Candygram

Evening at Disco's nightclub. Torpedo was back in Atlantis sorting out some political details. Fire of Saturn was at the bar sipping mai-tais. I don't think I ever gave her a real name, but she was in her civilian identity without her armor and stuff this time. I guess I should come up with something. Disco was there because one of his bartenders called in sick and he couldn't find the other one. Chromaticat was supplementing the lights with her own powers and teleporting from mirrorball to mirrorball to beam down at people. Landshark eventually showed up too, since Jay was off in Marvel City being dark and magical.

While they were catching up, they noticed some rough-looking guys in the corner snorting something. Disco left Landshark to cover the bar and went to ask them to take it outside. They were belligerent and took another hit, which made them all grow large and green. Their leader punched Disco, throwing him back against the bar. Disco shouted back "No earth powers!" at Landshark, turned on his aura, and punched back. Landshark joined in the fisticuffs and Fire of Saturn improvised a one-shot missile launcher out of some cleaning equipment and a bottle of Grey Goose. While superhumanly strong, the three hulks were no match for experienced super-heroes... and Chromaticat.

Disco took their wallets and used their credit cards to pay for the repairs to his bar. He also found an unused vial of the green powder they had been snorting and gave it to Fire of Saturn to analyze. Meanwhile, they talked to Officer Vic Broyko, who told them that there had been several incidents of violence involving this new drug, known as MUT-8 (pronounced like "mutate").  He believed it was being smuggled in from Canada.

The next morning, Fire of Saturn called the others in to have a look at her discovery. By trying the drug out on several tanks of guppies from the aquarium upstairs (she would have preferred rats, but couldn't get them on short notice), she had discovered that, rather than developing a tolerance, users became susceptible to a wider range of effects with continual usage. At first, MUT-8 produces a stimulant high with some increased aggression, followed by a period of blissful docility. As usage continued, the drug led to more aggression, and finally transformation. In the case of the guppies, the result was a primitive, spiny sea monster. With humans, of course, you get hulks. She said MUT-8 was not so much a drug, but a kind of live bacterial spore that colonized the host's body. It resembled in many ways the infection of the Gauntlet equipment from Karza's troops.

Calling in a favor with the Beta City police, Disco got himself and Landshark into an interview with the prisoners. Utilizing questionable but effective interrogation techniques, they found out that the drugs came from someone called, "Rudy the Troll" who could be found on a big bridge in the Blight on Lightfoot Island. Knowing something about the area from his youth, Landshark pointed out that there couldn't be too many big bridges still intact, so they already had a good idea where to look.

They found an old suspension bridge across a gorge. Once, a river had gone through it, but now it was full of stagnant water. The bridge itself, while intact, was only attached to its original road at one end. The other had slid down the cliff wall to a ledge below. A crevice in that ledge promised cavernous realms beyond. Noticing that there were no other light sources, Disco rainbowed up and they moved on.

Not far in, they encountered a couple of hulked-up guards. These were a bit harder to beat than the party hulks in the bar, but they still went down. Farther in, they found a big round door. They knocked and Landshark shouted "pizza!" to which a gruff voice from beyond said, "I didn't order a pizza!" They tried a couple of others. I think it came down to Disco shouting "male escort" and being surprised that the answer was, "Come in!" Landshark still shouted, "Candygram!" and punched down the door, though.

Inside, they found a big ole spiny blue-green guy with horns lounging on a cushy U-shaped couch. He said, "You didn't have to knock down the door. It wasn't locked. I got some good cognac and a jug of sangria if you wanna loosen up."

Recognizing that he had an opportunity to play the seductive spy, Disco went to work trying to coax the information they wanted out of Rudy. He was happy to tell them that he didn't make the MUT-8 himself, but felt professionally constrained not to reveal his supplier. It took multiple attempts, finally throwing in Landshark, who added, "I can be a bad shark, or a very bad shark," before the Troll caved and told them what they wanted to know. Then Disco dazzle-blasted him into semi-conscious euphoria flew him off to the police.

The drugs were coming from part of the Forbidden Zone that used to be Texas, so they needed transportation. Fire of Saturn patched up the previously glitchy autopilot and they were off in the Scrapjet. Not far into the Forbidden Zone, they were confronted by a hornetroid. Disco and Landshark ejected to fight it and eventually managed to disable the bio-mechanical monster. Landshark was a little grossed out to learn that it had blood.

Once they reached their designated coordinates, they saw a settlement with several aluminum buildings and smokestacks surrounded by a wooden palisade. The guard towers were manned by gauntlet soldiers. Disco set the autopilot for the center of the settlement, grabbed Landshark, and bailed out. The Scrapjet made its heroic final voyage, despite the attempts of the gauntlet soldiers to shoot it down, and exploded in a terrifying fireball of burning jet fuel and illegal radioactive power boosters (Fire of Saturn is not the most reputable of mechanics), killing everyone there and melting all their stuff.

Disco said, "There weren't any real people down there, right?"

In the End, There Will Always Be Karza

Reunited, they made it to the door of Karza's sanctum without much more in the way of trouble. Once there, Magi was able to gadget up the electronic door lock/intercom system to give them a look inside. The room was dominated by the ESP core, a central column ringed with ESPer chairs. The top of the ESP core had been fitted with huge, shimmering crystals. The chairs were occupied by emaciated but living psychics. There were two pharoids (like the creature from which they had rescued Torpedo) standing against the far wall, unmoving, with their arms crossed tomb-style. Four Gauntlet soldiers stood around the room. Karza was ranting at one of the psychics. There was no sound over the improvised monitor, but his body language suggested that he was pretty pleased with himself.

Since Magi had also gained access to the alarm system, they decided that the best thing to do would be to set off an alarm at a lower level, then hide around the corner and wait for the guards to head downstairs. After trying this once, they found that two of the Gauntlets had moved to stand outside the door, but not much else had happened. They fought the Gauntlets. R'yl lurked uselessly in the back, but the Scrap Pile was still easily victorious. They decided to try again, hoping to continue picking off enemies the same way.

At first, not much seemed to happen. Then the whole station started to vibrate and manifest multi-colored double images of itself. They decided that something big was happening and they needed to stop it right away.

Inside, they each picked a target. Disco drew the Gauntlets away and fought them. Torpedo and R'yl attacked Karza, hoping not so much to defeat him as to keep him busy while Magi shut down the machine. Land Shark investigated the pharoids.

As "The Magical Mechanic," Magi found that he was uniquely qualified to decipher the sorcerous super-science of Karza's machine. It was engaged in attempting to bring a planet-sized mass of unknown composition forward from the mysterious "Bright Cosmos." Land Shark prodded the pharoids and they remained inert, so he decided not to bother with them any further.

R'yl blasted Karza to no benefit. Torpedo was barely able to harm him, but still got in some powerful blows that dented his armor. A couple of times, Torpedo hurled Karza into instrument panels and enraged him to the point of ranting. They were able to wear him down and keep him occupied (and sometimes even off-balance) this way. Disco continued to fight the Gauntlets. Land Shark jumped across the room to try and smash the crystals on the ESPer core. Magi was working on making the machine feed back on itself so that it would send its Bright Cosmos object back, overload, and destroy itself.

Magi (with some help from Land Shark) succeeded in stopping the machine and making it really hard for anyone else to start again. R'yl left Torpedo to fight Karza alone because he wanted to dash off and grab a gauntlet from one of the soldiers Disco took down. As the peripheral enemies fell, however, more of the Scrap Pilers were able to join the fight against Karza. In the final minutes of the battle, R'yl accidentally released a burst of Karza's energy essence from his cracked armor and apparently disintegrated himself.

Prodded by Magi, Karza monologued a bit about how he was an amalgamation of minds that were drawn together to give voice to the sentient energy of the Bright Cosmos. Since one of these was the former teacher Magi remembered, he tried (unsuccessfully) to reach that mind and bring it to the surface. Karza still went down though. As Kirby-cracklin' energy rose from the ruined suit and started to drift around the room, the team looked for something they could use to contain it and found Karza's helmet. Torpedo attempted to overcome Karza's will and force it into the vessel, but couldn't pull it off at first. Magi added some mystic runes to enhance the binding spell and gave it a shot on his own, which also failed. Together, though, they were able to trap Karza's life force in his own helmet. The pharoids disappeared.

The team returned home to find that the larger Scrap Pile organization had been bought out by Interlocking Technologies, and the Tripod City team and all subsidiaries had been disbanded. The Beta City team (which would be our guys) and their base had been off the record, so they were overlooked. But that's a story for the next issue.

Epilogue (narrated to the players as a cut-scene)

A burning figure crashes into the ground. As he staggers to his feet, we can see that it's R'yl, and he has fallen to Earth somewhere in the ostrich-blighted wastes of Ontario. His armor, especially his helmet, is battered and sparking in several places. Tearing off the overheating headgear, R'yl shows his face for the first time. He is Warmaster Qth-raq.

A tall woman in a dark coat approaches.‭ ‬Qth-raq takes a shot,‭ ‬which is intercepted by shadows which swirl around her and settle back down in the folds of her cloak.‭ ‬She gestures and black tentacles spring out of the ground to hold him.‭ ‬She‭ ‬says, ‭"‬Poor Qth-raq.‭ ‬Command center destroyed,‭ ‬soldiers‭ ‬scattered,‭ ‬and‭ ‬here you are,‭ ‬stranded on an alien world in a barely‭ ‬functional suit of armor.‭"

Qth-raq‭ ‬growls that he still has a few tricks left and ‬manages to get an energy blade working to slice away the shadows.‭ The dark woman snaps her fingers and‭ ‬a group of‭ ‬zombies claw their way out of the earth‭ ‬between them.‭

She laughs. "Tsk.‭ ‬Once‭ ‬a soldier,‭ ‬always a soldier,‭ ‬eh,‭ ‬Qth-raq‭? ‬You needn't worry,‭ ‬though.‭ ‬I‭ ‬believe you and I‭ ‬could be great friends,‭ ‬actually.‭ ‬You may not think you have much right now,‭ ‬but‭ ‬you don't need your rooks to become powerful‭ ‬again.‭ ‬This world offers all manner of‭ ‬opportunities ‬for those of us who are‭…‬ Unbeholden.‭"

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.

Excerpts from the Clown's Laptop Files

This being the journal of Doctor Mock, beginning 7 June, 2001. I call myself Mock here, but they will insist on calling me the Clown. No matter. The marks of the old world must be covered. We are human here, after a fashion. Oh dear, I have rambled on a bit, haven't I? This Nightmare Pixie creature we encountered amidst the chaos of this world's preliminary upheaval fascinates me. She claims to be a native, not a creature of the old world like us. It is true that she does not bear the brand of the Court. And yet… Enough. This device tires me.

14 September 2001
Dendritic cells (DCs) are sentinel cells of the immune system and are essential for inducing a proper immune response. The mechanisms driving the development of DCs are not fully understood. Although the roles of cytokines and transcription factors have been a major focus, there is now substantial interest in the role of microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are small RNAs that regulate gene expression by targeting messenger RNAs for translational repression and ultimately degradation. By means of deep sequencing, we have assembled a comprehensive and quantitative resource of miRNA expression during DC development. We show that mature DCs and their hematopoietic progenitors can be distinguished based on miRNA expression profiles. On the other hand, we show that functionally distinct conventional and plasmacytoid DC subsets are indistinguishable based on miRNA profile. In addition, we identify differences between ex vivo purified conventional DCs and their in vitro Flt3L-generated counterparts. This miRNA expression atlas will provide a valuable resource for the study of miRNAs in DC development and function.

5 January 2002
They have me doing all the interrogation work for this facility, now. It's interesting work, but somewhat of a distraction. Still, they have provided me with the best laboratory I'm likely to find for a while, and given me a fair amount of latitude regarding the disposition of post-interrogation materials. Sarana and Erith are excelling at their considerably more aggressive roles. I find this "Unbeholden" alliance to be a rather interesting anomaly for this region. Some of their enemies are quite committed, despite the inevitable collapse of the structures they adhere to. What interests me more, however, is when information about the Unbeholden comes to me from captives, information which has not reached me from my allies. I suspect that the Unbeholden's inner circle is considerably more ambitious than the Nightmare Pixie would have me believe. Or maybe she doesn't know, either.

25 April 2004
I'm in them: every sprouting tree, every child of peace, every cloud and sea. You see with your eyes. You see destruction and demise, corruption in the skies from this fucking enterprise. Now I'm sucked into your lies through Russell – not his muscles, but percussion he provides for me as your guide. Y'all can see me now 'cause you don't see with your eyes. You perceive with your mind. That's the inner. So I'mma stick around with Russ and be a mentor – bust a few rhymes so motherfuckers remember what the thought is. I brought all this so you can survive when law is lawless, feeling sensations that you thought were dead. No squealing! Remember that it's all in your head.

26 December 2005
Darling Sarana has murdered another of these primitive settlements. Her brother insists on taking the blame, but it would be ludicrous to believe that he committed such a precise series of executions. I must admire her artistry – the villagers almost appear to have been struck down by a poison gas that magically opened their veins all at once – but it seems wasteful. I explained to the Pixie that they are only children and that I will remind them of the need for self-discipline. She seemed unconcerned, however, even pointing out that these creatures are prolific breeders, so there will always be more to collect for the work.

32 January 2006
Advancements in genome editing have relied on technologies to specifically damage DNA which, in turn, stimulates DNA repair including homologous recombination (HR). As off-target concerns complicate the therapeutic translation of site-specific DNA endonucleases, an alternative strategy to stimulate gene editing based on fragile DNA was investigated. To do this, an episomal gene-editing reporter was generated by a disruptive insertion of the adeno-associated virus (AAV) inverted terminal repeat (ITR) into the egfp gene. Compared with a non-structured DNA control sequence, the ITR induced DNA damage as evidenced by increased gamma-H2AX and Mre11 foci formation. As local DNA damage stimulates HR, ITR-mediated gene editing was investigated using DNA oligonucleotides as repair substrates. The AAV ITR stimulated gene editing >1000-fold in a replication-independent manner and was not biased by the polarity of the repair oligonucleotide. Analysis of additional human DNA sequences demonstrated stimulation of gene editing to varying degrees. In particular, inverted yet not direct, Alu repeats induced gene editing, suggesting a role for DNA structure in the repair event. Collectively, the results demonstrate that inverted DNA repeats stimulate gene editing via double-strand break repair in an episomal context and allude to efficient gene editing of the human chromosome using fragile DNA sequences.

15 August 2006
The Nightmare Pixie exists in a semi-transcendent state, much like we would, if not bound by the Court's censure. I suspect that, like us, she is immortal, but cannot be sure. Her easy, natural size-changing is not a physical transformation, but an uncanny distortion of space itself. The manner in which this is accomplished is still beyond me. The Caterpillar is silent on the matter. As to the Pixie's other powers, I am, of course, no stranger to necromancy, but I would be interested to learn where she studied it. Once, she took particular care to wipe out all signs of a raid by creatures that claimed to be from a place called "Dimension Q." Could this be a clue to her own origins? Once I've finished vivisecting this Hero Corps agent, I shall look further into the matter. I find it exceedingly irritating that the animal keeps losing consciousness. Stimulants are difficult to requisition here.

14 November 2009
My hydraulic reanimation experiments proceed apace. Today I finally solved a problem that has been plaguing me for some time: odor. Zombies don't smell good, and they leave chunks behind that smell just as bad. It doesn't help that all the mechanical equipment I've installed generates heat. My first thought was to install those plug in air freshener things on their backs. It was quickly determined that the smell of rotting flesh and jasmine is not much better than the smell of rotting flesh. Next I tried sewing quicklime pockets all over their uniforms. Lime worked in the old days, right? This led to some problems though. For instance, although the electronic systems in my hydraulic zombies are not waterproof and the creatures have been programmed to avoid the stuff, some of them still seem drawn to the swimming pool. It was a particularly bad day when I lost two mine sweeper zombies and a carrier to the pool, and then one of our (living) patriot soldiers emerged with second degree burns all over his body. It seems that lime is rather caustic when mixed with water. Who knew?
     Finally, I got my hands on a unique vinyl based embalming fluid. They say it's the same stuff used by the creators of Val Kilmer. After some tinkering with the formula (I don't know what Barker has been saying, but he volunteered and I'm not the one who "melted" his ear) I managed to adapt it to my needs. Now I just drop my new acquisitions in the tub and let them soak. A few hours later, I have a corpse with clean, odor locked flesh and a dense, rubbery consistency. The pool is still a problem, though.

12 January 2009
I have obtained the body of George Reeves and he is soaking in Kilmer fluid while I work on the structural supports necessary to animate his highly decomposed flesh. The kids have made several trips to Beta City for one of my other projects. Am looking forward to reviewing their findings.

14 January 2009
Had lunch with the receptionist today and slipped some blowfish toxin into her drink. This led me to consider some interesting possibilities. My approach has always been to use a standard electronic CPU in controlling the reanimated. Attempts to stimulate necrotic brain tissue have so far been disappointing, so I usually just scrape all that stuff out and feed it to the mutts. While this is fine if all we need is traditional zombie work, it does not bring back any of the original personality, so I have to just make that part up.
    So I started thinking - maybe I can encode a few necromantic incantations onto a silicon chip - maybe something that would enable the CPU to get in touch with the appropriate soul. It would still be a scientific reanimation; there would just be that one download from the netherworld to bring back some personality. Reeves needs a lot of work, but my assistants can handle the cosmetic stuff. I, on the other hand, have a big stack of unhallowed texts from the office library and a dead receptionist to experiment with!

07 March 2009
I disagree with the plan to establish a foothold by way of Lightfoot Island and Tripod City. The organized crime presence that is already prevalent in those locations will be far more trouble for Unbeholden enterprises than the over-confident government of Beta City, thinking that they're safe behind their wall of slightly enhanced primates. Perhaps the Pixie will listen to me. I tried at some length to explain my position to one of Plague Dog's mutts, but the creature was panting and watching a nearby squirrel through almost the entire conversation. One is led to suspect that a certain amount of replicative fading is involved.

24 June 2009
By the teeth of Ravana! That was NOT George Reeves! Surely, though, with all those rhinestones, the creature will be easy to find and re-capture.

17 April 2011
Small GTPase Rac1 is a member of the Ras superfamily, which plays important roles in regulation of cytoskeleton reorganization, cell growth, proliferation, migration, etc. The aim of this study was to determine how a constitutively active Rac1b regulated cell proliferation and to investigate the effects of the Rac1b inhibitor sanguinarine. Note to self: request more pre-sliced sandwich cheese.

18 April 2011
Three HEK293T cell lines stably overexpressing GFP, Rac1-GFP or Rac1b-GFP were constructed by lentiviral infection. The cells were treated with sanguinarine (1 μmol/L) or its analogue berberine (1 μmol/L) for 4 d. Cell proliferation was evaluated by counting cell numbers and with a BrdU incorporation assay. The levels of cleaved PARP-89 (an apoptosis marker) and cyclin-D1 (a proliferative index) were measured using Western blotting. This cheese is terrible. Make a note to requisition that supply clerk for experimentation.

27 April 2011
In 10% serum-containing media, overexpressing either Rac1 or Rac1b did not significantly change the cell proliferation, and the clerk's screams were most satisfying. In the serum-starved media, however, the survival rate of Rac1b cells was significantly increased, whereas that of Rac1 cells was moderately increased. The level of cleaved PARP-89 was significantly increased in serum-starved Rac1 cells, but markedly reduced in serum-starved Rac1b cells. The level of cyclin-D1 was significantly increased in both serum-starved Rac1 and Rac1b cells. Treatment with sanguinarine, but not berberine, inhibited the proliferation of Rac1b cells, which was accompanied by significantly increased the level of PARP-89, and decreased both the level of cyclin-D1 and the percentage of BrdU positive cells. After careful review of these findings, I can only conclude that Rac1b enhances the cell proliferation under a growth-limiting condition via both anti-apoptotic and pro-proliferative mechanisms. Sanguinarine, as the specific inhibitor of Rac1b, is a potential therapeutic agent for malignant tumors with up-regulated Rac1b.

17 December 2014
I was able to get a number of surreptitious scans of our "Azrak" friends, and have noticed several possible similarities to the Ilkani technology present in the Twice Born. Could Covenant be playing us for fools? No deception would surprise me from Covenant. I can read nothing from him, and that disturbs me.

05 January 2015
Increasing evidence suggests that proteins exhibiting “prion-like” behavior cause distinct neurodegenerative diseases, including inherited, sporadic and acquired types. The conversion of cellular prion protein (PrPC) to its infectious protease resistant counterpart (PrPRes) is the essential feature of prion diseases. However, PrPC also performs important functions in transmembrane signaling, especially in neurodegenerative processes. Beta-amyloid (Aβ) synaptotoxicity and cognitive dysfunction in mouse models of Alzheimer disease are mediated by a PrPC-dependent pathway. Here we review how this pathway converges with proinflammatory cytokine signaling to activate membrane NADPH oxidase (NOX) and generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) leading to dynamic remodeling of the actin cytoskeleton. The NOX signaling pathway may also be integrated with those of other transmembrane receptors clustered in PrPC-enriched membrane domains. Such a signal convergence along the PrPC-NOX axis could explain the relevance of PrPC in a broad spectrum of neurodegenerative disorders, including neuroinflammatory-mediated alterations in synaptic function following traumatic brain injury. PrPC overexpression alone activates NOX and generates a local increase in ROS that initiates cofilin activation and formation of cofilin-saturated actin bundles (rods). Rods sequester cofilin from synaptic regions where it is required for plasticity associated with learning and memory. Rods can also interrupt vesicular transport by occluding the neurite within which they form. Through either or both mechanisms, rods may directly mediate the synaptic dysfunction that accompanies various neurodegenerative disorders.

13 January 2015
By happy chance – some sort of scuffle on the lake – a specimen of the Azrak soldiers has finally come to me! They are not Ilkani, although I see tantalizing similarities in their technology. I find radiation signatures that suggest potential chronal displacement, although this could just as easily have resulted from extended hyperspace exposure. The level of symbiosis present in their cybernetic attachments is impressive, although I suspect that the tools they use naturally would be quite dangerous to the local life forms. I shall have to send the children out to gather material.

27 January 2015
The Azrak, it seems, have discovered quite an elegant solution to the problem of army-building. The soldier and the weapon are one and the same. What I thought was a controlling operator was simply a host, no more than a disposable biological matrix. Any material would do. I suspect that, in no time at all, the creature to which I have attached this set of armaments will be indistinguishable from the Azrak from which I removed them. This being the case, it seems we have very little information on the true appearance of the original Azrak, assuming such a creature even exists.

5 February 2015
It's amazing what these primates will carry into their secure facilities when it looks like one of their own.

Everybody Loves Land Shark

After some deliberation about not only their plan, but their whole reason for being here in the lawless wastes of Ontario, where even their somewhat iffy Hero Corps privileges didn't give them any legal standing. Settling on reconnaissance for now, they circled the facility and found out that the parking lot was somewhat isolated by the surrounding hills, poorly covered even by the control tower.

Magi came up with a plan to set off a car alarm, then steal the uniforms from whoever showed up to deal with it. Two armored "patriot" guards with weird mystical darkness guns showed up and were fairly quickly dispatched. Torpedo and Disco put on the suits, leading Land Shark and Magi at gun point as if they were captives.

Heading into one of the warehouses, they were told that they shouldn't be bringing prisoners here, that they should bring them to the Clown in the admin building. After much the same experience in the other warehouse, just to make sure that it was, in fact, a warehouse, they went to the smaller building, tried to talk the receptionist into opening the lost-and-found box, then got buzzed in and headed back to find the Clown.

In a large, windowless room at the back of the building, they found a mad scientist's dream lab. In it, they saw a man in a lab coat and clown makeup, working on the corpse of one of the armored raiders they had fought on the smugglers' island. He wore a strange device that covered one eye with a multicolored lens. The Clown experimented with a number of different voices while the heroes tried to wheedle information out of him. Eventually, he realized he was dealing with imposters and pressed an alarm button by the door.

Before the Clown could do anything else, he was beaten into unconsciousness by Torpedo and Land Shark. Torpedo also moved to destroy the lock on the door so they couldn't be sealed in.

As Torpedo was moving away from the door, he was slashed from behind by a sword. Before he could do anything else, he was slashed again. Sarana, a small woman clad mostly in black, stood before them. Before she could take another swipe, Torpedo grabbed her sword and yanked it away from her. Dodging punches on the way, Sarana knifed Torpedo into unconsciousness and dashed over in a blur to snatch the Clown. Magi managed to burn her and trap her in coiling rings of fire before she could get him. Meanwhile, they could hear clanking footsteps coming down the corridor.

Erith clanked into view in the doorway, waves of heat rippling off his glowing red armor. Sarana took the opportunity to make an astounding leap and flip through the rings of fire to freedom. Still badly wounded, she zipped out of the room and didn't come back. Torpedo pulled a pro-wrestler style "now I'm really mad" regeneration and was back in the fight.

They traded a few punches with Erith, then Land Shark, whose skin was thick enough to take the heat, grappled and held him. Torpedo revealed his power to turn into lava and Land Shark handed him over to Lava-Torpedo. They then found out that Erith was able to absorb the lava heat and use it to increase the power of his own heat aura. Losing faith in Torpedo's efforts, Disco turned on his light show and made Erith love Land Shark.

While Erith admitted to "confusing emotions," Disco's emotion control effect manifested primarily as protectiveness. Erith's goal now was to go out and stop the rest of the security guards and supervillains from descending on the lab and killing or capturing Land Shark. He was intent on talking to "Nightmare Pixie" to arrange their freedom. Disco, meanwhile, started sending files from the Clown's laptop to Scrap Pile HQ.

Patriot guards were, in fact, piling up in the corridor. Torpedo tried to intimidate them, but they didn't budge. Some discussion followed, during which Torpedo proposed that they needed a tactical leader. His nomination of himself for this position met with awkward silence. Eventually, they tied up the Clown with data cables, took off his headgear, grabbed his laptop, and escaped through a tunnel courtesy of Land Shark. Torpedo ran off to distract the guards for a while, was flown back by Disco, and they all got to the boat and headed home.

Back at HQ, they settled in to interrogate the Clown some more. Except for Torpedo. He was hurt pretty badly and needed to go home to rest in his salt water aquarium. As they started, Disco declared that this wasn't really the Clown. He could see now that they were just dragging around the corpse of the armored raider that they had found in the room.

While the team puzzled over this, the Clown tossed an improvised gadget he had pieced together from stuff in his lab coat (which nobody bothered to search). There was a blinding flash, and the Clown started hopping away. Unfortunately for him, the heroes had all shielded their eyes in time and were able to nab him, this time taking away all his stuff.

After a few really cool light shows, they got some information from the Clown. He, Sarana, and Erith were "exiles from the Court of the Rakshasa King," although attempts to pry out a clarification of this were always met with giggles and coughs. The three of them had encountered the Nightmare Pixie shortly after their arrival in this dimension and joined the group because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The Clown was not acquainted with the Unbeholden's inner circle, but he knew it consisted of Mistress Terror, Beasty Boy, and the original Plague Dog. Beyond the names, he didn't know much about any of these, except that Mistress Terror was a mage who had made the darkness guns wielded by the patriots. Nightmare Pixie was in charge of the facility they were at.

The Clown didn't know where the Unbeholden's main headquarters was. He did know that the armored raiders were not part of the Unbeholden. They were part of something called the Emissaries of Azrak. The Unbeholden's relationship to this group was strictly commercial.

They also got most of the Clown's research notes. Significant excerpts can be found here.

Oh, What a Night

Featuring: Disco, Land Shark, Magi, Torpedo

The heroes were somewhat awkwardly introduced to Disco, a flamboyant hero whose rainbow aura could be both dazzling and mesmerizing. As it turned out, Captain Scrappy had sent him to join the team. Or something. Doesn't matter – he's in.

Before heading out to Ocelot Bay, the team decided to investigate that "Wentworth's" lead from the end of last session. First, they went incognito just to check it out. Well, sort of incognito. Torpedo wore a robe with only a green speedo underneath. Magi's powers came from his cool-looking but bulky equipment, so he just used an overcoat to cover it up. Disco wore the same sparkly costume but removed his cape and mask. Land Shark was probably the least conspicuous in a sweater with fins and a shark-mouth hood.

Wentworth's consisted of a consignment shop, which was open regular hours, and an auction house, which was open sporadically for auctions. There were two guards watching the door from the shop to the auction hall and one standing at the front door going outside from the shop. Torpedo headed for the two guards in the back and distracted them by pestering them with odd, possibly Atlantean, behavior. Land Shark talked to the shop clerk while Disco approached the front door guard. Magi kept an eye on the group as a whole in case of trouble. 

Disco's mark was the most productive. He got the unusually buff guard to check out something outside, then dazzled him with his emotion-controlling lightshow, scoring not only information, but a date. The information he got wasn't quite enough, though, so they decided to check out the regular auction that night. Magi and Torpedo noticed a few people who weren't bidding, so Torpedo sidled up to one of them and pretended to also be waiting for the "real" auction. A few sly misdirections later, the group had enough information to show up at the right time and get into the black market auction.

Torpedo put on a nice suit for the event, but refused to wear shoes. He did attempt to paint fake ones over his feet with shoe polish. Just back from his date with the guard, Disco was wearing civilian clothes - really tight civilian clothes. Magi, of course, had little choice but to stick with his overcoat, and Land Shark didn't see anything wrong with his hoodie. At the auction, they sat through several odd supervillain-y items, including a mummy previously owned by mob boss and dabbler in mystical mad science, Joe Cassanelli. Several known supervillains were there, including Firetemple, an employee of the infamous Lizard Moll who nevertheless often worked with Citrus Shocker and Captain Scrappy.

The auction was being conducted by what appeared to be Plague Dog, but a quick call to headquarters confirmed that their prisoner from the island was still in jail. There was no way to be certain which, if either of these two was the real Plague Dog.

Disco decided to look for a back office and headed that way under the guise of looking for a restroom. Almost immediately, he came back, reporting that he had found nothing interesting. Actually, a villain called Putty had duplicated his appearance and slipped past him while he was in the office. The real Disco dug around and found some useful information in the office before he was attacked by a humanoid mass of carbon slurry called Tar Pit. Disco yelled for help and the others were off to join him, Magi first by way of his newly named "Magi Meteor" maneuver.

Somewhat farther back in line, Land Shark found himself suddenly under attack from behind by Putty. After an initial attempt to pummel him into unconsciousness with her stretchy fists, she said, "try your own power on for size" and conjured up a gigantic earthen cobra, the size of which surprised not only the terrified auction-goers, but Putty herself. Land Shark heroically stood his ground, took control of the cobra, and turned it on its creator, who barely jumped clear as it arced through the ceiling and back down into the auction house seats.

Meanwhile, Magi had partially set fire to Tar Pit and Torpedo was getting his fists all gloppy. Disco managed to fly free and dazzle Tar Pit, so everyone got clear while he flailed around. Putty, not liking the odds, declared that she always bounced back and super-leaped out through the open space that used to be the roof. Land Shark encased Tar Pit in a giant urn. Disco and Magi chased after Putty, but, one rocky fist later, Disco was unconscious and plummeting to the ground, and Magi was busy keeping him from going splat. When that was all settled, Putty was gone.

Looking around the crumbling remnants of the auction house, Magi said, "They call us the Scrap Pile because that's all that's left when we're done."

After arguing for a while over the best way to get across Lake Mohawk to Ontario, Torpedo and Disco went ahead under their own power while Magi and Land Shark took the boat they confiscated last time. Scouting out the area, they found a couple of warehouses with a smaller building nearby and a control tower of some sort higher up on the slope. Several uniformed guards patrolled the area, and a couple more of Plague Dog's Mutts were spotted as well.

And that's it for this session. Tune in next week for the exciting… well, it might be the conclusion. We'll see.

If Fish Could Talk

Part III of The Prosperity Problem

Featuring: Land Shark, Magi, Torpedo

Somewhat demoralized and unsure what to do next, the heroes milled around indecisively for a bit. Captain Scrappy was called back to deal with something in Tripod City, but stayed long enough to introduce Torpedo, an Atlantean prince and pet store owner (specializing in salt water aquariums). There was some concern that, without Captain Scrappy, the team would just be a Pile, but eventually they got over it.

Anyway, after a quick background check from Scrappy, they accepted Torpedo into their ranks, Captain Scrappy left, and the team went back to work.

Remembering that Deathbird had flown toward the lake, the team started searching in that direction. Torpedo went for a swim and the others rented a boat. As they searched farther and farther north for anything unusual in Lake Mohawk, Land Shark, frustrated by the tedious and potentially fruitless task, mused that he had never thought he'd find himself wishing for an aquatic teammate with fish telepathy.

Eventually, Torpedo spotted a heavily laden boat heading north and followed it. This led them to an island with a hidden cove, where a bestial humanoid was directing two armored men, who fit the description of the warehouse raiders, in unloading the boat. Once everyone was ready, or maybe a little bit before, the Scrap Pile attacked. Torpedo, living up to his name, shot through the water at full speed and leaped out at the last minute to take a flying punch at the "werewolf." Following his example, Magi burst into flames, bounded across the cove, and cannonballed into one of the armored goons, who blocked him partially with an energy shield and blasted him. Land Shark stayed put for the moment.

Before the beast-man could do anything, Torpedo downed him with another punch. Land Shark squashed one of the goons with an earth fist and Magi, despite his wounds, finished off his own opponent and took his gauntlet. Land Shark was particularly enamored of the glider wings and grabbed a set of those for himself. Magi found he was able to heal himself with the gauntlet, but began to suspect that he was somehow becoming addicted to it.

Ignoring the boxes on the pier, the team moved on down the road and found a wide, deliberately-flattened clearing with a shed at the edge. Land Shark reconnoitered for underground facilities, destroying the shed and pushing up great mounds of earth all through the flat space. Then he tried out his new wings and saw a helicopter approaching from the north. The heroes hid in the trees around the clearing and watched. The helicopter approached, hovered briefly over what used to be its landing pad, then started to climb again.

Land Shark asked if anyone had seen Jaws 2, then pulled down the helicopter with a giant earth hand. Apparently the shark got a helicopter in Jaws 2. Working the battered pilot and co-pilot for information while pretending to be working for the same organization, they discovered that the local person in charge was someone called "Plague Dog," and that this stuff was being stolen for an organization called the Unbeholden. After picking up cargo here, the copter's next destination was "Ocelot Bay" to the north.

Gathering up their captives, the team headed back to Beta City to return the stolen goods. Magi also wanted to visit Nick Veccic in the county prison. Under threat of barbeque and letting everyone in the prison know he had helped super-heroes, Veccic revealed that he had also heard something about a place called Wentworth's from a villain called The Grasshopper, in connection with the technological enhancements he and his cohorts had been given. He suspected that the only reason Grasshopper would have done this could be that the store was crooked somehow.