Drhoz

Rorie Susan Woods.  Unleashed several hives of bees on deputies serving an eviction.  Seen in costume.  
 
https://www.wcvb.com/article/bees-unleashed-in-attack-on-deputies-hampden-county-massachusetts-sheriff-says/41712098

And Brian Blessed.     My God....just using them as the basis for agents for a British MI-13 team during the ‘60’s & ‘70’s.  The book practically writes itself!
    For Bruce Lee in a comic book, check out the 1970’s editions of Shang Chi Master of Kung Fu drawn by Christopher Golden or Doug Monch
    For Harry Houdini in a comic book try Gotham by Gaslight.  An Elseworlds series set in Victorian era Gotham with Batman chasing Jack the Ripper.

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - Venice - Love (and Death) in a Gondola Pt.3
 
Feb 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Dig Themselves Deeper Into A Hole
 
   The Investigators are certainly seeing a lot of Venice while they’re in town, if by ‘a lot’ you mean the inside of the city’s libraries and archives, and the inside of the San Marco Basilica during a heist that nearly gets them arrested as Communist Arms Smugglers. Smugglers that they, in fact, invented. 
 
  This probably requires some explanation.  
 
  Having already assisted local communist Georgio Gasparetti’s attempts to get into the pants of Maria Stagliani (hopefully he’ll wait till they’re actually married), Huxley and company have finally returned their attention to the search for the pieces of the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Delving deeply into the archives turns up the official reports and diaries of the French officers during Napoleon’s occupation of the city, and The Devil’s Simulare, an illuminated manuscript about certain events in Constantinople during its looting by the Fourth Crusade. Hopefully it’s not entirely historical, because among other things it includes knights fighting a dragon. But they can read it all properly later, because the reports and diary reveal the hiding place of the Simulacrum’s Leg!
 
Inside one of the richest and well-guarded churches in Christendom.
 
This presents a few problems, and that’s not even counting the giant fish with human arms that have been seen in the canals. 
 
Huxley: Could be a surviving amphibian from the Devonian.
GM: Given the increasingly noxious state of the canals, they probably won’t be surviving for long.
 
The water is certainly getting pretty bad - black as the breast of a raven - and increasingly excited rumors claim that it’s certain death to touch it. 
 
The Left Leg was apparently buried under the floor of the Chapel of St Isidore - not the St Isidore of Seville who invented the comma, but the Isidore of Chios who got torn apart by horses. It's the latter who got interred at St Mark's, presumably not in one piece. And the investigators will be lucky if they remain in one piece if they get caught vandalizing the church. Maybe they should just tell the church authorities they had an evil artifact under the pavers and they should just be glad it’s being taken off their hands?
 
GM: It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
 
Antonio Masiero, the Italian airman who did most of the legwork for them in Venice, has a suggestion - i.e. get the fascists to do it, by telling them that communist arms smugglers were using the chapel as a letter drop, then intercept them and get the leg off them afterwards with the help of the local communists.

It’s certainly a … bold… plan.
 
Antonio: A shipment of arms
Florence: Heheh
Antonio: OK, or a shipment of legs
 
So all they have to do is convince Gasparetti to use his contacts among the local unionists and left-leaning students to pass on information to the blackshirts. He’s a bit reluctant, at first. Among other other things the fascists will crack down even harder on the local communists if they dig up the chapel to find the letter drop or not, but he does get more enthusiastic about it when it’s framed as an excuse to string up the blackshirts for vandalizing the Basilica. 
 
Gasparetti: This could be the start of the OVERTHROW OF MUSSOLINI! *slaps his hand over his mouth when he realises he just said that aloud in a cafe*
Florence: Geniuses, lower your voices -You keep out of trouble, and you double your choices. I'm with you, but the situation is fraught. You've got to be carefully taught: If you talk, you're gonna get shot!
 
Fortunately, it was already a fairly left-wing cafe, although people are now paying a LOT of attention to the investigators.
 
They decide to pass on the false information that the communist arms smugglers will be leaving instructions under the flagstone in the chapel after the last mass of the day, and Gasparetti and his friends will be waiting out in the plaza to raise hell the moment the Fascists start tearing up the flagstones. Huxley, Florence and Antonio will be lurking among the congregation to see how it plays out. 
 
Of course, it doesn’t go according to plan, because in hindsight it was never going to. The blackshirts naturally planted a few plainsclothed officers among the congregation, all watching closely for these imaginary arms smugglers. Which left Huxley and Antonio to try and hide in the Basilica as the crowd streamed out, and the officers explain to the priests why they’re there.
 
Priest: Communists?! In MY Church!
GM: It’s more likely than you think. 
 
And of course the blackshirts spot Huxley hiding - they were expecting somebody to linger in the church after mass, after all. He legs it, closely pursued by the fascists, to the consternation of Florence, Gasparetti and his friends. At least that gives Antonio a chance to pry up the flagstone with a votive candlestick, while everybody is busy.
 
There’s no Leg. 
 
There is, instead, a letter in a sealed envelope. Antonio grabs it and talks his way out past the priests - after giving the address to his hotel, his actual name, a promise of numerous Hail Marys and a large donation. Huxley manages to lose himself in the crowd of churchgoers - he certainly seems to be becoming quite an accomplished sprinter, at least in the vicinity of Italian landmarks. The investigators meet up at the flat, where Gasparetti tries to wrap his head around the fact that there actually WAS a letter under the flagstone. At least he can identify the seal of the letter - the Gremancis, once Princes of Venice, now famous dollmakers and providers of prosthetic limbs to the veterans of the Great War. 
 
The name is not entirely a surprise - the investigators had been told by Professor Smith that reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci was somehow involved with the Simulacrum, and one Alvise de Gremanci was recorded as one of the ringleaders of the riots that took place when the Leg was first brought to the city, and all quietly released after the French officer discovered they were absolutely right to be protesting. Antonio had been asking every branch of the family if they knew anything about an evil leg. Apparently none did - perhaps the letter will reveal the truth?
 

HORROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - Venice - Love (and Death) in a Gondola Pt.3
 
Feb 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Dig Themselves Deeper Into A Hole
 
   The Investigators are certainly seeing a lot of Venice while they’re in town, if by ‘a lot’ you mean the inside of the city’s libraries and archives, and the inside of the San Marco Basilica during a heist that nearly gets them arrested as Communist Arms Smugglers. Smugglers that they, in fact, invented. 
 
  This probably requires some explanation.  
 
  Having already assisted local communist Georgio Gasparetti’s attempts to get into the pants of Maria Stagliani (hopefully he’ll wait till they’re actually married), Huxley and company have finally returned their attention to the search for the pieces of the Sedefkar Simulacrum. Delving deeply into the archives turns up the official reports and diaries of the French officers during Napoleon’s occupation of the city, and The Devil’s Simulare, an illuminated manuscript about certain events in Constantinople during its looting by the Fourth Crusade. Hopefully it’s not entirely historical, because among other things it includes knights fighting a dragon. But they can read it all properly later, because the reports and diary reveal the hiding place of the Simulacrum’s Leg!
 
Inside one of the richest and well-guarded churches in Christendom.
 
This presents a few problems, and that’s not even counting the giant fish with human arms that have been seen in the canals. 
 
Huxley: Could be a surviving amphibian from the Devonian.
GM: Given the increasingly noxious state of the canals, they probably won’t be surviving for long.
 
The water is certainly getting pretty bad - black as the breast of a raven - and increasingly excited rumors claim that it’s certain death to touch it. 
 
The Left Leg was apparently buried under the floor of the Chapel of St Isidore - not the St Isidore of Seville who invented the comma, but the Isidore of Chios who got torn apart by horses. It's the latter who got interred at St Mark's, presumably not in one piece. And the investigators will be lucky if they remain in one piece if they get caught vandalizing the church. Maybe they should just tell the church authorities they had an evil artifact under the pavers and they should just be glad it’s being taken off their hands?
 
GM: It's easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.
 
Antonio Masiero, the Italian airman who did most of the legwork for them in Venice, has a suggestion - i.e. get the fascists to do it, by telling them that communist arms smugglers were using the chapel as a letter drop, then intercept them and get the leg off them afterwards with the help of the local communists.

It’s certainly a … bold… plan.
 
Antonio: A shipment of arms
Florence: Heheh
Antonio: OK, or a shipment of legs
 
So all they have to do is convince Gasparetti to use his contacts among the local unionists and left-leaning students to pass on information to the blackshirts. He’s a bit reluctant, at first. Among other other things the fascists will crack down even harder on the local communists if they dig up the chapel to find the letter drop or not, but he does get more enthusiastic about it when it’s framed as an excuse to string up the blackshirts for vandalizing the Basilica. 
 
Gasparetti: This could be the start of the OVERTHROW OF MUSSOLINI! *slaps his hand over his mouth when he realises he just said that aloud in a cafe*
Florence: Geniuses, lower your voices -You keep out of trouble, and you double your choices. I'm with you, but the situation is fraught. You've got to be carefully taught: If you talk, you're gonna get shot!
 
Fortunately, it was already a fairly left-wing cafe, although people are now paying a LOT of attention to the investigators.
 
They decide to pass on the false information that the communist arms smugglers will be leaving instructions under the flagstone in the chapel after the last mass of the day, and Gasparetti and his friends will be waiting out in the plaza to raise hell the moment the Fascists start tearing up the flagstones. Huxley, Florence and Antonio will be lurking among the congregation to see how it plays out. 
 
Of course, it doesn’t go according to plan, because in hindsight it was never going to. The blackshirts naturally planted a few plainsclothed officers among the congregation, all watching closely for these imaginary arms smugglers. Which left Huxley and Antonio to try and hide in the Basilica as the crowd streamed out, and the officers explain to the priests why they’re there.
 
Priest: Communists?! In MY Church!
GM: It’s more likely than you think. 
 
And of course the blackshirts spot Huxley hiding - they were expecting somebody to linger in the church after mass, after all. He legs it, closely pursued by the fascists, to the consternation of Florence, Gasparetti and his friends. At least that gives Antonio a chance to pry up the flagstone with a votive candlestick, while everybody is busy.
 
There’s no Leg. 
 
There is, instead, a letter in a sealed envelope. Antonio grabs it and talks his way out past the priests - after giving the address to his hotel, his actual name, a promise of numerous Hail Marys and a large donation. Huxley manages to lose himself in the crowd of churchgoers - he certainly seems to be becoming quite an accomplished sprinter, at least in the vicinity of Italian landmarks. The investigators meet up at the flat, where Gasparetti tries to wrap his head around the fact that there actually WAS a letter under the flagstone. At least he can identify the seal of the letter - the Gremancis, once Princes of Venice, now famous dollmakers and providers of prosthetic limbs to the veterans of the Great War. 
 
The name is not entirely a surprise - the investigators had been told by Professor Smith that reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci was somehow involved with the Simulacrum, and one Alvise de Gremanci was recorded as one of the ringleaders of the riots that took place when the Leg was first brought to the city, and all quietly released after the French officer discovered they were absolutely right to be protesting. Antonio had been asking every branch of the family if they knew anything about an evil leg. Apparently none did - perhaps the letter will reveal the truth?
 

Gonno OoC: It’s at this point that most villagers would put up an ad on Craigslist looking for murder-hoboes. 
 
Despite the increasingly difficult weather and terrain, we eventually find scattered yellow wax of the kind that poisoned the rats. There don’t appear to be any giant poisoned bee hives hanging from the trees overhead, but that doesn't preclude giant poisoned burrowing bees.
 
Arram: And that would just be about our luck, wouldn’t it.
 
And if there was a trail, it’s too old to follow, even for a rat as antisocial as Shev. Fortunately the plants have been there longer, and Miya can talk to plants. The shrubbery tells us that the were fuzzy things, less hairy than the ratfolk, smaller than any of the villagers, that came through about 10 brightnesses ago. Also, their noisy bits were bigger than ours. Honestly, as far as descriptive qualia go, that’s pretty good work for a vegetable. 
 
We press on looking for more clues - looking so intently that we don’t notice that the rushing torrent coming down from the hills has undercut the bank, and Arram ends up hanging from a tree branch. Fortunately the rest of us haul him back to safety without going over ourselves. And a bit further on from there, we hear words in an unpleasant barking language just over the next ridge. Unfortunately, none of us speak goblin. Fortunately Shev and his giant riding rat are both pretty stealthy, and easily identifies them as goblins, a goblin dog, and a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin is currently beating one of the mouthier gobbos about the head with a stick. Then hands out chunks of that yellow wax to each.
 
Shev and his rat might well be stealthy, and it’s true that the goblinoids don’t notice them at once or as he and his mount are sneaking away again. On the other hand the rest of the party are not so lightfooted as we sneak into position to ambush the enemy. Shev is inclined to blame Gonno, who is certainly the physically densest of the party, but Gonno is too generous to point out that it was actually the riding rat sneezing. The goblinoids, however, are generous enough to share most of their arrows with Gonno. Arram is comprehensively ventilated as well. In fact, it’s a small miracle we survive at all - it would seem murder-hoboes exist for a reason. 
 
The conscious members of the party decide to lug the unconscious Gonno back to the hut, for safety and healing. The current clearing might be suitable for a campsite, but for two factors - the enemy know about it.
 
Shev: And it’s a bit corpse-y.
 
The goblinoids are not equipped well, which isn’t unusual, but the hobgoblins are unusually clean and are all branded with a V, which is. And none of them are carrying rations, which implies they have a camp somewhere nearby. In hindsight, we should have let Shev’s rat chew on all the goblinoids, so their compatriots will blame wild animals when they come looking.  
The next day, with considerable more caution, we locate the goblin camp, at a long-ruined tower deep in the forest. One unusual feature is a set of large wooden cages, one containing a large and very unhappy boar. There’s no sign of any goblins, but there is a large hole leading into the earth. No spoil heap, which implies a collapse rather than an excavation. Or maybe there really are giant poisoned burrowing bees. Unusually, the hobgoblin has a statue of Shelyn set up in his tent - with a note underneath it that none of us can read. Written in a very neat neat hand. That might be related to the cloven-hooved prints leading in and out of the hole. 
 
Distracted into a conversation about the ‘Where’s Wally’ mythos.
 
Shev’s player: In the United States and Canada he’s known as “Waldo”, in Denmark he’s “Holger”, in France he’s “Charlie” and in German he’s “Walter”.
Gonno’s player: And Interpol has taken a keen interest. 
 
There’s a deeper chasm at the bottom of the hole, with a swinging bridge, a sleeping goblin in a running cage, and a raging cascade. Unfortunately, bridge and goblin are both on the far side of the chasm, and our attempts to snipe them from our side are a spectacular failure. We end up relying on Shev and his giant riding rat again.
 
Shev: They might not as fast as a horse but f*** they’re versatile. No! No! Get that of your mouth!
Arram: You don’t know where it’s been.
 
As suspected, the ruins had a dungeon underneath, and there’s a hooded figure doing something alchemical on a table near two caged hobgoblin females. Could be dangerous, especially if they're anything like our ratfolk alchemist.
 
Shev: Because in our experience, alchemists are very good at hitting us. 
 
Happily, not everybody thinks to put tripwires on the walls. Even in the Underdark, where practically everybody can Spiderclimb or the equivalent. We even manage to get into position to ambush the alchemist - almost. She seems quite pleased to see us, which is not good. She’s a Forlarren - corrupted fey. 
 
Forlarren: Well gentlemen, ladies? What can I do for you?
Miya: Ah… we wanted to know why goblins are poisoning the animals of the forest and causing sundry problems?
Forlarren: Oh that’s easy - I told them to. 
Miya: … OK… any particular reason?
Forlarren: I wanted to drive the rats towards Selversgard and make you all insane and dead.
Miya: …. Why?
Forlarren: Because I hate you. Obviously I won’t need these anymore *reaches for a lever next to the hobgoblin cage, and casts Heat Metal on us*
 
Fortunately not all of us are wearing armour, and she doesn’t cast it very well, so her attempted Cook and Book doesn’t go as well as she’d like and we have her surrounded before she can escape. And then she’s on fire, and very soon after that, dead. It’s quite fortunate that we stopped her pulling the lever, since it wasn’t a cage release but a mechanism to kill her extraneous test subjects. We free them, and give them food and water. 
 
Shev: I can’t just abandon them because they’re not my species.
Miya: And they’re female - you can’t just do that.
Shev: I’m usually more egalitarian than that, but still. 
 
The hobgoblins seem very grateful, despite the language barrier. Extremely grateful, at least insofar as Miya is concerned. 
 
Arram: I would help, but I’m paralysed with laughter.
Miya: Ah. No? Busy. Do you understand? Busy.
Shev: Arram, can you please do something about this? We have things to do today. 
 
It’s not ideal, but we can’t really let the two hobgoblins fend for themselves, naked and alone. We might have to take them back to Selversgard, despite the fact that goblinoids are universally despised (and for good reason). The Forlarren also had a human skull with a few citrines shoved into the nasal cavity. 
 
Gorro: *thinking* Well I don’t think it would match the decor at my place, but perhaps one of the others would like it.
Arram OoC: I hope not, because then I’ll have to write ‘nose gems’ on the treasure sheet. 
Skave: Hey, skull for the alchemy shop!
 
There’s also a preserved nymph’s head, a skinned hobgoblin and the remains of a halfling bard with a masterworked lute in the other room - nobody we recognise as a visitor to Selversgard, but it’s possible someone will come looking for him. The Maker’s Mark from Magnimar will help narrow down his identity at least. Gonno prepares the bodies for rough burial - none of us are clerics. 
 
Arram: I’m pretty sure by the time the rest of us finish arguing about it Gonno’s already dug the graves. 
Gonno: I dig.
 
The hobgoblins head off by themselves, to Shev’s relief.
 
Miya: A quick smack on the bum and off they go.
Shev: NO.
 
We also get XP for releasing the boar.
 
Miya OoC: Now we just have to rescue 10 ½ more boars and we’ll go up a level.
Shev OoC: How do we rescue half a boar?
Miya OoC: Piglet.
Arram OoC: Yeah, Young template would do it.
Piglet: Oh, bother.
Shev OoC: Did that pig just talk?
 
At least we've dealt with the crazed rat problem, and can return to Selversgard as Perfectly Adequate Substitute Adventurers. We’ll send a few letters to Magnimar with the next load of timber, and see if we can find an ID for the dead bard. And then Gonno can start carving a set of alphabet blocks for the ratfolk’s offspring - they’re not a species that put off parenting until middle age. 
 
Next Adventure : a year and a month from now!

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle -
 
Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry!
Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US!
Lorgar: .... the other warcry
Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER!
Lorgar: Much better.

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle -
 
Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry!
Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US!
Lorgar: .... the other warcry
Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER!
Lorgar: Much better.

Shev: I finally find a Rat I’m not related to and she tells me to f*** off????
 
Gonno’s carpentry over the next 11 months goes poorly, Miya is lucky in business and Arram loses a family member. Romilda gets an unexpected boon and Skave suffers a blow to his reputation in town. 
 
Skave: ONE guy has a bad trip and runs through town naked screaming about being chased by invisible ghosts, and everyone hates you for months, honestly…
 
Shev: Everytime I fire this thing it costs me 5GP.
Gonno OoC: Maybe if we ask nicely the bad guys will hold still, so you don’t waste your money. 
 
Miya has been supplementing her income by dancing at one of Selversgard’s public houses. She’s not exactly spoiled for choice - it’s the only one with a stage. Afterwards, she’s handed an envelope. 
 
Miya: Thank you young dwarf. If it’s a proposition I’m not interested. 
 
It’s an invitation to a meeting with the dwarf Gelvert, one of the most well-off people in town, who has profited mightily from the sawmill since he and four friends founded the town a century back. He even has somebody to take Miya’s cloak and get it dried and cleaned. As he tells Miya, the other founders are dead, or almost certainly so. He’s been thinking a lot about Jael Jirin, one of the founders, a gnome of whom he was very fond. 
 
Gelvert: Soul like a bright lighthouse on a darkened sea… she founded the fisherman’s guild, you know.
 
Apparently Jael hid a number of items for Gelvert to collect, if she never returned, but thinking about her likely death was so painful he’s been putting it off for decades. 
 
Gelvert: I find that as the days grow darker and the winter gathers in my bones, I fear it will not be long before I too make my way to Pharasma’s halls. 
 
He wants to pay us to retrieve them - he probably isn’t relying on our sense of civic duty to avoid paying professional adventurer rates, but rich old dwarfs don’t become rich old dwarfs by wasting money. He tells the group that the collapsed old ruin we explored last year is far from the only such in the forest - they’re all through it, and for that matter most of the continent. Jael kept one as a private lair, some 20 miles SE of Selversgard, and kept various important documents in a strongbox there - Gelvert has the key, and warns us about some of the pit traps we’ll have to avoid. We’ll have to bring a ladder, and probably some raincoats.
 
Gelvert: I regret sending you out in this weather, but I doubt I’ll still be here come spring. 
 
Gonno wonders if any of his neighbors have a folding ladder he can borrow.
 
Shev: Buy one you cheap bastard, they’re only 2GP. 
 
Portable bridges are probably also a good idea - getting a donkey across a ladder seems difficult - although Shev loudly complains that the thing must be made from Darkwood given the cost and weight. Not that Shev needs the bridge, although he’s still the only one with a giant riding rat, Vokk.
 
Shev: I’ve only been here two years, it takes a while to breed the musclerats. 
Miya: I am going to have to do so much negotiation in a few years… ‘no, it didn’t bite your children, and it hasn’t eaten your dog’.
Shev: To be fair, how big is the dog?
 
Nobody’s figured out that Miya and her pet fox are the same entity yet.
 
Townsfolk 1: That pet fox is weird. 
Townsfolk 2: It’s probably a f***ing familiar or something, don’t worry about it. 
 
Unfortunately, by the first afternoon the weather goes from wet to appalling - trying to navigate across trackless forest is hard enough in good weather, and it’s all too easy to miss the giant spider trapdoors when the rain is blowing up your nose. Gonno’s solution is practical - roll a big log over the trapdoor when the spider retreats. 
We make camp. Nothing disturbs us during the night.
 
Gonno OoC: I suspect I’m mostly relying on the fact that only a lunatic would be wandering around in this weather.
Shev: HELLO.
Gonno OoC: But we’re not wandering around.
Arram: But we’re still out here in this weather.
 
The weather continues so awful that it’s hard to tell possible stone towers apart from big rocks. We go to approach one, when a voice pipes up from the undergrowth.
 
Voice: I wouldn't go down there if I was you. 
 
It’s a tiny creature with a humanoid front half and shining silver hair, and the back half of a cricket. 
 
Shev: Why would you not go down there?
The Grig: Because that is the domain of a wolfwere.
 
The Grig: A terrible story - a wolf cursed to live as a man, under the full moon. 
 
Skave is suspicious - for one thing it’s not full moon -  and thinks the Grig is trying to fool us.
 
Skave: I’m pretty sure we can go on.
Shev: Why’s that?
Arram: Love of violence.
Skave: I just don’t trust it.
Shev: You barely trust anyone outside the warren - be more specific
The Grig: Doesn’t trust me. Doesn’t trust me. *flies off in a huff* 
Shev: Now look what you’ve done, our supplies are going to get scattered all over the place the next time we camp.
Gonno: *gives Skave a ‘I’m not angry, just disappointed’ look, sighs and packs up the rations he was going to thank the Grig with - even if it WAS trying to fool us, rewarding the the Fae for small pranks is still a good idea as long as the pranks remain harmless*
Shev OoC: And it stops them from escalating. 
 
We go ahead into the suspiciously circular depression anyway - the tower is actually a huge monolith.
 
Gonno: *examines the monolith from various angles, mentally calculating the size of the crater, closely examining the lichen on the stone, and giving the rock a cautious sniff* Thassilonian.
Shev: Rune-cannon shot. Rune this, rune that. What happened to good old fashioned glyphs, I ask you?
GM: Certainly runed this area.
 
A bit later on we find a sign nailed to a tree, pointing to a strongbox. It contains a meat pie and a blueberry cupcake, as Skave’s alchemy confirms. This is OBVIOUSLY Fae food.
 
Shev: DON’T EAT IT.
Miya: I’m not going to - it was going to stay in the strongbox for now.
Shev: You leave it right where you found it!
The Grig: Oh, but then the pie will get cold!
 
Shev and Gonno are far too knowledgeable about the rules for dealing with Fae - i.e. Don’t. - to fall for the Grig’s protestations of innocence, even if it was innocent.
 
Miya: Hang on, you had it made up for us? Where???
The Grig: Oh, I’m not going to tell you THAT.
 
The Grig doesn’t trash our camp overnight, but our paranoia leaves us unrested nonetheless. The next day brings us to an old stone building - with a newer steel portcullis. News in ‘probably added in the last century’. A bit of elbow grease gets it open, although Gonno does manhandle the block we were using as a fulcrum underneath the portcullis just in case. 
Perhaps Gonno should stick up the front of the party - he won’t distract our trailblazer Shev with any unnecessary chatter.
 
Shev: That’s why I have Vokk. To avoid any unnecessary chatter. I dare you to name a more trustworthy companion.
Miya: A rock. 
Shev: Nonono, They’re constantly stealing your elephants.
Miya: … What? That’s a reference to something isn’t it… Oh. That went straight over my head, like the elephants, who are very distressed about it so don’t be there.
 
It’s the giant riding rat Vokk that spots the first warning - a big, helpful PIT! sign with an arrow, with delimited paths and trap bounds. It doesn’t seem to be in the same handwriting as the Grig’s sign earlier. Further on there’s a room with all mod cons - glowing crystals in the walls, comfy bed, a cage, a skeleton, and a corpse slumped over the table. The skeleton is a person, holding a spear and standing straight upright. Gonno wants to look around for a keyhole. The key we were given was supposed to disable some of the defenses and he doesn’t like the look of that skeleton, but Shev is more interested in looting those crystals and Arram lobs a rock at the undead. The corpse is a human or maybe an elf, and was using the room to flay and prepare corpses. The wannabe necromancer apparently retired here to perfect his art and take over the world. 
 
Arram: The Twilight Academy is a week’s travel away, you nutter, you should have just gone there. 
 
The corpse-botherer even managed to animate a single skeleton, but then, at a loss about what to actually do with it, ordered it to guard the cage. Arram toasts the skeleton, which never even twitches from its assigned duty - a sad end for the late Necromancer’s ‘Great Work’.
 
Shev: An appropriate end.
 
The Necromancer has four puncture wounds in his chest, but not caused by anything in the room. The loon never explored past this room, according to his journal, since he didn’t like all the traps. If one of the traps is responsible for his injuries, we can hardly blame him. At least his spellbook didn’t get too icky. Unfortunately, we’re not so scared of traps, and thus discover what killed the necromancer - giant mosquitoes. 
 
Skave: *Missing yet another crossbow shot* I’m terrible with this thing!
GM: Yes, you should be throwing bombs.
Skave: I get yelled at when I throw bombs!
Shev: For good reason!!!!
 
GM: You have avoided catching the disease carried by these Stirges.
Gonno OoC: That notwithstanding, I should probably avoid squeezing it like a piping bag to get my blood back. 

 


 

Gonno OoC: It’s at this point that most villagers would put up an ad on Craigslist looking for murder-hoboes. 
 
Despite the increasingly difficult weather and terrain, we eventually find scattered yellow wax of the kind that poisoned the rats. There don’t appear to be any giant poisoned bee hives hanging from the trees overhead, but that doesn't preclude giant poisoned burrowing bees.
 
Arram: And that would just be about our luck, wouldn’t it.
 
And if there was a trail, it’s too old to follow, even for a rat as antisocial as Shev. Fortunately the plants have been there longer, and Miya can talk to plants. The shrubbery tells us that the were fuzzy things, less hairy than the ratfolk, smaller than any of the villagers, that came through about 10 brightnesses ago. Also, their noisy bits were bigger than ours. Honestly, as far as descriptive qualia go, that’s pretty good work for a vegetable. 
 
We press on looking for more clues - looking so intently that we don’t notice that the rushing torrent coming down from the hills has undercut the bank, and Arram ends up hanging from a tree branch. Fortunately the rest of us haul him back to safety without going over ourselves. And a bit further on from there, we hear words in an unpleasant barking language just over the next ridge. Unfortunately, none of us speak goblin. Fortunately Shev and his giant riding rat are both pretty stealthy, and easily identifies them as goblins, a goblin dog, and a hobgoblin. The hobgoblin is currently beating one of the mouthier gobbos about the head with a stick. Then hands out chunks of that yellow wax to each.
 
Shev and his rat might well be stealthy, and it’s true that the goblinoids don’t notice them at once or as he and his mount are sneaking away again. On the other hand the rest of the party are not so lightfooted as we sneak into position to ambush the enemy. Shev is inclined to blame Gonno, who is certainly the physically densest of the party, but Gonno is too generous to point out that it was actually the riding rat sneezing. The goblinoids, however, are generous enough to share most of their arrows with Gonno. Arram is comprehensively ventilated as well. In fact, it’s a small miracle we survive at all - it would seem murder-hoboes exist for a reason. 
 
The conscious members of the party decide to lug the unconscious Gonno back to the hut, for safety and healing. The current clearing might be suitable for a campsite, but for two factors - the enemy know about it.
 
Shev: And it’s a bit corpse-y.
 
The goblinoids are not equipped well, which isn’t unusual, but the hobgoblins are unusually clean and are all branded with a V, which is. And none of them are carrying rations, which implies they have a camp somewhere nearby. In hindsight, we should have let Shev’s rat chew on all the goblinoids, so their compatriots will blame wild animals when they come looking.  
The next day, with considerable more caution, we locate the goblin camp, at a long-ruined tower deep in the forest. One unusual feature is a set of large wooden cages, one containing a large and very unhappy boar. There’s no sign of any goblins, but there is a large hole leading into the earth. No spoil heap, which implies a collapse rather than an excavation. Or maybe there really are giant poisoned burrowing bees. Unusually, the hobgoblin has a statue of Shelyn set up in his tent - with a note underneath it that none of us can read. Written in a very neat neat hand. That might be related to the cloven-hooved prints leading in and out of the hole. 
 
Distracted into a conversation about the ‘Where’s Wally’ mythos.
 
Shev’s player: In the United States and Canada he’s known as “Waldo”, in Denmark he’s “Holger”, in France he’s “Charlie” and in German he’s “Walter”.
Gonno’s player: And Interpol has taken a keen interest. 
 
There’s a deeper chasm at the bottom of the hole, with a swinging bridge, a sleeping goblin in a running cage, and a raging cascade. Unfortunately, bridge and goblin are both on the far side of the chasm, and our attempts to snipe them from our side are a spectacular failure. We end up relying on Shev and his giant riding rat again.
 
Shev: They might not as fast as a horse but f*** they’re versatile. No! No! Get that of your mouth!
Arram: You don’t know where it’s been.
 
As suspected, the ruins had a dungeon underneath, and there’s a hooded figure doing something alchemical on a table near two caged hobgoblin females. Could be dangerous, especially if they're anything like our ratfolk alchemist.
 
Shev: Because in our experience, alchemists are very good at hitting us. 
 
Happily, not everybody thinks to put tripwires on the walls. Even in the Underdark, where practically everybody can Spiderclimb or the equivalent. We even manage to get into position to ambush the alchemist - almost. She seems quite pleased to see us, which is not good. She’s a Forlarren - corrupted fey. 
 
Forlarren: Well gentlemen, ladies? What can I do for you?
Miya: Ah… we wanted to know why goblins are poisoning the animals of the forest and causing sundry problems?
Forlarren: Oh that’s easy - I told them to. 
Miya: … OK… any particular reason?
Forlarren: I wanted to drive the rats towards Selversgard and make you all insane and dead.
Miya: …. Why?
Forlarren: Because I hate you. Obviously I won’t need these anymore *reaches for a lever next to the hobgoblin cage, and casts Heat Metal on us*
 
Fortunately not all of us are wearing armour, and she doesn’t cast it very well, so her attempted Cook and Book doesn’t go as well as she’d like and we have her surrounded before she can escape. And then she’s on fire, and very soon after that, dead. It’s quite fortunate that we stopped her pulling the lever, since it wasn’t a cage release but a mechanism to kill her extraneous test subjects. We free them, and give them food and water. 
 
Shev: I can’t just abandon them because they’re not my species.
Miya: And they’re female - you can’t just do that.
Shev: I’m usually more egalitarian than that, but still. 
 
The hobgoblins seem very grateful, despite the language barrier. Extremely grateful, at least insofar as Miya is concerned. 
 
Arram: I would help, but I’m paralysed with laughter.
Miya: Ah. No? Busy. Do you understand? Busy.
Shev: Arram, can you please do something about this? We have things to do today. 
 
It’s not ideal, but we can’t really let the two hobgoblins fend for themselves, naked and alone. We might have to take them back to Selversgard, despite the fact that goblinoids are universally despised (and for good reason). The Forlarren also had a human skull with a few citrines shoved into the nasal cavity. 
 
Gorro: *thinking* Well I don’t think it would match the decor at my place, but perhaps one of the others would like it.
Arram OoC: I hope not, because then I’ll have to write ‘nose gems’ on the treasure sheet. 
Skave: Hey, skull for the alchemy shop!
 
There’s also a preserved nymph’s head, a skinned hobgoblin and the remains of a halfling bard with a masterworked lute in the other room - nobody we recognise as a visitor to Selversgard, but it’s possible someone will come looking for him. The Maker’s Mark from Magnimar will help narrow down his identity at least. Gonno prepares the bodies for rough burial - none of us are clerics. 
 
Arram: I’m pretty sure by the time the rest of us finish arguing about it Gonno’s already dug the graves. 
Gonno: I dig.
 
The hobgoblins head off by themselves, to Shev’s relief.
 
Miya: A quick smack on the bum and off they go.
Shev: NO.
 
We also get XP for releasing the boar.
 
Miya OoC: Now we just have to rescue 10 ½ more boars and we’ll go up a level.
Shev OoC: How do we rescue half a boar?
Miya OoC: Piglet.
Arram OoC: Yeah, Young template would do it.
Piglet: Oh, bother.
Shev OoC: Did that pig just talk?
 
At least we've dealt with the crazed rat problem, and can return to Selversgard as Perfectly Adequate Substitute Adventurers. We’ll send a few letters to Magnimar with the next load of timber, and see if we can find an ID for the dead bard. And then Gonno can start carving a set of alphabet blocks for the ratfolk’s offspring - they’re not a species that put off parenting until middle age. 
 
Next Adventure : a year and a month from now!

Lorgar Aurelian, Primarch of the Word Bearers Space Marines, addresses the troops before battle -
 
Lorgar: Altogether now, our warcry!
Word Bearers: DADDY DOESN'T LOVE US!
Lorgar: .... the other warcry
Word Bearers: FOR CHAOS AND THE WARMASTER!
Lorgar: Much better.

Have been thinking about this one a bit more - if you're wondering what kind of plots you can have in a theme park, consider Niven and Barne's Dream Park novels, Spider Robinson's The Free Lunch, the SHOCC park in Pat Mills and Kevin O'Neill's Marshal Law : Fear and Loathing, the current Adventure Zone campaign Steeple Chase, etc. Also every conspiracy about Disney, visiting collections of valuable superhero memorabilia, custody snatches, supervillians looking to collect low-level supers as unwilling minions, supervillians who are just in the park for a nice day out, Mob involvement in the contracting, every possible level of corporate incompetence and malfeasance, union-busting, ride disasters (look up the Luna Park fire here in Australia for a spectacularly awful one ), corporate espionage, Halloween special scares, and the rather odd fact that the rate of superpower manifestation among people that have visited the unnamed park is 80 times higher than in the rest of the population. And despite what you may have heard, the founder's frozen head is absolutely not under the fairytale castle. 
 
 
 

Re: Calling all lawyers--Supers and unique legal issues
 
Disclaimer: Not my strong suit but just a fun mythology tidbit.
 
Well you have the Courts of hell and the 10 Kings of Yama who preside over them. Each King presides over a different kind of sin, such as adultery or murder and the courts are filled with suitable punishments. I don't think there is a trial process is this system but who says you can't have one and since it's litigating an infernal contract perhapses all 10 Kings must preside over the hearing.
 
Diyu

Hypothetical:
NeoMephisto, a resident of another dimension that we shall hereafter refer to as "Inferno", enters into a written contract with a certain Enrico "Little Caesar" Banducci, citizen of Victory City, USA, wherein party A(NeoMephisto) provides certain goods and services to party B(Banducci) in exchange for 1)regular cash payments, 2) use of discreet "office facilities", and 3) occasional human services barter. In the event of the expiration of said contract term(after a period of 20 years or Party B's untimely demise) or a material breach, party B is required to pay, in consideration/damages, their "immortal soul".
 
In the event of such a breach, what court venue is proper for subsequent suit? Is said "immortal soul" actual or nominal consideration? If NeoMephisto breaches and Banducci sues, what manner of service is necessary in order to meet the requirements of due process? If Banducci breaches and NeoMephisto sues, can the latter serve process via winged demon messenger or is a regular human process server required? What if NeoMephisto withholds essential goods and services in order to obtain better terms--is this simply hard bargaining or improper duress?
 
 
(Sorry, guys, law school is eating my brain...)

Low-level supers hired by a theme park to use their abilities in the shows. Eventually learn exactly why the founder was so interested in metahumanity. 

Low-level supers hired by a theme park to use their abilities in the shows. Eventually learn exactly why the founder was so interested in metahumanity. 

Isakai Champions
 
Your an average joe living in the real world. One day, while crossing the street you get hit by Truck-kun. You awaken in the hospital in a superhero laiden world.
 
In fact, every PC awakens in the hospital in a superhero laiden world. Also, everyone has a superpower or two. Truck-kun didn't take everyone to the new world (there are other methods of extradimensinal travel after all). Some of you might actually only be in a coma in the real world. 

VIPER recruited new potential Dragon Branch members and puts them in one location. They put them up and set them up as superheroes, secretly using them to take out the competition and to note which members of the group are full Dragon Branch material and who are more goodie goodie for the group's taist. How long can the heroes work as false superheroes before they start asking questions?

I found an old paper while cleaning my room that has a list of ideas for Champions campaigns of various types and power levels.I figured I would post them here to offer some inspiration for GMs looking to start up a campaign:
 
Part of a government or state official super team collected to fight crime and terrorism Each character is a child of an extradimensional being who has sown his oats widely - characters probably don't even know they were related. Dying alien distributes part of their power amongst all people gathered nearby to help fight his evil family.  Low powered game, possibly no other super types in the world Characters all awaken in a high tech lab in a dark  and dystopian future world, each with powers.  Who did this to them?  Why don't they remember anything? Regular people in this world who use a special device (alien tech? Magic item?  Extradimensional debris?) that ports them into the Champions Universe, with powers, but only for a set time period each day Members of an existing team with a base, contacts, history etc get into a dispute over tactics and goals and split off: the PCs are the new team Wake up on a deserted South Pacific Island with no memory, and powers.  They are in an alternate dimension where aliens are invading and have to fight them off.  But where are they really from? All were terminally ill of various ailments, even advanced old age, and submit to an experiment to save their lives.  The mad scientist is a supervillain who in exchange wants them to use their powers for him -- but will they? Very low powered police force members, part of a special powered task force in a big city to help fight low level street crime and minor supervillains Old retiring supergroup seeks out new members, holding auditions and picking a new team.  In the process a new potential member does not take rejection well, but is extremely powerful. Very rich old geezer wants revenge on the supervillain that casually crippled him in a battle with police in collateral damage.  He hires the PCs to deal with the villain, and the team stays together with his sponsorship. Individual superheroes are all captured by a big bad supervillain to keep them from interfering with his plan, they all escape and work together to beat the guy, and gain a nifty new base (with many secrets to discover) in the process  
I'm sure other people have ideas for campaigns as well

Somewhere (country, state, city, whatever) needs a super team, but doesn't have enough suitable potential members. They are recruiting contractors to fill the gap and train whatever locals they have. 

HOOROR ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS - MILAN - NOTE FOR NOTE Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Develop An Aversion To Smoked Herring To Go With Their Aversion To Barbeque
 
In 1923 (and for decades to come) the longest and deepest tunnel in the world is the Simplon Tunnel, which is barely short of 20 kilometers long, and is buried under 7000ft of Alpine rock. Alas, our investigators are in no mood to appreciate the engineering marvel rushing by the windows, since they’re more concerned by the military pensioner burning alive in front of them. 
 
As the burning man casts distorted flickering silhouettes upon the stone beyond the windows, Lt. Huxley is making a vain attempt to extinguish the flames with a tablecloth and Florence Braxton-Hicks, who is all too aware that it was something the Duc did that set Colonel Herring ablaze from the inside out, attempts to stab the Frenchman to death. 
 
Unfortunately, his reaction to being stabbed in the chest is not what she was hoping for.
 
Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes: Do you mind? This shirt is silk!
 
She follows up with another frenzied stab, this time leaving the knife firmly stuck in the Duc’s heart.
 
The Duc: Monsieur Huxley, kindly control your woman!
‘Alex’ Braxton: Oooo.
Lt. Huxley: Ah, maybe we should all take a step back and calm down?
 
Fortunately Alex has dashed back from her cabin with the fake scroll and case that Edgar Wellington made. The lieutenant and the dilettante launch into an impromptu performance of ‘Convince The Duc It’s The Real Thing’.
 
Alex: I have the scroll!
Huxley: No you fool, I meant hide it!
Alex: We’ll die if we don’t give it to him!
 
The Duc does seem pleased that at least SOMEBODY is taking him seriously, but this is the point Florence throws an urn-full of fresh coffee over him. That at least seems to produce a result, scalding the Duc’s face and neck quite badly, so she tries to follow it up by beating him about the head with the silver-plated vessel. Alex and Huxley drag her off him, understandably concerned that she’ll be the next to go up in flames.
 
Huxley: Uh, Would you like me to attend to your burns?
 
But the Duc has what he thinks he wants - retrieving the fake scrollcase from the ground, standing and straightening his suit, and delivering the still rabid Florence a dire warning.
 
The Duc: You will regret that.
 
And with that he flicks a loop of horsehair rope around himself and vanishes into thin air. 
 
The Simplon-Orient staff, rushing up with the fire buckets and carafes of water for the alas very dead Colonel Herring, are also concerned with the Duc’s apparent theft of the tableware.
 
Waiter: But, what has Monsieur done with our knife?
Huxley: Blast the damn knife!
 
Alex drags Florence off to their cabin, while the staff try to calm the other passengers that were witness to the scene, and give what assistance they can to the hysterical Mrs Herring.  At least Huxley has a plausible explanation for what happened to the late Colonel, and has literature to back him up. Although it’s not exactly clear if he’s trying to convince the Swiss and Italian police, the Simplon-Orient staff, or himself. 
 
Huxley: His prodigious drinking, smoking, temper and body fat must have combined into the perfect conditions for Spontaneous Human Combustion, as described by Dickens in Bleak House.
Alex: Those must be some strong drugs.
 
Poor Mrs Huxley will have to remain here in Iselle, just within the Italian border, until suitable arrangements can be made for the late Colonel’s pre-cremated corpse. What she does after that is probably not the investigator’s concern.
 
Florence: She’ll go find some nice young man. 
GM: And what would you like to prescribe to Mrs Herring, Lieutenant?
Florence: Cognac.
 
The staff seem reluctant to even mention the Duc’s presence at the incident, but the death of Col. Herring is already going to be a blow to the company. Adding vanishing sorcerers to the police report is hardly going to help. The investigators, on the other hand, are right to be highly concerned. The Duc is going to be quite annoyed when he opens the scrollcase and finds blank parchment.  Retaliation seems certain.
 
Alex: Is there any way we can protect ourselves?
Florence: More knives
Huxley: Why would he act so overtly, and reveal himself as an abomination?
Florence: He’s a man that likes making people scared.
 
So they’ve added the Duc to a list that includes the Midnight Strangler, whoever set Professor Smith house and the Professor himself on fire (and murdered a bunch of Smith’s associates as well), the madman Sedefkar of Simulacrum fame and whoever else worships the Skinless One, and Mehmet Makryat too, because why not. 
 
Alex: I know he’s already dead, but it’s not normal to leave dead copies of yourself around London.
GM: You certainly seem to have a knack for accumulating dangerous enemies. 
Huxley: Maybe there will be infighting among our pursuers?
GM: You certainly seem to be the most optimistic member of this group. 
 
Even with the Orient Express leaving Iselle and Domodosolla almost an hour late, they reach Milan, capital of Lombardy, just a little after lunch. Plenty of time for Florence and Alex to figure out a way to get the Left Arm of the Simulacrum and the Scroll of the Head through customs. They decide to hide the latter down the front of Alex’s pants, and the former down the back of Florence’s dress. 
 
GM: You’ll be walking a little stiffly when you get off the train.
Florence: Good posture. Alex and I learned that at school.
 
Florence OoC: Alex missed my diatribe on the state of woman’s underwear in the 1920s.
 
She also points out that as rich Englishfolk, it’s practically di rigeur to go home with your luggage stuffed with priceless cultural artifacts. 
 
GM: Why are their Pyramids in Egypt?
Florence: Because they were too heavy for the English to steal.
 
Florence is sure she can get the artifacts through Customs because nobody will expect the woman to be the hardcore smugglers.
 
Florence: We are weak delicate flowers
GM: Says the woman who was trying to beat someone to death with a coffee urn earlier.
Florence: I was psychotic and can claim I was on my period.
 
It probably helps that she gets the entire party to hand over their guns, sword-canes, etc to Customs for safekeeping until they can get permits on Monday morning. 
 
Florence: You freely admit to the small stuff and they don’t even look for the big stuff.
Alex: That’s astonishingly sensible of you, cuz
Florence: It’s how you get away with the real things you’re up to. Like writing a 90 page novella in class.
 
It works, despite Florence shuffling through the station with an entire statuary arm strapped to her back. 
 
Florence OoC: They just think we have impeccable poise. You can balance an entire stack of encyclopedias on my head. My etiquette teacher would be so proud.
 
After going through all that trouble, it’s disappointing that Milan, heart of culture, fashion, and fascist culture is, well, disappointing. The Stazione Centrale looks like a bomb hit it, Il Duomo is a mass of scaffolding, and the people themselves don’t seem entirely whole either - depression, mental exhaustion, disintigrating friendships and sniggering lust seem the order of the day. Milan is a city that is sick in the soul. 
 
But at least they arrived here intact, and can get about their purpose - locating the P. Rischonti who purchased the Torso of the Sedefkar Simulacrum, and locating the opera diva Caterina Cavollaro, who has gone missing despite the fact Aida is supposed to be opening with her in the main role, tomorrow night. Catarina had instructed her manager to arrange opening night tickets, and rooms for them at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, overlooking the many shops and cafes of the famous nineteenth century shopping gallery, and indeed he had. The investigators enjoy a light lunch and make their plans. 
 
GM: Although you do wonder if it’s wise putting a full coffee urn anywhere within reach of Florence. 
 
Florence, however, is a bit put out about the meal’s server, who is openly ogling her. Italians might have a certain reputation, but such behaviour from the staff is bizarrely rude. 
 
Florence: Where’s that coffee pot.
 
And he won’t stop, either, and Florence returns to her room in disgust.
 
Florence: Men suck.
Huxley: What did I do this time?
 
Florence: I think a day to recuperate and actually plan after all the murders would be nice.
GM: AHAHAHA - yeah, good luck with that. 
 
Because if they want to find Signora Cavollaro before La Scala opens its doors tomorrow, they have a lot to do today - and Alex and Florence are feeling too burnt out to do any of it (although less burnt out than the late Colonel Herring, presumably). Also, it’s Sunday. Huxley will have to go to the central Post Office tomorrow to see if Professor Smith has sent them any telegrams. They might be a bit busy at la Scala, too, although consulting the city directory reveals that a P. Rischonti is the stage director at the opera house. VERY first, Huxley will have to run around to the diva’s townhouse to, if he’s very lucky, thank her for the tickets and accommodation, but more likely start investigating the details of her disappearance. 
 
Alex: Run along, there’s a good boy.
Huxley: Don’t go overboard if the Duc makes an appearance.
Alex: Don’t go overboard if the Duc appears in her bedroom???
Florence: I’ll only stab him a little this time.
 
GM: By the way, Brian, I’d like you to roll against your Power stat. No reason. No reason at all… 
Players: *paranoia spiking*
 
Suddenly feeling a little naked, Alex searches the suite of rooms for any weapons, just in case the Duc DOES show up. She doesn’t find anything. At least some of the papers are in English. 
 
Florence OoC: In a few years Gregory Peck will be working for one. Although in this version of reality if Audrey Hepburn stuck her hand in that thing it probably WOULD get bitten off. 
 
There’s some guidebooks to Milan, at least - one mentions a quaint superstition about la Scala - that singing along with the aria on opening night can make your fondest wish come true. That might come in handy - perhaps they can wish the Duc trips down the hill in Lausanne and breaks his neck.
 
It takes about three baths to get the smell of smoked Herring off. At least Huxley is out in the open so it’s less noticeable. Cavollaro’s maid, Ysabel, is rather upset - she hasn’t heard from her mistress since she got into a black car at the Stazione Centrale. She’s certain that somebody from the opera picked her up - she wouldn’t have got into a vehicle, even one as expensive as she describes, with just anybody. In her opinion the police have been useless, but it’s not like they’re going to go harass the wealthy patrons of la Scala.
 
Huxley: That’s a bit worrying. By the way, do you know Mr Rischonti at la Scala?
Ysabel: I don’t *know* him, but I have met him, when I serve the mistress in her room, you understan- wait, you think he is the one that has taken her? AVRÒ IL SUO SCROTO
Huxley: No no, I don’t think he’s responsible, it’s entirely unconnected… probably. 
 
Huxley decides to ask the porters at Stazione Centrale if they saw the model of car, and recognised it, and then go find out what the polizia actually know. One of the porters, busily brushing building rubble off the flowerbeds, did indeed notice the car - an Alfa Romeo RL limousine. 
 
Porter: They are a fine car, I suppose, even if they are no train. They make them here in Milan. I didn’t see who the Signora was talking to - she did not even take her luggage with her. 
 
Huxley checks the papers from anything that might be connected to opera patrons, or comes across two articles that make him uneasy.
 
A WELCOME RETURN 
 
Flavio Conti was a welcome face at last night’s party for patrons and supporters of La Scala. Mr. Conti has been unwell in recent months with some erroneous reports that he was afflicted with tuberculosis. It was clearly a much less serious complaint. Mr. Conti has made a complete recovery and was the life of the party.
 
 Also present were fellow opera patrons Mr. Nunzio Tocci, Mr. and Mrs. Matteo Sorrenti, Miss Angela Susco, Mr. Arturo Faccia, and Mrs. Serena Spagnolo. The company were entertained by selections from this week’s opera Aida, as performed by members of the cast. Rosario Sorbello accompanied on the piano. It was a most glittering occasion.
 
 
AUTOMOBILE WORKER MURDERED
 
The body of automobile worker Ennio Spinola was discovered today in a laneway off Via Tavazzano in Portello, not far from the Alfa Romeo factory where he worked. Spinola had been stabbed to death.
 
Police are pursuing enquiries among workers in the area. Spinola was an active unionist, and is reported to have been arguing about union matters with other workers in recent days.
 
Alex: ‘Stabbed to death’?
Florence: Wasn’t me.
 
The vigili are, in fact, taking the disappearance of Cavollaro seriously - it seems increasingly likely she’s been kidnapped. Huxley gives them what information he can, which isn’t much, but does enquire about a possible connection to the Alfa Romeo factory. That makes the police a little cagey - apparently Spinola’s body has yet to be returned to his family.  Not that they are particularly invested in solving the crime - after all, fascists get murdered by unionists, but unionists only get murdered by other unionists. There’s even a small protest by Spinola’s co-workers outside the police station, briefly, before the blackshirts show up. But there are few oddities about the body that Huxley offers to consult on, in his medical capacity.
 
The coroner investigating the cause of death noted the unusual nature of the stab wound and internal injuries, but of rather more concern was Spinola’s extremely advanced case of tuberculosis, revealed during the autopsy. Very odd indeed, since there’s no way he could have worked a strenuous industrial position with a case that bad. There’s also absolutely no sign that the infection had spread to his spine or other organs, and apart from the lungs the rest of his body appeared to be in rude health. 
 
Huxley, closely examining the remains, comes to a very disturbing conclusion.
 
Those aren’t his lungs. 

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt. 2   Jan. 1923

In Which The Investigators Enjoy A Product Of The Swiss Pharmaceutical Industry
   
Dream Lausanne, Edgar Wellington’s hiding place from the horrors of the early 20th Century, is distinctly ‘olden times’, as he claimed. One may wonder why Edgar prefers to take that highly suspect potion just to dream of a medieval taxidermy shop, without benefit of formaldehyde or refrigeration, but every night he’s Dreaming in Dream Lausanne is a night he isn’t dreaming of the trenches of the Western Front.

Most of the pile of equipment Flo and her cousin were clutching as they went under is changing to match the tenth century aesthetic.

GM: Your flashlights aren’t flashlights, they’re torches - actual torches. And there’s also the distinctly unpleasant sensation as your clothing slithers and transmogrifies into new fabrics and configurations.

GM: Dream Lausanne is best described as Gothic Nightmare.
Florence OoC: So, corsets, black nail polish?

Happily, the crowd outside all seem to be trudging uphill towards the tolling cathedral bells, and ignoring the taxidermists. Since it seems unlikely there’s a 10th Century equivalent of the modern Swiss banks, it’s most likely Edgar hid the real Sedefkar scroll somewhere in the dream-reflection of his shop. The two women turn the place upside-down - or rather, further upside-down since somebody has already trashed the place. Picking the lock to the upstairs apartment proves unwise, and they swiftly slam the door shut on the Wellington’s living quarters when it instead reveals the nightmares of the Somme. The rest of the building isn’t much better, but at least the rotting corpses here are merely animals. Alex takes a particular note of the fully grown bear, its internal organs now reeking horror.

Alex: You know, If I wanted to hide something where nobody would look for it, I have an idea where it might be.
Florence: Oh god no.
GM: … well, I have to admit I didn’t expect you to figure it out that quickly.
Alex OoC: Thanks. I just went by the rules of crime fiction; if it's pointed out to you it's important and it was the most disgusting possibility I could come up with 🙂 I'm trained by years of gaming with Stephen Dedman.

Alex reaches into the festering offal, but it’s not just them that throws up. Florence babbles about some of her memories of growing up on a sheep farm.

Florence: -we didn’t find the ewe for a week and the insects had already started on her and the lamb was halfway out-
Alex: Could you NOT tell me about your childhood?

In Waking Lausanne Huxley is having to prop up their bodies so they don’t choke on their own vomit. And honestly the players aren’t feeling much better.

Alex: I never want to see something like that again. I’m never going hunting again

The real scroll is, indeed, hidden in a waterproof case inside the bear’s corpse. Now they just have to escape with it - if Edgar’s soul is somehow still alive in Lausanne, he’ll have to fend for himself.

But escape might be more difficult than they think - the drifting bitter ash in the blasted landscape between Dream Lausanne and the Waking World has covered their footprints. How do they return to their bodies?

Florence: *slaps Alex across the face* WAKE UP
Alex: Hey!

Huxley is monitoring their vitals when he’s distracted by a knock on the hotel room door. Apparently the police want to ask more questions about the murder and attempted murder of the Wellingtons. Just as well they didn’t come ask in person - the two unconscious women in the bed might be difficult to explain. His usual excuse about collecting replacement documents after the fire at Professor Smith's house probably wouldn’t cut it. Lorna Cambell-Barnes, one of Huxley’s antique customers and who by wild coincidence is staying at the same hotel certainly doesn’t seem to believe it. She’s a collector of illuminated European and Arabic manuscripts, and had apparently been contacted by Wellington as a potential buyer for the Sedefkar scroll. She thought he was dodgy enough to decline - wise choice. Perhaps they’ll see each other again on the train? After Huxley has finished tending to whoever it is he has in the hotel room?

After sitting for an hour in the wasteland, waiting for the drug to wear off, or Huxley to bring them around, or anything, The cousins decide that maybe they need to be closer to their bodies in Dream Lausanne? Perhaps they can find the equivalent of the hotel there. Unfortunately, navigating is easier said than done, given the steep, twisting cobbled streets, the non-stop press of the crowd, and gaping fissures blasting freezing gales. Perhaps the fissures and the decay in the Wellington’s shop is a sign that the reality of Dream Lausanne is collapsing with the death of the Dreamer? Florence and Alex decide to hurry back to the shop, and come face to face with Death.

Also an Angel, a medieval Soldier, a Lion, a Turk, an Assassin, and a Rustic Lass and Rustic Lad. They are costumed flagellants who wind in procession through the chaos, weeping tears of blood from startling, expressionless, china-blue dolls’ eyes. They chant in Latin as they move, and the reek of incense and a distant cacophony of bells entirely at odds with the bells from the cathedral follows them. As the bells reach a crescendo, the Lion figure sprouts wings and flies away, closely pursued by the Soldier. Their bloody tears fall on the investigators from above and scald them.

Florence recalls that a Winged Lion is the symbol of Venice, which surrendered to Napoleon in 1797. Evidently Alex played truant for most of their History lessons.

Huxley OoC: Note to self - buy an umbrella before we get to Venice.

Spherical bunches of tiny white flowers sprouting from thick stems, growing from cobbled streets, is another oddity. As is the street musician that loses all his limbs to an empty top hat.
And the living chessboard with murderous pawns. And the barbed wire cage festooned with scraps of flesh, that sings with Signora Cavallaro’s voice. The only person that actually talks to them is an old woman cooking something in a big black cauldron.

Highly Suspicious Crone: You two look like you need a good feed. Come, try some.
Alex & Flo: *politely NOPE*
Crone: Not going to the Jigsaw Prince’s court? He has some Englishman a prisoner, I hear. But that one has so much to say - I don’t care to listen.

By the time they make it back to the shop, their agitation is obvious enough that Huxley starts injecting a stimulant. Their first demands are a shower and alcohol. But at least they have the real scroll, and the fake, as well as an English translation of the original - something Wellington denied having. The Scroll of The Head is certainly the work of a madman, as evinced by the following excerpt.

I have seen the powers which stalk the night and strike fear into the hearts of all those who worship the false god. I know Him and I worship Him. The Skinless One has spoken to me. He whispered secret words into my heart of hearts and I know what I now must do. I have seen It in visions and It is all that my Lord said It was. In my dreams I have seen Its perfection striding above the ruins of cities. Kings and countries have fallen before It. Even gods must fall before It. I recognized it the first time I beheld It as an object of power. Power that would bring the world to its knees. It glistened like the finest pearls. It woke when I flayed alive the wretch who sought to steal my treasure from me. That night He came to me for the first time and told me what to do. I meditated before Its glory. All praise to the One without Skin. I performed the seventeen devotions and opened It for the first time. Within the artifact was soft and smooth. As I ran my hand across Its inner surface it felt like the skin of a newborn babe. I offered four children as sacrifice to my Master. Then I used It for the first time. In His wisdom the Lord of Naked Flesh had made It to my height. In all modesty I believe It was made in my image. Blessed is the chosen of the Skinless One. I have been careful to keep It untarnished. The substance is the color of purity and should not be tainted by that which is unclean.

Lt. Huxley heads off on some errands, and learns that Maximillian has been asking around for them - but not to worry, because von Wertheim is in such bad odour at the Beau-Rivage Palace that they wouldn’t have let him in even if he had actually known where the investigators were staying.

Things to do include sending a telegram to Prof. Smith and Beddows, to inform them on progress thus far.

+++ARM IN HAND+++AHEAD ON FINDING PAPERS+++

Then around to the hospital to check on the health of William Wellington - highly precarious - and then around to the police station to answer more questions, and try and explain that he and the girls really have to leave for Milan in the morning, since they have tickets for the opening of Aida. The Inspector is initially skeptical, but surprised that they haven’t heard the news - the opera star has vanished. It’s in all the papers coming up the train line from Milan.

Opera Star Missing! - Fears of Abduction
Police have expressed fears that soprano Caterina Cavollaro may have been abducted from Milan’s Stazione Centrale. The singer has not been seen since she alighted from the train from Paris yesterday at 1pm. Since then she has not returned to her apartment or attended rehearsals at La Scala, where she is due to sing the part of Aida, which opens Monday night. Arturo Toscanini, music director of La Scala, has confirmed that he has had no contact from the singer since she departed Paris.

Police request that any members of the public contact them if they have any information on the whereabouts of Signorina Cavallaro. We heartily urge all Milanese to join the search for our most beloved star.
 
Florence OoC: Have they checked Box Five?

At least they reach the train without incident in the morning, and eventually stagger down to the dining car for breakfast. Lorna Cambell-Barnes hasn’t come from her cabin yet, but they’re not the only people there, even this early in the morning. One is Colonel Herring, an obnoxious retired military man currently complaining about the food, at top volume. His wife can do little more than mutter ‘yes dear’, and ‘no dear’. Cornered, Lt. Huxley confesses that he is a former military man himself, and cautiously suggests a stomach-calming draft if the garlic is too much? Perhaps the Colonel will be disembarking at the next stop?

Col. Herring: The wife wanted to see the continent. God knows why - all Frogs, Wogs, and I-ties. They can’t even cook an egg properly, ha ha.
GM: Roll Psychology. Mrs. Herring’s expression is one of someone who has plotting murder for the last two decades. The waiter is also plotting murder, but won’t do it where it will upset the other passengers.

At least the beauty of the view out of the windows is distracting - the Alps, snow pink in the light of the rising sun. It’s so distracting that the investigators don’t realize how much danger they are in until a waiter asks “Will Monsieur be dining alone today?” and the Duc Jean des Esseintes replies. “No, I think I will eat with my friends.”

After being reseated with Huxley and the others, who are frozen in alarm, the Duc puts a small valise down, orders his meal and turns his attention to the party.

The Duc: Ladies, gentleman, if you will excuse my hurried bluntness, I will come to the point. You have in your possession an item that is rightfully mine. You will give it to me, or it is you I will destroy. Your answer promptly, please. I have little time.

Huxley, in a fit of unbridled optimism, asks if the Duc’s interest in the scroll is academic.

The Duc: Hardly, monsieur. The knowledge within belongs only to those with the will to use it, and I judge that none of you possess that strength of will.
Alex: But it’s not yours!
The Duc: Debatable. I am certain I can find witnesses who can state otherwise. And testify as to your presence in the Wellington fils shop. So unfortunate, what happened to your countrymen.

Huxley tells Alex to go fetch the scroll, and she rightly assumes he means the fake. Unfortunately, the Duc isn’t fooled for a moment, and correctly guesses they plan to thwart him.

The Duc: Do you take me for a fool, sir? I assure you that is a regrettable error - perhaps I should make an example of one of you, to prove my point?

It’s at this point that Col. Herring gets involved, since he’s been quietly eavesdropping on this whole conversation and is now purple with rage.

Col. Herring: Just who the devil do you think you are, sir?! I don’t know how they do things around here but I’ll be damned if I stand by while some bloody Frog threatens a proper Englishman!

Alex makes a run for the cabin and the fake scroll, Florence pockets one of the sharper knives on the table, Huxley stands to try and intervene between Herring and the Duc, and the Duc is merely muttering under his breath and gazing steadily at the enraged pensioner.

Who bursts into a pillar of flame.

Opening the session with a long conversation that started with giant river otters, detoured through the convergent evolution of dagger-faced felinoids and the Cold War’s contributions to continental drift, and ended with the mammal-like reptiles of the Permian.
 
GM: Shall we begin then?
Rajira’s player: Let us. And possibly tomato. 
 
The lower levels of the slavers’ lair is entirely flooded - fortunately we prepared some methods to deal with underwater tunnels early. Unfortunately the tunnels are inhabited.
 
Civilla’s player: We might not know what Skum are - which knowing this party is an interesting sentence. 
Civilla OoC: I believe I can speak their language - and am no doubt disappointing Terzo by knowing languages that are only spoken in dark places.
Rajira OoC: I’m probably just confirming his opinions about me.
Terzo OoC: Actually… hanging around in dark places and learning a secret language isn’t ENTIRELY unheard of for Terzo, for reasons he is keeping to himself.

GM:... You may have just skipped the entire dungeon.
Civilla: By not being murder-hoboes and actually behaving like civilised beings?
 
Civilla: If you have no ill-intentions towards the land-dwellers we have no ill-intention towards you. We have more problems with the maker of stupid laws - have you HEARD the stupid laws?
 
Since we seem agreeable and seek peace, they offer to take us their chieftain.
 
GM: There’s a lot of inscriptions you can’t read unless you know Aboleth.
Civilla: …Um. I’m sorry, but once you run out of dead languages that actually make sense you start looking into the weirder stuff. 
 
The carvings on the wall are written in the eerie language of the aboleths, relating various observations of human activity in Kintargo over the past several months—this is how the leader of the skum scouting tribe has kept notes on their observations. The name “Menotheguro” is mentioned several times in cadences of awe and respect, but the messages do not make clear what this creature is. Also, the fame of the Ghosts of Kintargo has even spread down here.
 
Terzo: I’m feeling mixed emotions about this - I’ve dreamt of this kind of fame and now I can’t even use my name. 
 
Civilla notes that among the Stupid Laws Thrune has enacted, is one that would give the Skum a lucrative opportunity to ship materials and messages from ship to shore, without risk to the ships’ various captains. The Skum seem cautiously diplomatic, despite their suspicion about overlanders.
 
Chieftain: How do you feel about.. Well, it’s probably easier to just show you.
Civilla OoC: OK, now I’m getting nervous.
 
There’s a Drowning Devil in the next chamber. Very unpleasant.
 
Shurshogot: *telepathically* Ungol-pagh! What have you brought me today?
Ungol-pagh: *in Undercommon* These adventurers may be able to help you, sir.
Rajira: *in Infernal* It’s certainly possible - if we have good enough reason.
Shurshogut: *in Infernal* Finally someone I can talk to!
 
The negotiations are even more cautious than they were earlier, not least because some of Civilla’s patrons would be annoyed with her making deals with a Devil, but Shurshogut was bound here by the Grey Spiders and he offers us some boons if we can get find that contract, destroy it, and set him free. Civilla will make sure that the new contract she negotiates includes the order that it immediately returns home as soon as our business is done. 
 
Civilla: It CLAIMS that it wants to go home, but it might be lying. 
 
Civilla actually has quite a few advantages over your average Chellaxian diabolist - for one thing she’s more flexible about where she looks for power. 
 
Shurshogut does offer some potentially interesting information - somewhere in Kintargo is a corruption in the River of Souls. A Soul Anchor. That someone could theoretically use to retain their memories after they die, and become a lingering genius loci. 
 
Rajira: Pharasma won’t like that.
Civilla: Pharasma doesn’t like immortality, period. 
Shurshogut: May I suggest ‘Not return to the Material Plane for a year and a day’? 
Civilla: Acceptable.
Shurshogut: I mean I don’t WANT to stay, but everyone always wants it in writing.
 
Civilla OoC: Under most versions of contract law, the Little Mermaid had an out on her contract. 
Ayva OoC: Hmm?
Civilla OoC: She closed her eyes and looked away when she signed. Although there’s a limited pool of arbitrators that could contest it for her. King Triton is out of the question, of course.
 
Shurshogut: The guildmaster that bound me here went into his strongroom, closed the door, and didn’t come out. 
Rajira: So he’s probably hungry.
Shurshogut: Or dead. 
Rajira: I was assuming dead, as well as hungry. 
Ayva: We have that kind of luck. 
 
After we’re well out of telepathy range of the devil, Terzo speaks his mind.
 
Terzo: We REALLY need to figure out exactly what Thrune is doing in the opera house.
Civilla: Oh, you think? But why is the Soul Anchor HERE?
Rajira: There’s a lot we don’t know about Kintargo.
 
Civilla explains where she actually gets her power - by making small deals with a wide variety of eldritch beings.
 
Civilla: I do favours for them, they do favours for me.
Terzo: *nodding approvingly* Good social networking.
 
Unfortunately the traps on the strongroom door are quite vicious, and poor Rajira nearly gets bisected like the Skum that tried earlier. 
 
Terzo: *patching her up* Watching you trying to pick that lock wasn’t doing my blood pressure any good, but it doesn’t seem to have done yours any good either.
Civilla: That is a REALLY good lock.
Ayva OoC: Just so you know, we’ll be stealing the door and taking it home. And hanging it up as a trophy.
Civilla OoC: Are you kidding? We’re going to set it up as the entrance to our base under the old livery. 
Rajira OoC: Inside a small anti-magic field. 
Civilla OoC: ‘sure you found the secret entrance, sure you come down the ladder, now you come around a corner and find a big F*** OFF door.’
 
The Grey Spider’s strongroom contains three heavy iron chests sit against the north wall of an otherwise empty room—empty, that is, save for the desiccated corpse of a human woman with eight long spidery legs protruding from her back, and the shambling, continually bleeding, skinned skeletal corpse of Guildmaster Baccus, his eyes rolling in his head as he seeks his prey. It would nice to get more opponents like Thrune's late, unlamented, rumoured-to-have-fled-the-city-i-have-no-idea-who-starts-these-rumours bodyguard. She went down with one stab. This thing is considerably more of a problem, but eventually succumbs, and indeed has the devil's contract on its person. 
 
Civilla’s player: Does Pathfinder have stats for a falx?
Terzo’s player: This isn’t D&D and Gygax listing every kind of pole-arm.
Civilla’s player: Glaive, Guisarme, Glaive-guisarme, Guisarme-voulge, Bill-guisarme -
Terzo’s player: Spam, spam, spam, spam -
 
The Drowning Demon tells us that the Soul Anchor is at the bottom of a lake. That lake with the apparent nuclear reactor on the grounds of the Victocora estate. Civilla’s letter to her family, weeks ago, to buy up the estate before anybody else can is suddenly much more important than we knew. Apparently there's been quite a bidding war over the remains of the estate, not that any of that would stop Thrune just stepping in and seizing it if he needs to. 
 
GM: And you have all that loot to carry home.
Rajira’s player: Just as well we have more hands now.
Terzo’s player: Minions are good for that. 
 
It’s nice to have a new potential lair and hideout - especially with live-in security in the form of the Skum. Unfortunately, we all also receive personal invitations from Barzillai Thrune. A very public invitation for us to join him before the Kintargo Opera House, to receive honors for their outstanding service in promoting safety on the streets of Kintargo, and for rescuing a pair of young men from a group of kidnappers!
 
Ayva: We need to decline this honour.
Civilla: We can’t.
Ayva: We need an escape plan.
Civilla: We can plan one, but we still can’t avoid this. It will also put a spotlight on Terzo for the first time in a long time. 
Terzo: True true, there is that bonus.
Civilla: It’s not a bonus. Terzo, you need to understand, you’re on the stage playing a role, and that role is ‘sneaky bastard’, not ‘flamboyant git’.
 
We dress in our best outfits - although avoiding Thrune’s Proclaimation about embroidered clothes in public - and take care to carry no more weapons then decorum insists upon. After the bells on the Church of Asmodeus toll once for each of us, Barzillai emerges into the plaza with full entourage, and studies us with an intensity that belies his political smile. He’s looking a bit more haggard than he was when he arrived in Kintargo.
 
Civilla notes that Thrune’s symptoms are those of somebody who’s been the personal blood bank of a vampire for a while. Rajira points out that those are also the symptoms of prolonged stress. 
 
Terzo: Can’t imagine what has him so stressed.
Civilla: Maybe all those rumours about his bodyguard fleeing the city.
Terzo: Or the ‘Let Dogs Beware’ graffiti on his front door.
 
Thrune: Well done, well done! Would that more of the citizenry were as keenly observant and helpful as you intrepid citizens! I’ll have my eye on you, trust in that, for I have no doubt you have great works still ahead of you. Perhaps you may again be of service to your government. Please take these gifts from the city of Kintargo as Thrune’s thanks to your services rendered, and please continue to work to ensure, as I do, this grand city’s safety and proud legacy.
Civilla’s player: … and now come the Bluff checks.
Terzo’s player: Yes, or my face will be going through some interesting contortions.
Rajira: Master Thrune, thank you for this honour. Please call on us if there is anything we can do for the city.
Thrune: Perhaps I will, but for now I must return to my other duties.
 
The gifts are stat-increasing belts and headbands. They're not cursed, and they’re not marked with any symbols of Asmodeus. What they DO have are symbols of ravens, done in silver. 
 
Civilla: IDENTIFY
 
Barzillai might have suspicions. Especially if he has access to the same kind of spells that Civilla has been using in her own activities. 
 
Terzo: Maybe he’s hoping we’ll panic.
Civilla: So let’s not. 
 
The raven sigils could certainly be used as a target in a Locate Object spell, but Civilla is confident that won’t help him find our safehouses. Locate Object is blocked by sufficient amounts of soil, rock, or metal.
 
Civilla: So we’re going to get these gold-plated. 
 
And some cloth-of-gold to use as a sash over Rajira’s new Belt of Dexterity.
 
Civilla: You know that Murder Kit I came up with? As cute as it is, I want to include Oil of Decompose Corpse. That way I can melt the flesh off Huge corpses and reduce them to a skeleton in minutes. Much easier to compact and dispose of. Although the skeletons will be a bit juicy. Although you can get everything for the basic Murder Kit is a small village. 
 
Terzo: If Thrune is so busy, we really need to know what he’s actually up to in the Opera House.
Rajira: The bigger question is ‘How Do We Find Out’?
Terzo: We still have no idea what happened to the previous Mayor or the Songbird of Kintargo.
Civilla’s player: That reminds me, GM, are you ready to cry? I have an ability called ‘Planar Contact’
 
Rajira has also recruited a team she’s calling the Dacoits. It’s unclear just what she intends to do with a gang of armed robbers. 

Hardlight has investigated the PSI-mooks equipment, and happily none of it was rigged to explode if dismantled. It includes some rather nifty autoheal stuff.
 
Hero Shrew: Smart supervillains don’t piss off the Goonion. 
 
Hero Shrew: You could always patent the Goo Gun and sell it to police departments across the country - what are the inventors going to do, complain?
Flux: Do you want to get sued by evil lawyers? Sorry, evilLER lawyers.
Magus: How much do you want to bet that they did patent it, and it got ‘stolen’. 
 
GM: The gun only worked for Scooter because he’s always thinking violent thoughts.
Flux: ‘I could murder a mealworm bar’?
GM: He’s also thinking happy thoughts, and it’s not an imbalance, just weird. 
Hero Shrew: “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
 
GM: I don’t know where Hardlight got the idea this equipment has organic components.
Hero Shrew OoC: Well, don’t blame me.
Flux OoC: Yes, it’s not a Scooter Filter problem this time. 
 
Hero Shrew’s player: *to the cats* You two, behave yourselves!
Flux’s player: That's a perfect impersonation of Fireflash when she finds out what we have planned.
 
GM: As a reminder as to how you got involved with the clinic, that's because it's run by E-G Employment, the subdivision of Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH. The corporation you're setting Loweltech to sue so you can progress the Moreau issue. They’re providing the Moreau the suit will focus on. I’m resisting the impulse to make them a lamb. Or goat.
 
Getting the financial records of the company turns out to be more difficult than we might have anticipated - the clinic never applied for charity status so the records aren’t easily available. We eventually get the records anyway - which are sent over in hard copy. Hundreds of thousands of pages. Including huge amounts of irrelevant material. 
 
GM: At least they didn’t do the old trick of non-standard formatting as well. But it’s still three whole semi-trailers of loose paper. 
Flux: We’re going to need office space.
Hardlight: We’re going to need a warehouse. 
 
Even with a team of accountants from LowellTech and a device Flux invents to digitise it all, it’s still going to take weeks to go through it with a fine tooth comb and find anything that might interest the District Attorney. Beyond the factory that was making psi drugs instead of destroying pharmaceutical waste. 

Hero Shrew: Circular economy.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Make powerful drugs, sell the pharmaceutical waste to this company, who make different powerful drugs. 
 
Sending over all the records in paper form isn’t an admission of guilt, but it’s certainly evidence that Erikson-Gulsvig Logistics GmbH is annoyed with us. It almost certainly means they won’t want to help with the Moreau situation anymore. We hand the investigation off to the FBI.
 
GM: They have people that get off on going through this kind of paperwork.
Fireflash: Remind me next time - don’t ask, just break into their system. 
 
At least we’ve put a major crimp in PSI operations. There’s not many places they could hide manufacturing on that scale.
 
Magus finally gets a copy of The Whispered Paths, although the person that found it for him was so annoyed by the experience they’re going to charge any future mystic customer double. Unfortunately it’s in Fucine, an extinct language once associated with witches. Someone was very upset that somebody was after the book, and increasingly upset the closer it got to Edge City. The bookhunter tells the Magus that for free, because he didn’t try to stiff her, which is apparently a problem with mystic types. 
 
GM: There’s apparently a book that can help you translate Fucine to Latin, but it’s rare, because why would anybody need to read Fucine?
Magus: Well, I’ll try Amazon first. It seems I’ve embarked on Book Hunt 2.
Hero Shrew: Now there’s a phrase you need to pronounce carefully. 
 
Although the author of the journal, P. Lanzo Geovanny Renzo Aberto Geomar Alfredo Pasquale Conti, is best known for going completely mad. 
 
Flux: That’s never a good sign. 
 
Flux: To be fair all penguins are man-eating, they just don’t often get the opportunity.
 
Magus: I have a nasty suspicion who has the journal.
Fireflash: If it’s who I’m thinking of we did deal with their local cult.

GM: You have to be a special kind of wrong when even the Descending Hierarchy of Hell wants nothing to do with you.
Flux: ‘We’re evil - but YOU are CRAZY’
 
APPARENTLY, a copy is in the possession of septuagenarian antiquarian Angilia Eleonora Dubois, who is old Monterey money. It’s highly suspicious that such a rare book is present in a city that someone wanted to keep The Whispered Paths far away from.
 
Hardlight: Are we pulling a heist? I'm all for a heist.
Fireflash: I am entirely against doing a heist! I’ll just ask her if we can borrow the book for a few days, for the public good.
 
Dubois’ entire family were killed in the disaster that turned Monterey into Edge City, so Fireflash turns her attention to the Dubois family lawyer. Said lawyer points her towards the collection’s curator, Liberty Kendra Brown. 
 
Hero Shrew OoC: You might want to assure her you’re not letting me anywhere near the collection.
 

 

 
Dubois is in her 70s, but barely looks it. Apparently she came out as a mutant 20 years ago. . She has pointed ears and a slightly lengthened lifespan. Some of us suspect elf ancestry.
 
GM: Do any of you have Architecture skills?
Hero Shrew: I do! *looks at building* Yep, that’s architecture.
Flux: He’s eaten enough of it. 
 
Her house is original Spanish, by the look of it.
 
Flux: I’m impressed it’s survived this long.
Magus: Any building over 60 years old has survived three alien invasions.
GM: Dude, this one survived a zeppelin assault!
 
Ms. Dubois: No need to be so formal, people keep forgetting I was a young woman in the 60s. 
 
She doesn’t remember the journal at first, but recalls the auction she acquired it at. And starts seeming a little concerned as Fireflash and the Magus explain their interest. She needs to make a phone call, and has Liberty take them through to the densely packed library.
 
GM: She has one of those old-fashioned phones.
Magus: One with a cord?
GM: Thanks for that, now I feel old. 
 
As Fireflash and the Magus make digital copies of the journal, Hardlight waits out in the car, since he felt weird about going in in costume. One of the staff brings out refreshments.

Fireflash: These days if you scan a demon into the internet it’s back 30 minutes later, whimpering and asking to be put back in the book.

GM: ‘I tried the worst things I could think of and they kept suggesting improvements!’
 
Flux gets a phone call on his Chris Jones phone, from Bob in accounting.
Bob: Hey, Chris, have you been making some strange friends lately? This jacked surfer-looking guy came in asking questions. Wanted to know if you’d made any new friends lately. Have you?
Flux: Not really, you know what my social life is like.
Magus: Funnily enough ‘good-looking surfing dude’ is a good description of me, when I’m not wearing other faces. 
 
When we get back to the base, we’re very glad we uploaded the images already, because the new camera we used to take the images has mysteriously vanished. 
 
Hero Shrew: Well, if the book deletes anything that it’s copied onto, we probably shouldn’t have uploaded the images to the internet. 
 
On the other hand, if somebody else wanted the contents of the book, there didn’t seem to be much actually stopping them raiding the collection directly. 
 
Flux is cautiously checking his apartment, just in case the jacked-surfer-dude is a threat.
 
Flux: It’s a bit embarrassing, I’ve been successfully kidnapped once, and we failed to get Fireflash kidnapped twice. 
 
Fortunately he doesn’t need to rely on the Mk.I Eyeball. Whoever was hanging around is magical, but not a flavour he’s familiar with. But his apartment is so small that sending more than one of us in to check is honestly difficult. There are other issues too, of course. 
 
Flux: Maybe don’t have two or three costumed superheroes STANDING AROUND OUTSIDE MY SECRET ID 
Fireflash goes in disguised as a civilian, instead of wearing her usual string bikini. She gets comfortable and uses Retrocognition.
Flux: Ah. It’s just occurred to me that this is my personal living space.
Fireflash: Fortunately it's vague and unclear and that is very small so we don’t have to worry about it. 
Flux: I really have to stop asking my friends for help. 
 
Whoever was here seemed very interested in the traces of Flux’s magic, and entered and left through the wall. 
 
Hardlight: Maybe they were just here to recruit you into some kind of magical school?
Flux: I’m allergic to owls. 
 
Magus tracks the magic back to Little Haiti, then loses him in the magical hotspot there. But it would appear from there it leads straight to, and into, Lake Effinger. 
 
Magus: Ah. I wonder if it’s whoever rang me, after I left my number there. 
Hardlight: You left your phone number on the Tesseract???
Magus: Of course not. I left it on the outside of the cave the Tesseract was in, after we sealed it. 
 
The jacked-surfer-dude is indeed at the cave, with waterproof bag and swimtrunks. He’s just ignited a torch. Underwater. 
 
Fireflash: That’s a neat trick.
GM: That’s Atlantean fire magic. 
Atlantean: *cheerfully* Magus! 
 
He surfaces to talk to us. 
 
Atlantean: My apologies for intruding on your private identity. 
Flux: In future, I have an email address, a phone number, and a doorbell. 
 
The Atlanteans didn’t MAKE the tesseract, but they do consider it their responsibility. 
 
Fireflash: *sigh* What are the odds we’re going to have to go through it before we can shut it down?
Atlantean: My people did try to sense what lay beyond it when we first discovered it. We detected only fear and death. So hopefully not?
Magus: The thing’s the drain for most of the magical energies in the city, so that can’t be good. 
Flux: Why did Magus get a phone call?
Atlantean: He left a card. 
Flux: Note to self - graffiti more walls.
Atlantean: Please don't.
Flux: ‘For a good time call’
 
The explosion that created Lake Effinger WAS intended to create a dimensional breach, although given the ‘fear and death’ aspect it might not have been the original intended destination. 
 
Hardlight: At least we don’t have to get hit by a truck if we decide to Isekai.
Magus: We could build a Dimensional Damage field into the Quadraphibious Qruiser.
GM: Please don’t. 
 
GM: Well, that went much more peacefully than I expected.
Magus OoC: ‘What, there were no misunderstandings? Bulls***, what is this comic!’ ‘And then they talked like adults about it and went home’
 
GM: There’s one thing protecting Captain Planet from a reboot is that it was created by Ted Turner.
Hero Shrew’s player: So it won’t be so much resurrected as recolourised.
 
Flux’s player: Buy Demolition as a skill.
Hero Shrew OoC: People keep telling me not to do that.
 
GM: I had this picture I was going to use a neat stadium, then realised it was from Pokemon. And I don’t want to put Hero Shrew in a pokemon arena. ‘What do you want me to do?’ ‘Beat up this cock-fighting seizure monster’ ‘ Well, OK'.
Flux OoC: ‘You weren’t supposed to eat it!’
Hero Shrew OoC: I don’t want to speculate what Scooter would evolve into.
 
The organisation that's monitoring Fireflash’s superhuman metabolism has a problem regarding the Moreau medical analysis program they are involved in with Allanah, but it's not something they want to worry her about until they’ve dealt with it themselves.
 
Fireflash: Well, that’s a sentence guaranteed to make me worry. 
 
Some of the biosamples they’ve been taking of her are going missing. The samples are all supposed to be destroyed, but the residue numbers aren’t adding up. And the security about the samples is enough that it has to be some kind of superhuman stealing them. 
 
Hardlight: Biotechnology isn’t my strong suit - what could somebody malicious do with these samples, if they had them?
Hero Shrew: Make an army of clone soldiers? We’ve already had that one. 
How can we do our own security inspection without giving the culprits time to hide the evidence?
GM: At least you know if it looks like they’re hiding evidence, it’s evidence their security organization is compromised.
Flux: ‘oh look, somebody fled the building a minute after you told security you were coming’.
 
Hero Shrew’s player: Back, what did I miss?
Flux’s player: Firelash’s player brought up Dimetrodon and broke the internet. It was probably punishment for all the puns. He didn’t SAY any but was probably thinking them.
Flux’s player: Their audio sounds like GladOS dying. I know it’s disrupting the game but it’s hilarious - like GladOS and SHODAN  having a conversation about Dimetrodon in the background. 
GM: HoWWWWs my -a—--DIO nooooooooooWWWwwwW
Flux’s player: Still GladOS having a stroke.
Hero Shrew’s Player: And now you sound like someone using a taser on a Cybertronian. 
 
Fireflash’s Retrocognition reveals the fact that a known shadow-manipulating and teleporting superhuman, Ghost Shadow of the Six Teens, messing about on the site. It looks like he’s stealing a bunch of feline samples now.
 
Magus: And now you have to go apologize to Security for being kind of a d*** when you showed up.
Fireflash: Sorry, we’ve been dealing with all sorts of aliens and psychic shapeshifters for the last few months, we've got kinda paranoid.
Head of Security: Psychic shapechangers? Now I’M going to be paranoid.
Fux: Try not to think about it too much - they’ll know.
 
Hardlight is a bit uncomfortable about the big greenhouse dome in the middle of the facility.
 
Magus: He was once stuck on a flight where the only entertainment was Biodome starring Pauly Shore, and it had a lasting effect.
 
One suggestion we have for security is blinds on the inside of the warehouse windows, to stop our teleporter friend easily getting in and out.
 
Hero Shrew: Are we going to have to go into the big glass dome they’ve been pumping mutagens into?
GM: What?
The Magus: There probably aren’t any mutagens, no.
Hero Shrew: Oh good, so I don’t have to retroactively ask for today off.
GM: How did you get the idea that the dome is full of mutagens?
Magus: He saw a suspicious biotech company with a big greenhouse. Hero Shrew is the kind of person who bases his understanding of science on Saturday Morning Cartoons.
Hardlight: Are we going to have to worry about cat-themed supervillains now?
Hero Shrew: Maybe he just wants to make a pet for his girlfriend?
Magus: The only cat-themed supervillain I can think of works for Teleios, and he wouldn’t need the help.
Although Flux does recall one Lynx, who works for the Overbrain. She’s also a huge anime nerd.
Magus: Probably explains how she knows Ghost Shadow.
GM: They probably met at a convention. ‘That’s a really good Ghost Shadow costume.’ ‘Costume? That’s a really good fursuit.’ ‘Fursuit’?
 
We determine that the samples are being stolen in-between sampling and destruction, while they’re in the queue until there’s a full load for disposal. So Ghost Shadow must have access to the full schedule on the disposal chain, since he’s going straight to the right canisters, and we already know the Six Teens have good tech savvy, since the first time we met them they were ransacking a server. Hopefully he hasn’t noticed we've been to the site yet, and we can plant some samples that Flux and the Magus can track and wait in ambush.
Ghost Shadow is well-known enough to us that we know he claims to carry his own ‘internal shadow’ as a power source. 
 
Magus: Any chance we can go beat up Black Paladin and steal his sword?
Fireflash: ‘Now you don’t HAVE a shadow, Bwahaha.’
Fireflash: Do you have any more of those tracers, like the ones they stuck into me?
Magus: We know their group has a tech expert as well as a magic user.
GM: The Black Warlock?
Magus: Hmm. Well, if we ever meet him I’ll try to refrain from any comments about being a proper warlock. 
Hero Shrew: So, this Overbrain, does he have a humanoid exosuit?
GM: No? He doesn’t need one, he has minions.
Hero Shrew: Sorry, still thinking about mutagens and Saturday Morning Cartoons.
 
Hardlight: Well, we still need to make this fake sample. Scooter, pull up your shirt.
Flux: Let’s NOT give them a sample of an actual biological superhuman, ok?
Fireflash: For one thing we don’t know what they’ll do with it.
GM: Indeed - Steiners are rare, as well as having innate psychic abilities.
Magus: Scooter is innately capable of determining what the people around him are thinking and knowing exactly the wrong thing to say. 
 
Magus: So let's set up our trap
Fireflash: And hope it doesn't turn into a cat-astrophe.
Hero Shrew: I’ve got a bad feline about this.
 
We track Ghost Shadow and a single other person, to a makeshift lab in an abandoned warehouse.
 
GM: Supervillain Hideout #3
 
And the other person is a Moreau that Scooter recognises - a Moreau that never needed to be caged back at the Genesys labs. A Moreau that helped the scientists. The one the other Moreaus called Lab Rat. Scooter is not happy about this. Of course if we are going to grab him, we have to deal with the teleporter first. Flux Flashes them, and the Magus and Hardlight try to bubble them. To the GM’s shock, this works.
 
Hardlight: Flawless Plan!
Magus: Feels wrong, doesn't it?
 
Unfortunately Lab Rat hit a panic button. More unfortunately, Scooter grabbed and shook Lab Rat, who goes limp after an audible crack. Magus hurried heals him, while Fireflash hurls much deserved abuse at Scooter.
 
Flux: World of cardboard, Scooter, world of cardboard!
Fireflash: If you keep doing this Scooter you’ll kill somebody and end up in prison.
Magus: And I’m neither fully aware how nor entirely willing to heal death.
Ghost Shadow: *hacking away ineffectually at the walls of the bubble* F***!
Flux: Oh, sorry, I forgot you were there.
 
Flux manages to stop the harddrives being overwritten, as well as stop the countdown to some other kind of precaution. We call in the ECPD, and do a quick search of the building for anybody else. We’d better be fast - it turns out that Hardlight’s bubble will be exhausted in under a minute, unless he drops everything else he’s doing, including moving around.  
Ghost Shadow: We were trying to help a friend. And the ragdoll over there was the only Moreau with the skills we needed. Your bat friend is capable, but she’s not a geneticist.
Another problem is that it’s not Lab Rat doing the bulk of the work - Lab Rat was just doing the preliminary work for Dr Steinbeck, the creator of Moraeus with superpowers. Who wasn’t in Edge City.
 
Fireflash: It would be incredibly unwise of him to be in Edge City.
Ghost Shadow: Or incredibly clever. I don’t think he’d want to be far from his children. 
Magus: I hope you don’t mean that literally.
Ghost Shadow: What? EW. EW.
Fireflash: We do know another geneticist that might help. But we still want to know why you need the help. 
Ghost Shadow: Like I said, I just want to help a friend.
Magus: Is it Lynx?
Ghost Shadow: What. How did you kn-- No, of course it isn’t!
 
He admits it’s her. Apparently the Overbrain has screwed up her enhancements, and his control of Lynx leaves something to be desired too. Fireflash offers to help, if she hands herself in.
Ghost Shadow: Why do you heroes always go this route? Why can’t you just tell me if you know another geneticist?

Fireflash: We do - it’s Allana?
Ghost Shadow: She does know genetics? Cool! See ya! *teleports out of the bubble*
 
Allana the bat moreau might well offer medical help anyway, regardless of whether they’re a hero, civilian, or villain, but that won’t stop her throwing people through walls if it becomes necessary. Lab Rat gets handed over to the authorities before Scooter glares him to death, and hopefully without any other Moraeus finding out. 
 
Duty Officer: Lab Rat? Lab Rat? Wait, THE Lab Rat?? Oh hell, Duty Detail, NOW. Get him into one of the high security cells and sit on him, and do NOT take him past the Kennels - I mean the Moreau cells. 
 

Weldun is winding up the Return to Edge City campaign. Alas, we will never learn the secrets of Undersconscin, or visit the Grimdark and Coffee Shop Alternate Universe versions of the city. And, of course, he was finding it quite difficult to come up with challenges that we wouldn’t either breeze through, or be curb-stomped by.
 
GM: If VIPER even shows its head anywhere in town you lot will drag it out by its tail and beat it senseless.
Hero Shrew: O whacking day, O whacking day, Our hallowed snake-skull cracking day-

Horror on the Orient Express - The Dreamlands & Milan - Facts In The Case
 
February 1923, At Least In Some Dimensions
 
In Which The Investigators Investigate One Brutal Murder, Plan A Second, And Are Investigated For A Third
 
The three investigators share a compartment in what is nominally the fifth car of the Dreamlands Express, but the dimensions and layout of the train are... flexible. The dreamlands are weird. Internal walls between compartments can be removed at Henri’s whim, to suit the passengers requirements. Current passengers on the train, en route to Aphorat and beyond, are Waking World residents Huxley, Alex and Flo, the arms dealer Karakov, the government courier Mackenzie, an eyeless lunatic restrained in the baggage compartment, and the dancer Zsuzsa (who knows about the Waking World, at least, but doesn’t like talking about it). Dreamland natives on the train are delegations from Ib and Sarnath and the servants of the latter, the Sarrubian wine merchant Mironim-Mer, and several dozen cats from Ulthar.
 
The investigators don’t know who is changing bed sheets, or cooking the meals, since Henri is the only staff they’ve seen on board. 
 
Mironim-Mer and Karakov have the single compartments to the rear of the investigators, and Madam Bruja in front. Zsuzsa, Mackenzie and the Sarnathians and their servants occupy the 6th car, and the Beings inside the body of the 3rd Train Beast. 
 
Blackjack was last seen just after the train left Zar, as most of the passengers were in the banquet hall eating lunch, and was probably exploring the train as he had previously been seen to do.
 
One of the Beings of Ib had been glued to the ceiling outside their compartment for an unknown length of time (such charming people, the Sarnathians), between leaving Zar and Alex and Huxley returning to the compartment after lunch.  Florence did not return to the compartment, and instead went straight to the cat’s compartment at the end of the train. Alex heard a Meow and a thud in the next compartment, but there was nobody in that compartment when she checked, and no-one outside in the corridor. The door of the compartment was unlocked, and nothing seemed out of place at least as compared to her own.
 
Huxley had a brief conversation with Henri about the madman secured in the baggage compartment, and while that was happening noted Karakov returning to his own compartment, nursing an injured hand. Karakov refused assistance.
 
Huxley and Alex departed for their afternoon's entertainment - Zsuzsa in Huxley’s case, and the thagweed hookahs in the men’s lounge in Alex’s. Alex saw Mackenzie in the men’s salon for some portion of that time, Huxley saw quite a lot of Zsuzsa in her compartment, and Flo spent her entire post-prandial relaxation playing with the kittehs. 
 
Alex’s memories of the afternoon might not be the most reliable, as their speculations about the fluid nature of reality were being thoroughly encouraged by thagweed use. Huxley was quite thoroughly distracted, but at least he and Zsusza can be quite sure where the other was all afternoon, and indeed can itemise which items of furniture they were on. Florence could be vouched for by the cats. 
 
Blackjack had been stabbed, three times, but the wounds indicate a weapon more like a letter opener than a proper blade. The exact time of death is uncertain, as Huxley has little experience of rigor mortis in small animals. 
 
Of course, the first thing the investigators do is get all the suspects gathered in one place, under the murderous gaze of the cats. That makes the investigation so much easier, even if the Sarnathians immediately imply that the Beings of Ib must be responsible, and Karakov nearly gets himself flayed alive by the cats by refusing to explain where he got the hand wound. Huxley does, however, determine that the injury is from a serrated blade, not whatever was used on the kitten.  
 
The investigators, aided by cats, start searching the train for evidence, weapons, grappling hooks, clues, and hopefully no monsters (dreamed into existence or otherwise). They find suspicious scratches on the outside of their pavilion, and bloodstains in Mironim-Mer’s compartment, along with evidence that somebody tried to hide the blood and scrub it away with shampoo. 
 
Alex: Somebody with hair did this.
 
They start questioning people. Huxley learns how the voiceless Beings of Ib communicate, by using a small squeaking creature that translates for them. Huxley has a few questions - who do they think is responsible, and why don’t they fight back when the Sarnathians glue them to the ceiling? The diplomat personally suspects the Sarnathians, since they’re making it abundantly clear that they’re capable of anything, and the Beings are confident that if the Sarnathian delegation continues to demonstrate what scum they are, King Kuranes’ judgment will favour Ib. Especially if Huxley testifies to that effect.
 
Meanwhile, Florence has taken the misandrist Madam Brujah to the Ladies Parlor, to interview her in private. It’s not like she’ll talk to anybody else. Flo eventually gets her to open up a bit, and asks her if there’s a particular reason she distrusts men so much (apart from all the obvious reasons any woman would). 
 
Madam Brujah: I had a daughter, once.
Florence: Was this in the Dreamlands, or the Waking World?
Madam Brujah: Does it matter?
 
Her daughter married a much older sorcerer, apparently, because he wanted to satisfy his appetites. Unfortunately, he couldn’t satisfy hers, and when the sorcerer caught his new wife with her lover, he burnt them both alive. But Madam Brujah did arrange a suitable revenge that would ensure the sorcerer would never find peace in that life or afterwards - although she doesn’t specify what the revenge was. 
 
She also gives Florence a few tips on how to increase her Dreaming skill, by focusing on her dedication to the truth, and meditating on the truth of the pen her parents gave her when she went off to become a journalist. It’s also evidence that Madam Brujah is a lot older than she looks, or is from a much earlier time, since she talks about quills instead of pens. Florence doesn’t quite get the knack of it, but with practice or urgent necessity maybe she will. 
 
Huxley also notes that Mironim-Mer might LOOK relaxed, he’s actually very tense. But before he can investigate that, Alex finds a cavalry saber hidden in Karakov’s room. They confront the arms dealer about it, and he does not take it well.
 
Karakov: Does a man not have the right to defend himself? Do COUNTRIES not have the right to defend themselves?
Huxley: Please calm down, we’re all friends here.
Karakov: Friends? You think that the lands of dream are safe, even after the events of today? The war has followed me - even here I still hear those accursed guns!
 
Huxley asks some questions about these guns, and more about Karakov’s health in the Waking World, and makes a diagnosis - very serious heart disease. The thump of artillery is his own heartbeat. He attempts to be sympathetic.
 
Karakov: You think you understand me? Do they say you earned a pound for every man that died in the trenches? It was your role to put men back together - what do you think my role was?
Alex: I know at the very least you are not a cat-killer.
 
Alex goes to get a stiff drink for Karakov, and gets waylaid by Mironim-Mer, who is out of patience - he needs to know where Florence took Madam Brujah. And then climbs out the window. And turns inside-out into a giant elongate crustacean-thing when Huxley attempts to intervene. It crawls off towards the train-beast carrying the Ladies Parlor, and snips the ropes holding the bridge that connects them. 
 
Flo is rather startled when a man-sized mantis shrimp bursts into the room, but she and Brujah defend themselves with improvised weapons, and a sword that the journalist Dreamed out of a cake-slice. It seems focused entirely on Madam Brujah, and the valise she’s carrying, but Florence stabs it a few times to get its attention away from the old woman.
 
GM: I’m sure that as a journalist you’re well used to being annoying. 
 
Huxley leaps the gap between train beasts (on his second attempt) and rushes in to be all heroic and saber-waving and swashbuckling, while the creature is dropping Florence in one of the ornamental fountains. It retaliates by mangling his sword arm, and hurries off in pursuit of Madam Brujah, only to get into a massive pile-up with Henri, two of the Sarnathians, and Mac. The Sarnathians are armed, to little effect.
 
GM: These Sarnathians can’t be guilty of spearing Ib babies, they can’t hit a thing. 
 
It appears the combined weight of four men and one Australian sheepfarmer’s daughter is enough to pin the monster in place, at least long enough for Brujah to reach the dining pavilion. By the time the creatures wriggles free, every cat in the dining car is out for blood, Zsusza is screaming her head off, Karakov is backed against a wall and as white as a sheet, the Beings and servants have made themselves scarce, and Brujah is laughing her head off at the monster’s distress - at least until it snatches the heart-shaped valise off her and tears it open. 
 
It’s empty. 
 
Brujah: *laughing even harder* He’ll never find it! NEVER!
 
The red glow in the creature's eyes fades, and it backs against the wall, entirely subdued, and doesn’t struggle when Henri agrees it should be restrained with the eyeless madman until it can be handed over to the authorities. Nobody asks the madman his opinions about this. 
 
The investigators collapse in exhaustion after all the excitement, and wake up back in the train station in Milan. Huxley’s dream-mangled arm is quite sore, and his chest injury from the bullet that grazed his ribs the other night is aching, and probably infected. Huxley and Flo stretch their legs, and are heading back to the waiting room when they spot a familiar face - Max von Wurtheim, the associate of the evil Duc back in Lausanne. He’s talking to one of the Orient Express staff, sticks his head into the waiting room, visibly starts, and starts coming back up the concourse. Huxley and Flo attempt to conceal themselves, but Max spots the lieutenant trying to stuff himself behind a kiosk, and Flo trying to hide behind a handful of postcards. His expression transitions rapidly from surprise, to calculation, to a wide and clearly false smile.
 
Maximilian: Lt. Huxley! And the ravishing Miss Braxton! I am so glad to have found you!
Huxley: Ah, Mr. von Wurtheim, how very surprising to see you here. What brings you to Milan?
Maximilian: Ah, it occurred to me that I had been an absolute cad to Miss Braxton, and I had to make amends.
Florence: Apology accepted. Goodbye.
Maximilian: At the very least let me take you to lunch! Milan has many excellent restaurants!
Huxley: Ah, I’m afraid our schedule doesn’t permit it. We’re leaving for Venice soon.
Maximilian: *Taking a visible mental note of this* Ah, what a shame. Perhaps brunch?
 
Florence is rapidly approaching Stabbing Point again. Huxley changes the subject, to the fact that Maximillian has one arm in a sling, and a hand that appears to be shriveled and burnt. Huxley suspects the Duc is responsible, but even mentioning the name makes Max go quite pale. Huxley suggests medical attention, or at least something from the pharmacist, but Max just presses some cash into the lieutenant's hand, clearly intending to stay with Flo.  
 
GM: If looks could kill, you wouldn’t even make it to the chemist.
Huxley: Ah, maybe you should come with me, Mr. von Wurtheim.
 
While they’re away picking up medical supplies, any messages from Professor Smith, and some newspapers, Flo warns Alex that Max is in town, and warns the Orient Express staff not to let him in the waiting room again, on the grounds that he’s a serial harasser. Max suggests a few nice hotels in Venice (not that Huxley intends to follow any advice Max offers) but then hurries on some errand of his own.  
 
There are no messages from Prof. Smith, but there is a telegram from Remi Vangeim in Paris.
 
REGRET DELAY WITH BOOK STOP TURKISH SCHOLARS TOOK OFFENSE AT LIBRARY RULES STOP WILL WRITE TO VENICE BUREAU DE POSTE
 
There’s also a rather interesting article in the local paper, which might explain a little more about what happened at la Scala after the investigators fled back to their hotel to pack. Or perhaps not.
 
Florence: What people say and what actually gets reported in the papers are two different things.
GM: I hope that doesn’t describe your own journalism.
Florence: Oh no, mine are all of the utmost fidelity.
 
LOCAL BUSINESSMAN MURDERED
 
  Police revealed this morning that prominent Milan businessman Arturo Faccia was last night the victim in a bestial slaying, in a seemingly isolated incident.
 He had been at La Scala with friends for the opening night of Aida and had gone backstage to congratulate performers when he became separated from his companions.
 His mutilated body was discovered late yesterday by workmen on the roof of our cathedral. An official at the diocese stated, “It is impossible for anyone to get up there at night. This is the Devil’s work.”
 Milan police would not describe the wounds sustained, repeating merely that they seem the work of a deranged degenerate. Residents of the city are warned to exercise caution at night.
 Signor Faccia was a widower, without children. He had recently returned from a business trip to Turkey.
 
That’s a bit worrying, but doesn’t actually explain what happened at the Opera House after they left? Of course, it’s possible the paper is covering up the truth.
 
Florence: Would Milan WANT reports of an enraged mob of opera-lovers rending him limb from limb in their paper?
 
Maximilian has returned with flowers, and is quite put out that the staff won't let him into the waiting room - it wouldn’t be proper, after all, since he’s not a passenger.  
 
Maximilian: Very well! I’ll buy a ticket!
 
If they were trying to avoid him, it backfired badly. They might also want to avoid the police detective that’s tracked them down. It’s the same detective that was so helpful after the death of Conti. Huxley makes himself scarce, but Alex and Flo reluctantly agree to an interview in the stationmaster’s office, with one of the Orient Express staff there as a witness. It now occurs to the investigators that they didn’t get their story straight, and have no idea what happened after they left. The detective, on the other hand, is aware that the investigators were variously accused of being communists, injured in the fight with Faccia and his goons, and actually appeared on stage as an extra. He’s also heard that an old woman is claiming to be the missing Diva, and that Faccia vanished from an upstairs office at la Scala while he was waiting for his lawyers. So it’s not surprising Florence and Huxley (when he returns) give two contradictory stories about the evening, each downplaying their involvement as far as possible. 
 
Detective: I hope you sought medical assistance after you were hurt, Miss Braxton-Hicks?
Alex: Oh no, it was nothing really. 
GM: Only slightly stabbed.
Florence: Nothing more than you'd expect from a good night out in London.
 
The detective was also aware that Alex was wearing a suit at the Opera House.
 
Detective: What do you know about the political affiliations of your companions, Lt. Huxley?
Huxley: Upstanding supporters of king and country.
Detective: I see, I see - and where did your companions purchase their dresses? Milan is a city of fashion, you understand. 
 
So the detective is certain that the investigators were involved somehow, and makes some pointed hints that they report to the various authorities in Venice when they get there, but the disappearance, mutilation and death of Faccia is inexplicable enough that he’s not entirely sure he wants to dig deeper. He’ll probably kick it up the chain, and let the Fascist government take an interest in the party. 
 
The other passengers start to arrive - among them a young woman in obvious mourning, and an old man wrapped up to the eyebrows, in a wheelchair, with a young man as his caregiver. The latter, pale and anxious, requests medical assistance for his grandfather while the train travels to Venice. He explains to Huxley, in babbled and broken English, that he’s taking his grandfather (still rugged up with only his eyes showing) to the hot springs in Sofia for his health. Huxley commences a medical examination, but returns to his compartment after recommending whiskey and warm water. The old man must be more vigorous than his apparent infirmity suggests. 
 
Venice, in warmer months, is one of the most beautiful and romantic cities in Europe, but in winter the city is foggy, and wet, and frozen, with ice crackling in the canals. At night you can walk for hours and see nothing but pools of lamplight, and hear nothing but the sad slap of water on tethered boats, the clang of buoys in the lagoon, and the boom of steamers further out.  In Venice, on a foggy winter’s night, it feels like day will never come.
 
The train arrives at 5.05PM, and it is already dark.