Disco Inferno

Having read through the Clown's research notes, the team realized that they needed to get Magi to take off the gauntlet he had taken from the alien raiders. He had been showing signs of heavy dependence on it, and had even been sleeping with the device still on his hand. He was, at first, unwilling, and even managed to fend off a tough-love punch from Torpedo. After they convinced him to test his own mental defenses, however, he was able to shut out the gauntlet's impulses and realize what was happening. Taking the glove off sapped so much energy that he immediately lost consciousness. After a day in the hospital, however, he was almost himself.

The team still had a lot of Clown pages to discuss. To do that, they needed a meeting hall. After getting some financial support from the parent group, they proceeded to tunnel under an old garage and have a base built underground. While several of the chairs were still those awful foldy things, they were still able to put together a relatively high tech base complete with big round meeting table.

Going over the notes, they discussed several possible concerns, one of which was that Nightmare Pixie sounded really scary. Magi noted several possible connections to his enemy, Warmaster Qth-raq of Dimension Q. Also, one of the entries was just a bunch of song lyrics. What they settled on, though, was something that looked like a realistic short term goal that might actually help some people. The Clown had mentioned a massacre committed by Sarana. They had a date for this event, and the likelihood that it would have happened close to the Ocelot Bay facility.

While records of events in the lawless wastes of Ontario were hard to find, they did discover that a group of young hikers had gone that way and never returned. The report gave them a good idea where to look, so they piled into their captured boat, despite Land Shark's suggestion that they just drive around the lake, and headed out to follow their trail.

Eventually, they found the exterminated town described in the Clown's notes. The massacre had happened almost ten years ago, so the corpses were mostly skeletons and the place was collapsing into ruin. Exploring the town, they discovered that the skulls had all been marked with a star, reminiscent of the star tattoo around Sarana's left eye. The only life was a pack of dobermans that watched them for a few minutes and then wandered off.

North of the town, they found the camp grounds where the corpses of the hikers from Beta City were. Suspecting that some occult connection had been made, they set up a bonfire to cleanse the skeletons. On their way back, as it was getting dark, the five dobermans met them on the road and refused to let them pass.

When the team attempted to go on anyway, they transformed into shadowy humanoids with odd circuit patterns glowing on their flesh. The fight was tricky, because the hounds had the ability to become intangible at will. One of them stunned Magi early on, overwhelming him with an otherworldly chill and taking him out of the fight.

Once defeated, the hounds melted into a black ichor and faded away. Free of obstructions, the Scrap Pile proceeded to gather the bodies and burn that mutha down. While the bonfires burned, they took some time to try and figure out what kind of poison gas Sarana used to kill everyone. Eventually, they thought to review the security cameras from the various places that used them. They discovered that, in fact, it had only appeared to be a sudden affliction because of Sarana's combination of stealth and super-speed. In fact, she had killed them all with her sword.

Coming home with a case solved, the team was rewarded with comfy chairs all around. They settled in and discussed their next move. Eager to discover what sort of invasion from Dimension Q the Nightmare Pixie was covering up, Magi wanted to investigate her background. The others, more than a little concerned about going anywhere near that particular villain, were in favor of pursing Deathbird and the Cult of Azrak in Beta City.  No final decision was reached.