Post by Adminenkainen on Dec 4, 2017 4:25:38 GMT
Batman and the Outsiders had kept a low profile over the previous week, just observing events and studying the new towns that had opened up to them. Certain events required them to keep a low profile -- Captain Becker of Des Plaines was said to be stridently anti-vigilante.
But it was now February 4, over a month after the Fog fell, and it seemed to be time to act. As the Heroes conversed about this at the Fischer Farm on this freezing Wednesday morning, they decided that their first priority needed to be finding out what the gnomes were actually doing with all their time. So they marched off into the Southlands (after parking as close as they could go by car) and confronted their little laborers working for sandwiches.
The gnomes were desperate not to have their sandwich supply cut off, so they had finally been making progress, but swore they needed one more week to finish. Blaze talked to them about if they were from Oz. The gnomes agreed that Baum had the correct spelling (nomes), but they could not remember Oz. They remembered when their haunted house was in Glencoe and they lived there for a very long time.
The Heroes spent some time debating again whether to excavate the machine under the ruins -- White Knight tried to recall if he’d seen any bulldozers in the new towns -- but they decided to leave that alone and check out the giant stone head instead. Some of the Heroes had not seen the stone head yet.
Blaze was particularly interested in seeing if there was a body underneath the head, or if the head was meant to connect to the machine under the ruins. White Knight wanted Gracie to wreck the ground around the head, but Blaze insisted this called for precision digging and, luckily, he had brought a shovel. Some time later, they had dug out enough around the head that they could tip it over and find -- it was only a head. There were no clues under the head. Discouraged, the Heroes decided to leave it alone.
After that, they spent some time examining the broken compass. While it did indeed appear to just be broken at first, some experimenting with it soon led them to discover that what it actually did was point to the House (or the Big House, as Blaze was calling it).
Since they were there, they decided to tour the ground floor of the House -- since only some of them had seen that the interior seemed to exist in the 1950s. When they entered this time, the decor had changed and modernized again. Batman headed straight for the fridge in the kitchen and found food with best sold by dates in …1984.
Blaze was doing a systematic search of the furniture and White Knight was checking for secret doors in the pantry. They spent a good half-hour going over just part of the house, when they met the first encounter they had ever had in the House. Two large, lumbering, boxy, iron robots clambered from the west hallway into the living room. The Heroes tried to communicate with them, but the robots advanced on them and came in swinging!
Batman and Dark Lash tried to get in close with their guns and Batman paid the price by being the first to be struck down. The Heroes tried guns. They tried punching. They tried shield bashing. They tried shaking the robots apart with their bare hands. But those robots were tough. Dark Lash was temporarily stunned and out of the fight. By the time she came back around, White Knight was down. Blaze ran out the patio door, then Gracie, and then Dark Lash followed. At least they were safe.
Luckily, the robots seemed to have no interest in the Heroes on the ground. Once the robots had gone back into the west rooms, Blaze came back in, tied the doors to the west rooms together, and then the three conscious heroes carried the two unconscious heroes back to the ruins. Of them, only Gracie had emerged completely unscathed.
At the ruins, the nomes formed a blanket over Batman again. Only Blaze had brought a bedroll with him. By evening, Batman and White Knight were awake and able to walk back to the farm with the others.
That night, around midnight, Captain Becker and Chief Wittenberg visited the farm. Becker tried to intimidate the Outsiders into surrendering, but did not have the manpower with him to back his threats and the Outsiders knew it. White Knight mocked him as he left and Becker vowed to watch him very carefully.
The next day, the Outsiders split up to accomplish three tasks. Batman and Gracie Heart went to the Mount Prospect Development Association to talk to George Busse about renting a home. Although Grace’s gum chewing drove George to distraction, he agreed to rent a 3-bedroom house at 104 S. George St. there in Mt. Prospect.
Meanwhile, White Knight and Dark Lash wanted to finally meet with Mayor Besander of Mt. Prospect, in order to go over Capt. Becker’s head. Capt. Becker was already there, watching them, but White Knight stayed on his best behavior. Inge Besander was favorable towards the Outsiders, having heard good reports of them from Chief Wittenberg. But the mayor explained that Becker had been right -- the three mayors had agreed to put Capt. Becker in charge of the new Tri-Village Police Force because Des Plaines (where Becker was from) was the largest intact municipality. And he was actually fine with the idea of deputizing the Outsiders, but only if they had a better public image.
And also meanwhile, Blaze had gone to the Mt. Prospect police station to see the prisoner, Mattie Fischer. Because Blaze had no unfavorable run-ins with the police on his record, he was allowed in. Mattie was serving six months for prostitution and gambling. Blaze wanted her permission to stay at the farm, and got it -- but only for him. While Mattie appreciated what Blaze had done for her, she had reason to still hate the rest of the Outsiders. So, if Blaze promised to get her out early, he could stay at the farm. This was relayed to the police of both towns and made official.
So, that afternoon, White Knight, Batman, and Gracie Heart went shopping for their new home. Dark Lash rescued a cat from a tree to get some good publicity. And Blaze walked to Des Plaines to check out the Ever-Burning Tower. He tested it to make sure it felt real when he touched it (and burnt his hand), and tried to communicate with the tower’s occupants, but they failed to invite him in.
White Knight and Gracie Heart had rescued a boy, Theodore Underwood, from a bully, and now wanted Theodore to be interviewed by the local journalist, Maurice Pendleton, for the Daily Herald. They secured Theo’s mother’s approval, and she accompanied them to the local newspaper office, where Theodore talked about what the Outsiders had been teaching him.
The next morning (Friday, Feb. 6), everyone woke up, eager to check the paper to see how good the press coverage of them was. And they did make the second page -- but the first page was full of news of 10 women abducted in the night. The Outsiders quickly reached the conclusion that the mobsters in the Southlands must be getting awful lonely and decided to kidnap some companionship.
They also thought they might find the women being held at the Tavern in the Southlands, but the Tavern was abandoned again. White Knight was able to read the tracks there and realized that the Tavern had been vacated just 18 hours earlier and its occupants headed south to the House.
Using the secret entrance to the Hideout, the Outsiders went down for a look. White Knight, testing the patience of his peers, wanted to map the place but found it a daunting task. Regardless, they soon found the Spook so they could ask him what he knew.
The Spook’s lair, though, had just recently been raided and one of his apprentices was dead. The Spook was eager for revenge and believed the Big Boss’ lieutenant would have not only scheduled this raid, but would likely know where the women were being held. But before they could go to far in trying to find the lieutenant, the Spook and the Outsiders ran into the cowboy-outlaws the Outsiders had been avoiding.
It was a seven vs. seven battle in the narrow confines of the corridor, but Batman’s sleep spell quickly turned the tide for them. All but one outlaw was caught and the last prisoner standing was questioned. Luckily, the outlaw knew where some of the women were being held and led the Outsiders back to the lounge.
In the lounge, four women were being menaced by five hoodlums. The Spook and the Outsiders launched into an all-out assault and, though they took a bit of a beating, they won in the end and led the four women to freedom.
[At the end of the session, Dark Lash became a 3rd level Mysteryman and Batman became a 2nd level Magic-User.]
But it was now February 4, over a month after the Fog fell, and it seemed to be time to act. As the Heroes conversed about this at the Fischer Farm on this freezing Wednesday morning, they decided that their first priority needed to be finding out what the gnomes were actually doing with all their time. So they marched off into the Southlands (after parking as close as they could go by car) and confronted their little laborers working for sandwiches.
The gnomes were desperate not to have their sandwich supply cut off, so they had finally been making progress, but swore they needed one more week to finish. Blaze talked to them about if they were from Oz. The gnomes agreed that Baum had the correct spelling (nomes), but they could not remember Oz. They remembered when their haunted house was in Glencoe and they lived there for a very long time.
The Heroes spent some time debating again whether to excavate the machine under the ruins -- White Knight tried to recall if he’d seen any bulldozers in the new towns -- but they decided to leave that alone and check out the giant stone head instead. Some of the Heroes had not seen the stone head yet.
Blaze was particularly interested in seeing if there was a body underneath the head, or if the head was meant to connect to the machine under the ruins. White Knight wanted Gracie to wreck the ground around the head, but Blaze insisted this called for precision digging and, luckily, he had brought a shovel. Some time later, they had dug out enough around the head that they could tip it over and find -- it was only a head. There were no clues under the head. Discouraged, the Heroes decided to leave it alone.
After that, they spent some time examining the broken compass. While it did indeed appear to just be broken at first, some experimenting with it soon led them to discover that what it actually did was point to the House (or the Big House, as Blaze was calling it).
Since they were there, they decided to tour the ground floor of the House -- since only some of them had seen that the interior seemed to exist in the 1950s. When they entered this time, the decor had changed and modernized again. Batman headed straight for the fridge in the kitchen and found food with best sold by dates in …1984.
Blaze was doing a systematic search of the furniture and White Knight was checking for secret doors in the pantry. They spent a good half-hour going over just part of the house, when they met the first encounter they had ever had in the House. Two large, lumbering, boxy, iron robots clambered from the west hallway into the living room. The Heroes tried to communicate with them, but the robots advanced on them and came in swinging!
Batman and Dark Lash tried to get in close with their guns and Batman paid the price by being the first to be struck down. The Heroes tried guns. They tried punching. They tried shield bashing. They tried shaking the robots apart with their bare hands. But those robots were tough. Dark Lash was temporarily stunned and out of the fight. By the time she came back around, White Knight was down. Blaze ran out the patio door, then Gracie, and then Dark Lash followed. At least they were safe.
Luckily, the robots seemed to have no interest in the Heroes on the ground. Once the robots had gone back into the west rooms, Blaze came back in, tied the doors to the west rooms together, and then the three conscious heroes carried the two unconscious heroes back to the ruins. Of them, only Gracie had emerged completely unscathed.
At the ruins, the nomes formed a blanket over Batman again. Only Blaze had brought a bedroll with him. By evening, Batman and White Knight were awake and able to walk back to the farm with the others.
That night, around midnight, Captain Becker and Chief Wittenberg visited the farm. Becker tried to intimidate the Outsiders into surrendering, but did not have the manpower with him to back his threats and the Outsiders knew it. White Knight mocked him as he left and Becker vowed to watch him very carefully.
The next day, the Outsiders split up to accomplish three tasks. Batman and Gracie Heart went to the Mount Prospect Development Association to talk to George Busse about renting a home. Although Grace’s gum chewing drove George to distraction, he agreed to rent a 3-bedroom house at 104 S. George St. there in Mt. Prospect.
Meanwhile, White Knight and Dark Lash wanted to finally meet with Mayor Besander of Mt. Prospect, in order to go over Capt. Becker’s head. Capt. Becker was already there, watching them, but White Knight stayed on his best behavior. Inge Besander was favorable towards the Outsiders, having heard good reports of them from Chief Wittenberg. But the mayor explained that Becker had been right -- the three mayors had agreed to put Capt. Becker in charge of the new Tri-Village Police Force because Des Plaines (where Becker was from) was the largest intact municipality. And he was actually fine with the idea of deputizing the Outsiders, but only if they had a better public image.
And also meanwhile, Blaze had gone to the Mt. Prospect police station to see the prisoner, Mattie Fischer. Because Blaze had no unfavorable run-ins with the police on his record, he was allowed in. Mattie was serving six months for prostitution and gambling. Blaze wanted her permission to stay at the farm, and got it -- but only for him. While Mattie appreciated what Blaze had done for her, she had reason to still hate the rest of the Outsiders. So, if Blaze promised to get her out early, he could stay at the farm. This was relayed to the police of both towns and made official.
So, that afternoon, White Knight, Batman, and Gracie Heart went shopping for their new home. Dark Lash rescued a cat from a tree to get some good publicity. And Blaze walked to Des Plaines to check out the Ever-Burning Tower. He tested it to make sure it felt real when he touched it (and burnt his hand), and tried to communicate with the tower’s occupants, but they failed to invite him in.
White Knight and Gracie Heart had rescued a boy, Theodore Underwood, from a bully, and now wanted Theodore to be interviewed by the local journalist, Maurice Pendleton, for the Daily Herald. They secured Theo’s mother’s approval, and she accompanied them to the local newspaper office, where Theodore talked about what the Outsiders had been teaching him.
The next morning (Friday, Feb. 6), everyone woke up, eager to check the paper to see how good the press coverage of them was. And they did make the second page -- but the first page was full of news of 10 women abducted in the night. The Outsiders quickly reached the conclusion that the mobsters in the Southlands must be getting awful lonely and decided to kidnap some companionship.
They also thought they might find the women being held at the Tavern in the Southlands, but the Tavern was abandoned again. White Knight was able to read the tracks there and realized that the Tavern had been vacated just 18 hours earlier and its occupants headed south to the House.
Using the secret entrance to the Hideout, the Outsiders went down for a look. White Knight, testing the patience of his peers, wanted to map the place but found it a daunting task. Regardless, they soon found the Spook so they could ask him what he knew.
The Spook’s lair, though, had just recently been raided and one of his apprentices was dead. The Spook was eager for revenge and believed the Big Boss’ lieutenant would have not only scheduled this raid, but would likely know where the women were being held. But before they could go to far in trying to find the lieutenant, the Spook and the Outsiders ran into the cowboy-outlaws the Outsiders had been avoiding.
It was a seven vs. seven battle in the narrow confines of the corridor, but Batman’s sleep spell quickly turned the tide for them. All but one outlaw was caught and the last prisoner standing was questioned. Luckily, the outlaw knew where some of the women were being held and led the Outsiders back to the lounge.
In the lounge, four women were being menaced by five hoodlums. The Spook and the Outsiders launched into an all-out assault and, though they took a bit of a beating, they won in the end and led the four women to freedom.
[At the end of the session, Dark Lash became a 3rd level Mysteryman and Batman became a 2nd level Magic-User.]