Hideouts & Hoodlums: Justice Society of America

Game Master Scottenkainen

"GL, this is the Sandman, I think we got the alien tied up here. So he can wait. He had the ability to take on other people's appearances if that rings any bells for you. Otherwise, could you check in on Fate? I'm not sure if this is an alien or something in his line." Once the Sandman is done speaking with the Green Lantern, he turns to the Flash: "What's next? That didn't lead us anywhere near Belmont. I've half a mind to go beat up every thug in the city until I find one that knows something about our Mr. X"

"Yeah, this shapechanger is our only lead at the moment. At least one of us has got to stay here and watch... it."

Not five minutes later, Dr. Fate hears someone pounding on the door to his tower. "Doctor Fate! Open up! It's Green Lantern!" shouts a familiar voice outside. But is it really him...?

"It is the Greendemon Lanterndemon! TheyThey havehave foundfound meus.

Fate hurries down the long staircase to the invisable tower's main door. In his confused state does he notice the St. Elmo's fire gathering around his left hand?

"Please come in!and die!" shouts Fate as he throws open the tower and at the same time sends an arc of lightning from his left hand towards the visitor. Cast lightning bolt targeting the Green Lantern

Under the helm Fate's mouth is held in a snarl but there is stark horror in his eyes.

"Don't worry, I'm not planning on letting that thing out of my sight. It would be nice to work out some frustrations, but randomly beating up criminals until one leads me to Mr X . . . that sort of thing only works in the funny books"

"What? Doctor Fate?" is all Green Lantern manages to say. Caught off-guard, Green Lantern starts to throw a protective wreath of emerald flame around his body when the lightning strikes him and lays him low. Thanks to his own half-finished spell *See Discussion, he is only rendered unconscious instead of killed. The mad Dr. Fate stands triumphant over his would-be savior.

[B]"Nooo!" Dr. Fate cries. His true nature breaking through the fog for a moment.
cast 2 cure wounds II spells. That will finish off my level 4 spells. Might be wastefull but Fate now sees his own power as a problem and needs to weaken himself before the lucid phase passes.

Fate speaks a long forgotten Word and the healing light of aincient days pours into the stricken hero. Lifting the stricken hero Fate carries him to his own bed within the tower. There Fate lays him down and opening a concealed cupbord removes an ornate bottle and pours the shining green liquid down the Lantern's throat.
Using my lvl one spells to cast cure I's on the lantern. That should be three doses.

demon. kill.

The voices returning Fate runs from the room. His last sane act is to seal and ward the heavy polished oak door. All that stands between the hero and the now mad Fate.
Cast Wizard lock on the door

The invisible tower rings with the cries of the raving wizard.

Behind his magically locked door, Dr. Fate cackles in his madness until he hears Green Lantern's voice again coming from behind the door. "Doctor Fate! I give you this one last chance to surrender to me!"

A moment after issuing his ultimatum, Green Lantern walks through the wall of the room!

"How--" Doctor Fate finds himself saying.

"How did I walk through a wooden wall? My ring is powerless against wood, so I used it on myself and turned myself intangible. *see Discussion And now..."

"And now we will pit your ring against the eyes of Aganon!

A handful of coloured spheres fly from Fates outflung fingers and race towards the Green Lantern

Casting magic missile 5 missiles at +1 to hit each doing d6+1 damage. Only one first level spell remains for fate so this is likely to be a short contest true believers.

Five colored spheres sail towards Green Lantern -- but are snuffed out against green flame that springs up before each would strike him. "My emerald shield seems to cancel out your magic. I suspect whatever's affecting your mind, making you attack me before you save me, is magical too. Perhaps my willpower can overcome that as well..."

But Dr. Fate can feel that it has not. You're still crazy. Next turn intentions?

"Ha, demon. My magic is nearly spent but you will never learn the secrets of the Helm of Nabu."

Cast final spell. Darkness I. Assuming I make the save vs. plot to cast he reversed light spell.

The coridor plunges into darkness. The mad Doctor can be heard running up the long central stair of the tower. He's Heading for the roof!

The room is plunged into darkness and Dr. Fate turns to flee, but runs smack into something that feels like sticky webbing! Stuck fast in the pitch dark, Dr. Fate can only struggle in vain as he hears Green Lantern behind him. "I can hear you're still in here with me, Fate. Why don't we just talk? Tell me what's happened to you..."

At the same time, in the state of New York, Sandman and Flash have just had some coffee to help them stay awake through their vigil over the alien prisoner when it suddenly opens its eyes.

"You have bound me well," it says, not even struggling against its rope tethers. "What do you want of me, humans?"

"Needless to say, we want to know who sent you to infiltrate the lab."

The doppelganger smiles proudly before answering. "The fools thought they ordered me about anonymously. That because I was not native to your world that I would be too ignorant to have an operator trace a call. They are at the Lone Star Inn."

"Oh, very good, you are truly an ingenious fellow. Did you manage to find out anything else? How were you to deliver the chemicals to them?"

"You mean the second batch?" the doppelganger asks. "It was to be just like the first batch, left in a cardboard box inside the old hollow oak tree one half-mile south of town, 300 yards from the main road. But they won't be expecting another delivery for 13 more days."

"This is a very helpful fiend," the Sandman whisper to the Flash. "The Lonestar Hotel is our only lead . . . but who will stay to watch this creature. Assuming, of course, that we trust it. I had hoped that GL or Fate would appear to help us deal with him. But it seems that we've had no luck in that department. I hate to split up when it is obvious that demons and other supernatural foes are aligned against us, but I don't see how we can keep an eye on our helpful friend here and check out this hotel."

"You could always take me with," the alien fiend says, being creepily helpful again.

Bound within the emerald web Fate turns to face his tormenter.
"You may have defeated me demon but the Justice society is more than one man. As you waste time here the Flash is nearing the heart of your organization and the Sandman... Well the Sandman is no farther away than your fears. You will fail. You and you foolish Mister X will fall before the Justice Society of America!"

"Let's try the radio again and see if we can get hold of anybody else." Flash suggests to Sandman.

At Dr. Fate's Salem tower:
"Good Lord, it's worse than I thought," Green Lantern says. "Unfortunately, I'm stuck in the dark in a room I don't know, and I suspect my energy web has gummed up all the exits. So I'm as much a prisoner here as you until your spell wears off or you recover your wits, my friend."

At Jay Garrick's house:
Flash tries his radio while Sandman keeps a close eye on their prisoner. Given the late hour, raising any of their comrade-at-arms seems like a long shot. Yet, just 50 minutes later, they get a response.

"Atom here. How can I help you, Flash?"

Fate laughs in the darkness.
[b]"Demons, such creatures of chaos and imbalance. Power enough to bind me but stymied by a magician's trick. Well light will come soon enough."

A cryptic remark from Fate referring to the fact that dawn, and a fresh set of spells cannot be that far away.

After 20 minutes of the stand-off in Dr. Fate's tower, Green Lantern sighs and a green glowing light emanates from his ring, dispelling the darkness. "I had hoped to keep you talking until we could find some way to help you, but I can see you're going to do difficult."

The room is Dr. Fate's component room, with shelves and shelves of magical ingredients in jars and pots. As Green Lantern had thought, the door to the stairwell was filled with green energy-webbing and Dr. Fate. The door to the guest bedroom was clear, but Green Lantern must have already surmised there were no other exits from it.

One thing Green Lantern was not aware of, and Dr. Fate had been waiting to see, was if the magic urn in the room was close enough to the webbing. It was. At Dr. Fate's command, it could ignite a flame inside it and set the webbing on fire. It would hurt Dr. Fate, but he would then be free...

"Atom, Sandman here, we have a bit of situation. We've captured some sort of fiend associated with Mr. X. Normally, I'd be happy to dump him with Dr. Fate or the Spectre but Fate seems out of sorts and who can predict where the Spectre is. Flash and I have a lead to check out. Can you babysit this creature? Or do you want to go check out a shady hotel with one of us?"

"No, I want to go with you to check out the Lone Star." Flash says to Sandman.

To Atom: "We're at my house, how soon can you get here?"

After 20 minutes of the stand-off in Dr. Fate's tower, Green Lantern sighs and a green glowing light emanates from his ring, dispelling the darkness. "I had hoped to keep you talking until we could find some way to help you, but I can see you're going to do difficult."

The room is Dr. Fate's component room, with shelves and shelves of magical ingredients in jars and pots. As Green Lantern had thought, the door to the stairwell was filled with green energy-webbing and Dr. Fate. The door to the guest bedroom was clear, but Green Lantern must have already surmised there were no other exits from it.

One thing Green Lantern was not aware of, and Dr. Fate had been waiting to see, was if the magic urn in the room was close enough to the webbing. It was. At Dr. Fate's command, it could ignite a flame inside it and set the webbing on fire. It would hurt Dr. Fate, but he would then be free...

Burn energy webbing? Hey it's the 40's go with it.

Fate smiles under his helm.
"You must be new at this. Pity your masters did not send someone better.
Fate pulls on one of the binding strands upsetting a simple terracatta urn on the far shelf a simple black powder spills out.

"Heart of Z-kal. Heart of the sun-king. Burn!"

The powder blazes white hot and the flames race along the emerald webs. They burn fast but not fast enough. Fate is still held fast when the flames reach him.

"Aahhh!"

Dr. Fate might have been right to be skeptical it would work, but apparently the Green Lantern's energy web mimicked more than just the property of stickiness from real webbing. It burns and Dr. Fate does too, though he emerges only lightly burnt, his cape and costume scorched, by the time he tears free.

Then he sees the being that appears to be Green Lantern charging him, apparently attempting to move this conflict beneath the realm of magic to mere rough-housing ((intentions?)).

Meanwhile,

The Atom replies, "Wait a minute, the whole reason I was on the radio this late was to see if you anyone knew where Green Lantern had gone off to." And, after the two Heroes fill him in, he says, "So, you two want me to jump into costume, jump in my car, and drive from Connecticut to New York in the middle of the night to come babysit your prisoner." After a pause, he says, "I can be there in two hours."

Oh god,s two magic users in a fist fight. Anyone else seeing Zander and Harmony?

"Ha demon, I defeat your pathetic magic and you resort to crude assault. You will fare no better."

Fate rushes the oncoming lantern. He tries to brush away any punches allowing him to slam the helm of Nabu solidly into the head of the Emerald champion.

Green Lantern comes at Dr. Fate as someone with at least some training in wrestling. He comes in, crouched low and cautious, feinting to size up Dr. Fate's speed and reaction time, looking for an opening to seize his arms or legs...though in so cautious a manner that Dr. Fate cannot help but wonder if Green Lantern is really only looking to stay close enough to disrupt Fate's next spell. Dr. Fate removes that false expectation with an unexpected lunge and headbutt, smacking Green Lantern squarely in the forehead. Green Lantern reels back, hurt, but still in the game.

Helm of Nabu is mighty!

Pressing his advantage Dr. Fate follows the headbut with a solid series of alternating punches. He focuses on the head trying to keep the green demon reactive and reeling. The blows are more vicious than Fate has used in other conflicts. He is striking out in anger and frustration at his own failure his own loss of control. He is not fighting the Green Lantern or a demon, he is fighting himself, and so is doomed to loose.

Who knew that Fates doctorate was in the sweet science?

Confident, perhaps too confident, Dr. Fate lashes out with his fists. Green Lantern dodges to the left. Then he blocks with his right. Then he catches hold of Dr. Fate’s arm on a third strike. Before Green Lantern can put him in a hold, Dr. Fate kicks at him and Green Lantern lets go to dodge.

As the two combatants step back into defensive postures before resuming their assault, they both notice that the magical flame that had burnt away the green energy-web is spreading now, with rugs and wall hangings burning.

“I am not having a good day,” Green Lantern says as he lunges at Dr. Fate anew. Dr. Fate gets in one glancing punch, but Green Lantern seizes his arm, twists it, and forces Dr. Fate to spin around. Then, grunting from the strain, Green Lantern manages to shove Dr. Fate up against the wall and pin him with his arm behind his back. “Your tower is burning, Fate,” he says through grit teeth. “A demon would just let it burn, wouldn’t he? But what would you say to a truce? You let me go, and I’ll leave you to put out the fire.”

"Your fear bleeds through your words. Flee then. I did not call you. Return to your masters prey they will be merciful. Go!"

If released fate moved to the hangins and starts pulling them down before retrieving a C02 extinguisher from a wall mount. (hey it's a lab, there will be firefighting equipment) He will ignore Green Lantern and concentrate on the fire, at least until the noise in his head gets too loud.

Modern science puts out the blaze faster than magic could, but still the one who looked and sounded like Green Lantern had escaped in the short time it took. Dr. Fate was left alone to ponder if he had been man, demon, or even real. Had the fire been real? Was the fire extinguisher in hands? It was all so confusing now...

Meanwhile, Sandman and Flash are in the Sandman's roadster roaring away from Manhattan and bound for Connecticut via the freeway. Sandman sits behind the wheel while Flash sits in back, guarding their prisoner, the still eerily-cooperative doppelganger.

"My appearance disturbs you, Flash," the doppelganger says. "Would you like me to take another form?"

Sorry about my abrupt disappearance. Lost power for several days after a snow storm.

"How about a beautiful woman," the Sandman sneers at the creature. "What are you anyway? An alien invader?"

Flash simply shrugs at the creature's question, and waits its reply to Sandman.

Half an hour into the drive to Connecticut, the doppelganger's appearance begins to shift and alter slowly into that of ...Dian Belmont. "I am alien to your world, but from another dimension. My people have long observed your people, sometimes directly as I was doing. But a human, this Mr. X you seek, somehow learned of my true nature and threatened to expose me unless I performed this task for him; making the mutation pills for him at the laboratory. I can neither tell you what he looks like or sounds like; he never would meet me in person, but left me written messages or had underlings contact me by telephone for him. Anyway, do you both find this form more pleasing?"

"Ah... perhaps you'd best try something else." Flash hastily says, casting a cautious glance forward towards Sandman.

The Sandman, trying to control the emotion in his voice, hisses at the thing: "Where did you get that appearance, monster? Should we finger you for the kidnapping of the DA's daughter, too? Stealing chemicals is one thing. Kidnapping and blackmail is another." Luckily (I hope) the Sandman's gas mask muffles the edge of frustration and anger that has crept into his voice as he speaks of Dian.

"I have never seen this form before except in your mind's eye," the doppelganger says as its form begins to shift again. Its brown hair grows longer and wavier, the shape of the skull face changes, and soon it wears the form of another woman, but this time a total stranger. The Heroes find that it does indeed still look like a beautiful woman, though that makes it no less creepy.

The miles crawl by as the Sandman drives through the dark, passing more lamp posts, making islands of light in the sea of blackness, than other cars at this hour. They travel at great speed (not Flash-type speed, but good for a car), being lucky enough to cross the path of no police watching for speeders. By 1 am on the morning of Saturday, May 3, 1941, the Heroes and their prisoner reach New Haven, Connecticut. As they slow down outside the main drive to Yale University, the Atom comes popping out from behind a tree, runs up to the car, and hops onto its running board. He knocks on the glass by Flash and says through his blue full-face mask, "Got room for one more? And who's the cute brunette?"

Flash opens the door (or rolls down the window as may be appropriate). "This is the alien we were telling you about. He... She... It has been very friendly and accommodating."

"Well, then I am going to have to volunteer for guard duty more often!" the Atom says as he opens the door for the eerie alien appearing to be a beautiful woman.

Leaving Sandman and Flash free to head to the Lone Star Inn...as soon as they figure out where that is.

Meanwhile, Dr. Fate storms around his tower, making sure the thing that appears to be Green Lantern isn't hiding in there anywhere. But sure enough, it/he seems to have fled for good.

"Well, don't let your guard down, it's our only lead!" he says to Atom.

Flash looks around for a payphone, hopefully he can get an operator and find out where the Lone Star Inn is located.

"Be careful Atom. That thing appears to be a beautiful woman. And it seems friendly. But beneath that exterior, it is some sort of shapeshifting alien from another dimension. I'd for it to eat your face. Hate it even more if it escaped."

As the Flash looks for a phone, the Sandman whispers to him. "We may have a problem. If the creature can pick Dian's image out of my head. What other images can it pick out? My face? Your face? This thing may have breached our secret identities."

"Please hold..." the operator tells the Flash.

The Atom audibly gulps after hearing Flash's and Sandman's warnings. "Do we know what kind of range she--I mean, it has? Maybe I can keep her--it locked in a room until you get back."

A few minutes later, the operator tells the Flash, "The first listing I'm finding for a Lone Star Inn is a resort in the Catskills." She can give Flash its address and phone number, or he can wait and ask for more possibilities.

"That's probably it, what's the address there?" After writing it down, Flash continues, "Any other Lone Star Inns you have listed?"

The operator puts Flash on hold for five more minutes before coming back. "I'm sorry, sir, but that's the only Lone Star Inn I can find in the New England area."

"Thanks, that helps me out a lot."

Flash returns back to the car and hands the address to Sandman, "This is the place. I hope."

Sandman and Flash have a three-hour drive ahead of them to the Catskills from New Haven, Connecticut. En route, they take turns driving so they each get an hour of sleep in for the night. In this way, at least temporarily refreshed, they find the Lone Star Inn at 4 in the morning. At least, they have reached a lonely stretch of road that, according to a derelict sign post, leads to the remote and abandoned resort in the mountains. The Heroes can decide from here how close they want to drive up to it before approaching on foot, as well as if they will approach together or separately.

Meanwhile... It is 4 am...is Doctor Fate sleeping?