Session 12+: Operation Bugbear

[Adminenkainen]

Between the 3rd and the 7th of September:

The Atom was asked by a representative from Pepsodent if he would be interested in moving out to Hollywood and starring in a radio show based on his exploits. The Atom revealed he was a college student and asked for Pepsodent to help arrange a deferment to a new college out west. For now, Pepsodent is stalling for some reason. But in the meantime, the Atom got a sizable donation to the charity for catching gamblers operating on campus.

The Flash saved the life of D.A. Kelly by capturing The Threat.

Green Lantern scribed five magic scrolls to sell for charity.

Hawkman hired three mercenaries to help him patrol for the newspaper saboteurs. One of them got killed, but Greg was really useful and may become Hawkman's sidekick. With Greg's help, Hawkman found and captured a German spy working with American mobsters to silence a pro-war newspaper.

Hourman fought with a stingy Arthur Wonders for a decent share of the Aztec treasure and settled for a 5% finders fee. He then quickly arranged a fundraiser with the nascent Mexican Wrestling Enterprise and battled some local Lucha libre stars in the ring -- but did too well and angered their fans.

Sandman, as Wesley Dodds, made sure his company, Dodds Chemical, was not performing experiments on live humans, then employed spies for a little industrial espionage, to find out if Bannerman Pharmaceuticals was planning on doing the same research, on the effects of prussic acid on live humans, with live humans. When Rex Tyler (Hourman) returned home from Mexico, he encountered these spies and discovered what they were up to.

Meanwhile, as a group, the Justice Society planned for their date auction event. They booked Madison Square Garden, advertised in newspapers, theaters, and DC Comics, and invited all of their girlfriends to come serve as ringers. Of the Garden's 18,000 seats, almost 400 were filled. Frank Sinatra, a young and rising singing star from Chicago, was in New York and agreed to MC the event. Howard Hughes, between producing films, agreed to come and made it, but announced he was coming too late for them to use this for promotional purposes. Some famous rich socialites and celebrities showed up at the event, including radio stars George Burns and Gracie Allen.

Bidding was lower than the Heroes might have hoped, with the rich socialites more interested in being seen at the event than winning dates with costumed vigilantes. Some Heroes went for as low as $1,500 (Atom and Hourman), while the Sandman managed to start a bidding frenzy and went up to $6,000.

Flash's steady girlfriend, Joan, outbid for him and won their date for $2,600. Hawkman went out on an awkward date with a rich married couple (the Williams, Harrison Williams being a utility magnate) who just bid for the publicity. Gracie Allen, all business, wanted to meet Green Lantern to hire him to appear on their radio show.

Hourman and Atom went out on a double date with socialite sisters Mary "Minnie" Benedict and Barbara "Babe" Cushing Mortimor. The two Heroes really painted the town and took the women everywhere, but failed to impress them until taking the women to an illegal gambling club. Mary in particular was impressed by Hourman's "dangerous side" and agreed to see him again sometime.

Sandman was won by Marion Davies, who wanted to make a big splash in the papers about this to make William Randolph Hearst jealous. Sandman let newspaper reporters Lois Lane and Clark Kent tagged along to help make sure they made headlines.

Following the auction, on the 9th, Green Lantern scribed his seventh spell scroll for sale. Hourman, who had pretended to collude with the spies and fed them false information on the 8th, confronted his boss about the secret project and even convinced Mr. Bannerman not to use live test subjects.

On September 10, Dr. Fate gathered the Justice Society for a special meeting to tell them about the abduction of Princess Margaret in England and the large reward for her safe return. The Heroes tried to call in favors, but the Sandman was able to convince the U.S. Army Corps directly to let them fly on a military transport into the war zone of Europe.

On the 11th, the Heroes met with Dr. Fate and the Spectre, already at Scotland Yard and discussing the case. The Heroes looked into clues, even visiting Statford-on-Avon, where the abduction took place. All the clues seemed to point to Storth, in Cumbria, where a freakishly early winter had settled in since August.

On the 12th, the Heroes split up to check in Storth and the surrounding villages for leads and rumors, and learned about "goblin" sightings at nearby Dog Hole Cave. Atom, Hourman, and Sandman went into the cave alone and ran into four bugbears. The fight was intense and the Atom went down during the battle. The Heroes retreated with one prisoner back to the surface. Their bugbear prisoner told them about their plans to ransom Margaret for a fortune and spend it on weapons of war to attack humanity with. From reports and rumors the Heroes had heard before, it sounded like the bugbears were working with human smugglers, but the bugbear shied away from Hourman's questions about that.

Reconvening with the other Heroes, and giving the Atom time to heal, the whole team went back down on the 13th. They fought the three bugbears they'd captured before again, then ten more who were guarding Margaret's three handmaidens, and then fought four huge cave wolves while trying to get the handmaidens back out safely. By now, Flash and Green Lantern were pretty banged up and it was decided to retreat to the surface to recover before the next attempt.

[Adminenkainen]

Session #13

Omega Archer and Dr. Masque (from the Sundays at Home Campaign) were still in England and investigating the strange blizzards in the North and the abduction of Princess Margaret, and their investigation led them to the Village of Storth. There, they almost mistook Johnny Thunder for a bad guy while Johnny was talking to his bugbear prisoner in a barn. Hourman and Green Lantern showed up, fresh from the bugbears' ice caverns, and assumed Omega Archer and Dr. Masque were bad guys. Cooler heads prevailed, though, and no harm was done to anyone.

Everyone was assembled to discuss the situation. Only Sandman was wounded from the fighting, but he was good as new after some magical healing and two hours of rest. All eight Heroes returned to the ice caverns. Being cautious, Hawkman flew everyone one at a time down the ice chute into the tunnels -- which was good, because the wily bugbears had trapped the chute with iron spikes to catch sliders.

The first two side caves were left abandoned by the bugbears. Dr. Masque encouraged everyone to take a side passage they had missed before. This led to a cavern full of stalactites. Some of them dropped as the Heroes passed beneath and tried to pierce the Heroes, but only the Atom was injured. Omega Archer wanted to carry a stalactite around as a weapon, but when he did a bug that was like a cross between a beetle and a hermit crab crawled out and tried to land on his shoulder. The bug was promptly squished -- but Johnny Thunder suggested there might be bugs in the other stalactites that fell. Sure enough, when they looked back, there were six more in the room when they went back! Some people got bit for minor wounds, but all the bugs were squished.

Moving on, the next tunnel led to a giant cavern -- containing a white dragon! The Heroes got the drop on it, though, and downed it with a lightning bolt and gun shots before it could even attack. There seemed to be no dragon-sized treasure about. There was, however, a smooth section of wall on the north end of the cavern with large double doors set in it. Past these double doors, the Heroes found a finished stone hallway, slightly warmer than the caves, and with no snow in the air.

As soon as they entered, they were shot at -- bugbears had a slot in the far wall by a door where they could shoot a sub-machine gun through. Everyone dodged to the sides except for Omega Archer and Hawkman, who both barreled through the door and shot the bugbears down with their guns. Hourman took their machine gun and everyone moved on.

There had been a door to the right that opened into a room with tapestries. Sandman crept through to check out some noise he heard and found that, past this room was a giant audience chamber full of 10 bugbears. After a sleep gas capsule, lots more bullets, and Dr. Masque's lightning bolt, there weren't 10 bugbears left there anymore. But three doors did open into the chamber and more bugbears tried to come in. Dr. Masque's web spell stopped most of them, and the other fresh arrivals were easily picked off. Although the Heroes could still go north or south from here, they were more interested in going west, where most of the arrivals were coming from, but that passageway was still full of Masque's webbing. The Heroes decided, somewhat mercifully, to put the bugbears to sleep with gas first before mowing them all down with sub-machine guns.

At this point, Johnny Thunder voiced some curiosity about the tunnels they had passed over back in the dragon's lair; one of them had been noticeably colder than the others. Now everyone was curious, so while they waited for the webbing to dissolve, they backtracked and checked out the colder tunnel. As they followed it towards its dead end, they found the walls covered in a weird brown mold -- and the tunnel got considerably colder, to the point where they were almost at absolute zero. Johnny Thunder froze solid, and everyone was suffering some degree of frostbite by the time they spotted the dragon's treasure, pushed to the back. Everyone grabbed hands full of stuff -- and Johnny -- and ran out. Dr. Masque used a Detect Magic spell, and they found they had a magic sword (a talking sword too, though no one could understand it), a suit of magic chainmail, a scroll, and three potions out of the haul, plus handfuls of gold sovereigns.

At this point, Dr. Masque took the talking sword and disappeared.

Everyone else was happy for the treasure, but miserable from their injuries -- so it was decided to use the guard room with the gun slot and camp in there. Even with magical curing, it took 12 hours of rest to get everyone back to normal. During that time, those on watch observed a large number of bugbears head from west to east (into the audience chamber), then back west, and then a parade of even more bugbears -- plus ogres -- move east, to reinforce the audience chamber. That's where the Heroes went as soon as they were back to full strength. The audience chamber now had a veritable horde of bugbears and ogres defending it now -- but Dr. Masque and Green Lantern dropped a pair of fireballs on the room and the others easily took out the rest.

The battle to the south went a bit longer -- here, a dozen female bugbears stood their ground and were prepared to fight to the death with melee weapons. A lot of Heroes took some battering before the last of them fell. The next room showed them what the females were guarding -- a room with three of the bugbears' feral young in it. Mercifully, Johnny Thunder had his Thunderbolt paralyze two of them, and the third was forced to surrender.

The last battle was to the north of the audience chamber. Here, they found the chieftain's bedchambers, defended by three lieutenants with sub-machine guns. Flash, Hourman, Green Lantern, and Johnny Thunder worked on the lieutenants, while Sandman, Hawkman, and Omega Archer worked on the chieftain. The chieftain, the biggest of all the bugbears, also had a terrible power -- a frost breath that did serious damage to anyone he hit with it. The chieftain turned out to be a tougher foe than the dragon but, once the lieutenants were down and everyone was free to gang up on the chieftain, he too fell.

The Heroes were victorious (though several were seriously injured, or approaching that) and freed Princess Margaret, the chieftain's prisoner. They also laid claimed to considerable loot. The bugbears had amassed thousands of gold sovereigns and crowns, going back a hundred years in mintage, but also distributed trophy items. Hourman had taken a machine gun, but traded it to Flash in exchange for a magic bow. Omega Archer claimed the chieftain's magic ring. Green Lantern gave up a share of the two magic scrolls, feeling Johnny Thunder needed them more. Hawkman claimed a suit of magic chainmail. Hourman, Atom, and Sandman each took a magic potion.

[Adminenkainen]

Session #14

The Heroes backtracked out of the chieftain's quarters and headed west to the unexplored areas. They found two empty barracks rooms with nothing good in them, but also came across the source of the coldness affecting the county -- a super-science machine in a hidden laboratory (with "Keep Out" on the door). The Heroes ignored the machine as long as they could and, even though it was painfully cold in this room, kept searching it. They found out from the desk that this machine was the work of a Dr. Lolath, who had already left because he couldn't stand working with the bugbears. Sandman spotted a secret door in the corner and Hawkman bashed it in. Behind it was a corridor that led to a bedroom. Dr. Lolath's bedroom was still occupied by a weird creature -- a giant 8' eel on two legs, with an electric tail. The Heroes shot it with guns and it fled under the bed. Sandman tried to stab it with his sword, but it shocked him really bad and, as he backed off, Hawkman and Hourman finished it off with their guns.

The Heroes now felt they were done searching the rooms on this half of the hideout, but they knew of two areas in the tunnels at the south end left unexplored. They found a cave with three giant toads the size of pit bulls that could breath frost at them like the bugbear chieftain, but the toads were either gassed by Sandman or shot down before anyone was too badly hurt. Hourman had had a hunch that they might be there guarding something, and sure enough they sat on top of a mound of treasure concealed under rocks.

At this point, the Heroes backtracked to the lair of the dead dragon, because earlier they had noticed one of its wings cut off. They searched it now and could find no sign of the culprit -- but they did encounter the Spectre and Dr. Fate, who had finally found them. The Heroes told them about the cold machine and their concerns (particularly Green Lantern's concerns) that if they blew the machine, it would kill them all with unleashed cold. The powerful spellcasters laid some healing on Hourman and Sandman, who needed it the most, and they all agreed to go back and take one more look at the cold machine. Sandman and Hourman thought they had a good chance of shutting it down if they worked on it together with their tech know-how. Actually, Hourman almost set it to overload, but Sandman managed to shut it down first. Meanwhile, the Spectre and Dr. Fate were preparing a ritual to close the gate to this fairy realm, so the Heroes had to hurry up and get out of there.

Outside, the Heroes encountered the British Army, which had mobilized to search the area for more bugbears (at least one had got away). The Heroes were told that King George VI himself wanted to award them George Cross medals for rescuing his daughter. But first, everyone took the train back to London for a full day of hospitalization. On September 16th, they did meet the King, who thanked them before an audience of a 1,000 Englishmen. Privately, he asked what else he could do for them and was told about the orphan charity project. After hearing the full story, the King offered to buy their treasures collected from the bugbears at triple their value, convert it from pounds to dollars (which made it five times as valuable), and then transfer it to their American bank.

The 17th was spent flying back to the U.S. and checking on the charity. Shiera Saunders, who had been in charge of the charity, informed them that the debutantes from the date auction had all chipped in yet more money, bringing everyone's totals up another $10,000 each. By now, Hawkman was the first to reach his $100,000 and became the winner of their friendly contest. Everyone else had until the 22nd to reach their goals, which left them little time. Luckily, there was still the superhero boxing match for charity.

On the 19th, well over 1,000 people came to Madison Square Garden to see a three round tournament to determine which superhero in the JSA was the best boxer -- without using weapons, powers, spells, or stunts. The Spectre never showed up, even when Sandman tried to summon him with his ring, but Dr. Fate got involved so they would have an even four pairs.

In the first round, the Atom was bested by Dr. Fate. Hourman and Sandman duked it out, but Hourman's strength prevailed (he had just enough Miraclo left in him to give him a distinct edge). Flash and Hawkman battled, and while Flash was playing for the crowd and using speed tricks between punches, Hawkman was fighting to win and bested Flash with surprising brutality. And in the match-up of Green Lantern and Johnny Thunder, the Green Lantern ring flashed solid light at Johnny, while Johnny countered with flying punches from his Thunderbolt. Their magical version of pugilism still ended with a Green Lantern victory.

In round two, Hourman went up against Hawkman in a long, drag-out contest that ended with another Hawkman victory. Green Lantern tried to take down Dr. Fate in a magical duel, but Dr. Fate had a tougher, supernatural body and Green Lantern was all too mortal.

In the final round, it was Hawkman vs. Dr. Fate. But Hawkman had observed how tough Dr. Fate was and asked to wear his magic chainmail in this round (everyone else had gone with just boxing gloves, shorts, shoes, and their masks). Now Dr. Fate had a hard time landing punches on Hawkman's magic chainmail and, after a grueling match, Hawkman came out the victor -- to a thunderous applause!

The event raised lots of cash, enough that everyone except for Hourman, Flash and Johnny had their amounts, and Johnny was way behind because he had vowed to raise $200,000. Luckily, the JSA still had an ace in the hole, and a surprise. Their ace was the dismembered dragon corpse they had brought back to the states; they quickly auctioned it off for another large chunk of cash (with Hourman making sure Bannerman Pharmaceutical had at least one limb to study). The surprise was when Superman and Batman turned up and handed over $200,000 more that they had raised themselves. The JSA was now well over their goal of $1 million!