“Pulvis et umbra sumus”
(We are but dust and shadow)
Horace: Book IV, ode vii, line 16
A tabletop fantasy roleplaying game set in and adjacent to 18th Century England.
“Pulvis et umbra sumus”
(We are but dust and shadow)
Horace: Book IV, ode vii, line 16
A tabletop fantasy roleplaying game set in and adjacent to 18th Century England.
Porto,
4th August 1769
Dear Ned
So are come Full Circle in the Matter of the Mainborough Gate. Though often baffling for one not intimately involved, I have followed the Tale closely from your Reports and Letters over the Years.
As I understand it, the old Jew, Solomon ben Ezra, gave you a Sigil that brought you to the very Time and Place appropriate to your Need. It nevertheless took three Attempts. However, you destroyed the Armies of the Dead by Shining Sunlight upon them from Enochian Lamps and pursued them back through their own Gates to the Lands of Dust and the Mainborough Gate.
When you entered the Mainborough Gate you found yourself in Turkey in 1765. You hear the Discordant Trumpets and the Clash of Cymbals as the Janissaries approach (as the 1765 vintage Mustard, Rao, Blunt et al flee their Arrival). An older and wiser Mustard resets the very Fuse that he previously cut, so that Mr Wright’s Charge of Powder will destroy the Gate. How Mr Wright would laugh did he but know! You flee back through the Gate as the fuse burns down. In the Lands of Dust, the Gate winks out into Nothingness. The Threat of a Turkish infiltration of London goes with it. Hopefully these eldritch Anunaki Spirits are imprisoned once more.
You encounter the Guardian before the Gates of Eden. She does not quite seem to recognise you, but does recognise her Signs about your Person. She offers you Ashton, who is lying beneath her coils, but you decline as his Eyes glow green and you are sick of listening to ranting Dissenters.
Legions of the Dead approach. You repel them with Enochian Sunlight and Puckle-gun fire from Tallow. You depart the scene and head to Flyte’s Hole where you know there to be a “natural” Gate back to our World. En route you meet the Guardian again. This time she does not recognise you at all – though again she notes her Signs. She warns you never to return – perhaps you should take her at her Word. Your Party is intact as you flip through Flyte’s Hole and back into Surrey in 1769 and thence back to Lady Diana’s Tillingbourne Estate.
So once more the Old Jew came to the Rescue of the Realm. It seems that we cannot expect him to do so again. Now he wanders through these Magical Realms – the Sephiroth as Maxwell calls it – seeking his Maker. At least he has a Companion in the mysterious Josephine, which is more than had the Wandering Jew of Ancient Legend. I do not know what to make of Lady Diana’s strange and precocious Niece, Inanna. Did an eight year old really accompany you on this wild Adventure?
Now to London to make Report to the Duke of Brunswick? I wish you Good Luck with that. Last time you saved London from Existential Threat, None could recall it. I wish you better Fortune this Time. At least you have the core of your Second Command still with you: Hobbes, Sutcliffe, Tallow, Natter and Wainsthrop, as well as your Advisors Rao and Mendoza and your Lady Love Miss Chatterton (and her strange Niece). At least they will remember what you have all wrought.
Be assured that your name is still remembered in your Regiment – even though the Men have not seen you in an Age. A Colonel’s Inspection is Overdue. I must say that Porto is a much better Billet than Lisbon. The Water is cleaner, as are the Whores, and the Wine is excellent. No Sign of a War though. I don’t suppose your recent Exploits have brought it nearer – unless it is deemed the Right Time for a Counter-strike against the Turk who we must hope are in Great Confusion.
Your Friend and Obedient Servant,
Nathaniel Pepper, Lieutenant-Colonel, Mustard’s Dragoons
FAO: His Grace the Duke of Brunswick
London
May 1769
Your Grace will doubtless be aware that I was Approached last Month by Mr George Smith of the War Office requesting Assistance in Regards to Developments in Paris. As he suggested to me that this Venture had your Approval, I readily agreed.
Once I had disabused him of the Notion that I could simply appear in Paris by Magic, he furnished me with a clandestine Naval Craft commanded by the excellent Midshipman Phillip Neville (who has my highest Commendation). I departed with all due haste for Paris, with some Companions, including my fiancée, Lady Diana Chatterton – better to support the Notion that this was a Social Visit rather than anything Official.
We discovered a City that was just about managing to function with a Semblance of Normality during Day, but under Siege throughout the Night by Denizens of the Lands of Dust. We have encountered these Relicts of ancient Armies many Times in those Lands. They typically march in Serried Ranks with Spears and Shields and we have always sought to avoid rather than cross Blades with them.
Local Accounts of what was occurring at Night in Paris were confused. So, with the Co-operation of Colonel Deternier of the 13th, we mounted a Night Reconnaissance. This led us to Three important Observations.
Our First Observation is that there are Two Factions amongst the Marching Dead, who appeared to be implacable Enemies, Each to the Other. Such Parisians as are foolish enough to be on the Streets at Night are certainly at Risk but the Undead Armies are far more intent on fighting Each Other.
The Second Observation – and possibly the most important – is that they cannot abide the Light of the Sun. This may seem an obvious Conclusion given that they appear only at Night and that Nothing remains of them but Dust come the Dawn. However, as Chance might have it, on our recent Visit to Birmingham, both Myself and Mr Tonkins purchased Enochian Lanterns that conjure Sunlight. These were were found to be Most Efficacious in Destroying the Denizens of the Lands of Dust.
Our Third Observation is that there is plainly a Gate to the Lands of Dust in Operation in Paris, for at the End of the Night, there was a clear Exodus to a particular Point Underground. I contemplated further Exploration, but felt that we were not Fully Prepared for Further Action and that the Intelligence that we had already obtained was sufficiently Important that it should be communicated directly to Your Grace.
If I may make so Bold, I have two Recommendations arising from the Paris Reconnaissance.
The First Recommendation may be reasonably considered a Matter of Policy and therefore outside my Purview. However, it is my personal Opinion that I should be directed to return to Paris immediately, appropriately equipped, to close down the Gate. There will no doubt be Those who argue that whatever does Harm to the French, is to be Welcomed. My Counter-Argument is that any Ingress into our World from that Place is to be Deprecated. Every such Gate has the potential to be used by the Turk (and indeed Enemies much more sinister even than the Turk). The Potential for Paris and France falling to the Ottoman, should give Pause for Thought even to the most ardent in anti-French Sentiment. I also feel that there is a Moral Dimension to this Matter. For all our Ancient Enmity the French, like Us, are Human. We know that there are Forces beyond that Gate that are Inimical to all Humanity. We believe that the Turks have fallen under their malign Influence, we should not abandon our Fellow Humans to that Influence, even if they are French.
Irrespective of His Grace’s View on my First Recommendation, I beg him to act upon the Second.
The War Office should take Measures to Secure as many Enochian Devices that cast Sunlight as they can obtain and then commission the manufacture of more. I would point out that these are militarily useful Devices even aside from their Efficacy against the Armies of the Lands of Dust. They seem remarkably inexpensive in Birmingham.
I remain Your Grace’s most obedient servant,
Edward Mustard, Brigadier.
Beloved Bapu-ji,
Most unexpectedly we have been to the French capital of Paree, and are likely imminently to return there. If I should not return, I wish you to know what has become of me.
When we first returned from Birmingham and Derby, Colonel Mustard had some army business to attend to with new recruits: poor souls willing to forgo reincarnation in favour of a very prolonged and — in some regards only — enhanced life in Bhuloka. The process is horrific physically and spiritually, and I chose not to be present when they surrendered all hope of Nirvana, or even the Abrahamist heaven, to become marionettes of clay.
It was while we awaited the Colonel’s pleasure that we first heard of trouble in Paree.
Since we encountered the Red King in his Loka, it seems that the walls between Paree and another Loka have thinned to the extent that there are nightly incursions of the dead into the cellars and streets of the capital. There was some suggestion of a tide; whether metaphoric or literal remained unclear — the appearances were linked with low, damp places like cellars and wells. The date when the incursions started did not tally with our destruction of the engines used to reach the Red King’s Loka, so the exact cause is similarly unclear; they started before the engines were destroyed.
As before when such things have been encountered, some claimed that their vacant eye sockets glowed red or green, and it was noted that as well as attacking the living, the dead fought between themselves.
Having introduced ourselves to the authorities — such as remained — we were directed to a market place courtyard, surrounded by mean residences and alleyways. Most pertinently, however, it had a single entrance archway that might perhaps be defended against the egress of the phantoms.
In that archway we established our engine in such a way that the Area of the passageway would be Warded against the fiends, while the broader avenue outside was covered by a troop of French musketeers in case we fell before them. (We had little apprehension of such an outcome, but the French were of course unfamiliar with our ability.)
A volunteer was instructed by Colonel de Tournier of the 13th Foot to accompany, guide and observe us: Sous-Lieutenant Jean Tiens-Laplace. Being a little short of hands, we were careful to instruct Tiens-Laplace to initiate the work of the protective engine by striking the appropriate lever.
With midnight, the first of a multitude of skeletal apparitions appeared and of an instant Tiens-Laplace was so unmanned that he fled precipitately, without so much as striking the lever first. Attendant upon his departure, a volley of musket fire was heard from the avenue.
This left us in a position of some embarrassment, for trusting the Frenchman with the simplest of tasks we had all advanced to engage and drive back the fiends that we might pursue them to their lair — in consequence, leaving the arch unguarded by man or machine.
Fortunately, the English men accompanying me did not between them have the “fortitude” of a single Frenchman, but trusted in my ability to save them. While they held back the numerous hordes, I fought my way back to the engine and began its machinations. With a safe refuge established, and the dead commencing to fight each other, we retreated to observe for what remained of the night.
The tide ebbed and flowed, but it seemed a constant once they encountered each other that they fought among themselves — a fact that made our own withdrawal a simpler affair, as they abandoned us for their privy combats.
In time, a chastened Sous-Lieutenant crawled to join us, his tunic more perforated — by some generous fortune — than his torso.
When morning dawned, the dead returned to their holes, and as swiftly as we followed we saw little of where they went — as the last departed into the dark, the very shadows pursued him so that all that was left was a cellar of four walls.
By the light of day we were delivered in more ways than one, for it had emerged in darkness that the defence most effective against the creatures of night was a portable engine of daylight, some few of which had of late been purchased in Birmingham.
We returned to London, to revisit Paree better equipped anon.
Namaste,
Your dutiful Nripendra