Editing In Which Our Heroes Are Introduced

Game Date: 24 Jul 2010<br>
Present: Cindy, Kim, Maer, Andy, and Jim<br><br><br>


'''''August 14, 1867, Wednesday'''''<br>
'''''Lady Katherine’s Townhouse'''''<br>
'''''Dorset Square, near Regent’s Park'''''<br>
'''''London, England'''''<br>
'''''7:00 P.M.'''<br><br>

Josephine Gabrielle Arceneaux is called home to England on short notice and ordered to attend the salon of Katherine Elizabeth Meridian Fleming.  One of her distinguished guests is an inventor, Mr. Roger Mortimer, with a steam engine innovation that could give the British Crown a significant edge over her enemies.  It is Arceneaux’s mission to examine the device during a demonstration of its operation at the salon and report to her superiors as to its merits.  She is left to her own devices to procure proper attire for this salon and given its location in the fashionable artist community of Chelsea, Arceneaux manages a meeting with a famous artist’s model who loans her a dress from the artists’s wardrobe collection.  It isn’t quite the fashion for a salon, but Arceneaux gamely attends.  She is admitted because Katherine’s father invited Arceneaux personally and therefore cannot be refused entrance.  Her unfashionable attire does cause Beignet to swoon from shock.  She causes him to swoon again when she indulges in a post-prandial cigarette.<br><br>

Other attendees of the salon are a Selene Dashwood, a cat person and fiancée of Mortimer.  Ezekiel (middle name not yet known) Drake, a moneyed eccentric; Flora Spenser, a kept woman and amnesiac, Mrs. Helena Gordon and her son Lt. Henry Gordon; BertramWorchester Maxfield-Fleming, a dilettante and cousin to Katherine. Also attending are Countess Ezrabet Rembecki and her associate, Nicolai.<br><br>

During the demonstration of the Mortimer’s boiler innovation, the room blacks out and the inventor is snatched.  Arceneaux quicly realizes a kidnapping is in progress and leaps forward through the dark to retrieve and protect Mortimer.  She is hampered in her endeavor by her attire and manages to grab the ankle of a male person she hopes is her target.  It is not.  The man kicks her about the head and shoulders, his language revealing him to be Nicolai. Further noise in the dark reveals it is Countess Rembecki who has snatched the inventor.  Arceneaux hangs on to him, realizing she dares not let go if she is to learn the whereabouts of the inventor and that Nicolai might be a valuable hostage in exchange for Mortimer.<br><br>

The invention is knocked over in the scuffle, steam and hot water and live coals are spilled across the room and some of the curtains are set afire.  For some reason, the fire does not make the room brighter. It remains unnaturally dark.  A window is broken and soon thereafter, the darkness winks out and normal light is restored.  Arceneaux verifies she does indeed have Nicolai by the leg and puts him into an elbow lock submission hold and looks out the broken window.  Countess Rembecki is FLYING with the unconscious bodies of both the Mortimer and Selene Dashwood, flying with some difficulty over the rooftops of Dorset Square toward the Thames.<br><br><br><br>

Go forward to '''''[[The Blind Beak]]'''''<br>
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