Vexvine sat in front of his cardboard screen, eyeing the other players. He said, “Okay, you see a door in front of you with a warning on it. Who has the best passive perception?”
A girl with deep green eyes said, “Mine is a 27.”
“Okay, so you can hear cackling behind the door. It is your only way through. What do you do?”
The four players all nodded to each other and then, one by one, said, “I change into a bear.” “I change into a spider.” “I change into a moose.” “I change into a panther.”
Vexvine put her head in her hands. “You can’t all wildshape, then you can’t communicate with each other. Why are you all always druids?”
They all smiled as a man said, “We are the Natural Wonders League, of course we would play druids.”
“Well, this will get interesting... as usual. Okay, so who goes in first?”
Before anyone could answer, a buzzer sounded on the communication computer in their League HQ. It stirred them all right out of their game, and one rushed to the computer.
“Sensors just picked up a massive spike in the area. It is like the one BADGE warned us about.”
“Okay, put your dice down and let’s get to work.”
The hero team all left their HQ and rushed to a dock where a pair of airboats waited for them. They jumped into the boats and sped out into the bayou. The giant fan on the back buzzed, sending them speeding over the murky waters, each pilot craftily dodging stumps and other natural obstacles.
“WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?” Algea asked Vexvine.
Steering the boat, Vexvine said, “The alert was for a strange creature with antlers, human in shape!”
“Sounds like a druid,” Algaea laughed.
Wildshaper yelled out from the other airboat, “I see something!”
Before Vexvine could look, a massive series of roots shot straight up and sent the boat with three in it
The other boat zoomed ahead of them and kept going, unaware of the attack. Hovering over the water was the strange old man with no legs who attacked the boat in Italy.
“Feed the will.” He said as he reached out his hand toward Vexvine.
She twisted around, sinking down into the bayou and then springing back up behind him. Vines came up around him, but he flew straight up and then shot at an angle toward Algaea. The Hawk dove and hit him across the face, throwing him into the water.
Wildshaper quickly transformed into his human shape as he sat on a branch of another tree. “Get your algae together, this thing moves-“
Wildshaper felt a great crash of water, and the impact threw him out of the tree. Springing up from the water was this creature. It still had its eyes on Algaea. She gathered green muck to herself to form a giant monster, but she was stopped. Energy came pouring out of her head, and she went limp.
Wildshaper transformed into an elephant, stomping through the bayou, but another tendril of energy hit his head, and he transformed back into a human and fell flat on his back in the water, floating on moss.
Vexvine commanded a series of vines to entangle the creature, but it caught them and held tight. More of this energy flowed along the vines, and Vexvine seized a tree to prevent falling and drowning in the water.
“Feed the Will!” he called out as he drained all three.
The buzz of an engine roared toward him. Through the thick brush and moss came the second airboat, which crashed right into the creature and slammed it into a tree. He screamed in a strange, unholy screech and then exploded in a puff of greenish-blue smoke.
“Got him!” Gol yelled from the front of the boat.
Darlene at the helm backed up, “What about the others?”
Vexvine yelled in a weak, mumbled tone. “Help... I can’t... stand any longer.” She slipped from the tree and fell into the water.
“Aw, crap.” Gol held up his arms and green energy appeared. Twigs, leaves, roots, and moss gathered into several ten foot tall golems under his control. They went to work scooping up the fallen heroes and placing them on the deck of the remaining airboat.
Nova walked with EB and Chase through the station toward the infirmary. Chase had a tablet out where she was talking with several people.
“I know... yes, the Petoskey league got an inauguration.” She said to one person.
Another said to her, “What about us? We have everything planned.”
Nova took the tablet and looked at it. “Right now, we’re at a heightened security globally. There is no time for parties and celebrations. Get your teams in gear and keep your eyes open. After this settles down, you can have your inauguration. Is that understood?” The new league leaders all nodded and answered in agreement.
Nova shut the comms down and thrust the tablet back into Chase’s hands.
“Was that tone entirely necessary?” Chase asked.
Nova said, “This isn’t a social club, Chase, this is BADGE. We’ve had a pleasant stretch of peace after the Renn Tech incident, but that’s no reason to turn this into a party. Those heroes signed up to be protectors, and that is what they need to do right now.”
Chase asked, “What’s got your eyepatch in a twist?”
EB replied, “Oh, he’s just bitter because he doesn’t know what’s going on. The less he knows, the grumpier he gets. This one time, back in the 19th century, he was all mouth with the President of the United States when...” EB saw the look on Nova’s face and calmed down.
Chase said, “EB’s right. You get angry when you feel you don’t know enough.”
Nova said, “I’ll admit, I get annoyed when things happen that we’re in the dark about. And I get even more annoyed when I believe someone knows something and isn’t telling me, especially when it is putting this world at risk.”
“Who is keeping information from you?” Chase asked.
“The Oracle of Tech knows more than he is telling me. I’m sure of that. And right now, we have two deaths and one doctor who is being targeted by something we cannot even begin to explain.”
“I’m sure he’d tell you anything that is important.” Chase said.
EB said, “Weeeelll, these Avatar guys are weird. It’s like they don’t really want to help, but they do help. I can’t figure them out. This Oracle, he is just an avatar and some human mixed up. So, the avatar is the one who knows stuff, and I don’t know if he cares to tell us everything.”
Nova stopped at the door to the infirmary and said, “EB, that was the wisest thing you said. I need answers, and I know he is keeping them from me.”
“Report,” Nova announced himself with this one word.
Dr. Henderson left her patient and joined them. “Doctor Fagan is still alive. In fact, there is no medical reason she shouldn’t be awake right this minute. I can’t figure out what is wrong with her. I can say that her morphon levels are off the charts.”
“Wasn’t she a low-morphon case when she came here a few years back?” Chase asked.
Dr. Henderson took them over to a monitor near Dr. Fagan. She accessed two different recordings that had graphs on them. “These are the readings from her last visit. Minimal morphonic levels. Her abilities were so weak that it was determined she could go on with her life with no check-up or suppression. This other chart is from over a hundred scans I have done to make sure they are correct. Right now, her morphon levels are incredibly high. The only other people here with morphon levels higher than this are yourself and EB. I’d say, if she were to wake and try her powers, they would be incredibly strong at this point.”
Nova asked, “Do you have any explanation?”
Dr. Henderson said, “Nothing concrete. The only piece of evidence that might explain this is what EB told us about the morphon crystals in the cave. They hit her with something, and that might have supercharged her own natural abilities. But this theory has little to work with.”
“What about the two other people who were killed?” Chase asked.
Dr. Henderson said, “We received their bodies. I intend to run autopsy scans on them soon. But we haven’t started yet.”
“Get started. I need answers. We-“
Everyone’s comms activated as well as a communication over the infirmary comm system. A robotic voice said, “Infirmary, incoming wounded. Shuttle seven arriving, docking bay. Send medical support.”
Dr. Henderson rushed to her people to get them moving.
Nova slapped his comm, “What’s going on?”
Agent Justin said, “Sir, we’ve had three attacks across the planet. Almost the entire New Orleans team was taken down, and paramedics sent them up here for emergency medical attention. There were also attacks in Beijing and in Greenland.”
“Send out the code red alert. Tell all the leagues to be ready for anything.”
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