Operation Labyrinth

FUDGE Fantasy Steampunk
files in pdf format

This second adventure involved storming a mad scientist's lab to stop the evil experiments on humans he's conducting. The adventurers get to fight robots, too.

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FULL ADVENTURE

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My campaign's post-adventure debriefing

WARNING: CONTAINS ADVENTURE SPOILERS!

 

"'...Please relay to Trumps Beta my gratitude for their prompt and efficient work in the case of the Meneth bomb threats and the Whitechapel Affair. Signed, HRM Queen Victoria.'" Severis Justicar drops the letter on the table, where it lands with an audible thump from the seals and ribbons encrusted on the bottom. "Capital work. This letter and ha'pence will buy you a saucer of tea at Mrs. Figginbottom's."

"Severis!" Louise Marchand chides him. "Don't be a bore." She turns to Trumps Beta. "Ignore him. It's only to your good to have come to the queen's attention. Sev is simply sulking because of his cast."

"The bloody thing itches." He scowls, the fencing scar on his cheek making the expression more threatening than it's meant to be. The plaster cast over his left arm is covered with what appear to be ladies' signatures. "Sodding automatons."

"Be glad you've got an arm and shut up," Quincey Adder growls, gaslight reflecting from his many steel prostheses.

"None of our children in Beta got their arms broken," Louise says sweetly. "I think you're slowing down, Sev."

Severis sneers at her and turns back to the group. "The good news is, you're each receiving a L50 pound bonus from the queen's exchequer. I realize that's not much for a nob, Lord Pressive, so I've arranged to charge our lunches at the MI5 exchange to your account for the next three weeks."

"The queen's commendation goes into your records and counts toward promotion," Louise adds.

"All right, all right, let's move this along," Quincey says impatiently. "Get to the important business."

"Our little king over there is eager to get back to the lab." Severis smiles, then sobers as he awkwardly opens one of MI5's ubiquitous manila folders with one hand. "Very well, let's get to work.

"MI5's forensics team have confirmed that the bombs and mechanical men in Meneth were made by the same individeuals who constructed the bombs and mecha in Whitechapel. Universal Exports is, of course, a cover agency for Allied Enterprises, and the telegram from the IWW was simply a ruse to divert government forces.

"All of the bombs were armed, so it appears that Allied Enterprises' threat to Her Majesty's government was meant in earnest. Had we not found them all, the devastation they would have wrought would have been very real. However, it is equally clear that Allied Enterprises was willing to take the risk of our finding the bombs in order to keep our forces occupied while their agents -- or, rather, subcontractors -- stole ten books from the Imperial Library and Museum of Rare Books.

"The thieves, as you discovered, were hired by Lord Ainsley-Ascot. By the by, we have since sent representatives to warn him away from such antics in the future. I don't expect we'll have further trouble from him."

"Should have arrested him," Quincey mutters, looking bored.

"Didn't I notice his sister's name on your cast?" Louise asks suddenly, looking up from the calculations she's doodling on a pad of paper. Severis tugs down his sleeve and continues.

"Lord Ainsley-Ascot was persuaded by Dame Bathsheba Everdene to arrange the theft. She admits to having used hypnotism on him to help her persuasive efforts, not that it excuses his arrogant disregard for the law."

Quincey laughs out loud.

"We have her under arrest," Severis continues firmly. "She was a petty occultist fraud down in Whitechapel before a man named Gaston Unsecouth from Universal Exports sublet her rooms and convinced her to infiltrate society and gather information on people under the pretense of doing research for her seances. Thank you for confiscating her records, by the way; I understand they've contributed to MI5's dossiers on several prominent individuals.

"Everdene was not aware that Universal Exports owned the old brewery next to her tenement and was using her rooms as a secret entrance to hide their comings and goings."

Severis turns a page and glances up at Machilavellya and Dante, both released yesterday from MI5's hospital. Then he looks back down at the records.

"Universal Exports was using the brewery to house both its bomb-making facility and a laboratory being run by Dr. Kantu Sahan, an illegal immigrant from Damnare. We believe the books were being brought to him, or at least that he was going to examine them before they were shipped onward. The analytical engine in his laboratory contained a number of numerically coded occultist texts, and we have added those sets of punch cards to the stacks you had our agents make of the stolen books.

"Sahan died two hours after his arrest without regaining consciousness, but our scientists have gone through his laboratory notes. Apparently the doctor was experimenting with induced ontological atavisms. The four adults you encountered -- Alan Ernst, Mark Guimond, Iris Merino and Ralph McGinn -- had been cholera patients at the Poorfellows Hospital who'd volunteered for experimental drug therapy with Dr. Sahan." Severis smiles thinly. "The drugs did cure their cholera, but at a rather unpleasant cost. McGinn was the lupine gentleman Mr. Carleton here nearly killed and the 'New Ripper.' He's still in critical condition in the hospital, but the other three have made it clear that the unnatural chemicals coursing through their bloodstreams have left them in a delicate mental state and subject to murderous rages. Our chemists are experimenting with ways of stabilizing their tempers and reversing the atavisms.

"The eight infants had been exposed to Sahan's drugs in their mothers' wombs. Sahan's records indicate that their mothers were all poor women who were paid well to be subjected to the experiment and who were, apparently, quite happy to give up their deformed offspring at birth. MI5 is trying to track them down, although frankly I have no idea what the agency intends should they be found.

"In the meantime, the agency is keeping the children off-site and investigating methods of reversing the effects. Our chemists say that while the prognosis for the adults subjected to the drugs is hopeful, it will be much less likely that the children's morphological alterations can be altered. The agency will act as a surrogate parent to the children if that's the case."

Quincey snorts skeptically. Severis arches an eyebrow and shrugs.

"I expect that means they'll become agents. The fish-girl in particular could be quite useful to the agency. Don't scowl like that, Joker; their only other option is to become part of a freak show in a gipsy carnival, after all." He turns back to the records and continues.

"Five Universal Export agents were arrested. We're still interrogating them. They appear to be part of a well-trained military branch of Allied Enterprises about which the agency had been hitherto unaware. We haven't learned much else of interest from them except that they confirm having been assigned to work under a man named Gaston Unsecouth. It appears they had little to do with Dr. Sahan's side of the operation, although Unsecouth appears to have overseen that, as well. We have a bulletin out for Unsecouth's arrest in all corners of the empire -- Her Majesty has put a L2500 price on his head." Severis hands out copies of the man's description before any of the agents can ask. It's vague.

"All in all, everything went very well. MI5 came off smelling like roses on the Meneth scare and, as I'm sure you saw in the Sun-Herald, the Whitechapel incident has been written off as a gas main explosion that inadvertently revealed the 'New Ripper's' lair to the constabulary. We gave the Yard the credit for that one, which will keep the director happy, and I'm sure the rest of the rumors will die down soon enough. Even our lab boys are pleased, since they get to study the bombs, the automata, and Dr. Sahan's laboratory records. Anything to add to that, Adder?"

The kobkode stands, tail lashing back and forth.

"The bombs use a unique explosive device similar to that described in a paper written last year by Professor Tehr'say Rod'rygghys of the University of Cislunar. We're investigating a possible link between her or her students and Allied Enterprises. The automata are similar to those found in Dr. Hannibal Moriarty's estate before his arrest this summer, but it's likely that they were simply purchased from the same supplier. Our research indicates that the source may operate out of Cappadocia," Quincey nods briefly to Malcolm, "and we may send a team down there soon to investigate. They're very dangerous mechanisms, but they have limited calculation capacity and the unfortunate design flaw of their access panel being so easily located in their chests." Quincey smiles, the half of his jaw that is made of steel glinting unpleasantly. "My upgrades won't be as vulnerable."

"Louise, anything new on the stolen books?" asks Severis, when Quincey sits down.

"Hmm?" She looks up, blinks, then smiles pleasantly. "As Daniel discovered, the book thefts appear to be part of a countrywide pattern of thefts and purchases by an unknown party. The uniting themes appear to be the occult, the history of the Watchmakers -- those two often go together, of course -- and, more unusually, studies of Moha, both those books written before last year's exploratory expedition and the one or two that have been written since." She taps her pen on the pad. "The latter won't be of much use; they're poorly written works based primarily on hearsay and wild speculation, more fiction than fact.

"What is more distressing, however, is the news we received yesterday. Mr. Bennet Eaves, the head curator of the Imperial Museum, has undertaken a survey of the library's archived holdings to determine whether the thieves might have stolen anything of more substance than a few crackpot books on the occult. He reports that several boxes of Dr. Moriarty's scientific notes have vanished. The notes had been for Moriarty's _Physics of Planetary Movement_, a classic in the aethereonautical field, as you are all aware, and the docter had donated them four years ago at the museum's request when it decided to begin archiving his work. It seems impossible that the boxes could have contained anything of importance, since the book can be purchased at any bookstall from here to Shaykin, but the agency is discussing the possibility of sending in an agent to discuss the matter with Dr. Moriarty. Arranging the interview will be difficult, because of the security surrounding him, but Sir Mycroft Verner is a very persuasive man."

"So the occult books may not have been the primary objectives?" Severis asks.

"We don't know. None of Moriarty's papers were found in the backpacks you brought back," she says, turning to Trumps Beta, "and our operatives didn't find any in the automobiles after the wreckage was cleared, either. Mr. Eaves admits that the boxes could have been stolen some time ago and their theft only discovered now." She shrugs. "We're still investigating."

"If Moriarty's behind any of this, I'll pull a Zutini on his head myself," Quincey snarls, sentence ending in a dangerous growl. Severis and Louise glance at each other and at Dante.

"Right, well, I think that wraps up your part of the debriefing, Adder. Thank you. See you at lunch."

Quincey nods abruptly and walks out. Severis mutters something that sounds like 'operational limits my arse' and shuts the folder.

"Any questions?"