Friendly warning: I am still feeling the effects of my cold medicine, so the following events may or may not have occurred in the order given...or at all.

After my traditional pre-game meal of McD's (two cheeseburger meal), I showed up on time but was still the last to arrive.  After some idle chatter we began laying down tiles.  After a slight mishap (for some reason every tile we had was open and had water in it), and a disembodied voice yelling "Let's get ready to ruuuuuummmmmmmbbbbblllee", the setup was complete and it began.

The entrances were spread out, always a good idea if you don't trust each other.  Excalibur comes in first with Captain Britain reaching the end of a hallway and encountering some villains.  He wasn't able to attack so he just stared at the generic villain fondly.  Meggan came in...but CB was blocking her advance "with your big ass," as she put it.  In short, Excalibur did nothing (I sense a trend).

The X-Men were next with Nightcrawler scouting out the area, discovering some malcontents around a crystal.  Rogue followed up with a haymaker (double sixes!) that cleared out one mutant hater and Storm strategically followed.

The JLI entered the dungeon and were summarily bitch slapped by some 25 point figure (so insignificant, I can't remember their name).  Seriously...Fire came in, missed and got smacked for 2. (Nice roll Excalibur!)  Then Hawkman followed, missed and got beat down for 4! (Nice boxcars Excalibur!).  After that the JLI decided to slow down a bit...and reevaluate their relationship with the Excalibur.

The next two turns were uneventful.  Excalibur slowly continued their way out of the hallway, but soon watched as the JLI moved a token into their tile and revealed the Megalomaniac token (Joker and Selene).  At this point I could feel the love in the room.

For the X-Men, Storm and Rogue toyed with Ghost before deciding to leave him behind and move on (I sense a trend).  Meanwhile, Nightcrawler opened two crystals, with the second resulting in a teleport to a third...so he opened that one too.  First roll: 5; Fate token, second roll: 2; Fate token, third roll: 1.  The Megalomaniac revealed Rhino and some guy with a big axe.  Hmmm.

The JLI had Mister Miracle open crystals, in hopes of a Healing Wind of all things, and ended up leaving behind a trail of villains.  He got the healing wind, surprisingly enough.  So at this point, the JLI is staring at the board with "the look" and you can just feel something is up.  Then we hear, "This is a dick move, but you'll thank me for it later"...or something like that.  They move the Joker and Selene to engage Excalibur... who are still entering the dungeon for all intents and purposes.  "Why?" you ask?  So he can run past and open the crystal in Excalibur's starting tile.  Miracle gets there and lo and behold...Gem Guardian!!!  Is it Karma in action?

Don't worry, the X-Men were way far away from that.  Whew!  A good thing too, since there were about 450 points on one tile.  Meanwhile, a bunch of crystals have been opened, and most of the villains revealed, but only about two of them had been dispatched!  There were smelly bad guys EVERYWHERE!  <Insert joke about there being a lot of villain figures on the board too>

This is where the game turned.  At this point, you have two choices: 1) Form an unspoken, self-preservation truce or 2) Lose your mind.  Excalibur chose the latter.  Considering those mountain of points were in Excalibur's starting tile, annoying your opponents may not be the best course of action (even if they are the cause of your predicament).  I don't remember what happened but I'm sure it was bad intentions towards the X-Men and deserved retribution.  Anyway, you can guess where this is going: The X-Men grab control of some ice guy and lay down a barrier ("Wha? Captain Britain is on the OTHER side of the wall...oops, my bad").  Mister Miracle runs away from the Guardian because, as they put it, "The Guardian and Captain Britain need some alone time."  All the X-Men hear are Britain's screams through the wall of ice.

And so it goes.  Meggan somehow ran away unscathed towards the JLI (I believe Shape Change saved her more than once) and CB was slowly hobbling towards the X-Men for help.  Meanwhile the JLI had enlisted Avalanche to help hide their whereabouts from the Guardian.  The X-Men go about their business of opening the remaining gems so they can get out of this place.

This is where I blacked out.  Maybe it was a demon possession or the heat finally got to me.  All I know is one moment Captain Britain was making a run for it, the next moment I see a wall of ice BEHIND his limp body and Storm with an innocent, yet satisfied look on her face.  We may never know what really happened.

The rest was villain clean up.  The X-Men went to one side of the dungeon and the other two groups co-mingled on the other side trying to gather points (Mostly Excalibur wandering around aimlessly and the JLI kill stealing Excalibur's targets).  Meanwhile, the Guardian twiddled his thumbs.  There was a tense moment where the X-Men shot Avalanche (there is some bad blood there) causing the JLI to lose their barrier source.  Some threats were made, some posturing occurred, but nothing came from it...except Avalanche going down like a punk on the last turn!

The last action consisted of Mister Miracle walking right up to the Gem Guardian and stealing the gem!  Run for the exit Miracle!! RUUUUNN!  Huh, wha...we're done? Oh, OK...forget it.