Challenger Campaign

041028           Volume V, Episode 1: Society Points & Missing Babes

Dramatis personae:

Synopsis:
A series of murders related to the Katabet Tomb mummy’s curse is ruining the career of Mr. Ramsey’s uncle, an airship captain who brought to Anglia from the tomb a peculiar mechanical scarab with a Swiss makers mark. Amongst those murdered is Mr. Forester’s Cambridge roommate, Mortimer Homme who is miraculously re-animated by Lungta.

Lord Truro engages Miss Costorari and party to obtain surviving manuscripts from the ancient Library of Alexandria; his accountant seems to have draconian and mystic means of tracking expenses.

In Vienna, Major Lasher – whom the Party believes is the immortal St.-Germain – tells the Party that the mummy, a nosferatu or plague carrier, is Katabe of Arcadia, the “King Arthur” of his kind, and can only be destroyed by himself. Mr. Homme contains a piece of the Plague Carrier. The monster can be kept at bay by someone wielding a weapon of Honour and Valor or heaven-sent. Our Heroes venture into the sewers of Vienna and bring forth such a weapon once wielded by a Teutonic Knight against invading Turks: a shovel with a sharpened edge.

Having discovered in Buda the location of the town of Tihuta in Rumania, the Party is brought by gypsies to the current Count Borgo whom the group suspects is a vampyr. He arranges for gypsies to guide the Party to a bare mountain top (en route to which, McGregor and Voronika get married) where they fight werewolves and the mummy. Homme decapitates himself with the Shovel of Valor and Penrington burns the resulting drops of blood. Sunshine, having already sacrificed her mental self-image, chooses to let Homme remain dead in order that Lungta stay in the world.

London, Anglia. April 1890.
Voronika and Lord Truro’s man-of-business “discussed” the standard Adventurers’ Contract, the result being that the Party still owed for 80% of the gem given to Major Lasher. All other extraneous expenses had been covered by Voronika’s haggling skills. On the other hand, Lord Truro’s report to the Society – based on his man-of-business having obtained an understanding that the Party members would be “discrete” and “value confidentiality” – meant that several members would have greater access to facilities of the Society and the Museum. [4 SP]

Voronika took her groom to the Bank of England where he had her account transferred to the Bank of Scotland. They introduced each other to their respective banking agents and McGregor showed his bride his bank box.

Mr. Forester resumed his graduate student career at Cambridge where he renewed his acquaintance with the old gate keeper. He was a bit discomposed to note that he had been assigned his old room – the one in which Mr. Homme had died. As he made his final farewells to his adventuring companions, he spoke quietly to the druidess, “Miss Davis, may I visit you on school breaks?” Sunshine replied, “I will be going into retreat – but if I am available at such times, you are welcome to visit.”

Brother Oak sent Sister Sunshine to a grove near Oxford, saying “The Old Ones said I should send you there.”

Mr. Ramsey, too, took his farewell and headed to Spain, after a period of intense research in the Museum and study with a teacher of Spanish.

A letter summoned McGregor back to Challenger’s research station in Scotland. Voronika suggested that their expedition north might include Steele and Penrington who were now at loose ends. McGregor was to shepherd equipment from London to the Challenger base at Ben Nevis. It included cold weather gear, ladders reinforced with metal strips and covered with asbestos, mittens covered with asbestos, backpacks lined with asbestos.
Voronika: “Is Professor Challenger going to climb down into a volcano?”
MacGregor: “Half of what he gets he never uses.”

London. Late Spring.
Six babies, 3 boys and 3 girls, have gone missing in London on the same night. Scotland Yard was most concerned about the as-yet un-named daughter of Lord and Lady Ava who was spirited from her own crib in an upstairs room of their elegant townhouse. Her father was found nearby on the floor in a coma and clutching a flower whose stem had been twisted into a complicated knot.

Lady Ava sought out her former adventuring companions for aid, and they went to visit her father in the Druid’s Grove. There Brother Oak introduced them to:

• Gordon Couch, a man shorter and thinner than the norm, of that indeterminate age between 40 and 60, with still-black hair, a van dyke beard, and a black outfit “trying to look like a gentleman’s.” A neighbor’s baby daughter had been kidnapped after he had seen in one of his audience/subject’s minds a vision of another neighbor’s cat being tortured by fairies. There had been a knotted flower with the body of that same cat which he found in a flower bed.
• Elton Sherman, a slightly stooped man of 5’9” and about 175#. He was balding with a rim of white hair, bushy mutton chops and prominent eartuffs and eyebrows. Clearly of the upper lower class, he was accompanied by a 90# male basset hound, Toby, who barked at their 3rd companion. A neighbor’s baby daughter had disappeared. He and Toby investigated and the scent trail led them to the garden in the local square where he had found another knotted flower.
• Meriweather Gentry, a stunningly beautiful teenager in a peasant shepherdess costume of a hundred years past. Her hem and feet were soaking wet. She claimed to be a pixie – and a messenger from the Fairy Court of Oberon and Titania.

New Acquaintances
Lady Ava looked up as three figures entered her father’s room in the Druid’s Grove, two men and a very young woman. The teenager looked concerned and nervous as the basset hound barked at her. The dog’s owner admonished, “Down, Toby,” and the dog ceased barking but stared fixedly at the young woman.
Sherman asked, “Which of you lasses is the flower twister?”
Couch: “There’s a baby missing.”
Maddy: “My baby.”
Sherman: “That makes two. Mrs. McGillicutty’s child is also gone. Forgive my manners, mum. Elton Sherman at your service.”
Couch, nervous in the presence of nobility: “Gordon Couch, madam.” He turned his attention back to Sherman, “Any dead cats around?”
Sherman: “None that I know”
Couch, “There was a dead cat in the flower bed in front of the baby’s house. All the flowers were dead.”
Maddy: “Was there a black flower?”
Sherman: “I lost the trail in the center square where the flowers were mutilated. One was black and twisted.”
Sherman established that the convoluted conversation applied to three different babies and three different locales.

Couch: “Couch: “There was a very upset man last night at my show… I am a mesmerist. I hypnotised the man and he went berserk. In his mind, little demons were torturing his cat.”
Maddy, coldly: “Do you drink?”
Oak: “Perhaps, Meriweather, you would like to speak?”
Meri: “My name is Meriweather Gentry. I was sent… Lord Oberon said no fey took the babies. An alabaster woman visited court and accused us of breaking the covenant.”
Maddy, in disbelief: “Oberon? As in Shakespeare’s Midsummers Night’s Dream?”
Mari, confidently: “Lord Oberon, King of the Fairies.”
Maddy, shocked: “Father!?!”
Sherman: “What does that make you, lassie?”
Meri, proudly: “I’m a pixie.”
Maddy: “Father!!!”
Oak: “The arch-druid detected ley lines going away from Lady Ava’s home. It would indicate magical involvement. Fey. But there have been no fey in Anglia for a hundred years.”

The two gentlemen and Lady Ava each displayed a black flower whose stem had been twisted into a complicated knot. None of the knots were the same. Brother Oak identified the flowers as asphodel, belonging to the daffodil family. Normally asphodel are white, yellow, or pink.
Meri: “Flowers are very special. They are the gates to Fairie.”
There ensued a discussion of the Seelie (good fey who owe fealty to Oberon) and Unseelie (dark fey who owe fealty to their queen) and solitary fairies (who are independent and outside of the fealty structure).

Sherman: “In the flower bed I investigated, someone had pinched all the buds so that the flowers would die. The trail just disappeared in that garden square. There had been a window entry into the baby’s room. The window opening was very small, a dog could barely get through.”
Couch: “I was doing my show.” He sounded confident talking about his show. “The police questioned me afterwards; they thought I had stolen a woman’s baby. I am not personally acquainted with the woman. I convinced them I’d been doing the show and they let me go. I walked past the house from which they said the baby had been taken. I saw a cat dead in a flowerbed where all the flowers had died save for the black flower.”

Lady Ava determined to take her new acquaintances and her problem to Mrs. Oliver’s Boarding House where one person, at least, might be able to shed further light on these distressing events.

Visions
Voronika touched Lady Ava’s flower. She saw a small being about 4 feet tall, naked and aggressively male, with red skin and horns. It stood over the baby, confronting Lord Ava. A dark bolt struck Ava from behind and he collapsed. The group seemed to exit through a tunnel lined with bare earth and plants. The gypsy then described her vision to the others.
Meri: “It could be Red Cap. He’s a very important person in the Unseelie court. Puck.”

Voronika touched Mr. Sherman’s flower and felt a sense of frustration. “Things aren’t going well.” She saw a figure with classic fairy wings, a slim unclothed figure with long blond hair. It appeared to be about the same size as the baby it stood over. There was a ring of light on the ground that seemed to be sunlight, but it was night. The fairy woman looked over its shoulder with eyes that glowed red, looking through Voronika. The gypsy passed out. Luckily her companions, familiar with the more violent reactions to post-cognitive visions, had prepared safeguards.
Reviving, the gypsy said, “I hate that. It saw me. I hate it when that happens. Just like the vampire.”
This statement of course roused inquiry from Couch and Sherman. So Voronika took the time to tell the story of Our Adventurers recent encounters in Transylvania.
The gypsy described her vision.
Meri: “That was a portal. The ring of light was a portal.”

There ensued a discussion of height and its importance in Fairie. Oberon is very tall. Meri is quite small. Size indicates status.
The discussion touched on impersonations such as might happen when twins are involved. Lady Ava’s evil twin sister was mentioned. There are no twins in Fairie.

Voronika touched Mr. Couch’s flower. She saw two beings smaller than the baby they bracketed. One was red, horned, tailed, and aggressively male. The other was female, pale and winged. Together they carried the babyas they through a wind. There appeared a wounded cat into which the red fey plunged a spear that appeared at that instant for the purpose. The gypsy related this vision to the group as well.

McGregor tested Meri’s assertion as to her origins utilizing an old custom. He poured a saucer of milk from the afternoon tea and set it by the door. After a moment of resisting temptation, Meri knelt down by the saucer and lapped the milk. “Th’ lassie’s fey,” he commented to the astounded company.

Mr. Sherman checked Mr. Couch’s story and found that a next door neighbor had been arrested for the kidnapping of Brigid Smith’s girl baby. [The other adventurers noted that Mr. Sherman seems particularly adept at getting people to talk to him.] The evidence against the neighbor was that he had broken into the Smith house and had been found it standing over the empty bassinet. “I heard he sold it to some gypsies.”

Sherman checked the flower bed in front of the Smith house. There was a mouse corpse that had clearly been played with by a cat. He observed that the flowers he’d seen near the McGillicutty’s had been dead longer – perhaps as much as a day – than those at the Smith’s.

Lady Ava admitted to being the former physician-mesmerist Madeline Davis. Experiments by herself and Couch were made in establishing mind links. Meri heard a voice saying, “We don’t want to do that. We don’t want to do that.” The pixie claimed that mind links hurt her.

He chose Meriweather “because…” at which point Titania had interrupted him, and he, shortly, continued, “because she plays so badly.” Meriweather was ordered to clothe herself in her human form. Then Oberon declaimed [a Clue] :

“I am the breath of wind on the sky.
I am the crest of the cloud.
I am the murmur of the billows.
I am the Ox of seven combats.
I am the vulture upon the rocks.
I am the beam of the sun.
I am the fairest of plants.
I am the wild boar in the valout.
I am the salmon in the water.
I am the river in the plain.
I am the word of science.
I am the point of the lance of battle.
I am the one who creates in the fires.
Who is it who throws light in to the meeting on the mountain?
Who announces the ages of the moon if not I?
Who teaches the place where couches the sun if not I?”

Bride took Meriweather’s hand and, next she knew, the fairy was in the pool in London before the alabaster statues of the three goddesses of Anglia. Thence she had found her way to Druids Grove.

Next Run: Investigations

(a) Cumulative (Steele, Penrington, Voronika)
(b) Cumulative since Volume II (Forester)
(c) Cumulative since Volume III (Sunshine, Ramsey)
(d) Vol.I+II+Cumulative since Volume IV (Maddy)

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