So, um... what is the proper procedure if one were to theoretically find an H-Dial in an antique mall? Asking for a friend.
Yea, Heroez4U would probably be your best bet. Or some other local hero or organization depending on your area. Literally calling ANYBODY would probably be your best bet. Though if I had to hedge you a really strong wager I would give you a crisp fiver that says that either the dial itself or the entire antique store will be gone when you go back to check for it. Because H-Dials are one of that artifacts on the highest level magical-cosmic scale that makes things get SPOOKY really fast.
(A photo of either THE H-Dial or AN H-Dial, the sources differ)
For those of you not familiar, an H-Dial is the name given to a powerful artifact or artifacts that resembles the dial from a rotary telephone. The most common form is of a silver dial in two layers with yellow buttons and red writing. The inside showing arcane patterns that RESEMBLE the clips and soldering on the inside of an electronic device but don't actually function as one. "Dial H For" written across the top and then the four letter "H-E-R-O" within the four bottom most buttons.
When the four buttons are dialed in order, the user is transformed into a seemingly unknown superhero. These heroes have no connection to any hero actually known on Earth and many of them sport visages that range from the bizarre, to the surreal, to the downright impossible. Study of the devices has shown that that's because these heroes aren't summoned from the ether but rather copying the powers of other heroes from the wider multiverse, even to the outer edges of the observable multiverse and beyond. It can transform you into a superhero from a world where everyone is snails, or the entire world is one giant domestic home, or chalk drawings on a wall stretching forever in every direction.
H-Dials, while they sound whimsical are DANGEROUS for all of the logical reasons that enter the head of an adult when you think past the premise for two seconds. Not only are people randomly developing superpowers probably going to panic and hurt either themselves or others, but the Dials themselves are VERY widely coveted among groups that you do NOT want to get tangled up with. Beyond that, it's been discovered that while the device is in use the powers that are being "copied" are in fact being stolen from whatever hero was connected to the dial. Which can leave a hero somewhere out there in the multiverse helpless at just the wrong time.
These are multiversal artifacts, of the kind of power that the difference between science and magic is mostly speculative. If you have it, someone wants to kill you for it. And USING IT is opening yourself up to a LOT of negative externalities that could leave you and a lot of other people very dead. If you're the kind of person who would ask a random asshole on the internet what to do with it, don't even touch it.
