Post by Adminenkainen on Dec 4, 2017 4:27:27 GMT
February 5, 1942. Thursday.
Des Plaines, Ill. City Hall.
Batman and the Outsiders were in a secret(-ish) meeting with the mayors and heads of police about what to do in regards to the Southlands Hideout. The civic leaders flat-out insisted they could not risk sending a huge militia force into the hideout again and risk more deaths. What they wanted was for the Heroes to go in, stealthily, and try to sneak the kidnapped women out. The Heroes agreed to this, in exchange for being officially deputized. So, after almost five weeks of being vigilantes, the Outsiders became legit. They said they would need a day or two to rest and recover, and then they would head back.
Everyone returned to base (the rental home for most everyone, but the Fisher Farmhouse for Blaze) and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening resting. That night, though, Batman and Gracie went patrolling, since they were back to full health already. And it was a good thing too, because Theodore Underwood, the shady lawyer, was being taken from his home by three gangsters by force. Batman showed uncharacteristic caution in leading Gracie to sneak up behind the car and shoot at the tires before they could leave. Gracie hit a rear tire and, after the car stopped to investigate, the Heroes got in a firefight with the gangsters. The first gangster went down easy, but the driver had a Tommy gun in the front seat and Gracie was busy trying to free Theodore from the car. Batman was hurt again by a bullet, but this time won the fight and took down the gangster (laying claim to his gun thereafter). The third gangster tried to flee, but Batman shot him in the back like a cold-blooded killer.
Much later in the night, White Knight joined them on patrol and lent his car to the patrolling. Around dawn, they were as near the gap in the Fog Wall as they could drive when they heard distant shots coming from Des Plaines. White Knight tried to drive through the snow off-road and through the gap, but swerved and hit the fog. The three heroes spent five hours driving around through the fog before coming out of the southwest corner of the Fog surrounding Mount Prospect. By then, the shooting was long since over, so they went home to rest.
Feb. 6
While Batman and Gracie slept, White Knight went alone to West Park Ridge to have a jeweler appraise his trophy items. It turned out that Lt. Hershel’s silver shield was actually aluminum with silver paint on it. But the ring was real and worth $700. While passing through Des Plaines afterwards, White Knight found out that the shooting last night was from some wild party on a boat on the Des Plaines River.
Meanwhile, Blaze was feeling better finally -- his synthetic body taking longer to heal -- and he went to go talk to Laurie, the local telephone operator in Mt. Prospect. Blaze remembered that Hershel was making a phone call from his desk in the hideout when the Outsiders attacked him, but Laurie assured him that no phone from that area was connected to her switchboard and no one had placed a call through her board at that time. Then, Blaze went to Des Plaines and checked with the phone operator shop there. None of the employees there had routed the mysterious call either.
But Blaze wasn’t done investigating things in Des Plaines -- he wanted a look in the Burning Tower. He was not going in alone either, as he quickly rounded up everyone but Batman (who was still resting to get back his spells) and they all went to the Tower. There was a window open on the second floor of the 60’ tall tower and Blaze had a plan to get through it that he hoped would minimize contact with the fire on the tower’s surface. Blaze and White Knight went to the nearby hardware store and bought a 10’ metal ladder. They used it to climb in through the window, but each found that even though the window appeared to be uncovered by fire, they were passing through fire regardless on their way in. Everyone was scorched and burnt, but none too seriously, as they found themselves in a well-furnished bedroom. They searched it and found a valuable-looking painting (and frame) of a boy playing with a pumpkin-headed scarecrow.
Each floor in the tower had a narrow hallway crossing the length of it, but open on the ends for narrower stairs, and on either side of the hallway was a room. The opposite door on the second floor was locked, so they left it alone, planning to come back later. They went up to the third floor and found a pantry and kitchen, each half-converted into a guest room. The pantry room had a closed window -- and two pumpkin-headed scarecrows in it, leaning on the walls. Blaze went in and opened the window, but when he turned he saw the pumpkinheads were standing up now and attacked!
The pumpkinheads were tough and hard to hurt, but all they could to attack was grapple and the Outsiders consistently managed to escape every hold they were put in. The first pumpkinhead went out the window quickly when White Knight shield-rushed it and pushed it out the open window. He watched the flaming pumpkinhead get up from the fall and run into town.
The other pumpkinhead everyone ganged up on and stabbed it and burnt it until it was destroyed.
Now they moved up to the fourth and final floor and found a man in his study, reading a book. The man identified himself as Carl Alsher, and he surprised everyone not just by the calmness of his demeanor, but when he told them that he was a Park Ridge native. This tower had been part of his mansion on the east side of Park Ridge, but he found himself and his tower broken away and placed here on the opposite side of Park Ridge on the morning of New Year’s Day. He admitted freely to being a magic-user, which he said all Freemasons were. He had often put up traveling Masons in his tower when they were in the area, and hence the preponderance of guest rooms. And he knew of another magic-user -- one from Mount Prospect, who wished to form an alliance with him. Mr. Matthews had not yet talked to Alsher in person, but had recently started negotiations through an intermediary named Mr. Gould. The alliance was stalled by the fact that Alsher could not stand Mr. Gould. But he was interested in an alliance with the Outsiders.
As a show of good faith, the White Knight asked Mr. Alsher to detect magic on their possessions, and to WK’s disappointment the spell detected none. Now Blaze asked if Alsher could drop the fire spell on the tower so they could leave, and Mr. Alsher confessed he could not; the defensive spell made it an ever-burning tower. There was a secret exit through a basement level and, after some convincing, Alsher agreed to lead them each one at a time to the exit, if they agreed to stay blindfolded and not force him to give up his secrets. As a further incentive/mild threat, he warned of a guardian in his basement that would make the pumpkinheads seem like small potatoes. Everyone complied and they found themselves climbing out of a hole in the ground on the bank of the river, some distance away.
It was almost time to return to the Southlands Hideout and deal with the missing women -- but Blaze had a few thoughts about things they could deal with first. One, they went to the ruins in the Southlands to see the gnomes. The gnomes were hard at work and needed just a few days more to get the underground machine up and running again. Two, they went to the future house above the Hideout. Blaze wanted to know if the robots that almost killed them all were still trapped in the bedrooms. They found the house had changed again. For the first time there was a car in the garage -- it was so tempting to some of the Heroes, but Blaze urged them not to meddle with time. They started to search the house, but chickened out from looking in the bedrooms for the killer robots.
Besides, downstairs awaited them…
Des Plaines, Ill. City Hall.
Batman and the Outsiders were in a secret(-ish) meeting with the mayors and heads of police about what to do in regards to the Southlands Hideout. The civic leaders flat-out insisted they could not risk sending a huge militia force into the hideout again and risk more deaths. What they wanted was for the Heroes to go in, stealthily, and try to sneak the kidnapped women out. The Heroes agreed to this, in exchange for being officially deputized. So, after almost five weeks of being vigilantes, the Outsiders became legit. They said they would need a day or two to rest and recover, and then they would head back.
Everyone returned to base (the rental home for most everyone, but the Fisher Farmhouse for Blaze) and spent the rest of the afternoon and evening resting. That night, though, Batman and Gracie went patrolling, since they were back to full health already. And it was a good thing too, because Theodore Underwood, the shady lawyer, was being taken from his home by three gangsters by force. Batman showed uncharacteristic caution in leading Gracie to sneak up behind the car and shoot at the tires before they could leave. Gracie hit a rear tire and, after the car stopped to investigate, the Heroes got in a firefight with the gangsters. The first gangster went down easy, but the driver had a Tommy gun in the front seat and Gracie was busy trying to free Theodore from the car. Batman was hurt again by a bullet, but this time won the fight and took down the gangster (laying claim to his gun thereafter). The third gangster tried to flee, but Batman shot him in the back like a cold-blooded killer.
Much later in the night, White Knight joined them on patrol and lent his car to the patrolling. Around dawn, they were as near the gap in the Fog Wall as they could drive when they heard distant shots coming from Des Plaines. White Knight tried to drive through the snow off-road and through the gap, but swerved and hit the fog. The three heroes spent five hours driving around through the fog before coming out of the southwest corner of the Fog surrounding Mount Prospect. By then, the shooting was long since over, so they went home to rest.
Feb. 6
While Batman and Gracie slept, White Knight went alone to West Park Ridge to have a jeweler appraise his trophy items. It turned out that Lt. Hershel’s silver shield was actually aluminum with silver paint on it. But the ring was real and worth $700. While passing through Des Plaines afterwards, White Knight found out that the shooting last night was from some wild party on a boat on the Des Plaines River.
Meanwhile, Blaze was feeling better finally -- his synthetic body taking longer to heal -- and he went to go talk to Laurie, the local telephone operator in Mt. Prospect. Blaze remembered that Hershel was making a phone call from his desk in the hideout when the Outsiders attacked him, but Laurie assured him that no phone from that area was connected to her switchboard and no one had placed a call through her board at that time. Then, Blaze went to Des Plaines and checked with the phone operator shop there. None of the employees there had routed the mysterious call either.
But Blaze wasn’t done investigating things in Des Plaines -- he wanted a look in the Burning Tower. He was not going in alone either, as he quickly rounded up everyone but Batman (who was still resting to get back his spells) and they all went to the Tower. There was a window open on the second floor of the 60’ tall tower and Blaze had a plan to get through it that he hoped would minimize contact with the fire on the tower’s surface. Blaze and White Knight went to the nearby hardware store and bought a 10’ metal ladder. They used it to climb in through the window, but each found that even though the window appeared to be uncovered by fire, they were passing through fire regardless on their way in. Everyone was scorched and burnt, but none too seriously, as they found themselves in a well-furnished bedroom. They searched it and found a valuable-looking painting (and frame) of a boy playing with a pumpkin-headed scarecrow.
Each floor in the tower had a narrow hallway crossing the length of it, but open on the ends for narrower stairs, and on either side of the hallway was a room. The opposite door on the second floor was locked, so they left it alone, planning to come back later. They went up to the third floor and found a pantry and kitchen, each half-converted into a guest room. The pantry room had a closed window -- and two pumpkin-headed scarecrows in it, leaning on the walls. Blaze went in and opened the window, but when he turned he saw the pumpkinheads were standing up now and attacked!
The pumpkinheads were tough and hard to hurt, but all they could to attack was grapple and the Outsiders consistently managed to escape every hold they were put in. The first pumpkinhead went out the window quickly when White Knight shield-rushed it and pushed it out the open window. He watched the flaming pumpkinhead get up from the fall and run into town.
The other pumpkinhead everyone ganged up on and stabbed it and burnt it until it was destroyed.
Now they moved up to the fourth and final floor and found a man in his study, reading a book. The man identified himself as Carl Alsher, and he surprised everyone not just by the calmness of his demeanor, but when he told them that he was a Park Ridge native. This tower had been part of his mansion on the east side of Park Ridge, but he found himself and his tower broken away and placed here on the opposite side of Park Ridge on the morning of New Year’s Day. He admitted freely to being a magic-user, which he said all Freemasons were. He had often put up traveling Masons in his tower when they were in the area, and hence the preponderance of guest rooms. And he knew of another magic-user -- one from Mount Prospect, who wished to form an alliance with him. Mr. Matthews had not yet talked to Alsher in person, but had recently started negotiations through an intermediary named Mr. Gould. The alliance was stalled by the fact that Alsher could not stand Mr. Gould. But he was interested in an alliance with the Outsiders.
As a show of good faith, the White Knight asked Mr. Alsher to detect magic on their possessions, and to WK’s disappointment the spell detected none. Now Blaze asked if Alsher could drop the fire spell on the tower so they could leave, and Mr. Alsher confessed he could not; the defensive spell made it an ever-burning tower. There was a secret exit through a basement level and, after some convincing, Alsher agreed to lead them each one at a time to the exit, if they agreed to stay blindfolded and not force him to give up his secrets. As a further incentive/mild threat, he warned of a guardian in his basement that would make the pumpkinheads seem like small potatoes. Everyone complied and they found themselves climbing out of a hole in the ground on the bank of the river, some distance away.
It was almost time to return to the Southlands Hideout and deal with the missing women -- but Blaze had a few thoughts about things they could deal with first. One, they went to the ruins in the Southlands to see the gnomes. The gnomes were hard at work and needed just a few days more to get the underground machine up and running again. Two, they went to the future house above the Hideout. Blaze wanted to know if the robots that almost killed them all were still trapped in the bedrooms. They found the house had changed again. For the first time there was a car in the garage -- it was so tempting to some of the Heroes, but Blaze urged them not to meddle with time. They started to search the house, but chickened out from looking in the bedrooms for the killer robots.
Besides, downstairs awaited them…