Session 1

[Adminenkainen]

The six Heroes gather at a large warehouse in the Fordham neighborhood of the Bronx. There has been a rash of arsons affecting Jewish businesses in this area, and suspects were seen heading to this building.

It doesn't seem like a case that needs more than one or two of them, Sandman observes, but Bart assures them that they have intelligence saying there is something big behind these arsonists (information the Editor is not prepared to divulge at this time!).

The warehouse is privately owned. The nightwatchman is an old, nearsighted, half-deaf man (or appears to be). The Heroes leave him alone after just a little questioning. Doing a thorough search of the warehouse, they find a concealed elevator behind a large tarp draped over the wall. The nightwatchman says he knew about the elevator, but is under strict orders to never use it.

Cautious about using the elevator (what if it's a trap?), Bart and Hawkman pry open the elevator doors, Zatara shines his light down the shaft, and they see it drops 20' to the top of an elevator car with a hatch in the top of it. Zatara produces his rope and Sandman is lowered down to check out the hatch. He finds it unlocked, untrapped, and opens it to find an ordinary, empty elevator car. Rather than use the elevator, in case it alerts the mobsters below, the Heroes want to lower everyone down by rope and then have the last person get down on his own. The obvious choice at first seems to be Hawkman, but the shaft is too narrow for his wings to unfold. So Sandman comes back up, lowers everyone down, and then burns his first stunt to "parkour" his way down the shaft, leaping from wall to wall.

Again, they force the doors at the bottom and find it opens onto a room 20' x 30'. The room is lit with electricity from overhanging light fixtures, and there is a table and a radio in this room. Four mobsters are here, and they noticed the door being forced open and are not surprised, despite the radio being kind of loud. The men toss down their newspapers and cigarettes, and warn the Heroes that they are in for a heap of trouble. Although it is disconcerting that these four seem so confident, the Heroes all move into the room. Zatara asks about exits from the room, and observes two doors in the right hand wall (one of the 30' long walls).

Just then, the four men start to transform into wolf-men!

Zatara thinks he knows what they are right away and fears they are woefully unprepared for this. He tosses his silver dagger to Hawkman to better arm the best fighter in the party, then backs off to the elevator to protect himself (since he can't cast spells without his dagger!). Sandman fires his gas gun as the wolf-men pounce at them. The gas affects two of them and they drop to the floor, slumbering. The two remaining wolf-men reach Hawkman and Sandy Kean. Hawkman is raked and bitten for 5 dmg and Sandy for 5 dmg. Hawkman remains on the defensive, while everyone else's attacks prove completely ineffectual. The Heroes switch to overbearing to pin the wolf-men, with Sandman and Sandy pinning one by both arms, and Doris starts tying him up with Zatara's rope, but the remaining one throws off Hawkman and Bart and rakes and bites Bart for 7 dmg. Sandman joins the remaining struggle. While Hawkman pins it in a bear hug, Sandman forces a sleep gas capsule down the wolf-man's throat and knocks it out.

No reinforcements show from the two side doors. The Heroes test Zatara's theory, cutting the tied-up wolf-man with an ordinary knife and seeing it doesn't phase him, while Zatara's silver dagger causes it to wake up in pain.

Werewolves. It begins to howl, but is bound too tightly to break free and is shortly gagged. But what to do with the others? There is not enough rope here to bind all of them and they could wake at any time. There are too dangerous to let live. Hawkman asks anyone who doesn't want to be a party to this to step away...then he slits the throats of the three sleeping werewolves with the silver dagger.

[Adminenkainen]

The others busy themselves in searching the room. There is a good quality cathedral radio. The newspapers are just a day or two old. There is a box under the table with bags of beef jerky, cans of beer, and packs of cigarettes packed in it, but they find nothing useful to explain why these werewolves are down here.

"They're guarding something..." Doris says. "Hopefully nothing worse."

Sandman listens at both side doors. He thought he heard something for a moment at the far door, but can't be sure. The door is stuck, but easily bashed open. It opens onto a dark, unlit corridor that immediately turns left (heading west). Flashlights are switched on. The corridor runs 30' and ends at another door. Before going there, the Heroes decide to check the other door from the guard room first. The first side door opened onto a 15' x 20' room that was completely empty, like an unfinished basement, with nothing but dust in it. There was nothing to do but go back to the other door, and the door behind that.

Behind that door was more corridor, this time turning right (north). After 40' more it came to a four-way intersection. They shone their lights down all three passages. To the north, it ended after 30', but there was a hole in the far wall that opened onto a parallel passage. To the east, it went straight for 60' and turned right (south). To the west, it went 30' to a door.

[Adminenkainen]

The Heroes head first to the hole in the wall to the north and find it connects to a sewer. Thinking this is a secret exit from the hideout, they turn around to search the rest. They move next to the door in the west. The door proves difficult to force open, but Bart throws himself into it and bashes it open -- but falls down a greased chute on the other side. There is a 20' x 40' room around the chute, a leaky pipe along the ceiling dripping water into the room has noticeably warped the wooden floor, but there is a door in the (20') south wall and two doors in the (40') east wall, if they can reach it. But first they have to rescue Bart from the bottom of the chute; he's landed in a lower room half-filled with water, and 3 alligators! Below, Bart produces his sub-machine gun, but it's waterlogged and won't fire.

Hawkman flies over the chute and uses his bow to shoot at the alligator hanging furthest back. Doris is bolder and uses the chute, but shooting with her sub-machine gun at the alligators on her way down. She seriously injures the second-closest alligator to Bart, but then her gun jams before she splashes down. The same alligator lunges at her and bites her ((5 dmg)).

Bart has switched to his switchblade, while Doris uses the butt of her gun as a bludgeoning weapon and beats her already-injured alligator unconscious. Sandy starts down the chute to join them. The alligator Hawkman has been shooting arrows at decides it doesn't want any part of this and dives underwater. The remaining alligator bites Bart ((5 dmg)). It gets lightly hurt by Bart's knife and Doris' clubbing attacks. Hawkman descends to lend a closer hand. Outnumbered and hurting, the last alligator decides it doesn't want anymore of this either and goes under. Hawkman flies Bart back up to the upper room.

Meanwhile, Sandman had climbed around the chute to get into the room and test the floor (burning a stunt to find a safe path). He performs first aid (burning a 3rd stunt) on Bart while Hawkman goes back down and carries Doris back up, and finally Sandy. Zatara is carried across into the room last.

[Adminenkainen]

There is some short discussion about whether they should stop exploring for the day and go rest, since Bart was just seriously hurt. Instead, Bart is moved to the back of the party and they agree to keep going, since there is more time to play.

They try to test each of the three doors in the room. There is no noise behind the south door, but as Sandman approaches the first east door he realizes the floor leading to it is unsafe. He asks about the floor before the other door, but the Editor says that detection just burnt through the last of that stunt and he would need to expend another. Since he's been burning through stunts really fast, he decides to try another tact. He takes off his coat and gives it to Hawkman to hold onto one end, while Sandman holds onto the other end and tests the floor. Sure enough, this floor is unsafe too and Sandman would have fallen without the precaution.

The south door, then! It opens onto a 40' x 40' concrete chamber. The ceiling is 20' high, but with metal rafters at 10' with lights and ceiling fans hanging from them. The room is full of mechanical apparatuses, including large Tesla coils, and what look like two boxy robots. They start lighting up as soon as Hawkman steps into the room. He immediately takes to the air.

"Look out, I may have stepped on a pressure plate and activated things," Hawkman warns.

"My gun is unjammed," Doris says. "I can handle them if they come at us."

"I'm out," Bart says from the rear. "Even if I was healthy my gun is still soaked."

There is a door in the east wall, two in the south wall, and two in the west wall. It seems like too central a location for them to abandon, so they all come in. The robots do respond to that and start stumbling towards them.

"This is going to make a lot of noise..." Doris says as she steps forward and aims.

"My gun's not going to do any good," Sandman says. "Let 'em have it and we'll take our chances."

BRAAAPP! Doris' well-aimed shots destroy one of the robots and injures the other. As the remaining one reaches point blank range Sandy fires with his pistol and destroys the other.

"I hope those weren't trying to communicate with us," Zatara quips. [They weren't.]

The Heroes search the room for clues. The machinery isn't very dusty. There are wall outlets, but a small back-up generator here in the room too (not very portable, the Heroes decide). There is a cabinet that is full of six flak jackets, automatic rifles, and boxes of bullets. The gun-toting Heroes reload.

[Adminenkainen]

Looking for exits, they see a door in the east wall, south corner, south wall, east corner, and west wall, north corner. While Sandman listens at the east door, the west door flies open and what look like ghosts begin to float into the room, shaking chains and moaning. ((SIGH)) They spook everyone but Hawkman and Doris. Zatara runs to the south door, Sandman and Sandy run back to the north door, while Bart runs to the east door.

"When are we going to run into a normal hoodlum?" Doris asked, exasperated.

While Hawkman tries to stop the two Sands ("Remember there's a weak floor through there?"), Doris backs off and tries her gun even though she doesn't think it will work. Surprisingly it does -- she nails two of them and they cry out in pain like normal people. Meanwhile, Hawkman grabs Sandy and pulls him back, but Sandman slips back into the room above the alligator room.

Doris threatens to shoot another burst and the fake spooks drop their chains and take off their sheets. They surrender and confess; they work for a mad scientist obsessed with the supernatural. He insisted on their spook costumes because those who didn't volunteer were transformed into werewolves.

Meanwhile, Sandman fell through the weak floor and landed back with the alligators ((4 dmg)). The pain and the water snapped him out of it. Seeing the alligators, he burnt his final stunt to run all the way back up the chute without slipping.

Also meanwhile, Bart ran into the east room, an empty room 30' x 40'. He runs into the corner of the room and cowers until he gets his nerve back.

Also also meanwhile, Zatara found himself in a 40' long corridor ending in a door on the left hand side. He throws that door open too and finds a 20' x 20' room that has an electric chair and accompanying machinery in it. Zatara hides behind the chair until his nerves calm.

Soon thereafter, Doris has herded the fake spooks back into their room, 30' x 30', that is a combination lab and barracks (cots at the back). Hawkman ties them up with their own sheets and chains, then goes back to gather the others.

[Adminenkainen]

Before moving on, Zatara has an idea; he is going to charm one of the prisoners and make him lead them to their boss. Unfortunately, the spell almost backfires on Zatara and fails to affect the ex-fake spook ((jerk got a 20 on his saving throw!)).

Foiled, the heroes debate quickly if they want to simply ask the prisoners to lead them to their leader, but the risk of being led into a trap is too great. So they move on...

[Adminenkainen]

The two west doors both opened into the fake spooks' room, but the remaining door in the south wall was left. The Heroes try the door and find there's more corridor on the other side. This one goes 20' south and turns right (west) before continuing for 50'. It opens into a room at the end, a room that opens to the right. The room is dark, but there are lights that can turn on at a switch around the corner.

Click.

The room is 20' x 40' and mostly empty, but there are two men tied to chairs, back-to-back, hoods over their heads. The Heroes go to release them and find they are missing city councilmen. The two men want to confess all -- they were corrupt politicians and were bribed into approving the secret construction of this hideout. When they tried to blackmail the mastermind behind this for more money, they were abducted and brought here.

"Who? Who is it?" Hawkman demands.

"Andre Czermin," one of the councilmen says. "Arch-spy, is what he calls himself. You've got to stop him. He's trying to demoralize the Jewish community with these arsons, and they'll just start here in New York City."

"Can you lead us to him?" Bart asks.

"I don't think they need to," Doris says. "Unless he's behind a secret door down here, there's only one way we haven't gone. Remember the passage east, from the 4-way south of the sewer line?"

"Right. Let's backtrack," Sandman says.

"Not you. And not Bart," Hawkman says. "You two are spent."

"Like He--"

"He's right," Sandman says. "About you. You're hurt bad. I'll help get you and the councilmen out of here, while the rest go after Czermin."

They split up at the four-way intersection, and Zatara, Doris, Hawkman, and Sandy continue on. The east corridor turns south, as they had seen before, and continues for 60'. At the far end, an open doorway leads into a large, lit room. They hear someone in the room. Hawkman leads, bow at the ready. Inside are five men with semi-automatic rifles, and they heard the Heroes coming too. But Hawkman still gets the drop on them.

"Drop those guns," Hawkman says.

"You drop your...bow," one of the gunmen says.

Sandy and Doris file in to add their weapons to the growing stalemate. Both sides are aiming at each other, waiting for the first shot. Their hesitancy might be because of the stacks of oil drums, no doubt intended for future arson, at the back of the room.

Zatara walks in, circling slowly around the side of the stand-off. "We have a bad situation here," he says, "but it doesn't have to get worse. We're here for Czermin. He can't be paying you that much, not to risk your lives in this shootout. Why don't you just tell us where he is, we'll collect him, and no one will be the wiser."

Several of the gunmen glance nervously at the left wall of the room.

The Heroes steal glances at each other. "He's behind a secret door after all," Doris says.

[Adminenkainen]

"Stay back. Drop your weapons now!" one of the guards shouted.

"You drop yours! Don't take that shot," Hawkman shouted back. But it looked like the guards were about to pull their triggers so Hawkman loosed his arrow first. Fired in haste, it missed by two inches.

Doris and Sandy were quicker in their triggers too. Doris shot three of them and moderately hurt them. Sandy managed to hit a fourth one. Of them, one of Doris' victims was hurt badly enough to drop his gun. Hawkman's second arrow hits the remaining guard, so that all of them are injured, but not a one went down!

The guards shoot back. Hawkman twists and uses his magic metal wings to shield him from bullets. The one shooting at Doris, his gun jams. Sandy takes a glancing hit from a bullet ((3 dmg)). The remaining one shoots at the nearly defenseless -- and probably should have gone back to the surface with Bart and the prisoners -- Zatara. But Zatara drops to the floor and dodges the shots.

The Heroes move further into the room so they are not shooting at the oil drums which, amazingly, have not exploded yet. The mobsters are more than happy to trade places with them and move towards the exit. The one without a gun and the one with a jammed gun, they flee outright, while the remaining three just shoot while falling back to the door. Hawkman takes a scratch ((3 hp)). Doris' armor protects her, while the shots at Sandy are so wild they completely miss him. At much closer range, Doris sprays bullets at all four of them and they go down. Zatara and Sandy move to perform first aid on them and make sure they don't lose anyone.

Hawkman moves to the north wall and almost immediately finds the trigger for a secret door. "Well, that was easy!"

Behind the door, they hear themselves over a radio that allowed the final villain to hear them. The man, in a white lab coat and goggles over his white beard, is holding a big lever in gloved hands. Next to him is a man in a glass tube that runs up to the ceiling.

"Don't worry, Czermin!" the mad scientist says as he struggles with the lever. "I'll deal with them once you're safe!"

"It's a giant pneumatic tube!" Hawkman says. He shoots arrows at the mad scientist, missing with the first, and hitting with the second arrow just as the lever is thrown. Czermin, inside the tube, waves as it carries him quickly up through the ceiling and out of sight. "Sandy, we need to get you in that tube and after him!"

"None of you will do anything, but...die!" the mad scientist says as he begins to shake, bend out of shape, and slowly assume the form of a tiger as his clothes shred.

"Oh great! How do we stop that?" Doris asked, exasperated.

"We've got all we need -- there! Hurry!" Sandy exclaimed, and he raced to the back of the room and the oil drums. One was leaking from a bullet hole. As the others followed his lead and ran over here, weretiger close on their heels, Sandy tipped over the drum and created an oil slick that the weretiger slid into.

"Here, kitty, kitty!" Zatara said, producing a lighter and threatening with it.

The weretiger, sensing the danger, leaped to the far west end of the room.

"Quickly! Into the secret room!" Hawkman said. Once everyone complied, and before the weretiger could come after them, he grabbed the lighter away from Zatara and tossed it onto the oil slick.

FWOOSH!

Sandy, sensing the plan, threw the lever back for the pneumatic tube and it opened up for them. "You first, Doris! I'll send you, then Zatara!"

"And then you, Sandy. I'll fly back out of here," Hawkman said.

WHOOOOOOMMMMM! The outside room exploded as the oil drums caught on fire, shaking everything and making their ears ring.

One by one they made it into the tube and were shot up through the ceiling after Czermin, until only Hawkman was left.

[Adminenkainen]

Hawkman flew over the raging inferno, blind by the thick black smoke. Out in the corridor, he had to feel his way along the walls as he flew slowly north, not coming out of the smoke until he was halfway up the corridor to the turn. There was, luckily, no sign of the mad scientist-weretiger, as Hawkman didn't think he had it left in him to win that one.

Meanwhile, Doris, Sandy, and Zatara were emerging in a private garage across the street from the warehouse. Doris had emerged to hear the squeal of tires and raced to the exit in time to see Czermin driving away in a sedan. She memorized the license plate, though she was confident he would be dumping that car as soon as possible.

Once Zatara and Sandy joined her, they raced outside, where they found Bart and Sandman with their prisoners. "I called for the police," Bart said. "They'll be here soon. But our prisoners, these bad guy councilmen, had some fresh information for us. We're going to want to go back into that hideout..."

The werewolf was gone, freed from the first room ("likely the weretiger found him"). The fake undead were still tied up, and they were about to be escorted to the surface. But first, they went back to the prisoners room.

"What we learned," Sandman said, "was that they had seen some unusual things under the tarps at the back of the room..."

He pulled them away, revealing a short stack of gold bars and, bizarrely, a gold statue that looked like Andre Czermin himself.

"What on Earth?" Hawkman asked.

"Bart and I discussed it while waiting for you," Sandman said. "We suspect whichever country Czermin was working for gave him the gold to finance his mission, and he used some of it to make this idol to his own ego."

EPILOGUE

The science-based lycanthropes escaped without a trace, as did Czermin. The Espionage Division tracked the gold back to Germany (no one was surprised), but rather than give the gold back to Germany it made more sense to let the gold "disappeared" into the hands of "unknown vigilantes"...and so the Heroes acquired their first trophies.
The Espionage Division determined that

Doris and Bart stayed behind to coordinate with the police when they arrived, but the other four went back into the warehouse.