Trick or... trick.
Michael's door opened into the Paragon City night, on the street outside Storm Strider's base of operations, and he headed on in.
The Lethargy Inducer turned out to be about as much use, at least directed against the never-sufficiently-damned Tsoo Sorcerer, as a teapot made of chocolate. He'd wound up in the hospital again.
While there, he'd learned from overheard conversation that the night was not natural, but the result of dimensional barriers weakening as Samhain approached. It was centered on Croatoa, the pocket reality that was encroaching on the university town of Salamanca a little north of the city. Now, ordinary doors all over Paragon were becoming gateways to tricks (in the form of Croatoa's creatures and other horrors)... or treats.
Several doors later, he'd made a dent in the subtle cellular copying errors caused by reclamation from SL 10 onward (when the FBSA considered that a hero's training wheels were officially off). He'd also gotten some pieces of cheap superhero costumes, some coupons good for free tailoring sessions at Icon... and a rock.
He'd heard that a witch of Croatoa's "Ravenwing Cabal" was looking for complete sets of these costume pieces; a fair amount of the chatter in the hospital had been people offering to trade, say, a Statesman mask for a pair of Back Alley Brawler gloves. His own case was somewhat different, needing a Statesman mask and having an extra helmet of Statesman's archenemy Lord Recluse to trade for it.
Fortunately, he'd run into somebody in the opposite case, a stone-based tanker rejoicing in the codename Roxette. A trade had been arranged, and he'd flown over to the Green Line station, where a spur line ran out to Salamanca. Annah the witch was just south of the station there, and she'd given him the ultimate reward of the season: an extra costume.
Then back to Steel Canyon, where Icon had an office convenient to the tram station. He did a pretty good job, he thought, of recreating Alec's face and likeness, given that he hadn't seen him in the eight months he'd spent in Paragon.
After beating up a few more Tsoo for Warren (and getting his clock cleaned at least once by an Ancestor Spirit), he'd realized what was missing: the face paint. He swooped back to Icon to use one of the coupons to remedy that, opened the costume shop's door...
The Lethargy Inducer turned out to be about as much use, at least directed against the never-sufficiently-damned Tsoo Sorcerer, as a teapot made of chocolate. He'd wound up in the hospital again.
While there, he'd learned from overheard conversation that the night was not natural, but the result of dimensional barriers weakening as Samhain approached. It was centered on Croatoa, the pocket reality that was encroaching on the university town of Salamanca a little north of the city. Now, ordinary doors all over Paragon were becoming gateways to tricks (in the form of Croatoa's creatures and other horrors)... or treats.
Several doors later, he'd made a dent in the subtle cellular copying errors caused by reclamation from SL 10 onward (when the FBSA considered that a hero's training wheels were officially off). He'd also gotten some pieces of cheap superhero costumes, some coupons good for free tailoring sessions at Icon... and a rock.
He'd heard that a witch of Croatoa's "Ravenwing Cabal" was looking for complete sets of these costume pieces; a fair amount of the chatter in the hospital had been people offering to trade, say, a Statesman mask for a pair of Back Alley Brawler gloves. His own case was somewhat different, needing a Statesman mask and having an extra helmet of Statesman's archenemy Lord Recluse to trade for it.
Fortunately, he'd run into somebody in the opposite case, a stone-based tanker rejoicing in the codename Roxette. A trade had been arranged, and he'd flown over to the Green Line station, where a spur line ran out to Salamanca. Annah the witch was just south of the station there, and she'd given him the ultimate reward of the season: an extra costume.
Then back to Steel Canyon, where Icon had an office convenient to the tram station. He did a pretty good job, he thought, of recreating Alec's face and likeness, given that he hadn't seen him in the eight months he'd spent in Paragon.
After beating up a few more Tsoo for Warren (and getting his clock cleaned at least once by an Ancestor Spirit), he'd realized what was missing: the face paint. He swooped back to Icon to use one of the coupons to remedy that, opened the costume shop's door...