A Welsh Denouement
Excerpt from Shadow Game, by J. G. Arceneau, still at large
Friday, May 29th, 1868
Backwater town in Wales
2300hrs, local time
The Frost Giant was vanquished, the last shots delivered, the last spell cast. The last of the dust had settled. With Alexi's parting words ringing in memory, with Rebecca's shocked silence underlying his disapprobation, Josephine studied the ruined railway car and the corpse tied to the chair. The spy was quite a ruin, barely more than a shell to provide the doorway through which the Frost Giant was meant to arrive. Josephine duly committed the details to memory and once she was certain she had the entire incident firmly fixed in her mind, she quit the car to change. The Colonel would need a report and she would have to send it.
Of course, since it was well after the hour the telegraph office had already closed for the night, it would require a bit of stealth to send that report off and by God, Josephine was not going to do it in a corseted dress and ladies' heels. She shut herself up in the compartment she shared with Evie and quickly exchanged what she wore with what she considered her working clothes: her jodhpurs and boots, her harness and knives, her gun and sword, her long coat and hat. She donned a dark lawn blouse instead of her wool fisherman's sweater deference to the weather and pinned her hair securely up before concealing it under her hat. Black greasepaint camouflaged her face and gloves missing their fingertips hid her hands. She had some burgling to do and the less visible she was in the dark the better.
The moon was only a night past the first quarter, making the night deeper, and Josephine was thankful for the additional cover. It occurred to her that the agent might have had more compatriots shadow her team to the train and thereafter lie in wait for anyone leaving. Therefore she left the train by way of an access hatch in the floor, crawling under the train car and eeling down the rail embankment instead of stepping off at either end where the opposition would be watching. It was with that in mind that Josephine eschewed walking the cindered tracks and instead hugged the base of the embankment The grass grew tall on the verge and by bending at the waist, her head was hidden by the bank and the greenery. Thus hidden from prying eyes, the walk to the train station went uneventfully and despite the darkness of the Welsh countryside, Josephine made good time. She was grateful for the opportunity to practice her outdoors skills divorced from the urban environment of London. Unlike the great metropolis that never truly slept, with its ever-present noise and odors masking her passage, the night surrounding her was relatively silent and clean. Of course, the countryside produced its own din and the night was never truly quiet. The racket of insects and night birds, the occasional call from livestock or bark of a dog, kept the countryside from the silence of a tomb. Even so, under the right conditions, relatively small sounds could carry a mile or more.
She approached the train station cautiously, hanging back in the tree line opposite the tracks to observe the building and its environs for movement. The telegraph office might be closed for business, but if memory served, a late train passed through here on its way to Cardiff and points east. A switch operator would have to remain on duty until it had passed before he could secure the station and go home. Josephine pulled her father's watch and cupped it with her other hand to hide any shine off it from the moon.
2330 hours. Should be here any minute now.
Even then she could feel the faint vibration emanating from the ground as the train drew near, the sound of its approach muffled by the hills and dells of the landscape. A hiss was all the warning she got before it roared into view around a shoulder of the land and it screamed past the station, its whistle at full-blast. Josephine used the human inclination to duck away from the noise to cover her crossing over to the platform, there to hide in the shadow of a pile of crates. She waited until the last clack on the rails echoed to silence and the crickets resumed their chorus before rising and setting her lockpicks to the telegraph office door.
Once inside she allowed herself to relax—it was deserted as she'd hoped. Feeling her way carefully around the counter to the rear where the equipment stood, she unlocked the key and gave it an experimental tap. A clack rewarded her effort and she sent a prayer Heavenward for the officer's reluctance to muck about with the battery. Made of electrodes suspended in a chemical solution, she herself was chary of handling such a thing. Pulling a chair up to the counter, Josephine closed her eyes, composed her message, and encrypted it. With a deep breath, she put her finger to the key and tapped out what she read off her eyelids and waited for the receipt of signal to come back.
Received.
When no reply followed, Josephine locked the key down and quit the office as covertly as she came. She kept her eyes and ears open on the walk back to Alexi's train, enjoying the solitude and yet remaining on razor's edge for the adversary. It reminded of the six weeks she'd tramped through Bavaria with her father so many years ago, travelling by night to avoid detection during the day, sleeping in barns when they could, in the woods when they couldn't. He'd taught her what he knew every step of the way—how to live off the land, how to turn it to her advantage for weaponry or concealment, the marks of animals and the information gained by them, the habits of the human animal and their likely actions when cornered or threatened. With her memories to keep her company, she felt closer to her father than she'd had in months and for a change, it did not overwhelm her with sadness. Instead she imagined him gauging her performance and she wondered how she'd fared.
She was 100 yards from the train when she spied three figures approaching it. Going by their silhouettes she recognized Billy, Pop, and Svetlana. Josephine hung back and timed their boarding as a distraction so she could return via the hatch unobserved, knowing that they would draw enemy fire—if enemy watchers there were. Billy and his friends obliged her objective by making a noisy business of boarding the train and Josephine returned to her compartment without incident. Flushed from her solo excursion, she wasn't entirely sure if she was disappointed to have avoided battle. The entire action with the spy and the Frost Giant, though harrowing toward the end, left her unsatisfied. She had hoped to deliver the spy to the Colonel for further questioning and now she would have nothing but a corpse. She recalled the message she'd sent:
DETAINED SUBJECT IN WALES FOR QUESTIONING. STOP. ASCERTAINED MEMBER OF R.'S FACTION. STOP. SUBJECT SELF-EXPIRED TO PROVIDE GATE FOR F.GNT. STOP. FG VANQUISHED. STOP. K.'S CONVEYANCE SUSTAINED SOME DAMAGE. STOP. FULL REPORT UPON F2F DEBRIEF. STOP. ORDERS? STOP. -JGA.
In the absence of any orders, Josephine was free to decide what she and her team should do next. Should she press on after the Avalon site reputed to be in Wales? Was it possible that more of the Atlantian manuscript would be found there?
That would certainly make Rebecca happy. She's been very much a fish out of water in the clandestine trade and unless I've missed my guess, her name in magical circles has taken a beating this night. Alexi could not have looked upon a child murderer with any more revulsion than he had upon her. Someone should talk to her about her black runes, and soon. Otherwise I will have to do something regrettable to ensure her safety and Alexi's should we continue to travel together.
Yes, soon. But what?
Josephine hated to admit it but she wished she could communicate with Dionysius Beignet. Pompous and arrogant and insufferably priggish though the Hobbit was, he was undeniably a superior mage and would be invaluable in tutoring Rebecca in the safe handling of her magic. Whatever he did not know himself, he certainly could contact those who did.
When next I return to London, I shall have to send my card and arrange a meeting. If they haven't yet come to a side agreement on their own, it is high time they did.
So ran her thoughts as she changed out of her gear and donned something more suitable for sleep—a long man's robe with a simple woman's chemise beneath. The hem and sleeves of the robe were long, even on a tall woman as herself, and assured of modesty and yet freedom of movement, Josephine settled with her case notes to write up a more formal report of the night's events. She had the compartment alone. Evie was engaged with Alexi. Rather noisily so. Josephine followed their activity with half an ear, alert for mishap or mayhem, but otherwise leaving the new lovers their privacy. She was deep in her report when the noise stopped and it was a measure of her preoccupation that she only realized it some unknown time later. Searching back through her memory, she replayed what she'd subconsciously observed and decided nothing was amiss. She had good reason to know how vigorous Alexi was and how tired he could make his bed partner. She smiled down at the journal in her lap.
Good for you. Ride him, Evie.
She sharpened her pencil and put it to paper again, bringing the last of her detailed account to a close.
Since any campaign is a collaborative effort, Journal and RP entries by our other players can be read here.
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