ISSUE #25 "The Time-Hopping Toad" Game Master: Chris Players: Phil, Glenda, Joe, Lewis PCs: Beholder, Golden Girl, Robin, Stand-In (respectively) Experience Points Awarded: 2, 2, 2, 2 (respectively) Synopsis: An extra-dimensional time-hopping version of The Toad shows up and reveals too much, and yet not enough. Details: I don't recall what the other PCs did in their solo time. I waited too long to write it up. Stand-In went to his Hindi class (in character) and made some progress, mostly in Math (the related skill for the other-worldly language he is trying to master). Edward Boltz (aka The Toad) asked Stand-In for help. Golden Girl had found a box, buried since the Civil War, with a letter to her (among other things) from an "E.B.". She asked Edward for help and it was his hand-writing, but left handed instead of right handed, and from the past. Boltz asked Stand- In for help. Stand-In agreed and told everyone to meet at a stadium (on the American side) because the letter indicated that Golden Girl should meet "E.B." there at a certain time. Stand-In and Golden Girl used stealth to get inside (not sure about Robin). Beholder was dumb and shot open the gate with his eye-blasts, right in front of rent-a-cops. Everyone met inside, including Boltz. An energy surge ripped out Boltz out and brought an alternate reality time-travelling version of Boltz who wanted to warn the heroes about some things. Sadly, the rent-a-cops had called Silver Eagle II, who arrived on the scene very quickly. Boltz Prime (The Time-Hopping Toad) told us that when the group defeats The Five (Stand-In's villains) that we should not give the Chaos Sphere to the US Government. We should deal with it ourselves. (Boltz Prime was wearing some kind of high tech time hopping suit that had the Chaos States Of America emblem on it). He also warned us that in his reality, his wife / love Golden Girl was killed because of her fear of snakes made her easy for Nagula Pashtun to kill. He warned her that she needed to get over that fear. Then Boltz Prime saw the Beholder and transformed into a monstrously fat (and more powerful than our) version of The Toad, covered with mystic symbols. He got engraged and Silver Eagle II shot him with tranquilizers (but we didn't know that at the time). Beholder shot The Toad. Robin stood by doing nothing because there was nothing obvious to do. However, based on Stand-In's previous history with Beholder shooting and killing villains, Stand-In called on the others to take Beholder down. Golden Girl did, as she is very protective (though not romantically interested in) Normal Boltz, and that perhaps motivated her. She knocked Beholder down (who claimed later to be shooting at the tranquilizers in Time-Hopping Toad). Sadly during all of this, The Time-Hopping toad was dropping the First Name of Stand-In's secret ID, and the Last Name of Stand-In's other Secret ID, all within range of Silver Eagle II (in large part because Golden Girl, who has a conversational relationship with Silver Eagle II, carries a Jr. Silver Eagle II communicator badge in her pocket, so he heard it all). Between that and Beholder mentioning in front of Silver Eagle II (later on) that Stand-In was rich, The Silver Eagle II knows enough to figure out who Stand-In is in real life. Time-Hoping Toad was supposed to get the paper back he used to leave Golden Girl a message, but I dont believe he did. When his time was up he explosively got pulled into his dimension (he had become Boltz Prime again but anger started him turning into the Toad again as he saw Beholder while being sucked to his own dimension / time). Normal Boltz reappeared in our world. Stand-In was smart enough to move away from the entry point but Golden Girl and Robin were confused and got caught in the blast. Golden Girl was near dead with internal damage from this and previous injuries. Stand-In tried to haul her off and got into an altercation wth Silver Eagle II about juristiction. (Silver Eagle II heard through Golden Girl's badge that Boltz Prime had brought over pills that heal rapidly). Silver Eagle II got testy insisting that Stand-In drop Golden Girl but didnt explain he knew of a way to heal her. Stand-In threatened Silver Eagle II that he couldnt match up to all of them. When Silver Eagle II got in Stand-In's face about authority and about helping Golden Girl, Stand-In backed down and used one of the 2 blue pills to heal Golden Girl's body damage. The other pill was required to heal Normal Boltz. Stand-In apologized and said that he gets testy when it comes to protecting his friends. Silver Eagle II eased up on him some but told Stand-In to never question his authority in the States. Stand-In agreed. Silver Eagle II gave Stand-In the other high-tech gear (helmet, blaster) that Boltz Prime had brought over under the condition that he give it back to Silver Eagle II when asked. Stand-In agreed. Nobody is sure but Silver Eagle II seemed to be wanting to deal with the heroes later privately instead of "on the record." He later claimed than an EMP burst (which DID happen) erased his records (MAY have happened), implying he was covering for us, but many of the heroes don't trust him (well, mainly Stand-In). It may have been this issue (or later) where Silver Eagle II gave Golden Girl a russian kgb transmitter watch for private "off the record" transmissions. Everyone left before other officials could arrive, and Golden Girl flew Normal Boltz home. I know there are other details but I don't remember them all.