Six months after Batman started his crusade, two Gotham City police officers, Al Kelly and Jimmy Fong, stumble upon the Chubala Cult in the middle of a human sacrifice. Kelly is killed, and Fong barely escapes with his life. The next day, Captain James Gordon arrives on the scene, but the cult members have long since fled. Bruce Wayne arrives shortly afterward, and Gordon summarizes the recent events. Bruce recalls the name "Chubala" as it was the last word spoken by Tina Wilson shortly before she took her own life. He decides to investigate further to see what the connection is. At night, Bruce attends an Alaskan Exhibition with his date, and there, he meets Dr. Madison Spurlock, an anthropologist from Gotham University. Bruce had told Madison the Native American folk tale that he learned while recovering in Alaska, and this knowledge allowed Spurlock to gain notoriety, although he has been spreading the lie that he learned the tale from natives. At the exhibit, Bruce also meets Spurlock's assistant, Bennet Young. Later that night, Bruce drops his date at her place and quickly changes into Batman to start the investigation of the Chubala cult. Batman goes to the Gotham Central Hospital to check on the injured police officer and listens to the man muttering something about human sacrifice. Once outside, Batman finds a group of cultists on the rooftop of the Hospital with the intent of finishing off officer Fong. Batman takes them down and quickly apprehends them, leaving them bound to a streetlamp for the police. Batman had examined the cultists' pockets and retrieved large amounts of money and a strange substance, seemingly drugs. Back at Wayne Manor, Bruce examines the evidence on an improvised laboratory placed in one of the oldest rooms in the manor. Because of Alfred's disapproval, he and Bruce start exploring the caverns beneath the Manor in the first hour of the morning. After finding a large enough cavern, Bruce decides that it will make an ideal base of operations. Moments later, he receives a phone call from Bennet Young with an urgent message to meet with him. Elsewhere, the cultists' fine has been paid by Chubala, the shaman, but when they return to him, he kills one of them as a warning for upcoming failures. Before going to Young, Bruce makes a quick stop at the GCPD Headquarters, disguised as a shoeshiner, to ask Gordon for any information about the cultists apprehended the last night. Gordon tells him that all of them were from Santa Prisca, although they had changed their real names. Afterward, Bruce goes to the exhibit, but when he arrives, he finds Bennet Young with a spear sticking out of his chest. His dying words are, "Baat... Man..."

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