Into the exciting world of superheroics once again! Here's last time. (Brief session because one of our players was abducted by aliens mid-session. Not really, but that's more exciting than what actually happened.)
The heroes load up Wing Diesel into the back of Junior's trailer (he fits nicely, even if it seems like he should be too big) and drive out to Texas. Levee has a friend out there - one Waylon Crowe - who bought a ghost town intending to turn it into a tourist attraction. It didn't work out so well (like a lot of Waylon's get-rich-quick schemes), and now it's just kind of collected dust and lizards, but it'll make a nice training camp.
They pull in and Waylon shows them around. There's no power, but there's a generator, no running water, but plenty of bottled water, and there's a Piggly Wiggly a few miles up the road. He asks how long they're likely to be here and what they're doing, and then gets in his truck and heads off.
The heroes set up and get to work. The way they figure it, they have four broad lessons for DeCarlo: teaching him to conquer his fear, explaining the multiverse, teaching him to focus and visualize, and teaching him to pull what he wants out of his portals.
They start with teaching him to overcome and control his fear, figuring that's the first and principle danger of his powers. Levee gets some construction paper and markers and starts working with some art therapy, and it goes OK, but the town is Eerily Quiet and there's a lull in conversation and a scary gust of wind just as he's drawing something, and it gets him anxious. Styx talks him down before he summons anything by accident, and they take a little break and reconnoiter.
They have DeMarcus hang close, and Toby has Wing Diesel provide some Dragon Support, while Levee grabs some water from the water tower and shapes it into things that DeCarlo describes, moving from "scary" to "silly". It takes a while, but he manages to get his fears under control and come up with some strategies for working through it.
Next, Magnus tries to explain the multiverse. Levee advises him to think about how baby Magnus came to understand it, but Magnus thinks that's not a great idea - he left his own universe by accident and couldn't find his way back for years. (It put me in mind of The Time Traveler's Wife, actually.) Anyway, Magnus grabs some sheets of paper of similar, but not identical, color, and points out how they're all the same shape and thickness, but they gradually shift in color until one is completely different from another. It takes a while, but DeCarlo gets it.
By this point, DeCarlo is Tired and Distracted, so everyone takes a break and runs around to get the wiggles out. They have a camp-out in the afternoon; Magnus pulls a bunch of stuff from his hat to make an Awesome Campsite, and that evening they start working on helping him visualize.
Magnus asks if he's got a favorite book; DeCarlo names Where the Wild Things Are. Magnus says that he's actually met Max, he's a good kid, and DeCarlo is a little struck to realize that the characters in a book might be real in some other reality. He, Magnus, and Styx work with his visualization skills and eventually manage to pull Max' wolf suit out of nowhere.
By this point, it's late. DeCarlo still has work to do, but he's making progress. We'll see what tomorrow brings!
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