Tales from the Archives: The Original Adventure Entertainment - Chapter One

Our Chief Archivist, Herr Marchall, has been hunting through the heap of surviving documents that chronicle the past Adventure Entertainments of our band of Heroes & Heroines.  Sadly, over the years, the collection has become dispersed and so there are places where the records are a little incomplete.  Perhaps, with diligent searching these episodes may yet see the light of day…

For your Delectation and Entertainment, here are brief summaries of the Narrative which Herr Marchall has managed to piece together.

Chapter One.

What Has Gone Before.

In which the Despicable Steam Lords of Britain attempt to tighten their grip on the Emerald Isle and then turn their attentions to threaten La Belle France!

Our story began early in 1871…..

Dramatis Personae:

Captain Alan Horatio Montgomery - A British Steamship Captian

The Honourable Cornelius Fortesque-Smythe - A Well-Travelled British Hunter

Dr. Frederick Bletherington-Smythe - A British MD

Señor Geronimo Dedosliberos - An Itinerant Spanish Dentist

Fortesque-Smythe received a telegram from an old chum, Robert Lawton, whose coastal, country estate, Shelton Hall, in Cumbria was experiencing a series of strange phenomena. Will-o-the-Wisps had been frequently sighted and fish had been found dead in some number along the sands of the estate.

Shelton Hall

After examining the area, testing dead fish, trying to contact local Faerie and finally staking out the site overnight, the group of Investigators found the True Cause of all the Botherations.  A Top Secret Steam-powered Behemoth of a Tunnelling Engine was being tested and the effects of marsh-gas and other chemicals being released in the drilling were causing the problems on Lawton’s estate.

Breaking into the buildings on site, Our Heroes discovered that once the tunnel being cut under the Irish Sea was completed, the Steam Lords intended to use it to transport troops rapidly to Ireland to crush any opposition to them that arose there. Furthermore, the documents that they acquired hinted that they then aimed to build a Fantastic Tunnel beneath the English Channel and make use of it to Invade La Belle France!

Dr. Bletherington-Smythe and Señor Dedosliberos proved themselves to be Great Diplomats and eventually persuaded the Brownies who were labouring on the project to transmogrify into Gremlins and sabotage the device and the manufactory producing it.

The Dastardly Steam Lords used their Great Political Power to have our Company of Heroes declared as Traitors to their Nation! Captain Montgomery made use of his maritime contacts to find a ship that would smuggle them out of Britain to exile on the Continent.

Soon after, the party was contacted by a circle of Fenian rebels, who wanted to thank them for saving Ireland and to enlist their aid in a future venture. Our Honourable Heroes shunned their advances and utterly refused to countenance Treason against Her Majesty Queen Victoria, despite Her Government’s false accusations against them.

During the meeting, Señor Dedosliberos discovered that one of the Fenian Circle’s leaders, Miles O’Dowd, was a Double Agent for the British Secret Service. A new contact in the Paris Sûreté informed Fortesque-Smythe that O’Dowd had been the person who signed the warrant for their arrest in Britain!

After a Wild, and Malodorous, Chase through the sewers of Paris, they cornered O’Dowd and killed him in an exchange of gunfire. His body was washed away down the sewer and never recovered.

Host’s notes:

This Chapter ran in the first half of 1996.

Worthy of High Merit: Phil & Chris (Dr. Bletherington-Smythe and Señor Dedosliberos) for their great role-playing during the attempt to enlist the aid of the Brownies in the manufactory.