codes?"

Nadia gives the napkin the briefest of glances. "It's likely that the sample size is too small for a binary code to be analytically solvable," she says. "Anyway, shouldn't we be discussing how the teleport device was brought into the bank in the first place? I propose," she says, holding one finger declaratively in the air, "that one or more unknown collaborator(s), possibly the person who built the teleporter, may have rented a safe deposit box in the last couple of months, in which they placed the device or parts of the device prior to the robbery." She waits for confirmation that the others are listening to her speculation.

Catching the last bit of Nadia's conjecturing, Shade walks into the bar. As he makes his way over, he asks the bartender for a Wheatstone (the Rookfall equivalent of a Nordeast), and pulls up a chair.

"That sounds pretty likely. If we can identify which boxes were used, we might be able to mine a bit more info about the robbers. Good catch." He leans back and surveys the group. Admittedly, the beginning was a bit rough, but we didn't handle ourselves poorly tonight, he muses.

The bartender brings around the drinks that have been ordered and Archangels requests a coke with a straw. As he's distributing the drinks he looks down at the napkin and says, "Looks like Morse code, always wanted to learn it but never cared enough what with the internet and all". He checks if anyone else needs anything and goes back to the bar.

Assuming that Constance had gotten her message and would be able to puzzle it out, Logan put away her phone. She created a soft light of her own, a little glob which bobbed along by her shoulder, and began to inspect the things that had been left behind in the warehouse. Logan looks for anything that might point to where the criminals had been, where they might be going, or who they really are. Of course, this would all be much simpler if villains were the kind of people to leave notes or drop their receipts, she mused.

[Notice (things left behind) d8: 8,5 +2 Alertness = 15]

Logan moves closer to the middle of the Warehouse to get a look at what had been left behind. Four work light stands still stood ringing the central space but were now turned off. The metal plate was now gone along with the robots and the rest of the equipment. A handful of pallets sat empty and one sat still full of money. As Logan looked at the full stack of money something appeared odd. She began moving to one side of the stack and it hit her, it wasn't casting a shadow.

Constance nods to Nadia. "That very well could be. It is unfortunate we didn't have more of an opportunity to investigate."

She sighs at the paper. "So, no one has experience with Morse code here?"

Logan assumes it must be some kind of illusion, but isn't sure what kind, or why someone would want to pretend to leave money behind. She walks around the other sides of the pallet, just in case. If she can't figure out how it's made or what it might be hiding, just by looking at it, Logan will nudge it gently with the rubbery toe of her shoe.

[Notice d8: 2, Wild: 6,6,6,5 +2 Alertness = 25]

Logan inspects the illusory stack of money, it's clear the pallet itself is real but the money atop is an image of some sort. Whatever is making it must be hidden inside the illusion itself. Without no further information forthcoming from her inspection Logan prods the pallet. The moment it moves Logan is blasted by an explosive detonation from within the illusion.

[damage 2d8(A.5 B.6) = 11]
[Toughness(5) Armor(4) = 9, 11-9=2, result Shaken]

Saved by the body armor beneath her cloths Logan stands before the smoking remains of the pallet startled but seemingly unhurt. Logan had never been near anything that dangerous before and as she tried to snap out of the shock of it she hoped to never do so again.

Raphael taps at his phone for a bit before looking up at the group. "938J WH17 1205AM. Does that mean anything to anyone?"

After the bartender walks by, Trevor pulls out his phone and spends a minute or so poking at it. "Via the Googles, here's a Morse code translator. Here, let me take a look at that..." Tremor pulls the napkin in front of himself and starts typing in the message.

"Looks like 9 3 8 J W H 1 7 1 2 0 5 A M." Trevor writes it down on the napkin below the original message. "Though the J might supposed to be a 1? They're only one dash apart. The end looks like a time, don't know about the rest."

Pushing the napkin back to Constance, he continues, "I tried to do this before but the group seems pretty distractable. Hi, I'm Trevor. I don't know most of you folks. I turn into a big rock guy and step in front of cars."

Nadia turns back to face Trevor. "Right, sorry. Hi, Trevor, I'm Dr. Nadia Delacroix. I met Shade earlier and I think I've seen gifs of you--" she indicates Archangel--"on reddit before." She looks around at the group. "Is this a thing? Do you guys do this sort of thing a lot?"