Issue Four: Do You Believe In Magic?

The rift itself appears as a flickering ripple or ribbon in the air in front of you only a short distance away. No larger than, say, 10 feet wide by 25 feet long, it appears a dark burgundy color and gives the viewer an impression of a great depth behind it.

Creatures are pouring forth from the tear and spilling out into the snowy ground.

They are red-skinned, bipedal humanoids, with two pointed horns erupting from the sides of their heads, and barbed tails.

But…

they’re so cute…



(Ignore the Chuck Jordans and the pitchfork.)

They seem to be busily engaged rolling around in the snow, flinging it into the air, building snow forts, throwing snowballs at each other, or making snow…umm…angels.

Energystar stops dead when she sees what creatures are coming from the rift. She blinks twice. Looks at the others. Looks at the creatures once more. Blinks twice more. She bends down, picks up a hand full of snow and throws it at one of the creatures. She does NOT use any super strength for this throw. She lobs it at the creatures.

"He said keep them occupied."

Agility Check

Maelstrom comes gasping and stumbling to a halt as he sees the strange creatures. "Ummmm ...... right." he replies to Energystar and raising his arms, he conjures the snow in the park into a great igloo to surround them all, with a big enough hole at the top to let light in.

If necessary, Maelstrom will do this in rows.

Matter Collection (remarkable): Maelstrom brings up to 25,120 cu. ft of snow to them and creates a big igloo out of it encircling all of the strangers and his friends. He is sure to leave the local snow alone for snowballs.

Not sure if a roll is needed but here one is.

Dice Roll: 1d100
d100 Results: 90

”The portal leads to one of the many layers of an outer plane known as the Abyss”, Dr. Strange answers.

”Typically, even more frequently than that, but you don’t see such things widely publicized in the mundane media.”

Not exactly comforting thoughts.



CUT SCENE

The old house, once again…

The individual who was sitting in the chair gets up, mumbling incoherently to himself, and staggers past the pile of mail that has accumulated next to his front door.
The individual stretches his arms out to the side and yawns, as he makes his way over to a heavy oaken round table, covered in a fine, but dusty, lace doily. On top of the table is a box made from the finest American chestnet.
The viewing angle changes and we finally see a better image of the individual: a male in his late twenties/early thirties, clad in a classic brown business suit, white T-shirt, and a green cape with matching fez. The individual picks up the chestnut box, blows off a layer of dust, coughs as a consequence, places the box back down and opens it.
He draws out several items including a desiccated bird claw, a small package wrapped in a kerchief, a slender wooden rod, about 10 inches long (which he places inside his jacket pocket), and a clear, crystal sphere about 8 inches in diameter.
He places the ball in a small stand and peers into it.
He mumbles something about an ”idiot in his pajamas”, a ”portal to the abyss”, and the word ”Ovaltine” before wandering away from the table an into an adjoining kitchen where he opens a creaky kitchen cupboard and removes a cylinder of chocolate drink mix. Shaking the cylinder, it makes no noise. He grunts in disapproval.

END CUT SCENE

EnergyStar clocks one perfectly in the head, knocking it over with an “Eep!”. All the other creatures immediately stop what they are doing and turn to look at their fallen mate. All of their heads then turn, slowly, to look at the heroes. The fallen creature’s head slowly pops up, too, from where it fell; a small accumulation of white powder on top of its head.

CUT SCENE

Many years in the future...

SLAM!

The alien Kre’ell scientist we saw way back in panel 40 closes a huge and ancient book which has the words ”History of the Milky Way Galaxy” scrawled across it in an alien tongue.

”Thus began the great inter-dimensional war which consumed the planet Earth in a conflagration the likes of which the universe has never seen before or, thankfully, since”, the scientist relates to the classroom of students collected before him.

OK, I’m kidding.

END FAKE CUT SCENE

Maelstrom throws up a huge snow dome (with a sky light) around the region. The light coming through the roof is momentarily blocked out, however, by the wave of snowballs that fly through the sky in the direction of our heroes. Cold white chilliness explodes numerous times upon each of our heroes as their opponents have launched their first retaliatory strike.

The little buggers are jumping around and smiling quite excitedly now.

Rad will attempt to use weather control and create a gust of wind to push the creatures into a tight group near the rift. He will then attempt to give them more fresh snow to play with.

The small creatures are easily swept up by the gust and moved into a denser collective, lettng out a collective "Whooooaaaa!" in the process. Of course, this will only be a temporary measure, as more of the little guys continue to fall out of the portal that Dr. Strange is, supposedly, somewhere trying to fix.

The only place in New York City where it is currently snowing is inside the city's single igloo.

The creatures stare with wonderous awe at the falling snow and attempt to catch the falling flakes with their hands or tongues. Unfortunately, they consistantly fail as the individual flakes seems to melt and evaporate when they get close to the creatures.

Once the situation of momentary wonder has passed, the imps quickly prepare and launch their second counter strike, as the sky grows dark...er...white...with the shadow of the incoming barage of snowballs.

Cap raises his shield over his head and turns to look back at the rest of the team. "Save yourselves!", he screams in mock desperation while trying to keep from laughing hysterically.

Maelstrom sticks his tongue out the corner of his mouth as he is half-buried in snowballs. One particularly startled him as it blocked up his left eye. What he couldn't help but notice, though, was how more and more of the 'li'l devils' were pouring through. It would stop being funny soon enough. Maybe he could do something about that.

Concentrating again, he tried summoning some fragrant ice from the edges of the river nearby to form a wall in the rift, blocking both from this side and the other.

Energy Collection:

Dice Roll: 1d100
d100 Results: 28

using karma for a green

The portal begins to rapidly ice over as a couple more of the imps dart through into your dimension. Within seconds, it is completely iced over, appearing as a huge ice shard partially floating in the air.

The beings on this side of the portal do not seem to care very much as they prepare for the third wave of their...*snicker*...relentless assault.

Bubbles asks the team "Want me to put a force bubble up at the rift to contain them, I do not know how long it will hold. This could be a 2nd barrior for the ice i feel this is just the begining"

Rad will attempt to keep the imps busy byblowing the snowballs back at them with gusts of wind. If they seem to be spreading out he will try to push them back into a group with the wind.