April 11, 1890, London, Anglia.
Everyone knows that fairies no longer exist; yet, sometime in the night they stole seven young babies from families in the London area. The only clues left behind were some traces of madness, some residual impressions of fairy magic, and a few black flowers with intricately twisted thornless stems. And one fairy, Merry, who had been sent by Oberon to tell people he wasn't to blame, and that the Pact had already been broken.
The party, all associates of someone who had had a child stolen, set about investigating and trying to recover the missing children. There was little reliable to discover about fairies, save that 1) some tiny arrowheads had been found in Scotland, in areas that looked to be a circle of rocks, with some markings that were indistinguishable in the drawing in the Adventurer's club; 2) the fairies had all left about a hundred years ago; 3) when shaken forcefully, Merry revealed that Oberon had also said something when he sent her away, a poem that proved to be the Mystery of Amhairghin, the Bard that had accompanied the Milesians (the people now called the Irish) on their invasion of that land. The most knowledgeable scholar on the Milesians was Dr. Douglas Hyde of Edinburgh University, so the party set out by train to meet him.
Travel by train was surprisingly slow, 'signal problems' kept delaying passage, and the train was stopped by a tree across the tracks at a town. The party took rooms in the inn, and in the morning discovered that the red-headed innkeeper's young daughter of 9 had gone missing. Toby, the bloodhound, led the intrepid adventurers after the girl, Una, where they encountered a nearsighted farmer (Archie Magoo) struggling with an upset cow. The party got separated, with Mr. Steele and crew facing a dragon (which they convinced themselves later was illusory, nothing more that fairy glamour...though it sure burned at the time), Mr. Sherman found himself in fairy with Toby, talking to a nice man (Artie) who gave him some clues about not believing what he saw, and Mr. Penrington, who was running from group to group trying to keep them all from disappearing on him. Unsuccessfully. The party recovered the girl when it seemed that Dr. Davis', er, Lady Ava's mental invisibility rendered her invisible to the sight of the bad guys and thus able to be missed by their illusions. The innkeeper was quite happy to have his daughter back.
The party continued its slow journey by train until a small town just outside Coventry. The train was boarded by police and the Archmage of Coventry, who discovered the fairy hiding in Lady Ava's handbag. The fairy escaped, leading a troop of police and townsfolk on a Merry chase, but was caught and imprisoned in the town jail. Officer Guyon was assigned to protect Lady Ava in case the fairy came back. A crowd built up around the jail, blaming the fairy for many bits of ill luck. Mr. Penrington attempted to spin his own rumors, but a mysterious dark-haired woman seemed to be better at it. Mr. Steele had a nice tea with a nice man, Arthur Cadwaller, about the situation. Arthur suggested a way to catch the bogle, the unlucky spirit that was following the party, and at the cost of all of Lady Ava's clothes, they succeeded. When they found that the bogle could not be communicated with by any means they had, Mr. Penrington tried to skin it, but it decayed quickly into mush. About the time that the crowd got ready to lynch the fairy, there was quite a confusing escape/rescue sequence that included Mr. Steele firing his entangle into the crowd and Mr. Couch blasting Officer Guyon with his mental attacks.
The party found a cargo train to ride, assuming that the police would want to question them. The journey was relatively quicker, but less comfortable, and at Edinburgh they elected to get rooms with money Mrs. MacGregor, Voronika, happened to have. They met Dr. Hyde, who was a wealth of information on the Celtic poetry and Amhairghin, and pointed them towards a monastery on the east side of Scotland that had been the refuge for the second greatest druid in Ireland, Crimthann.
The party set out to find this place of learning, but stopped by the tallest mountain in Anglia, Ben Nevis, where Challenger had his secret base. They found the base deserted, signs of attack by goblins, a troll, and means mystic. Tracking the attackers, the party encountered Sir Britomart, a powerful knight with apparently magic armor, spear, and sword, who had been sent by Archimago to find a false knight. Fortunately, Lady Ava interceded when Mr. Steele claimed knighthood, and the two did not need to come to blows. Sir Britomart helped the party infiltrate the goblin caves. Some goblins and trolls died to produce disguises so that the group could sneak through rather than wade through. Along the way they discovered Oog, the troglodyte/ubarite who had assisted Mr. Penrington in the battle with the Yemeni prince. The party found a room with Professor Challenger lying on a stone slab, slowly being covered by liquid rock, and managed to wake him. The nearby rock, much bigger, seemed to be the final sleeping place of Merlin, who gave Lady Ava a vision of how to find her husband and child, and let Merry know her parentage.
On the way out, the party found Professor Challenger's men stupefied and bound to rock. Sir Britomart stayed to hold the door against the goblins, while Challenger freed his men, as the party raced on to their rescue. Oog stayed as well, unwilling to advance above ground. Prince Arthur was waiting with Sir Britomart's horse for her, and let the party take a rubbing of the odd design on her spear head.
The party encountered a group of tall fairies taunting Lord Ava, who was protecting his child with his body, torturing him to give up the child. The men were startled by the beauty of the fairy women, but the battle, while close, freed Lord Ava, though one of the fairy got away. Lord Ava had seen the Yemeni Prince pass by; likely carrying the iron meteorite stolen from Challenger's base.
The party returned to human lands quickly rather than face reinforcements. They wound up outside Ewen MacGregor's home, so Voronika, quickly picking the goblin disguise out of her hair, got to meet her new mother-in-law. Ma was a short, incomprehensible woman, who was delighted to meet her new daughter once she found out she wasn't Anglish. Ewen's nephew was going to university in Glasgow. The party recuperated and journeyed to the monastery.
The monastery filled in several more details of the fairy [some of this was gotten from Dr. Hyde]. The fairies have to pay the Infernal Powers a tax of children, whether their own or human, called the teneid. The pact was likely made in the time of George III, Merry's father, back when he was still sane. It seems that the fairy left because iron rails and factories were beginning to be used in Anglia; it was conjectured that Ireland was to be left free of rails. [The greatest steam mage of all time, Brunel, made plans for an Anglia-Irish railway, but aborted his plan for some unknown reason.] Recently, the Glasgow-Ulster railroad began operation between the two.
Celtic knotwork was noted also, with stories of how the knots themselves could contain magic. The patterns were also used for decoration on many pages.
The party moved to Glasgow to try to discover why Brunel changed his mind. There was a painting of the great man in the Engineering school, and Mr. Penrington noted an unusual ring on his hand, reminding him of the one worn by Mr. Smutts and a few others. Ewen's nephew was helpful in getting the party (well, with Mr. Steele) meetings with some professors who could get the party access to Brunel's writings. Mr. Penrington was making arrangements to visit the Glasgow Golf Society, which is apparently somehow related to the Adventurer's Club in London.
GM Synopsis copyright 2005 P.Shea. The contents of this site are copyright 2004-2005 Sheryl A. Knowles unless otherwise specified. All rights reserved.