ISSUE #19 "Tezcatlipoca and the Mirror Of Time" Game Master: Chris Players: Lewis, Phil, Robert-S PCs: Stand-In, Beholder, Husk (respectively) Experience Points Awarded: 3, 2, 2 (respectively) Synopsis: In this session, the Heroes continue the previous mission. They confront the re-incarnation of an evil Aztec god, Tezcatlipoca, and they survive their own deaths. Notes on the Rat-Bat gang: The Rat-Bat gang are a bunch of broke drug-ridden street punks that Stand-In and Beholder have run into several times in earlier adventures. The Rat-Bats transform under (previously) unknown circumstances, taking the bipedal form of a man-rat-bat hybrid. They fly around and favor the lasso for capturing other victims. They tend to hang around in the bad parts of town near underground street clubs and the like, looking for victims. Stand-In and Beholder already saved Andrea (Beholder's sister) from them once at a club, among other encounters. Notes on the Characters: * Stand-In, aka Peter Green, aka Lamont Cranston, is a comic book- and murder mystery- geek who inherited a vast fortune from relatives he never knew. Peter also inherited a magic tophat from a friend, who Peter had never known was one of a cabal of evil circus fiends known only as The Five. Not feeling comfortable with the shift in power and purpose, Peter took the name of The Stand-In. His most understood powers are clinging, power drain, rigid silken armor, gliding, and hypnosis. His personal ethics prevent him using his hypnosis powers; his ethics also make him protect the innocent at all times, and he does his utmost to save the lives of anyone, fair or foul. His public work at rescuing babies, befriending the Mounties, and defending the city have led to a certain amount of recognition in Rochelle. * Beholder, aka The Wolfman, aka Nathan Curuthers, is a poor, struggling former radio DJ ("Wolfman") who has become a techno-metal DJ for nightclubs. His reputation from both careers often preceeds him when he is in his element. After an unusual experience he is hesitant to discuss, he discovered he had vision powers, armored skin, as well as a variety of eye-beam attacks. He is constantly having to choose between being a hero or tracking down his next pack of smokes. His lack of caution in a fights has caused several deaths. Still, he has proved willing on many occasions to help a struggling city plagued by several disasters, and it could be said that he has stopped more disasters than he has started. * Husk, whose real name is not known, is a former military ops person for the Canadian government, who became a street bum lost in the bottle after having seen and done too much. Hungry and cold, he accepted food and lodging in exchange for "testing" by a hair- and beauty- products company. A terrible explosion rocked the hair-care research labs, due to tampering by the villains known as the Mad Hatter and Killer Clown (of the cabal The Five). "Husk" awoke to discover that he had become a swarm of 1000 bugs, with all the expected benefits and problems. He needs sugar to survive, and when he sleeps, he can spin a sticky mass that becomes a sweetened fascimile of human skin and hair. Husk can appear human, but when fighting crime, he often bursts forth from his sugary skin in order to help his teammates deliver justice! Details: The intrepid Heroes again entered the dark shaft from the top cave that went straight down about 100 feet to the cave with the mushrooms and the small altar. Twisty natural passages went in all directions, and there would have been no light, except for the magical green fire that surrounds Beholder when he is in the presence of the supernatural. Still, Stand-In, being the only Hero who can't see in the dark, brought glo-sticks and a coleman lantern, and some power bars and a compass as well. The group took the one and only non-natural passage out of the altar cave and followed it to another large natural opening area that had a maze of razor-sharp rocks and stalagmites that extended for perhaps a quarter of a mile. Progress was very slow, and the direction would have been confusing, except Beholder on a hunch decided to follow a path that took the group to the places where his vision would not penetrate (in other words, where the Q-tanium was primarily found). The Heroes discovered a door with many Olmec statues. Eventually it became apparent that some of the statues were trapped and that some sequence of pulling and rotating parts of the statues according to some of Jeramy's notes would allow access. Sadly, there was a water trap behind the correct door, and some of the Heroes were almost washed out to their possible doom. Stand-In was saved by Husk, who had clinging and was prepared, and Stand-In (who has a gravitic form of clinging) walked over the cave roof to get a hand over to Beholder (who had a weak grip on a stalagmite as he was being crushed by a flow of water). Sadly, the lantern and all of Jeramy's notes were washed away. Next came a rotating room about 75 feet long. It rotated once every few minutes and each tile in some way represented something about counting out Olmec lunar phases in base 12. The party discovered all kinds of blind crustaceans living in the area (they had been in the water trap). Strangely, the crustaceans in the immediate area started writhing in agony and their flesh vanished to smoke, leaving behind skeletons. This made everyone extremely nervous, but nobody ever discovered why. The chamber of rotating tiles was a special trap in which if someone stood on the wrong tile, they would be instantly killed by being coated in some sort of super-calcification process. Again, Stand-In worked out a system of using his own spit to activate dangerous tiles. In conjunction with his working out of the Olmec calendar represented in Base 12, the group managed to traverse the 75 foot long room. [If Husk had chosen for his bugs to grow wings during his previous skin creation/sleep cycle, the group could have just flown down the hall, avoiding the trap easily. Sadly, he expected a fight, and grew armor instead.] Beholder had to lead the way along the tiles, using Stand-In's knowledge, because the Beholder could see in the dark and Beholder was still covered in a magical harmless fire with the intensity of a glo-stick. The next obstacle was a door that had a different look based on who touched it. Husk touched it and it looked like a Diner window. He went in before anyone could stop him and he had a seperate adventure that apparently was all in his head but he didnt know it at first. Even though Husk is normally 1000 bugs in a colony, once he went through the door, he was human, and swimming in something gooey. Turns out he was a human in the soup of some giant roaches dining after church at a quaint eatery of some sort. Talk about your Alice in Wonderland acid trips! Husk was noticed and there was an uproar and he managed to get away because the roach waiter was apologizing for the shock. "There's a HUMAN in my soup!!! What KIND of establishment are you running here?!" Husk noticed another miniature human running for a little human-sized door at the base of the wall. The other human was hauling off a giant salad crouton that some giant roach patron had dropped. Husk jumped into the blouse of the giant roach lady who noticed him and managed to slide down her onto the ground. Husk followed the crouton-stealing human, but was seen by the giant roach wait staff. The sandals of a giant roach employee crushed one of the Husk's now-human legs and smeared it to pulp. Husk was stuck on the sandal as if he were the bug, but he managed to tear himself off with a supreme force of will. His right leg was gone, however, and there was a bloody smear. Husk crawled to a chair leg and the Waiter looked down to see if he got him. The waiter noticed the human with the crouton and crushed that one, allowing the Husk to later drag his mangled body through the little human-sized door. Meanwhile, Beholder and Stand-In decided to touch the doors and discovered that when the Stand-In touched it, it looked like the door to The Turk (a restaurant he frequents). Beholder touching it made the door look like the entrance to his favorite T&A bar. They went through the T&A bar door together and ended up in a bar where they saw a strange individual. Seated at the bar was a man that was a strange combination of the Stand-In and the Beholder. A top-hat, hypnotic spectacles, jeans, leather pants, and elaborate silk threads and puffy arms and other strange combinations were present in his person. All around the room were *men* that were half naked, getting drink orders and dancing topless. Also, Beholder and Stand-In realized they had lost their powers and their costumes, which let Beholder see Stand-In's face (which is usually covered in golden tassles that are immune to Beholder's N-ray vision). Assuming they had possibly teleported back to town, but not sure, the Stand-In and Beholder held hands (thinking it was a gay bar, and trying to blend) looking for an exit. It turns out that it was a dream world (they figured out later) and that the Hybrid guy at the bar had all of both their powers, but Ethics more in line with Beholder ... he was forcing everyone to bow to his hypnotism powers and dance and dress and act in humiliating ways. But this hybrid didn't tolerate the apparently gay behavior of Beholder and Stand-In (who had mis- interpreted the situation) so he ordered his mind-controlled goons to throw Beholder and Stand-In back out. The heroes didn't resist because they didn't really understand what was happening to them at the time. Back in the room with the rotating magic door, Beholder and Stand-In figured out the doors were a mental challenge and so they went into the Turk-shaped door to the altered version of the Turk. In the dream reality based on the Turk, it was a restaurant for clowns (representing Stand-In's background, or at least that of his foes). Beholder and Stand-In (again fully human and without costumes) had to borrow clown shoes, horns, and whistles to be seated. These started slowly turning them into clowns and Stand-In even went into a little clown dance routine against his will to the tune of Enter the Gladiators. The clown attendant was horrified and pointed to the "No Gladiator" sign prominently displayed. Beholder was asked if he needed a seat. "Yes". He was tripped and landed on his bottom. He was asked if he needed a hand. "Yes". The hand of the restaurant greeter detached when Beholder tried to get up. In the process of finally being seated, the Heroes noticed a door to the kitchen with a weird Olmec symbol and they made a run for it. Beholder made a clean break but Stand-In had trouble. He saw one of his arch-enemies, the Killer Clown, of the cabal known as The Five, come through the kitchen door dressed as a waiter. Killer clown carried a covered serving tray. Stand-In had decided he would have to play the environment to escape, so he said to Killer Clown "Need help serving?" and made an underhanded volleyball serve on the covered serving tray. Stand-In almost missed but Killer Clown actually moved his hands slightly to help Stand-In set up the shot! Wacky! The serving tray popped up in the air and the lid came off, revealing the head of The Mad Hatter who shouted "GET HIM YOU FOOLS!" Stand-In then realized that his slow transformation into a clown was becoming stronger, and he had big red suspenders. Killer Clown only had to hook his hands on one to capture Stand-In. Stand-In dove for it and barely managed to escape! This brought all the characters together in a dark place back in reality, all uninjured and in normal Heroic forms (though Husk arrived a few seconds earlier and had gone ahead into the darkness). The final encounter was approaching. The final area was a giant cave, mostly shrouded in darkness (a problem for Stand-In). The very far side was dimly lit by a magical glowing waterfall on the far side of a bottomless chasm. On the near side of the chasm was a giant statue of a head (Olmec or Aztec, nobody was certain). The statue also had a hand that cupped to form a throne and another hand holding an altar. Both hands overlooked the bottomless chasm, with the waterfall being on the other side. Finally, a giant mirror of some type was beside the statue. It seemed to float in the air, hanging with part of its surface visible and part of it un-viewable without approaching the cliff. In reality the bottom of the mirror was attached to a point a little down the cliff. The cave itself was very dark and covered floor and ceiling with rock outcroppings ... all made from Q-tanium and all of them razor sharp. Of course, Stand-In couldn't see most of this because the light level was too low for him on the side of the huge cave he had entered. Husk had crawled over the ceiling to get over to where he assumed the action would be. Beholder noticed two wind-and-shadow felines each the size of a pony, chained to the stalagmites to guard the entrance where the Stand-In and Beholder now stood. Since Stand-In can't see in the dark at all, he bravely offered to walk forward and lure the supernatural shadowcats. "Here Kitty Kitty". After all, Beholder could see in the dark and needed to save his sister, who was the next sacrifice up on the chopping block (to transform a punk into a Rat-Bat punk for the night). Stand-In confronted the cats and managed to partially drain one. Mostly he just miraculously survived death, even though he could barely see. This let Beholder shoot a couple of the Rat-Bats about to sacrifice his sister. Meanwhile, Husk, while hiding on the ceiling, noticed Jeramy Straton enter the room from a twisty side passage. He was dressed as an Aztec god (who we would later learn was Tezcatlipoca, the evil brother of Quetzalcoatl). He had a vulture leg instead of a human one but it appeared sewn into his flesh. He was wearing some kind of ceremonial garb. He walked onto the hand that was a crown and lorded his soon-to-be godhood over the Heroes. Sadly for him, he didn't notice the Husk, who was positioned above him on the ceiling. Husk made a superleap down onto the throne/hand, severely messing up Jeramy (Tezcatlipoca). It also messed up the Husk. Husk gets attacked by flying Rat-Bats that use a lasso to capture enemies. Even though the Husk is a swarm of bugs, he is stunned and reeling, so the bugs subconsciously struggle to retain a bipedal shape, which allows him to be caught in a lasso and flown over the bottomless pit. Too bad he hadn't arranged for some of his bugs to fly. Meanwhile, Tezcatlipoca/Jeramy recovers from being stunned and becomes angry. He shoots an area affect knockback blast of wind at the location where Stand-In, Beholder, and Tezcatlipoca's own 2 shadow cats were tangled up. The attack knocks everyone back onto sharp rock outcroppings, and for some reason the Beholder, whose powers are unknown, starts freaking out and portals open in his eyes, spilling out fiery crustaceans who start attacking everything. Hell is breaking loose. Tezcatlipoca then assaults Beholder with some kind of poison snake energy manifestation, which poisons Beholder and starts sapping away his life. Things are looking bad for the heroes. Stand-In, who is closer to the lit part of the cave at this point, sees Tezcatlipoca and charges him. Before Stand-In can close the gap, Tezcatlipoca uses his area effect knockback wind to blast several dead Rat-Bats, and Beholder's unconscious sister Andrea, off into the bottomless pit ... all dead. Then, Tezcatlipoca runs for his life (he is almost dead between being punched by Husk accidentally when the party trusted him and then crushed by the Husk on purpose only moments before). Tezcatlipoca runs to the mirror and jumps down to the portion of the mirror that is suspended below the cliff and Stand-In jumps off the cliff and glides down to the base of the mirror only seconds later, in hot pursuit. After watching his sister die by going off the bottomless pit, Beholder starts going nuts, shooting anything that moves. Husk, meanwhile, wakes up and becomes a mass of bugs that climb up the lasso and he gets on the back of the Rat-Bat and forces him to fly back to safe land. As they get near, the Rat-Bat tries to shake him off, but Husk is close enough now to jump to the safe ground only a few meters away (which pushed the Rat-Boy back into the waterfall, where he plunges to his doom, probably). Unfortunately, Beholder is so enraged that he can't tell friend from foe, and in a terrible tragedy, his eye-blasts knock Husk into the bottomless pit, forever lost. 1 Hero dead, and 1 sister dead. Not a happy story. It turns out that Tezcatlipoca/Jeramy ran to the mirror and used it to travel back in time [later it is discovered by Stand-In that Tezcatlipoca was an evil god of Night and Time and that Jeramy had found a way to wake Tezcatlipoca and become possessed with his power and spirit. The sacrifices were slowly turning Jeramy into a full version of Tezcatlipoca, who would have the ability to escape the Olmec prison designed to capture him for eternity. So, Tezcatlipoca had the ability to travel in time to any point but he could never leave the prison caves until enough sacrifices had been done]. Tezcatlipoca/Jeramy went back into time to the point where Husk first mistakenly punched him, back when the heroes thought he was innocent. He dodged the blow so that he wouldn't be as injured, and of course he then had knowledge of the future, and would be able to avoid all his damage in the big fight when time was relived differently the next time. However, Stand-In had *just* managed to get through the time portal 1 second behind him and defeated the "innocent" Jeramy Straton back in time before anyone had died. Since Tezcatlipoca was a god of night, Jeramy had almost no power at the point in which the Heroes first met him since it was day time, and Tezcatlipoca was defeated at a point in time before any of the Heroes had died. Husk-in-the-past and Beholder-in-the-past were confused about Stand-In suddenly attacking Jeramy for no reason, but Stand-In revealed what was happening, at least in part. He explained that for him, the future was about to happen all over again. Stand-In mentioned that in the future Wolfie's sister would die and that Wolfie would kill Husk, but Stand-In was mysterious and didnt tell them how. They essentially did everything over again, from Stand-In's view, but Stand-In got to change time to work in the Heroes' favor, and they didn't have to fight Tezcatlipoca the next time around, since he was already defeated before any of it ever happened. When exploring the part of the Olmec prison that had the door that went to a world of mental obstacles, Stand-In decided to take the door to the Roach Diner since he wanted to experience all three versions, and the comic book ends with a panel of the heroes pouring out of a giant ladle, with Husk and Beholder looking confused and Stand-In grinning and riding on the top of a carrot down into a giant Roach's soup. [In the aftermath of the Roach Diner shared experience, the other Heroes were able to get a good look at Stand-In's face, albeit under frantic conditions where they were covered in soup and running screaming from giant roaches. Stand-In decided to just trust his associates and not worry about it too much. Also, none of the Rat-Bat gang were killed, and neither was Beholder's sister, since advance knowledge and lack of Tezcatlipoca/Jeramy in the fight let the Heroes defeat the Rat-Bat thugs resoundingly and in a non-lethal manner].