The time: The height of the Roaring 20s, the spring of 1928.
The place: The Artic steppes of northern Siberia.
Herr Doktor Hartmundt Klein tromped through the snow, his feet sinking into the drifts even with the help of his snowshoes. The night sky sparkled overhead, shining down with a cold light, as harsh and unforgiving as the landscape. Doktor Klein peered ahead at the ruined forest that surrounds the Tunguska river, the dead trees bent at unnatural angles, stripped of bark like bones flayed of their flesh.
“Heinrich! Hier!” Doktor Klein shouted back at his porter, a husky Siberian steppe-dweller whose name was certainly not Heinrich. The porter ran to catch up, apologizing in haphazard German. Klein ignored "Heinrich"’s excuses and removed a complicated scientific apparatus from the younger man’s hands.
Opening the tripod, Doktor Klein began to set up his instrument, fiddling with dials and switches, occasionally looking through one of the many lenses set into the massive machine. Finally satisfied, he leaned over carefully and bared his face, heedless of the fierce cold, then pressed his face up against the cold metal and stared through the red-tinted lens.
A short whooshing sound came from behind the Doktor, but the obsessive scientist paid it no heed. A moment later, he reached out a hand behind him and gestured impatiently. When nothing resulted of his action, the Doktor turned in irritation.
“Heinrich! Was ist los?!”
Heinrich was not there. Doktor Klein glanced around, puzzled, but saw no place in the barren landscape for his pudgy porter to have hidden.
“Heinrich?”
The only response was a fierce wind whipping across Klein’s face, forcing him to bundle back up. He heard a quiet “whoosh” from somewhere behind him.
Two days later, Herr Doktor Hartmundt Klein performed his last service to the world, his frozen blood and rotting entrails providing hearty sustenance for ermine, owls, and mice. A hawk pulled a long string of intestine from Klein’s decaying torso.
Nearly six miles eastward, an ermine pulled a toe off Klein’s rotting legs.
The Century Club in New York City is a remarkable place. Reserved for only the best and the brightest in terms of both staff and customers, the Club boasted being the first venue to showcase Louis Armstrong, and more recently, break-out hit Duke Ellington. Teddy Roosevelt had been a member, as had Thomas Edison. In every election, a poll is cast of the Club’s members as to who will be the next President of the Greatest Nation on Earth. The Club’s answer always wins the seat.
The Club itself is a study in decadence. Dominated by a pearl-white finish and classical Greek architecture, no surface is without a piece of priceless artwork, and no patron must walk more than a dozen feet to gorge him or herself on the finest delicacies in the world. Steam rooms, indoor tennis courts, Oriental massage—there is no desire that cannot be fulfilled at the Century Club.
In one small corner of the Club’s library, there sit two men. One is dapper, dark, and theatrical in his movements—and among his ostentatious dress, the most obvious and elaborate piece is his belt buckle, a large sphere of jade so reflective it seems almost to glow. The other man seems far too disheveled to be allowed entry into the Club, with a pair of multi-function goggles covering his eyes, the headband (and a lack of hygienic care) pushing his hair into wild directions.
These men are two of the Century Club’s newest members, sponsored for reasons they have yet to discover—and they are also old friends and rivals. Currently, they are having the same fight they have had dozens of times before: Alexander Willoughby, the man with the magician’s hands, is attempting to win Dr. Dermot McDanneher, the scientist some might call mad, over to the side of supernature—but McDanneher will have none of it. Each believes that their explanation of the universe hold all the answers, and neither will admit the validity of the other’s beliefs.
At this moment, as is normal when the two friends devolve into bickering, the other Club patrons have scampered to the far corners of the premises, and so there is no-one but Dr. McDanneher to see Willoughby as he clutches his head, cries out in pain, and falls from his chair onto the floor, writhing in agony.
smilesriles
Willoughby picks himself up, struggling to find his equilibrium, rubbing his temple. “Sacred Simorgh” he mumbles, “give me the strength.” He moves to the bar and pours himself a strong drink and calls to Dr. McDanneher. “My friend, I apologize for that. There is something horrible happening. The spirits are calling to me. Tell me, have you heard of a ‘Tungaska’ or ‘Kulik’? Come with me, we will find out what strange and mysterious forces call to me from the beyond.” With a more ceremonious flare of his cloak, begins to head to his library of Secrets of the Arcane.
hydingjekyll
Dr. Dermot McDanneher moves a small dial on the side of his goggles, telescoping his vision so that he might examine the minute details of Willoughby’s face for clues as to his sudden attack of headache and hysteria—possibly an unexpected side effect of the over-bright lighting in the room refracted from the all-but-glowing belt buckle Willoughby was wearing, and caught in the eye with such intensity at the perfect angle as to be momentarily debilitating. He resolves to study the possibility of harnessing and perfecting such an effect himself, and to add the appropriate protections to his goggles of such a thing is possible; he hopes he can talk his friend into allowing him to study the jade stone in an appropriately clinical setting.
He realizes that Willoughby is almost out of the room already, and rushes to follow. A shame to leave so soon; it was a fine bit of proper Irish whiskey he’d been sampling, and there had been no reason to refrain from another. Well, no help for it.
“I believe you mean ‘tungsten,’ Willoughby,” Dermot corrects his misled companion, “also called ‘wolfram,’ and I have most certainly heard of it. It’s a hard, brittle, but corrosion-resistant, metallic element, number 74 on the periodic table, and has an amazing melting point 3,410°C! Its alloys are perfect for high-temperature structural materials, but more notably for electrical elements and in instruments requiring thermally compatible glass-to-metal seals. It’s brilliant stuff, I tell you, just the thing for the chassis of non-lethal electrical discharge ordnance, although MI5 deemed them too outlandish for conventional battlefield use. Backward-thinking wankers, think how many lives could have been saved during the Great War! Can I take a look at that belt of yours when we get wherever it is you’re dragging me off to?”
GM
Willoughby heads quickly to the Century Club’s immense library, plucking books off the shelves as he goes—Secrets of the Persian Underworld, The Twelve Messiahs, Tobin’s Spirit Guide…
Once he has amassed a large pile in the arms of his colleague Dermot, the two seat themselves at a small table in the empty library and begin to research. Dermot is completely mystified by the bizarre and arcane texts [Mysteries check: -1 Poor, fails], and quickly abandons the task, instead looking through texts on the physical sciences for things like “tungsten” or “kulikinium” [Academics—?]
Willoughby, on the other hand, has rather more remarkable success. After looking through a few books on his Mid-Eastern specialties [Secrets of the Arcane], he realizes that the word “Tunguska” does not come from any of the languages known in the Mid-East—in contrast, it is a Russian word, from the snowy north. Having discerned that, it is child’s play to find the events of a June day nearly twenty years previous [Mysteries check: +6 Fantastic, succeeds with 3 shifts]. Within twenty minutes, Willoughby has all the extant information on the Mysteries of the Tunguska Event.
On June 30th, 1908, a tremendous explosion blew across central Siberia, near the Tunguska River. The blast was heard for hundreds of miles around, as it knocked over trees and caused earthquakes far beyond the range of the explosion itself. This account from
the Sibir newspaper tells much:
Having seemingly exhausted the more mundane facts about the Tunguska Event, Willoughby examines the extra-normal commentaries on it. Harold Norris claims that the Event was the physical manifestation of the birth of the Anti-Christ. Piotr Rasilnovitz makes the case for the Event as a proof of the old Russian deities showing their anger at the prevalence of both Christianity and Atheism in modern Russia. The local Siberians have a number of beliefs, but agree on two details: that the landscape near Tunguska resembles the blasted plains of Hell, and that sometimes strange noises, unlike any animal native to Siberia, can be heard among the dead trees.
However, among none of Willoughby’s mystical researching does he find any mention of “Kulik.”
As Dermot looks through the various tomes concerning tungsten and various other metallurgical elements and compounds, looking for “kulikium,” he happens across a biography of one Leonid Kulik, a Russian mineralogist. He can find no connection between Tunguska and Kulik, but finds one salient fact: less than a year ago, Leonid Kulik was accused of sedition against the Soviet government. There is no record of him after this accusation [Academics Average ( +1), succeeded 0 shifts].
smilesriles
“There is no such thing as coincidence, certainly none when mystical visions are concerned” Willoughby says, slyly needling Dermot on one of their favorite arguments. How do you feel about a little transatlantic voyage, my friend? Perhaps some sort of, erm, strange new device caused this explosion so many years ago. I wonder what sort of wreckage and mechanisms remain to this day? Willoughby glances over towards his companion, raising an eyebrow, but already Willoughby’s thoughts are concerned with old evils, disturbed gods, and impending doom. He idly rubs his shoulder, old pains, never really go away.
“Dermot, what’s the fastest way to get to Russia?”
hydingjekyll
“TransPacific, not Atlantic,” Dermot says dryly (tragically dry; it really is a shame about that whiskey), “with a bit overland before then. I can’t say that I should trust hallucinations brought on by tricks of the light and whiskey stronger than the man drinking it, I’ve little doubt, but this record does sound as though there’s something worth looking into among the Cossacks. Our quickest route would likely be to take the railway across this big bloody continent, as inefficient as that’s bound to be—sometimes I wish the venerable Nikola Tesla could have turned his fancy to improving transportation—and then take a ship across your new favorite ocean to your beloved Orient, and then up north to the steppes. Hmm. Maybe we could stop in Colorado Springs along our way …” he muses.
GM
So saying, Dermot calls over one of the Club’s stewards and requests his assistance in booking passage in the next ship traveling in the direction of Russia.
In the blink of an eye, Dermot and Willoughby are aboard the USS Athens, a jewel of the White Star Line. Though Dermot’s pockets are light [Resources check: Poor (-1), Willoughby’s stage shows have been doing well recently, and he magnanimously foots the bill for the two finest suites aboard the Athens [Resources check: Great, succeeds with 2 shifts].
The evening of the first day of travel, Dermot and Willoughby attend the Bon Voyage, a party for all the first-class passengers. The ballroom is remarkably large for the interior of an oceangoing vessel, and decorated in the new “Art Deco” style. A band of Negro jazz musicians provide a pleasant background, and since the Athens has entered international waters, away from Prohibition, the booze is flowing freely.
While seated at the bar, as is his usual wont, Dermot looks across the dance floor and spots Vivanda Renard. A sultry, black-haired bombshell, a bob cut on top and a slim, active “flapper” figure lower down, every inch of Vivanda screams "SEX"—except for the massive tome underneath her arm, “Metallurgical Psychopharmacology: Iridescence and Schizophrenia.”
The sight of his old rival hits Dermot like one of Vivanda’s long silk gloves across the face. Unfortunately, before he can catch Willoughby’s attention, Vivanda meets his gaze and begins to approach.
[Todd: I am now Compelling your Aspect “Scientific Rival: Vivanda Renard.” If you take a Fate Point, you must react negatively to Vivanda, because of the embarrassing incident that occurred the last time you met (which you must detail), and all your social skills gain a -1 penalty through the first Exchange (should things degenerate that far). If you pay a Fate Point, you may do whatever you wish.
Okay, guys. This is going to be the first real scene of the game. Remember that you can spend a Fate Point to Invoke an Aspect to give yourself an advantage, so long as you can justify it. You can also spend a point to make a Declaration, stating some minor detail or fact about the scene. You can also spend a Fate Point to “Tag” an Aspect about the location, Vivanda, or one another, to help out your action.
Should this conversation escalate into Social Conflict, it will work just like a physical combat, just with words, theories, what have you, instead of blows.
Since we’re just beginning and you’re learning about your characters, and since Riley has deliberately not finished filling out his character sheet, you each have 3 Skill slots and 3 Aspect slots that you may fill (in Riley’s case) or swap out (in Todd’s case), if you feel you need a new skill. However, once you use a skill at a particular level, it’s locked in—so realize you need Rapport instead of Contacting before you use Contacting, please (or whatever).
Okay, I think that’s it for now.]
hydingjekyll
[I will take that Fate Point. This should be fun.]
“Ah, shite, Willoughby,” McDanneher grumbles. “We’re in the enemy’s sights. I ought to have equipped these goggles of mine with earplugs; she’s a flapper, all right, but mostly of the gums.” As it is, he taps a switch on the goggles, causing dark lenses to cover his eyes, hoping to express his disinterest in meeting with her again.
[Details on the Embarrassing Incident to follow when the opportunity presents itself.]
smilesriles
Willoughby puts on what he hopes is a charming smile and extends a hand.
“Hello. My name is Alexander. Have we met before?”
GM
The raven-haired Renard pointedly ignores Willoughby and sidles up to Dermot, so close that her breath fogs up his goggles.
“Bonjour, Dermot,” she says in a thick French accent. “What a lovely surprise to see you here. Whatever are you doing on the Athens? A new project, perhaps? I do hope it goes better than the last one. Why don’t you tell me about it?”
[Beginning of Social Conflict. Surprise round goes to Vivanda, then Initiative is as follows:
- Willoughby
- Vivanda
- Dermot
Vivanda is attempting seduction, Rapport vs. Resolve. She rolls a Superb, Dermot rolls Epic: succeeds with 2 shifts. Dermot, detail your excellent rebuff.]
smilesriles
When its my turn, I’m going to use my “Curiousity of a Cat” to find out what happened between her and Dermot. Turning the conversation back to their past as opposed to our present.
hydingjekyll
Dermot raises his goggles’ darkened lenses, stifling a resigned groan. “Yes, it really was a tragedy that your demonstration of my projectile grapnel in front of MI5’s Research and Development department turned a viable tool into a novelty act,” he agrees. “To this day, half of them still believe that I intended your dress, rather than your body, to go flying to the ceiling. I hope your little incident taught you to listen to instructions next time, or at least to wear underpants.” He sips his whiskey, then smiles as if musing on something interesting. “On the other hand, you did produce hard science for once; it was quite the salute you received, from every man in the room.”
GM
Vivanda steps back, flustered. “Well, I… I…”
[Vivanda’s surprise round finished. Round 1 begins, Willoughby’s turn.]
However, before she can regain her composure, Willoughby interrupts. “Madame, I don’t know your name, but it is evident that you have a very interesting past with my friend Dermot. Might you enlighten us as to the nature of your relationship—and perhaps why you’re speaking to us now?” As he speaks, Willoughby watches Vivanda’s face carefully, looking for any sort of information she might accidentally reveal. [Empathy vs. Rapport: Poor (-1). Willoughby Invokes “Curiosity of a Cat” to reroll, -1 Fate Point. New Roll: secret.]
Vivanda, flushed, glares at Dermot, then looks over at Willoughby. “Well, we once worked together together for your MI5. After the… grapnel incident, I did my best to best dear Dermot, and he did the same for me.”
[Willoughby discovers Vivanda’s Aspect Scientific Rival: Dermot McDanneher, ripe for Tagging.]
GM
[Willoughby’s turn over, Vivanda’s turn begins.]
Vivanda takes a moment and catches her breath, then changes tactics. “Dermot, your friend is cute.” She steps closer to Willoughby, and runs a finger down his cheek. “Alexander, you say your name is? As in… the Great? Now, a man of your obvious wealth and—” she pauses for a moment, glancing down at Willoughby’s crotch. “—stature must have a terribly pressing reason to associate with a ridiculous little scientist like Dermot. What. Is. Your. Business?” she finishes, punctuating each word with a light touch on Willougby’s chest, slowly moving downwards.
[Rapport vs. Resolve: Fair ( +2). Vivanda invokes [secret] to add +2, -1 Fate Point. New Roll: Great ( +4) vs Fair ( +2), succeeds with 2 shifts.
Willoughby may now either mark off the “2” box on his Composure [or rather, tell me to], or take a Minor Consequence (temporary Aspect reflecting her seduction: Rattled, Turned On, etc). If he loses all 7 of his Composure boxes, he will be Taken Out and tell Vivanda whatever she wants to know.]
[Vivanda’s turn is over. Dermot’s turn begins.]
hydingjekyll
Dermot snorts. “At least I am a scientist; I get my information through research and experimentation, rather than by offering men the false hope of filling my test tube. Don’t pay her any attention, Alexander. As I understand, your interest is in ladies.” (“I’m a scientist!” aspect)
Dermot searches Vivanda’s figure for signs of why she’s asking—insignia pins, letters, etc. [Investigation: Good]
GM
Vivanda spins and glares at Dermot. “I’ll not be insulted in this manner by an unambitious tool of his outdated government!”
As she spins, her short skirt flips up, and Dermot’s keen eyes spot a tattoo on her upper thigh—a black serpent wreathed in stylized flames. With a jolt, Dermot flashes back to the past, to the adventure of the Sultan’s Demon:
Dermot McDanneher, MI5 agent extraordinaire, adjusted the sights on his new Multi-Vision Goggles to maximum magnification. Below him in the dank, torch-lit chamber, lay the man MI5 identified as Alexander, black sheep of the politically important Willoughby family. Lying face-down on a roughly-hewn wooden bench, Willoughby gritted his teeth as a black-robed man dug a tattoo needle into his shoulder. Dermot watched in horror as the tattoo took form as the Burning Dragon, the mark of the feared Cult of Dahaka. When the black-robed man finished the last line, the tattoo flashed with a paradoxical black light, and Willoughby screamed in pain. Dermot, shocked by the inexplicable flash, lost his grip on the pipe he clung to, and fell from his hiding place onto the straw-covered floor. The black-robed man turned, dropped his tattooing needle and drew a long, curved knife. He rushed for Dermot, knife raised…
Dermot shakes off his memory, and gapes as he realizes that his old rival is a member of the Cult of Dahaka. Vivanda looks from Dermot’s eyes to her short skirt, and her eyes widen.
[Investigation vs. Deceit: Superb ( +5) vs. Fair ( +2), succeeds with 3 shifts. Vivanda takes a 3-point Composure hit, and Dermot learns her Aspect: Cult of Dahaka.
Dermot’s turn is over, and it is now Willoughby’s turn. However, Dermot can say a couple words free (like "She’s a member of the Cult of Dahaka!), but he can’t do it discreetly until his turn.]
smilesriles
“Dermot, I never underestimate your luck with the ladies. Well since she is not going to buy us a drink, and I’m not going to buy her a drink, there is only one solution. I’m going to have to buy Dermot a drink. What’ll it be?” With years of practice from British political snobbery, Alexander half-turns away from the woman and towards the bar, giving off his best cold shoulder. [Intimidation-Fair Level]
GM
Incensed by the blatant snobbery [Intimidation: Good ( 3) vs. Resolve Mediocre (0), succeeds with 3 shifts. Vivanda takes a 3-point Composure hit—and since she already lost slot 3, it rolls up to slot 4], Vivanda slams her book down on the bar and yanks Willoughby’s arm. "%{color:red}You think you can dismiss me like that? Do you have any idea of my connections?!%
[Intimidation Fair ( +2). Vivanda invokes Aspect: Master Rasputin for a re-roll.]
“I work for the man who destroyed the Romanovs! The man who could not—and cannot—be killed! The greatest magician of the modern age! Grigori! Yefimovich! Rasputin!” she finishes, punctuating her speech again with much more violent finger pokes into Willoughby’s chest.
[Intimidation Mediocre ( +0) vs Resolve Fair ( +2), Willougby wins with 2 shifts]
Willoughby picks up two scotch-and-sodas and nods to the bartender. “Rasputin’s been dead for twelve years, my dear. It’s possible you’re suffering from delusions.”
[Vivanda’s turn over, and Dermot’s up.]
hydingjekyll
“Yes, delusions no doubt brought on by her association with the only-too-familiar Dahaka cult. You’ve heard of those jolly folks, haven’t you, Alexander? Tell me, luv, has your Rasputin’s theoretical immortality anything to do with the Dahaka’s laughable chemistry attempts that they tell themselves is Alchemy?” [Intimidation skill/Defender of Science showing through—would that require using a Fate point?]
GM
[Intimidation Fair ( +2), Invokes “Defender of Science” to add +2, loses 1 Fate Point. Result Intimidation Great ( +4) vs. Deceit Superb ( +5), Vivanda wins with 1 shift.]
Vivanda shrugs off Dermot’s caustic remark, saying “There are more things on heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Dermot.”
Willoughby’s eyes widen as he hears the name “Dahaka.” His tattoo burns on his skin, and his temper begins to flare.
[Riley, I’m Compelling “Cult of Dahaka.” If you want the Fate Point, do something rash and aggressive, perhaps even violent, to Vivanda. Or you can spend a Fate Point and do whatever you want.
Round Three, Willoughby’s turn.]
smilesriles
Moving suddenly, Willoughby stands and grabs the woman painfully by the shoulder. “What madness is this? Have you walked in the valley of ash and shadow? Who sent you to follow me? SPEAK WOMAN BEFORE I PULL THE LIFE FROM YOUR SOUL!!!” The Orb of Daevas begins to make a low buzzing noise, the kind of tickling on the back of your neck you would associate with a dog whistle.
GM
Vivanda shrieks and pulls away. “Help! Madman!” she screams, and the steward immediately rushes over. Looking at the maddened look in Willoughby’s eyes, he immediately makes a decision.
“I think you should return to your cabin right now, sir.”
Vivanda, sobbing, hides behind the steward, before shooting Willoughby a deadly look. Around her, everyone at the party stares at Willoughby, and several men start rolling up their sleeves in case things get ugly.
[That’s a fate point to Riley. With this new situation, the Social Conflict is resolved, and whoever posts next gets to act first.]
hydingjekyll
Dermot hurriedly puts an arm around Willoughby’s shoulders. “Alexander, what have I told ye about rehearsing your bloody stage act in public? Not everyone realizes it’s theatrics, and it seems you’re drunk enough that you forgot to tell this poor girl that she was to be your lead actress! Bartender, a glass of water, please. Here, my boy, take this to bed with ye and sleep it off. You’ll be nursing your sore head soon enough.” He walks Willoughby to the barroom’s exit and sends him off to his suite, then returns to the bar. “My apologies for my friend, everyone. So immersed in his showmanship is he—Oh, he left his Scotch. Can’t let that go to waste.” He downs Willoughby’s drink in one swig, then smiles. “I know how to make amends: a round for the whole room! (Put it on my friend’s tab, bartender.)” As soon as everyone has a drink, he leads the room in a rousing rendition of “Oh Danny Boy.” [Invoke Excellent Drinking Buddy Aspect to help smooth things over with the steward and fellow patrons.]
GM
[Rapport: Mediocre, Invoke Excellent Drinking Buddy, add +2, result Rapport: Fair ( +0). Lose a Fate Point. Success with 0 shifts.]
Now that the offending Willoughby is out of the room, the rest of the crowd seems much more willing to relax, and joins Dermot in “O Danny Boy.”
While they are singing, Vivanda throws Dermot a glare and slips out of the ballroom.
[Todd, please continue posting here for now. Riley, please move over to the new Topic “The Mysterious Vixen.”]
GM
As “O Danny Boy” settles down, Dermot notices that Vivanda has left her book, “Metallurgical Psychopharmacology: Iridescence and Schizophrenia,” on the bar. His curiosity raised, Dermot considers poking through the book before anyone else notices that it isn’t his.
[This would be the perfect place for a Declaration. You can tell ME what you learn from this book, and then make the Science check. If you succeed, then the fact you just made up is, in fact, true. If not, then, so sad, it’s not true and you’ve failed to find anything useful. Or you can just roll it and if you succeed, I’ll tell you what you find, and if not, you know the drill. Up to you.]
hydingjekyll
Dermot idly (“idly”) opens the book to Ms. Renard’s bookmark and pretends to only skim what he finds there. In a book about the psychological effects that reflection of light can have on a human being (not unlike Willoughby’s receiving “visions” from the light refracted off his belt buckle, Dermot is quick to note), the section focuses on the use of silicate, magnetite, and iron-nickel alloys—all of which Dermot knows to have been found in the area of the Tunguska event. The book’s title notwithstanding, this section pertains to the ability of light refracted from these compounds to produce altered states in animals and humans. [Declaration, with Science check]
“My God!” Dermot thinks, figuratively. He drafts a few graphs in his head. “Based on this information, if light were reflected from a spherical object made of a precise combination of these materials under moderate indoor lighting, the resulting ultraviolet component of its luminescence—beyond the range of ordinary human vision though it would be—could conceivably produce a state similar to hypnosis in human beings. The things those wankers could do with that … This is dire! This is potentially catastrophic! This is … utterly and brilliantly fascinating. I bet I could fashion a reflecting chamber with miniaturized ultraviolet lamp to create a focused beam of such light and create a valuable tool for interrogation and negotiation.” He adjusts his Multi-Vision Goggles to allow him to read with maximum clarity and sits at the bar, reading ravenously while the rest of the world fades from his consciousness. [Curious to Distraction]
GM
Dermot, studying the reflective properties of the metals referred to in the book, is near complete understanding of the potential uses and abuses of this “Tunguskite Hypnoticizing Transducer” when he hears a man’s voice, momentarily distracting him [Science: Good ( +3) vs difficulty Superb ( +5)]. However, he quickly shuts out all distractions [Invokes Curious to Distraction to add +2, Science: Superb ( +5) vs. difficulty Superb ( +5), succeeds with 0 shifts. Loses 1 Fate Point], and the man’s voice diminishes to nothing—"%{color:orange}Sir, does that book not belongto the lady?%"
Dermot has just barely finished his analysis (believing he could certainly counteract the effects of a Transducer, and possibly build one himself), when the steward pulls hard on his shoulder.
“Sir! I said, that book belongs to the lady your friend insulted! I will take that!” he says, yanking the book from Dermot’s hands. “And I think you, sir, should return to your cabin!”
[I’ll give you a Fate Point for “Dislikes Authority” if ya fight back, ya berk.]
hydingjekyll
“Hey! Hey! Hands off, you sod!” Dermot roars, rising from his stool and turning to face the steward. “No need to get rough here like some rookie bobby. Thanam o’n Dhoul! I’m a scientist, and I’ll be treated accordingly, ye snooty wanker!” He snatches the tome back from the steward, none too gently. “I was looking after the crone’s book for her ‘til she got back, if it’s any o’ your bloody business, but if it’s so damned important to ye, I’ll return it to her now. Which room is she stayin’ in?”
GM
The steward, though unaware of the meaning of the Irish phrase “Thanam o’n Dhoul,” certainly understands that he is being insulted. Desperate to get the irate Irishman out of his ballroom, the steward quickly pages through the registry book and finds Vivanda’s room number.
Thus satisfied, Dermot (after one more whiskey) saunters out of the ballroom and heads towards Vivanda’s cabin, idly wondering where Willoughby has vanished to.
Holding the large book in his right hand, ready to use it as a weapon if the need arises, Dermot knocks on the door.
[This topic is now locked. Begin posting in “The Mysterious Vixen”—but not until Willoughby gets a chance to respond to Dermot’s knock.]
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