Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Netherwars Part 4 – Adapted from the adventure by Lyz Liddell

It was just before Christmas, on what the police referred to as ‘mad’ Friday, and only a couple of days since they had confronted the New Knights and the AML’s Meta-targeted ‘goo bombs’. It was also proving uneventful.

Unfortunately, for the team’s levels of boredom, villains also seemed to be taking a Christmas break, as the only crimes being reported seemed to be alcohol-related. The hero world usually consisted of alternating between terrifying bouts of danger, interspaced with the boring and mundane, but this was proving to be too quiet. They had even considered playing some Trivial Pursuit but quickly realised that would be a bust given that Mary’s memories until a few years ago came from living on an alternate Earth, Akira’s sheltered childhood upbringing limited his knowledge of mundane events and of course Peter’s amnesia. It didn’t help that Akira was still trying to comprehend what the voice he had heard in his head about three ‘seals’ being opened could mean.

Instead, they sat together in the lounge waiting for a shout and were thankful when Frankie interrupted their melancholy. <<Designation: The Balance. Might you wish to participate in a chase?>> and immediately switched on the lounge’s speakers. A traffic report from Radio Wessex filled the room.

“This is Roger Omak reporting from your Eye in the Sky News chop­per! Ladies, gentlemen, and other assorted genders, this morning’s commute will be one for the record books! We’ve got backups all the way north to the interchange. If you don’t have anywhere to be, STAY HOME, because you’re not going to get there anyway, at least not safely.”

“The source of all this chaos is not one but two unidentified cars tearing their way across the city. These daredevils are already responsible for an estimated £2 million in damages so far, and—get a shot of that, Kelly! You’re not seeing things, folk, that is a car grinding on the Bridge railing. I don’t know if this is the traffic report or extreme sports.”

“I’m going to swing the helicopter in low while Kelly gets the telephoto lens on, and we’ll see if we can’t bring you all a close-up of our mysterious racers. Here we go, aaaaand… No one. You’re sure we’re on the right side, Kelly? They’re not American cars, are they?”

“Viewers, like I said: today is one for the record books. It seems like our daredevil stunt cars have no one behind the wheel! Looks like you can’t blame reckless drivers for this one…”

He went on to describe the destruction the two driverless cars were causing; the abandoned and wrecked cars, downed power lines, and so forth left in their wake. Thankfully, most of the civilians on their side of the carriageway had either abandoned their vehicles or fled. Peter hadn’t waited, he’d already left, heading towards the Northern interchange on the edge of the city.

While they were currently heading away from the city itself, they would soon reach the interchange where they could head back into the city of Wessex again, potentially resulting in more destruction and threat to life. The two silver cars were clearly doing well in excess of a hundred and twenty miles an hour as they zipped past the police stingers and barricades by performing their daredevil stunts. Their reckless driving was putting people’s lives at risk.

Akira muttered, “Those cars are clearly deadly weapons, we need to get there and fast.” Before he’d finished speaking, Peter took flight, heading towards the Interchange at his top speed. The others followed on as fast as they could fly with their camera drone Tinks deployed by Frankie to record their actions as evidence.

As Peter arrived on the scene, he saw below one of the cars stop dead and begin to morph into some sort of large robot, like one of those transforming toys so popular in children’s cartoons. It stepped over another car abandoned in the lane and then across the central partition into the opposite side of the carriageway before changing back into a car again once it was clear of the obstacles. It was now racing through oncoming traffic. The other vehicle remained on the other side, crashing through any obstacles with wild abandon until it crashed through the barrier and joined the other vehicle driving against oncoming traffic.

As Paragon got closer, one of the transmorphing vehicles spun round, so it was driving backwards as a powerful energy blast discharged from one of the cars’ headlights. It was clearly intended as a warning shot to keep his distance, but it failed to deter him.

He flew down and immediately grabbed the ‘car’ by its side, flicking it off the road over several other cars and towards the verge. His grip buckled the trim as he sent it flying, even as the other two members of the Balance finally caught up with their faster teammate. The other car continued its race.

They asked Frankie to monitor for any unusual transmissions. If the cars were being remotely-controlled, then hopefully Frankie would be able to trace and hack into their control frequency, blocking the signal. Instead, she uncovered and decoded what appeared to be an encrypted transmission between the two vehicles. Were they A.I.’s? Possibly, but the ongoing conversation which Frankie relayed to their commdots did not reveal the same level of intelligence or mental speed that Frankie or the Challenger-Wildeman’s A.I. displayed.

<<Grab hold of your crankshaft, I’m shifting into overdrive.>> There was an immediate reply from the other car, << Aw, hexagonal nuts! But by the holy screws and bolts I’ve not been disabled, it’s just a scrape. Transmorphs always triumph.>> There were two separate and distinct mechanised voices.

The incoming signal was interfering with and overriding their communication channels. Akira just shouted across to Banshee, a big smile plastered on his face, “Complicated plan here. You twat one of them and I’ll twat the other.” Banshee headed after the vehicle still racing down the lane, intending to unleash a shattering shriek, before realising that such an attack would likely affect all the oncoming traffic as well and immediately changed her plans. Then she wondered whether she might be able to use one of Mary’s spells, the Breath of Manannan, while in Banshee form. To her surprise, the Banshee aspect of her unique symbiosis was able to channel the magic in a way that didn’t drain her, as it would have Mary. She breathed out the magic, transforming her fear-inducing spell into an instantaneous thermal drop in temperature aimed at the speeding car, but only succeeded in icing up the road, causing some oncoming vehicles to skid slightly.

AS Akira flew down, he immediately sensed there was a mystical element to the two vehicles but thankfully no obvious immunity to its effects. Another bust of transmission, this time from the car that Paragon had sent tumbling and flipping towards the verge, surprisingly calm. <<Let’s screech outta here! Follow the plan. I’m shifting into overdrive.>>

The other vehicle responded, <<What? And miss all the fun?>> <<Remind me to discuss your definition of fun some time!>> was the immediate reply.

Akira tried to ignore the transmissions as he unleashed his TK and grabbed the car still racing ahead. He lifted it into the air with his mind before sending it hurling towards the other vehicle that Paragon had sent flying a few seconds before.  <<I’m caught.>> It transmitted, <<these organics are worse than the Deceptamorphs!>> As it flipped through the air it transformed into some form of aerial vehicle, its doors extending out into stubby wings as it righted itself and blasted away now flying under its own power. The other vehicle, send tumbling by Paragon also began to morph into some form of robot in mid air. It leapt the barrier and immediately landed on two feet before sprinting after the transformed plane down the central reservation.

Akira joked, “Well we sorted that, got them off the motorway at least.” Paragon replied in response, “Does that mean the problem’s solved?” as he sped up to catch them. He got to the robot figure first. He reached out, grabbing it by the shoulder, and sent it flying into the grassy verge opposite, where it lay for a few seconds, clearly dazed.

Flying ahead, the other slowed down as they overheard the jet ask, <<You okay Screamer? I can’t find any trace of your personality component, but I don’t think it will matter. Respond.>> Then came the reply, <<Nice scenery. I’m going to waste it! I hate nice things.>>

The jet resumed its flight, apparently leaving its companion behind, then it turned and flew straight at them. Banshee unleashed an icy stare at it. In response, the chill intensified, and it began to snow, but the jet seemed unconcerned as it hurled towards them. The other vehicle regained its ‘feet’ and raising its arm aimed it towards Akira. He responded by unleashing a mystical blast at it. It hit and sent the sentient vehicle staggering back screaming <<I’m down, I’m down.>>

The returning transformed jet responded by firing a missile straight at Akira. Thankfully it was not heat seeking, Akira managed to twist out of its path. It continued its flight and seemed to be about to hit one of the cars trying to flee the chaos when Paragon flew up and tried to intercept the missile, intending to allow it to detonate against him. Realising what Paragon proposed to try to do; Akira immediately unleashed his TK to intercept the missile’s flight and send it flying away at right angles to its original flight path, and caused it to explode harmlessly on the hillside.

Paragon realised that the jet was heading towards him. He flew straight at it, turning himself into a living missile. They collided in the air, but it was clear that the transformed robot came off worse as it tried to continue its flight. Banshee responded by extending her staff while turning insubstantial, hoping to stick it into one of its engines before allowing it to become substantial again but wasn’t fast enough. At the same time, Akira unleashed a double mystical blast, one at each of their opponents. The one on the ground was hit but instead of exploding, it began to transform into a shattered, oversized plastic model in front of their eyes as it screeched <<I’m going. We’ve been tricked.>> Then the transmission died.

Akira’s second blast surprisingly also hit the other vehicle, and it crashed into the ground as it also began to transform itself into a large plastic model of a robot before both began to shrink down to a more normal toy size.

They walked over, surveyed the kit wreckage on the grass, and discovered that they were now identical to a shop bought model kit, no mechanical parts or obvious additions that would enable it to function the way it had. It confirmed Akira’s thoughts that this was magical in origin, but why expend so much mystical energy to transform a toy model into demonic transforming and seeming intelligent vehicles?

Akira did consider taking them back to the BASEment as souvenirs, but the fact that they were so broken and partially melted made him reconsider. Was there some powerful, mystically-oriented child behind this mystery, he wondered? Someone or something from beyond this dimension, possibly?

As if in response, another call came in from Frankie. This time, she informed them that she had two bits of information she needed to relay. The first was that there had been another break-in at the Adrian Eldrich exhibit at the Horniman Museum.

The other, which may or may not be connected, was that there were reports coming in of dozens of young children collapsing unconscious across the South of England. The doctors had been unable to revive them, and they have been hospitalised as a result. The information had just been released, but the collapses had been occurring throughout the night.  The police assumed they were all somehow connected but exactly how had not been released so far.

Akira asked what had been stolen from the museum. Frankie explained that from all reports she’d been able to obtain and although police and staff were still on the scene and checking the only thing missing so far was a picture, a commercial print of a not very valuable picture of Eldrich, though a vase had also been smashed in the process.

Motion alarms had gone off at the museum just a short time before and police had responded immediately but couldn’t find any signs of a break in. The museum curator who lived nearby turned up, and they immediately undertook a full search of the building but found nothing until a few minutes before when they heard the sound of something breaking; presumably the vase. Whoever or whatever had caused it had managed to flee without a trace. As if in confirmation, Akira heard that now familiar female voice whisper in his ear that the fourth seal had been breached.

As they set off enroute for the Museum, they asked Frankie to obtain as much information on the collapsed children as she could get by whatever means possible. She complied and during the flight filled the team in on what the authorities knew so far.

The missing picture was confirmed as a popular print of Eldrich hovering in the air, copies of which were readily available in the museum’s gift shop. The stolen copy had been present just to add a bit of additional colour to the exhibit itself.

The vase on the other hand had been a genuine if relatively worthless antique, but it had been smashed and none of its fragments were missing. Akira wondered if there had been anything inside it and wanted to do a reading once they arrived. As they flew towards London at Akira and Banshee’s top speed, they contacted Marcus to request authorisation to investigate, citing their previous involvement with the exhibit. He readily agreed and contacted the Catford station to let them know they were on their way.

In relation to the unconscious children, Frankie was able to confirm that the only common factors were that each of the affected children had found a mysterious Christmas present underneath their Christmas tree. None of their parents or guardians knew where it had come from and in each instance, the unconscious child had opened the present early only to fall into a coma a short time later.

Akira muttered that, “They had got what they deserved then…” but continued to ask Frankie to search for any common factors in the mysterious malady that had befallen them all. Were all the presents the same, for example?

Frankie confirmed that the toys were all different types but traditional in style – consisting of dolls, action figures, railway sets, board games etc.  They have been tested and were not found to be infected with any type of neurotoxin or poison.

Paragon asked if they had been tested for magic, but Akira pointed out that the police and medics had no way to test for such taints. Akira did suggest asking Seven if she could get out of school and possibly check one of the packages for traces of magical contamination. Frankie agreed to ask the school if Serena could be excused classes that afternoon to check it out.

Seven did manage to get away and later confirmed that there was a magical connection, but unlike any she’d seen before, but otherwise the packages were normal.

Meanwhile, Frankie confirmed that the Police had carried out more mundane tests of the mysterious packages and found that other families, who had discovered similar gifts but whose children had not opened early, have not been infected.  Tests on their toys and packaging have not found anything that could have caused the other children to collapse and any adults who opened the packages were also unaffected.

The toys in each case was from the Fun-Time range made famous by the villain Toy Boy and produced by E.B.Nezzer Products Ltd – only available from their Toyland Stores.

Police were currently working on the theory that this was some form of extortion plot especially following the Krampus assault on Sir Stephen Croudge, founder and CEO of E.B.Nezzer Products Ltd. the year before, but no contact had been made so far.

That brought back memories. Although Mary and Akira hadn’t fought Toy Boy before, they had carried out some research on him as part of that mission. Fun-Time Toys was a manufacturing firm belonging to the Toy Boy from several years ago. Mary in particular remembered a Toy Boy on her original world, a man cursed with a genetic disorder that left him trapped in the body of a child, who had turned to murder before being arrested and finally dying in prison. She remembered that after his death there had been an attempt to try to cash in on his murderous artefacts, only for the directors of his company to be horribly and mysteriously murdered.

Akira and Peter remembered that the Toy Boy on this world had been a murderer with height deficiencies who died in prison a couple of years ago.

Frankie confirmed that Toy Boy had once used Fun-Time’s resources and facilities as part of his initial career as a super-criminal. After Desmond Lettam’s arrest, subsequent incarceration and death in prison, control of Fun-Time passed to its other stockholders, who had installed new management. Fun-Time had managed a slow crawl back to decent financial footing until someone had the bright idea of trying to cash-in on Toy Boy’s reputation by selling off some of his killer designs to Sir Stephen Croudge. Several of the directors were subsequently killed under mysterious circumstances and in very nasty ways, and the company financially ruined. There were rumours that Toy Boy had somehow faked his own death, but that was proven to be a myth.

The thing was though that Toy Boy had been a tech genius, he hadn’t been known to ever use magic in his weapons and traps and that was what Seven had proven was responsible for the children going into comas, though the why remained unanswered.

They subsequently arrived at the Horniman and checked in with the officers investigating. They agreed to let Akira touch the broken vase now that SOCO had checked it for prints and photographed it in situ. It didn’t help that surrounded by the rest of the Eldrich exhibit, the whole location registered as magic.

Peter went off to check the Museum’s CCTV footage while Banshee was drawn to something in the frame of the missing picture. Firstly, the picture had been removed whole not cut out of the frame and she noticed a lump of coral-coloured putty fleck­ed with dried paint among the green pottery shards. Investigating the now-empty picture frame revealed shreds of the same putty and a few oily smears on the frame itself. Some sort of rubber play dough-like polymer thought Akira when he also examined it.

Akira, using his mystical senses, could feel lingering traces of powerful magic on the green fragments of the broken vase and the picture frame; the pottery radiated a residue of defensive magic crafted via hermetic traditions, while the frame was wracked with spirit energy. Akira was also able to see what happened and confirm that what the CCTV had recorded was real.

What the CCTV couldn’t confirm was what Akira had ‘seen’, that the inside of the ancient rough-hewed clay vase had actually been formed of jade shaped by elemental magic which, when whole, had enabled the user to commune with the elemental spirits of nature. He also felt that it had been somehow connected with the seals he kept on being ‘told’ were now destroyed. He was now convinced it wasn’t the picture that had been the seal, but this mystical ‘ear’ that allowed a mage to tune into the language of nature itself.

Upstairs the security footage was initially uneventful, showing an unremarkable view that included a somehow wrong portrait of Adrian Eldrich in the frame, though Paragon couldn’t initially understand why, as well as the green painted vase on its stand.

The painting seemed to be the same iconic image found on most of the admittedly scant Adrian Eldrich merchandise that had been released, such as on T-shirts, posters or a tarot cards from the gift shop as well as several other shops.

After a moment, the painting in its frame began to convulse, then slid down to the floor. It continued moving on its own toward the vase, where it wrapped itself around the artefact and crushed it. The portrait then morphed into a rubbery pink fluid and forced its way out through the small ventilation duct.

That was when Peter and the others realised why the painting had looked off, because it had been a mirror image of the original painting, with the image reversed! “Shenanigans” shouted Akira when he realised.

The museum’s records showed that the painting had been recently donated by one Dalton Medmast, apparently a reclusive tech-sector worker, who had made displaying the print one of his requirements for providing an extremely generous donation, all of which had been arranged via web conferencing. According to those same records, the artist of the original painting was Kim Roberts, a well-known local painter who owned a RPG games and trading card shop near the riverside Boardwalk back in Wessex.

Akira did wonder if he might be able to reconstruct the vase but realised that it wouldn’t restore the magic. He did realise that it had a stronger connection to previous master mages as well as to Eldrich but somehow that had helped ground the later spell placed on it by Eldrich who had never used its inherent abilities though others clearly had. He got a flash in particular of an elderly lady in a black mourning dress who referred to herself as Lady Strange and realised that despite her extreme age she was still alive, living in a sanatorium somewhere in the north though her mind was no longer whole, or healthy.

It was time, thought Akira as he explained to the other two about the strangely familiar female voice whispering in his mind about seals being broken when certain mystical objects with a connection to Eldrich had been damaged. He explained that it had started with the attack on the Alternity Atlas, then when one of the Hellstones of Vhoka had been destroyed in the volcano, again when Vandaleu’s music box had gone missing and finally when the vase had been shattered.

He explained that he was reasonably sure that there were seven mystical seals, four of which had already been broken or breached. They needed to stop the other three from being destroyed in order to avert a major catastrophe of some sort. 

As soon as the shock at Akira’s revelation (or guess) had worn off, the questions began as he explained his theory that they were some form of mystical connections that prevented something or things from coming through from other dimensions. He had a theory that as the vase had been connected to the Earth and Earth spirits and that the others had guarded or been linked to other types of magic or planes of existence.

Peter wondered if anyone might know about the purpose of the seals and suggested asking Seven if she knew. Akira explained he’d already asked her about it previously in a roundabout sort of way, and she’d known nothing about them, proposing that it had to be knowledge only known to a Master Mage, possibly as a protection when they were off-world. Other than Eldrich himself, the only other surviving one she had known about still on Earth was an elderly senile old lady in a sanatorium somewhere in Scotland being overseen by the Watchers caste.

He quickly quelled Paragon’s enthusiasm for an immediate road trip to Scotland by pointing out they had no idea where the asylum was and neither did Seven. Even if they found her she was still a powerful magic user, which, coupled with her insanity, would not make for a sensible conversation about mystical seals.

Akira did try to use the vase shards with the pathfinding spell, the Compass of Ahgrazul, to try to guide them to wherever the next seal might be located. While he prepared the spell, the others investigated the painting’s donor, Dalton Medmast. They could find no trace of anyone by that name though.

Akira confirmed that the next seal was located close to water and connected to the Serpent people, or to be more precise, the Deep Ones.

Having enlisted the help of Frankie, Paragon eventually confirmed that the name was both fake and, if they rearranged the letters, Dalton Medmast was an anagram of Toy Boy’s real name, Desmond Lettam.

Coincidence? The Balance didn’t think so, despite his being confirmed dead for a couple of years. Though Peter really didn’t want to believe it, without seeing the body for himself, even though he had no idea what he had looked alike while he was alive.

Frankie was able to find that the donor also recently bought a number of pieces of inexpen­sive property, including an old Sinbad’s Palace arcade, a defunct children’s theatre called the Fairy Glen, an abandoned Pete E. Popcorn’s restaurant, a shuttered Toys-4-You store, and a gutted build­ing that once served as an elementary school in the South of London.

As they mulled this over a report came in that claimed that a houseboat had been mauled, apparently by a school of inflatable sharks. That was way too weird not to be connected. The sharks had apparently mauled the boat’s owner and dragged her away. The police weren’t sure what was going on but the team set off immediately with Paragon pushing himself as fast as he could leaving Banshee and Akira to follow as fast as they could.

Within seconds, he’d arrived at the scene and could see the wrecked and sinking houseboat and four inflatable sharks, who due to their physical nature (being full of air) were floating away on the surface of the river. The remains of two security guards lay on the walkway badly savaged though there was no sign of the boat owner, whoever they were. The scene below was a bloody mess.

From on high, Paragon could see the ‘sharks’  and confirmed that despite their artificial nature were swimming, moving and biting like real sharks. Police confirmed that the owner of the houseboat was a female called Jianna Delacure, and was known to her neighbours and the art scene as a minor dabbler in the supernatural with more money than talent—and she was definitely missing.

Paragon went fishing for inflatable sharks. He flew over, grabbed a shark and pulled it out of the water. It tried to bite him with what looked like very sharp, very real teeth. He flew over the houses and finding an empty garden dropped it from a height hoping it would splatter. Instead, it bounced and proceeded to crawl along the ground using its fins to move, still biting at everything. He was forced to drop down and rip it open, revealing gory body parts apparently savaged from the security guards. It continued to try to bite him until it was fully deflated and he was covered in its gory stomach contents.

He proceeded to head back to the river and grab another of the ‘sharks’ and did the same again.

Akira arrived on scene and was able to tell that the next seal or object was in the water but couldn’t target it. He could tell there was a mind controlling the seal though, whatever it was, but he was sure it wasn’t connected to the sharks.

 Banshee was busy investigating the wrecked houseboat, large teeth marks having been bitten from the deck and cabin. There was blood everywhere on both the boat and around the dock. She reached out and tried to get a feel for the scene with her own mystical senses. It glowed with mystical energy but from a hotchpotch of various minor arcana, lacking a connecting mystical ‘signature’. This was clearly the home of a mystical dabbler rather than a powerful witch or mage.

Banshee flew down and stared into the cabin; the houseboat itself contained a small shrine to Adrian Eldrich, which the sharks had methodically destroyed. She went inside and confirmed that something or things had wrecked every single mystical object onboard. All except for a tarot card showing Eldrich as the Magician which had fallen beneath the bed. It showed the same image as the poster in the museum except this was facing the right way round. She got the impression that someone had been examining it when the attack had occurred as the rest of the pack, now shredded, was on the kitchen table. Banshee confirmed that the damage was definitely due to the shark attack. As a result of the attack, the boat was now slowly sinking. She grabbed the card and flew away.

Akira meanwhile attacked the fleeing sharks still in the water, although he missed the first, he burst the rest in a series of minor explosions. The surviving shark was still trying to follow and trying to dive under the water as though it was after something deep beneath the surface. Then he spotted deep down a female body swimming around in the depths of the river, like an overweight mermaid.

He placed a force cage around the figure below and proceeded to pull the swimmer in a bubble of water to the surface. Inside was an overweight, middle-aged woman wearing a green leather belt over a sodden wet cotton dress, seemingly breathing the water.

There was a look of panic on her face on being unwillingly raised to the surface. She looked less like a mermaid than a local resident who had just jumped into the water only to find she could breathe it. Akira sniggered.

Paragon on realising that one shark was still out there, flew up and burnt the remaining ‘shark’ with his eye beams as it tried to swim away. Back on shore, Banshee had to ask the woman, “Is this your card?” as he showed her the tarot card. Akira TKed her over to the dock but kept her in the water ball as Banshee reverted to Mary, manifested her harp and began her healing spell while Akira shouted through the water to confirm that she was indeed Jianna Delacure and the mauled houseboat was, had been, her home. She was willing to admit to being a fan of Eldrich but didn’t know why the weird plastic sharks had attacked her and her home, smashing all of her precious possessions.

She confirmed she’d been looking at the image on that particular tarot card when they’d attacked out of the blue. Akira explained that they had been looking for a reason themselves while checking that it was the same image on the card as in the print but this one was the right way round.

“Where did you get the card from?” asked Akira through the bubble. Instead of answering, she pointed back at them and told them to turn the card over whereupon Mary could see the copyright notice for the artist Kim Roberts of the On Card shop.

What the sharks hadn’t destroyed was what Akira was focused on, as he was very aware he hadn’t heard any voices whispering in his ear this time and only the card had survived, hadn’t it? Then he noticed the belt round her waist was made of some sort of green leather and Paragon was suggesting that was how she had survived in the water. He wanted to know more about it as it too had apparently survived the shark attack.

The belt was clearly magical and granted her aquatic powers. It was time they had a look at it. Akira explained what he intended to do then dropped the cage causing the water to splash to the ground and leaving her breathing air again.  She collapsed to the ground in relief then began to look around her, explaining that when the sharks had attacked, they had been accompanied by and taking orders from a weird, strange creature, like a purple midget shark woman and strangest of all was that she had been carrying a banjo with her. “It’s weird enough your teammate carrying a harp, but a banjo? A banjo! What the hell is going on?”

It was Banshee who suggested to Akira that the belt she was wearing might be the next seal. He agreed that it could be. The card had a much smaller magical signature to the belt after all. The belt had been her most prized possession.

Paragon was now in a rush to return to Wessex and visit the card shop. The Police were on their way and no, she wasn’t willing to accompany them even if she hadn’t still been wounded from the shark attacks.

She was also unwilling to part with the belt, unless of course they had the golden Mask of Malador? She’d happily swop her leviathan belt for that. She’d been seeking that particular prize for several years without success.

She admitted, with some embarrassment, that she had wanted a powerful magic artefact of her own so other members of the magical community would take her more seriously and invite her to events.

She was clearly a collector and wanted something powerfully magical but rumour has it that some villains had obtained the mask recently but hadn’t recognised it for what it was and it had vanished. A group calling themselves the Factor Four apparently?

Factor Four had stolen a mask, but it had been the Janus Mask they stole – could it have also been the Mask of Malador or, given its unique design, could it have been concealed inside it?

Unwilling to go with them, she absolutely refused to part with the belt given it had saved her life before and might need to do so again if the shark lady returned – she’d got the impression that the shark lady couldn’t go into the water after her. The sharks could, but their air-filled physiology meant they had to remain on the surface and couldn’t dive down to attack her.

Akira was pretty sure now that the belt was another seal, though he couldn’t confirm it, and he needed to make sure it was kept safe, so in the end they asked Seven to come and protect her and the belt while they would seek out the next seal, at the card shop belonging to Kim Roberts. They set off immediately back to Wessex and the Fens.

Learning that Seven had been Adrian Eldrich’s apprentice was the final selling point for Jianna, who now agreed to Seven’s protection as they set off for the card shop, hoping they would arrive in time.

They set off flying and after some time arrived at the boardwalk, a fancy name for a mooring with several art-focused wooden shops, built next to it on the shore.

On Deck was one of the smaller shops. Little more than a shack really that sold all sorts of cards, from playing cards and specialised decks for magic tricks to football cards, collectible card games, and more specialised items as well as a couple of RPG supplements. One of their most popular offerings to tourists was apparently a series of hero-and-villain tarot decks designed and illustrated by the owner, Kim Roberts.

As the landed, they could see through the window of the shop that a handful of the collec­tor’s edition action figures in the shop had come to life, broke free of their original packaging (completely ruining their value) and were hurling the thousands of cards within into a massive jumbled heap on the floor. Banshee and Akira even saw their own collectable miniatures participating in the chaos much to Akira.s disgust. He whispered “Traitors!” as they themselves entered. Paragon noticed he wasn’t represented amongst the action figures.

Several other collectable figurines began to fight them including a miniature of Mace shooting miniature arrows at them all. They appeared to be focusing much of their attacks on the original paintings. Paragon smashed into the toy Akira, punching it into smithereens. Mini-Mace shot at him in response and but the bolts failed to penetrate while an insubstantial Banshee stood beside him and unleashed an aura of fear which had no impact on the figurines but did affect the shop owner hiding in the back room.

Akira responded by shooting at several of the action figures with mystical blasts, dazing the 14 inch tall Young Sam and knocking Mini-Mace inanimate, trying to take the Mini-Balance out of the equation. Mini-Young Sam attacked paragon with a fire blast that missed but set several posters on fire. Paragon went on a smashing spree, trying to take out Mini-Sam and missing but destroying several of the London Watch figurines as the owner shouted, “No! Not that one.”

Banshee headed to the back room, which proved to be a combination of art studio and storage room. Several figures were busy slashing at the original paintings on the wall.  The shop’s owner, Kim was in a panic as the action figures went on a rampage around the room.

Several were focused on slashing at the original painting of Adrian Eldrich. Banshee turned substantial, grabbed the sliced painting and turned ghost again with the picture to avoid any further damage to it.

It didn’t help Akira that he heard that now familiar voice whisper that a fifth seal had been destroyed.

Several figurines started to crawl up Akira. He unleashed the Shining Suns of Sirrion with himself as the source and called forth a blazing reddish-gold light to nullify the magic present in the room. The figures all collapsed, once more inanimate. In the back room, Banshee saw the painting slashers collapse to the floor as the shop owner was in hysterics at his collectables for attacking the rest of his stock.

He tried to get off the floor as Banshee became Mary and began to calm him with her harp. It seemed that despite the rest of the damage the main target had been the original painting of Eldrich.

Akira picked up the slashed picture and got a feeling that there was something very unusual about that particular painting. This was the original of the museum picture, and it had a mystical element in it composition, it felt as though some sort of ash had been mixed into the paint though he wasn’t sure why.

This was a painting of Adrian Eldrich as the magician in flight. Once he’d calmed down enough, he confirmed that these were the originals of the paintings he had created for the hero and villain tarot decks. He had painted most of them based on news footage, but in a few cases—including in Eldrich’s case for the Magician card—he had managed to get heroes to model in real life.

Kim admitted that Eldrich had asked him to mix some ash or powder into the paints as a condition of his participating. He didn’t know why. Paragon checked out the rest of the paintings but they all seemed normal, without a trace of magic in their composition.

Kim mentioned that he did wonder if it was connected with that strange man that had come in at closing time last week, asking him about it. “He knew Eldrich asked me to mix some weird ash into my pigments in ex­change for posing. Asked to buy it, too, but I mean, the guy was clear­ly a villain. Big coat, walrus moustache, sunglasses, insisted on paying in cash. I told him to bugger off because I had a sitting with Tess Challenger-Wildeman that night, and he slunk off. He smelled like popcorn, weirdly enough. Do you know any popcorn-themed supervillains?”

They left him to clear up his mess and went outside to discuss what to do next. They left the slashed painting with him but not before Akira had taken a reading and realised that Eldrich’s dust that he’d asked to mix into the painting had been taken from the previous Master Mage’s remains, from Doctor Avery’s cremated ashes.

Paragon reminded the others that one of buildings that the donor that they thought was Toy Boy had purchased was a Pete E. Popcorn restaurant and that it wasn’t very far away.

They headed off immediately for the Family Funhouse. Pete E. Popcorn’s was a defunct circus-themed restaurant and arcade originally catering to families visiting the Amusement Park, with a menu of carnival food, games to win toy prizes, and a mu­sical number “performed” by animatronic lions, elephants, and other circus animals. Many attributed the restaurant’s failure in large part to the servers’ ostentatious and slightly creepy clown costumes, and it has been abandoned for years until purchased recently.

When they arrived, they looked through the windows and saw the stage inside with its animatronic band and the tables still set out as though for the next performance. The building was locked but a glance through the window allowed Akira to portal himself and his teammates inside, in front of the stage.

Other than the faint light from the street, filtering through filthy windows, the only illumination in this abandoned restaurant came from the stage lights, which surprisingly were lit. The primary colours of the walls have faded and cracked, but clearly depict a mural, but a child­like scrawl covered much of it with the same image: a vague, feminine figure with black eyes and waving, black hair.

Banshee checked for mystical energy and discovered the whole building was radiating lots of dark energy all around them. There was some bad juju in play here.

On the decrepit stage a motley collection of decrepit animatronics in the form of an­thropomorphic circus animals immediately began to perform a tinny carnival tune. The shaggy bear swivelled with a screech, it eyes blinking unevenly, and in a childlike voice asked, “What will the Dark Lady do with you once she has what she wants?”

Paragon spun round and asked the leering bear, “Why will the dark lady not come out?” It replied in the same childlike voice, “She’s away at the moment but we’re here to entertain you. She will come soon and you will know her pleasure.”

One of the figures was a purple shark like female figure on the banjo, the rest of the band were a motley collection of vaguely anthropomorphised animal figures including a bushy moustached Walrus on lead guitar and a lion on the keyboard.

With the exception of the bear, the rest of the mouldering anima­tronic animals immediately began to sing a medley of cheerful but poor-quality recordings of even poorer-quality children’s songs. All except for the anthropomorphic bear which again turned toward them and asked, in that same childlike voice, “Who could have saved you, if not the Dark Lady?” and “What does the Dark Lady need?” while the other animatronics continued their decrepit music.

The nearby booths still held their various prizes including several Transmorph robots, inflatable sharks, jars of wonder putty, heroic action figures of The Protectors and the original team of London Watch (their own action figures were sadly missing) as well as clown masks. Akira picked up one of the masks and muttered that he was “Bozo the prime clown.” That was when he noticed that all of the action figures depicting Adrian Eldrich had been methodically demolished and piled up on a shelf with a toy dragon placed on top of them. There were also several small piles of paper nearby.

Mary went over to a heap of old paper placemats on one of the counters, which had been scrawled on with thick purple crayon and began to read. One stack recorded, “So hard to remember. Feels like my brain’s in… in pieces. My name is Desmond, and I never had to grow up. Everyone hated me for it. They bullied me, those children who grew into men. Oh, they called me a ‘baby’ but with a jealous gleam in their eyes. My parents hid me away. But my toys were always there for me.”

“I love my toys, and they love me.”

“And I showed them all how much better toys were than people. You can break a toy and still have fun. It’s fun to break a person, but after that, you can’t play with them anymore. It was harder to break the heroes, but they also didn’t like to play by the rules. They’ll regret it. They’ll all miss me when I’m gone.”

Another stack read, “People aren’t the only bullies. Life is a bully. My body was sup­posed to be young forever. The doctors said so! But they lied. My body was dying, they said, and they wouldn’t make it stop. They could if they wanted to but they WOULDN’T! I tried so hard to fix it! I’m so smart! Smarter than anyone! Anyone but the Dark Lady.”

“The Dark Lady could make it stop. She heard me suffering and came to me in my dreams. The Dark Lady held me close to her, and when it was time, she made me a toy forever! She said I was her favourite child! And there was so much I could do for her. My toys can touch the world for her while she can’t, and we can fix everything!”

A final stack read, “Eldrich is the biggest bully of them all! He can’t even play any­more, but he locked everyone else out of the playroom! The Dark Lady needs to play, but the TOYS! I hate his stupid Eldrich toys! He used them to lock out the Dark Lady. She’s all alone and can’t play! Spread them all over the world! Big boring jewels, funny-looking books. A stupid, ugly belt and useless pictures! I WILL SMASH ALL HIS TOYS so the dark Lady can come and play! SHE will be the Master Mage! SHE is Unrelenting! SHE will come and the whole world will be her plaything!”

“And I am always her favourite little boy!”

There was a list written in red crayon that listed the atlas, the Hellstones, The Green Man’s ear, the music box, the Leviathan Band and the Magician painting.

Akira noted that, assuming destroying one Hellstone had been sufficient, then only the Leviathan Band was not yet destroyed from that list.

Then a call came in from Seven even as Akira heard the voice in his head once more. “The sixth seal is no more.” Seven sounded weak and weary as she stated that “whatever you do, don’t let them find the mask, it’s the only thing keeping the dark out and stopping HER from coming through.”

As she spoke, the tinny carnival music stopped as the animatronic bear wheeled around again, blinking with an audible click. “What will you-no! No, no no no, NO! I identified the whole list! Smashed all his toys! There must be one left… one I overlooked. One…” The sound of papers shuffling and tables overturned ushered from the bear’s mechan­ical mouth. “One… he overlooked. One he didn’t make…Yes. But if not him, then who? Certainly not Seven, that grievous goth gar­goyle is useless! But what other Master Mages are still… oh-ho! Yes, it must be that very naughty boy! He’s the only one! But he’s locked up. And once I destroy the mask, the Dark Lady will be one with the world. I’m going to need a key…”

Suddenly all the band figures began to march off the stage and threw themselves at the three of them. Whatever else Seven had to say was drowned out in a slashing of claws and a gnashing of teeth as the band attacked leaving only the bear on the stage to lament that they would not survive to see the Dark Lady come into her glory.

Chaos ensued as a fight broke out with Akira shouting, “Let’s face these critters down!” even as a door to the rear of the stage opened and a battered and bleeding figure limped into the light. The face was familiar to both Akira and Banshee. It was the Gamemaster, the villainous cur that had kidnapped their friends, trapped them in a death trap called the slaughterhouse then tried to entomb them alive. He had obviously been in a serious fight and had suffered several major injuries as a result. How he managed to keep going was a mystery that seemed to indicate he was not just another normal human. The door he had just come through should have just led to a small storeroom, instead there was a tainted yellow light shining from inside revealing a long stone corridor heading off into the distance before it slammed shut behind him.

The team began to smash their way through the horde of metre-high animatronic assassins.  Akira fired on the bear still on the stage and damaged its head but didn’t stop it screeching more of its hysterical predictions. The other, mobile puppets swarmed over them only for each in turn to be smashed or shattered even as Banshee hummed the tune to ‘I am the walrus’ between shattering shrieks. They were stronger than they looked and it took several hits to finally stop their attacks.

They finally stepped over the smashed and immobilised remnants of the band and ignored the immovable bear on the stage as he screamed that, “The Dark Lady will have her revenge on you for daring to upset her plan!”

Akira shouted back, “What’s down that bloody corridor?” It was the Gamemaster that replied, “That was the Dungeon Dimension. I managed to obtain the key from a villain called Gabriel Slade some months ago and have been using it to imprison those who deserve to be punished. Permanently.

“Do you still have the key?” asked Akira looking at the locked door with its lock and keypad.  “No, it was stolen from me after I was ambushed by a stupid puppet that invaded the dimension somehow, I’m not sure how it got in but it has the key, though I still have my backdoor pass though it will only work one more time.” He held up a blank business card with the number “7734” written on it. It was only much later that they thought to turn the number on the card upside down.

Gamemaster continued, “It had an army of robotic creatures with it and succeeded in opening all the cells and freeing all the prisoners. While I was dealing with them, it stole the key and locked me in with a dozen of the convicts. I was forced to kill them all before I managed to escape and get to the backdoor which for some reason took me here, wherever here is. This will allow you entry but you can only use it once. After that you will be trapped there unless you find my key.”

He reluctantly agreed to answer their questions but refused healing as he said his own immune system would do that for him without indebting him to them for their efforts. Akira asked what Toy Boy wanted in that dimension. “He’s apparently looking for a mask. If I have it, it’ll likely in the secure vault. When I return I’ll return my prisoners to their cells but that stupid puppet was able to nullify my abilities and caught me off-guard so you’re my revenge on him.”

The Balance stood up and confirmed that they were looking for a mask that apparently was in another dimension and had been disguised as a different mask. Sounds easy enough. The Gamemaster explained that the rooms and corridors moved around of their own volition unless the visitors had his key to guide them and stabilise the corridors. Akira smiled he had a house that had similar properties, they should be able to cope, especially if he used a certain ‘compass’ spell to guide them. Gamemaster clearly had no experience with raw magic.

He did ask if they knew who Malador was.  Akira and the others had to admit they didn’t. “Evil, undead bastard from the time of Atlantis? The God Mage? Thought he was above the rest of humanity who was only fit to serve as his slaves. His life essence is supposedly connected with that mask; if you take him out his life force, his memories and all of his evil, just transfers to the mask ready to take over the next poor fool, the next idiot, to put it on.  It’s a ready-made cell if you ask me. Trapped between reanimations, or should that be reincarnations, in an immobile object as long as others keep their thieving hands off it. The mask has been hidden inside another mask to prevent anyone from restoring Malador, but it was stolen and I was forced to hide it in my vault and imprison the thieves, or at least some of them, anyway.” 

 “So it’s now in the dungeon dimension?” asked Akira. “Yes it was, but I don’t know where it is now.” He stated, though Paragon was sure he was lying about that part. “It’s in safe keeping.” He reluctantly admitted.

“It was a real pain in my ass to get it there, it’s tied to this plane of existence and really didn’t want to leave it for some reason and you aren’t the first to know I have it and want it, there was a woman who managed to contact me and asked to buy it. A collector presumably, with more money that sense, has been hounding me for weeks to sell it and refuses to take no for an answer.”

Jianna Delacure? Possibly.

Akira asked how they got back from the dimension. Gamemaster gave him a predatory smile in response. “You will need to find my master key. Yes, it actually looks like a physical key. It will be the only one in that dimension. The code you have when entered into the keypad of the door behind us will allow you access, but will no longer work after that.

They turned and walked to the storeroom door and tapped in the code 7734 and the door swung open revealing the impossible behind it. Instead of a storeroom, the doorway had opened into a long, dim corridor of grey, blood-splattered stone and stale air, lit intermittently with pale orbs that flickered like torches. The hall extended forward, but it was hard to estimate the distance. No decorations adorned the plain walls, and the only features were the occasional intersecting hallway. The air carried the faint sickeningly dry, sweet metallic scent of drying blood, dust and bleach. Far off in the distance were echoes of metal clanking, indecipherable voices, and the ragged sound of stone grinding against stone.

Though the initial impres­sion was one of order and structure, the pocket dimension apparently adhered only to its own complex laws and geometries—straight lines weren’t always straight and down wasn’t always down—making it difficult to navigate. It existed outside of Earth’s space and time, making it an ideal prison and hideout.

As the door swung shut behind them, they heard the Gamemaster shout to head to the secure vault and keep an eye open for the Orb of Ghorummaz, which they might need to imprison Toy Boy.

They set off down the corridor. There was no way back, as Akira reactivated his pathfinding spell, hoping it would be able to guide them through the maze to the secure vault, which despite the ever-fluid locations they were currently in appeared to be a fixed location at the centre of this pocket dimension. Akira smiled, he had plenty of experience with fluid, moving locations due to his own abode, the mystical ever-shifting mansion of Ffrwd Dylluan.

They set off in the direction indicated by the spell and soon came across a circular chamber surrounded on all sides by open cells. The corridor continued on the opposite side of what they initially thought might be an exercise area but on closer inspection appeared to be more of a gladiatorial arena given the amount of dried rust-coloured bloodstains covering the stone floor.

The area had about a dozen people duking it out in the open space but the only one’s they recognised were three of the Factor Four; Fathom and Sylph who for some reason were facing off against Granite and a youth who seemed to be fighting against everyone who got too close to him.

The youth’s body was ever changing, as though being eaten away so that his parts of his skeletal structure and internal organs were on view before a green energy surrounding him renewed this body only for the torture to begin all over again. They had seen him once before, when they had rescued the inmates from Gamemaster’s Slaughterhouse. Granite had identified him at that time as Agony.

He was attacking everyone with some sort of energy pulse that flowed out of his body affecting anyone who dared to get too close including Granite who seemed to be defending him against the other two surviving Factor Four members.

The other prisoners, most of whom seemed to be unpowered, either had their own fights to contend with or were trying to keep their distance, usually unsuccessfully, from Agony’s painful aura. There were no signs of any wardens or guards.

Looking on the chaos in front of them, Akira muttered, “Anyone got a small nuclear device? We should nuke them from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.” Banshee immediately turned insubstantial and invisible as they tried to figure whether or not to interfere.  “Let’s just sneak past them,” whispered Banshee. Akira nodded and indicated that Paragon should grab his shoulder and piggyback on his powers as he weaved his own invisibility to cover them both.

They moved into the arena only for Paragon to stumble over his now invisible feet. One of the inmates turned in his general direction but on seeing nothing there, returned to his attempts to pacify his opponent. Then Agony’s aura of pain and decay washed over them.  A wave of nausea hit Banshee and she stumbled but forced herself back to her feet and tried to follow the other two who had apparently made it to the corridor opposite. As she was about to try and float across after them, Granites’ elbow went through the space her head occupied before punching into and splattering Fathom’s watery form everywhere. Banshee let out a sigh of relief that she was insubstantial and hurried off to join her two teammates.

Fleeing the battle felt wrong but necessary. If they were to save their world, they had to stop Toy Boy from acquiring the mask. Akira was relying on the whispering voice to alert him if the last seal had been shattered and it hadn’t so far. They waited until Banshee staggered across and whispered she’d arrived.

 Akira turned and looked at Granite whose stone-like skin was covered in half-healed cuts and old chipped scales as he again hurled himself into Fathom’s whirling water blade. He had the look of someone who had been imprisoned here for years, not weeks at most. Could time work differently here he wondered, or possibly not at all?

As they set off down the other corridor, they floated above the ground just in case. Railing-lined walkways encircled the crammed corridors, granting access to countless barred cell doors lining the exteri­or walls. Staircases connected the ground to the open cell doors above. A clamour of voices echoed down the corridor as a pair of inmates raced along the walkway fleeing some unseen terror.

There were suspicious holes along the top of the walls that could be linked to the cells but Banshee could see that the stones were stained and stank of some sort of bitter-smelling spilt chemical. She suspected that they had been used to deliver some form of knockout gas intended to pacify any escapees but if so, they had been already used. Still, it was another risk to be aware of. On the ground in front of them were grooves in the stone floor, walls and roof that looked suspiciously as though they were intended to guide runners into forming a cage. This section of the corridor was clearly set up with a number of traps or concealed cages to catch the unwary that walked down it. Thankfully, as they were flying they hadn’t activated any of them.

What they did notice was that someone had methodically opened every single cell they passed. Akira tried to hurry by without feeling the overwhelming despair and trauma that seemed to emanate from every centimetre of this dimension.

Up ahead they could see a light blinking on and off as though it had a loose connection. Beneath it stood another familiar face, that of Death Metal who seemed to be about to attack a young teenage boy. They had last seen her at the St. Hughes Shopping Precinct robbing a jewellery store. Further down the corridor some large and menacing, inhuman shapes was advancing on both of them. Akira couldn’t help noticing that at least one of them had multiple tentacles coupled with an oversized human body and head. He’d seen that silhouette before as well. One of the Fomorian warriors they had fought previously had looked like that.

Death Metal was clearly menacing this young child. “Shall we rescue her from the kid?” whispered Akira. Without hesitation Paragon said, “Yeah. She’s a thief not a violent psychopath, she doesn’t deserve to be trapped here. If she’s attacking an apparently defenceless child it has to be because she is threatened in some way. ” Akira smiled, “indeed, appearances can be deceptive.”

Death Metal pulled nails and rivets free from the walls around her and sent them flying towards the boy who appeared to be trying to dodge them though several hit, bruising him. The inhuman figures behind them continued to advance on both of them. Paragon shot away from Akira towards the conflict, rendering him visible again as he headed towards the two human figures. The last thing he heard as he separated was Akira mutter the word “Fomori”.

“Stop it; you’ve got a bigger problem.” Paragon shouted as he landed between Death Metal and the boy. He was caught by surprise when the corridor walls began to warp into a pair of stone hands and grab him from behind. He could sense the magic animating the spell as they tried to tighten their grip on him. Paragon managed to slip free only to see them close on Death Metal instead. Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek on them before they could crush the life out of her. Her cry shattered the animated hands into a cloud of dust that coated everyone except the insubstantial Banshee, including the previously invisible Akira who was now coated in dust.

Death Metal turned and with a smile shouted, “Sweetie, what are you doing down here? They sent you here as punishment as well?” Akira smiled, “No, I came down here looking for you of course. Ah, and for a mask.” She replied, “That’s cute but seeking a mask makes more sense. No offence.”

She turned and again pulled the metal fragments back towards her in preparation for continuing the fight even as Akira reached out with his mystical senses and realised the boy opposite was not what he seemed. He tried to peel back the illusion and felt the strength of dark magic emanating off him. He immediately raised his shield in response as he dropped back down to the ground and switched off his invisibility even as the first of the Fomori advanced on Death Metal, filling the entire height of the corridor. Behind it, two more chaotic visages came into view.

Akira unleashed multiple mystical blasts at the monsters. The initial blast staggered the first one as he immediately targeted the next. The next two blasts also hit only for the boy, a sinister, unholy look on his face, turned on him and fired off a mystical blast. Akira managed to dodge only for a second blast to target Paragon which also missed though the effort forced the boy to drop his illusion to reveal their attacker was Bres, the musclebound moron that liked to refer to himself as ‘the beautiful’, leader of the Fomori and shape changer. Ah, that made sense of why Death Metal had been attacking him.

Paragon immediately flew towards him and smashed into him with all of his strength behind the punch. Bres staggered backwards even as the first Fomori began to throw large stones torn loose from the walls at them. Thankfully, their aim was poorer than their strength and the rocks missed, especially as Death Metal was bombarding them using the cloud of metal fragments as missiles.

A wail of the Banshee washed over them all. Bres collapsed as a result, Paragon felt it but kept on fighting even as the first Fomori collapsed. Death Metal wasn’t so lucky and was left surprised and dazed by its effects. Between that and Akira’s mystical blasts, it caused one of the Fomori to collapse and the other staggered leaving only one of them still stumbling towards them, only to be punched into oblivion by Paragon. The others fled back the way they had come, with Bres turning invisible and escaping down the corridor.

She walked over grabbing Paragon by the arm and with a broad smile pinched his muscular biceps. Akira smiled back and asked her if she wanted to accompany them while they tried to figure a way out of this place.

She continued walking alongside ‘Mr Six-Pack’ forcing Paragon to walk arm in arm with her even as they saw ahead another fight, this time in another of the circular arenas. This one was of near identical build to Paragon, though older, with greying hair and a few poorly healed scars on his face fighting a shadowy figure.

Paragon felt his heart start to speed up as he looked on the combatant wearing his own face, aged by about 20 years, fighting in the centre of the chamber. It was not the face he wore at present, which was subtlety disguised by the costume’s anonymity collar, but Peter’s own unenhanced face. Was he looking at a future version of himself or something even weirder?

Akira and Banshee also saw the older doppelgänger and wondered the same but there was no magic in play here that would accompany shape-changing and, due to their own temporal adventures, both could sense when someone was a fellow time traveller due to the traces of Chronal energy they would have had clinging to them and this figure had none.

Akira tried to cover his surprise by jokingly whispering in Paragon’s ear that it had to be a future version of him and as such, they could kill it without risking a temporal backlash. Then added, “We should just sneak past as it wouldn’t be a good idea from you to meet him just in case he is you from the future trapped in this weird dimension where time apparently has little or no meaning. It might result in all sorts of paradoxes. Not a good idea, believe me. “

As he spoke, a gate in front of them slammed shut hindering access or further observation of the chamber; seemingly, it was the only working part of one of the dungeon’s booby-traps. The rest of the cage was too damaged to activate.

 The way forward was now blocked as a confused Paragon stepped up, intending to rip the gate off its hinges even as Akira suggested it might be ‘more subtle to teleport in rather than resort to brute strength. Paragon turned on him, “Do I look subtle to you?” anxiety at this new development on his face. Akira tried to suggest they should be stealthy. Peter was having none of it. He was wondering if the man on the other side of the gate, if not his future self, might it be his father despite the face looking too much like his own, like an older, identical twin if that was even possible?

Death Metal stared at each of them in turn in confusion, given she’d only ever seen Paragon’s face and not Peter’s. What was it about the stranger in the duel that left the Balance so anxious?

Akira, seeing how Death Metal was reacting, tried to pretend it was his suggestion that was the issue not the man on the other side of the gate. “You see Paragon has no finesse…” he joked to her, “He just wants to show off his muscles and rip the gate off its hinges. It’s just rip and tear and punch. You stick with me and I’ll teleport us to the other side.”

As he spoke, Paragon grabbed at the edges of the gate and began to pull just as Death Metal and Akira teleported away.  The gate broke free but, in the process, some sort of gas was released from the frame that began to fill their end of the corridor. Paragon ignored it as he dropped the shattered gate behind him. He turned and saw the chamber was now empty of people, instead a skeleton of a dragon-like creature stood in the centre of the hall. Having dealt with Young Sam, both Banshee and Akira knew that dragon’s did not necessarily cease to exist when they died and as if to prove the point the skeleton moved and stared at them each in turn.   It was easily 10 metres long and stood five metres high at the shoulder with its tattered wings flapping above that. There was no sign of Paragon’s doppelgänger, or anyone else for that matter.

Paragon and Death Metal were caught by surprise at seeing a dragon for the first time and an animated skeleton of one at that. He could hear Akira in a stage whisper suggest to Death Metal that what they really needed at this point in time, was a very big dog.

Impossibly, the skeletal dragon spoke to them, despite lacking any throat muscles or vocal organs, “What are you doing here in my domain? Why have you broken into this realm? Where is the Warden?”

Warden? Did it mean the Gamemaster? Paragon shouted “Injured, back on Earth.” Even as Akira stated that “We don’t know anything about a warden. What does this warden look like?”

“He is a human like you. He arrived with the key of office and took command over these cells and its prisoners adding more occupants, primarily humans that had annoyed him in some way.”

Akira continued, “We’re only here looking for a mask, the Mask of Malador and an orb. The Orb of Ghorummaz. Then we need to find a way to leave. We’re here at the request of the man presumably you know as the warden. We’re bringing them to him once we leave here.”

“That does not befriend you to me, mortal. The taint of that man’s corruption will weigh heavy on you though I cannot see any great sin or deliberate murder on you such as he carries. So, the time for truth is upon you. Why are you here?”

Akira nodded, “I like to disguise my evil.” “So you are evil then? It said in response as the others realised that Akira’s joke, if that’s what it was, was backfiring. The dragon immediately responded with a fiery blast straight at him in response. Shit!

He managed to dodge just in time. The dragon turned to the others, “What are your sins, mortals? That one has condemned himself out of his own mouth but you remain silent. I see no taint of evil on you, but then I was blind to that one’s evil until he opened his mouth to condemn himself. Speak! What are your sins mortals, that I might know how to punish you?” That started Paragon on a debate with the undead creature as to whether or not, given what he knew about himself, he was actually human and therefore a mortal.

The debate turned as Paragon wanted to know if the creature, apparently it called itself Mac Aodha, was just a dragon or something more given its ability to survive death. Reluctantly it admitted that it too had sinned against the higher beings and as a result, it had been stuck down here to guard this dimension for eternity as a punishment for its arrogance. “Then I was visited by one of your species who enslaved me and elected to turn this dimension into a prison world to house those who deserved punishment without end. The last of the wardens, perverted that ideal and elected to punish any who opposed or took a stand against him, whether deserving of punishment or not. Now you arrive while he is absent and this one,” it raised its claw to point at Akira, “has openly admitted it wants to steal my orb and seeks the key of power. Why? So you can replace the warden? Much good it will do you without the key. That has already been stolen by an inanimate object yet it’s one that moves of its own volition under the influence of the darkest of magic.”

Paragon asked about this ‘mighty orb’ and Mac Aodha asked if he meant the Orb of Ghorummaz? Paragon nodded though he had no idea what orb he thought they were after. The skeletal figure was obviously starved for conversation. It explained that Ghorummaz was known as the binder of unnatural things and his followers millennia ago had taken it upon themselves to seal dangerous spirits, ghosts such as their companion (pointing towards Banshee as it continued speaking), and even gods where they can do no harm. One of the wardens had tracked down this orb as a means of potentially trapping spiritual villains who couldn’t be held with just locked cells or even advanced technology.

The Orb of Ghorummaz supposedly could contain a single incorporeal entity indefinitely if touched to the spirit’s form, but that entity must have been rendered incapacitated or helpless first. It was also one of the Dragon’s personal treasures.

As for the mask, all it would say was that it had many treasures acquired over the centuries including masks, crowns and jewels.  He had no idea who Malador was or what any of the masks in his treasury looked like. Paragon admitted reluctantly that he had no idea what ‘sins’ he might have committed and it wasn’t for him to decide whether he deserved to be punished for them if he had but they sought the orb for all the right reasons, not for selfish self-gratification.

It seemed its desire to punish Akira had run its course, especially after Banshee explained they were there to stop one who had come to steal the mask and they intended to try to stop them if possible.

 “So, you are after the reanimate, the puppet!” it replied. “Yes, that’s the one we are after,” confirmed Banshee.

Mac Aodha acknowledged that the animated puppet had managed to lock him out of his own vault where it kept its treasures. The warden had lost the key of power to him as well, giving it the ability to go wherever it wanted. Only its lack of knowledge about how the dimension worked had slowed it down, unworthy soul that it was.

Without access to the key, they would have difficulty entering the vault assuming they succeeded in finding it in the first place. Mac Aodha explained that the key opened every lock in the dungeon dimension and allowed them to travel back to their own realm. Thankfully, the key was just that, a physical key.

The dragon agreed to allow them to proceed with their mission. It even agreed to tell them how to bypass the vault locks while it rounded up all of the escaped prisoners and ensured that the wardens punishment was carried out as instructed, distasteful as it was. It pointed at Death Metal with its bony claw as it spoke, “That woman there, like many other recent prisoners, should not be here. She is a thief true, but her sins aren’t crimson and do not warrant her imprisonment in this realm. Yet here she is, a prisoner on the instructions of the current warden who is unworthy of such privilege.” Akira smiled and agreed. As it was about to leave, intent on preventing any more murders, it offered them a boon; it could either gave them directions to the vault while avoiding any further traps, confirming what their ‘compass’ spell already indicated, or it could show them a way to open the vault without the master key though that might still prove dangerous. Paragon did wonder if Death Metal, as a renowned thief, might be able to open the vault anyway.

She merely smiled in reply, whatever that might mean. Akira confirmed their desire to know how to gain access to the vault as it would do them no good to arrive outside it and be unable to gain entry. Death Metal confirmed she might be able to help but only if the vault door was formed of a metal that was able to be affected by magnetism and they had enough time for her to break in. Akira confirmed their decision to know how to access the vault and they would trust to their own abilities to get them there.

Mac Aodha explained that it was willing to trust their intentions and that the vault door secured by a mystical portal augmented with twenty-first century technology. The warden’s key could unlock the door but without it, there were three separate locks they would need to bypass to gain entry.

The way in considered of three locks; the top lock looked like a flame, the middle lock resembled a blade and the last one resembled a skull. All three were traps. They had to start with the skull lock which had to be turned anti-clockwise until it clicked then continue turning while turning the flame lock clockwise. That activated the timer in the blade lock, which had to be pushed in and would then open the vault door but it would automatically close and lock behind them so they would need to find the warden’s key to escape unless they could find another means of leaving. 

“Better hope the key’s in there, then,” muttered Akira. They set off in search of the vault. Sometime later, they reached the vault without getting involved in any of the fights and riots that had broken out enroute. They followed the dragon’s instructions and entered the vault. Inside The vault of the Dungeon Dimension was an enormous, unadorned room of plain grey blocks of stone. Alcoves of varying sizes lined the walls, holding an abundance of relics and artefacts. The small­est was apparently a fleck of gleaming dust in a hole barely large enough to fit a finger, while the largest was a huge alcove holding a massive statue carved of orange-red stone: a seated demon with huge gemstone eyes holding a flaming brazier in one hand and a fist-sized pearl in the other.

Standing in front of that alcove stood a ventriloquist’s puppet—sans the ventrilo­quist— its arms raised, the Janus mask in his wooden hands. Toy Boy spirit had to have possessed it somehow.

This was the same mask stolen by the Factor Four, only for it to vanish through a portal. It must have been either Gamemaster or his predecessor (Slade?) that had stolen it and then tried to frame Akira for the crime. There were two layers of mask that supposedly concealed a third mask, showing the true face of the God Janus. It now appears that Janus had been the mystic Malador by another name.

The puppet proceeded to tear off both of the layered masks to reveal a golden, skull-shaped mask set with vibrant red gemstone in the forehead. It dropped the two ancient covering masks to the ground and held the concealed mask aloft in triumph. The skull-like mask trembled and shuddered, as though it was fighting against the puppet’s grasp.

Then the puppet’s attention shifted from the mask to them. The mask, no longer the centre of attention, snapped out of his hands and up toward the ceiling before it disappeared with a burst of red light and a tremendous whooshing sound. It had now vanished as the puppet howled in fury and turned upon the newcomers. “You spoiled it! My new­est toy—gone! Why are you awful people always ruining my games!?”

Akira noticed that the ventriloquist’s puppet was carrying a large Key on a string around its neck.

Paragon laughed at its dismay and shouted, “You’ve lost the mask now give us the key or we’ll turn you into tinder.” Akira wondered if the orb could possibly resemble a large pearl?

Suddenly they were assaulted by a squadron of toys including several large bundles of purple Fun Dough and swarms of plastic Army Soldiers as well as several more Transmorphers.

Banshee assaulted them with a shattering shriek that took out the transmorphers even as the scream dazed the puppet and decimated the toy soldiers. Akira followed it up with a couple of mystical blasts aimed at the goo and the puppet. The puppet started to splinter but the attack failed to damage the purple goo. Paragon rushed in, smashed the puppet before pulling the key off it.

The broken puppet collapsed to the ground under the onslaught, no longer animated. A moment later, a shrieking laugh erupted with no apparent source, echoing around the huge stone chamber. The ground underfoot rumbled ominously, and a gleam of red light shined in the jewelled eyes of the mas­sive demonic statue at the front of the room. With a tremendous grinding of stone on stone, the statue shifted and then moved, coming to its feet and hurling its bronze bowl across the room with a resounding clash of shattering metal while dropping the fist-sized pearl to the ground behind it. Its form wavered and shifted, its features blurring from demonic to adorable as it reshaped itself into an enormous teddy bear. “Break my toys, will you? Well let’s see how you like it when I break you!”

The remaining swarm of toy soldiers attacked Paragon but appeared unable to do him any real damage but were proving to be an annoyance. Banshee targeted the titan teddy with a wail that tore at it and the other animated toys. It failed to affect the goo or seriously damage the teddy but did wipe out the remaining toy soldiers.

A battle ensued. Akira assaulted the teddy with mystically manifested stone hands using the same spell that Bres had used against them earlier. The two hands sprung out of the vault floor and grabbed hold of the massive teddy. In response, the goo tried to flow over him and up his legs, trapping him in return.

The titanic teddy broke free even as Paragon targeted those clumps of goo not holding Akira with his eye blasts igniting them. A sickly stench emanated from the burning goo that left the whole team feeling nauseous and sick. He waited for Akira to pull himself away from the clutches of the other piles of goo before targeting them next. 

Meanwhile Death metal was trying to smother the burning goo in metal she had ‘borrowed’ from the dragon’s horde and banshee tried to see if her Bo staff trick might work by slamming it while it was insubstantial into the teddy’s chest then pulling way leaving it in situ while it substantialised. Unfortunately, while it might be a nuisance to have a staff projecting out of its chest, the teddy wasn’t alive and it clearly had no internal organs to damage. Akira unleashed a spell, the Somnambulant Spell of Sirrion on the teddy. A thin, pinkish mist poured out from his hands, which he hoped might put it into a deep sleep. Unfortunately it didn’t work and it responded by trying to grab at him in return forcing him to dodge.

It then targeted Paragon but failed to grab him. Paragon responded by slamming into the massive teddy with his full strength causing it to collapse to the ground, its head torn free of its body, even as it howled in rage at being incapacitated. The remaining goo collapsed into its inanimate state even as a grey ‘mist’ left the remnants of the teddy and began swirling round the chamber, apparently looking for another body to inhabit.

Akira rushed over and picked up the incandescent pearl that had been dropped by the statue as it changed into the teddy and held it in the air. The Fist-sized pearl was etched with long, sweeping claw marks that re­sembled wind or waves. Akira held it up, in the path of the howling ‘mist’.  He was sure that this was a spiritual prison. The Orb of Ghorummaz emitted a swirling vortex of mystical energy that grabbed at and contained Desmond Lettam’s troubled spirit, scooping up Toy Boy’s bodiless form and sucking it into the orb where hopefully it would reside in­definitely.

They elected to leave the now possessed orb behind in the vault.

They had no idea where the Mask of Malador was now, though Banshee suspected it had made its own way back to Earth, but hunting it down had to be a task for another day. Thankfully, they had the key and could exit this dimension but what then? They planned to take Death Metal back with them but there were a lot of other people who didn’t deserve to be here and they had to decide whether or not to give the key back to the Gamemaster… Or was there another alternative? They didn’t want to retain it themselves, did they? It was Banshee who pointed out that she trusted Mac Aodha to free the prisoners who didn’t deserve to be there and if that was the case perhaps it was the best creature to manage the dungeon dimension without any more wardens’ interfering?

The others agreed to give it the key once they had got home. Apparently, the mystical key turned any door into a passageway back to their own world. They stepped through the vault door wanting to return and found themselves back in the restaurant, exiting the storeroom door on the stage. Gamemaster was no longer present though they had thought him too badly wounded to move unassisted. He was obviously stronger than they thought. As the door began to close, Paragon tossed the key back through for Mac Aodha to find as they had agreed. It should be waiting for the creature in the vault when it was ready to collect it.

Hopefully, the ‘new’ (or should that be the returning?) management would ensure only those who deserved to be imprisoned in the dungeon dimension would be in future. Their only remaining task was to find somewhere to go for a much-needed meal.

They looked over at a smiling Death Metal and realised that the buxom blonde was holding a fist full of antique jewellery retrieved from Mac Aodha’s vault just before she left. Seemed you could rescue a thief from a dimensional dungeon, but not without her taking some trophies in return. She walked over, kissed both Paragon and Akira on the cheeks, hugged Banshee before she stepped into the middle of the restaurant and with a gesture, shredded the animatronics. She then ‘welded’ them together into a metal platform which she stepped onto, levitated it into the air and flew away with her booty.

At that moment, communications with Frankie and Seven were restored. It seems that when they had last heard from them, Seven and Jianna had just been attacked on the houseboat by an army of toy soldiers and giant slinkies who’d prevented her from talking or gesturing while they had attacked the belt. Neither of them had been physically hurt, only her pride.

Frankie confirmed that all the hospitals with comatose children had reported that at that precise moment every child that had been affected by the parcel attacks across England had temporarily awoken, got out of their beds, their eyes glowing green as they screamed “The Dark Lady comes!” before collapsing unconscious again.

However, they had all awoken, uninjured and seeming unaffected, about 20 minutes ago.

The team smiled, that would have been about the time that they had trapped Toy Boy in the Orb. Had the children been somehow powering Toy Boys animations while they had been unconscious?

Satisfied, they went off in search of an early Christmas lunch.

It was a few weeks after Christmas when he first appeared in the sky above London. His costume was similar to Paragon’s, but it was coupled with Peter’s real face, sans the anonymity collar. The face was older than Peters, the facial wounds had healed but were still very visible and the grey at the temples gave it a certain distinguished look.

He appeared in several locations after that; Paris, Amsterdam, Marseilles, Cape Town.

He was an unknown, not HCP registered, or on anyone’s records for that matter. To those he ‘interrogated’, he stated he was called Icarus and was seeking a person with his face. It was noted that he wasn’t above using excessive violence to try and obtain the information he sought.

Then he appeared above Truro seeking a certain local hero called Thorn.