November 1931: Short Live the Queen

Katrina Krasnik, a resident of the Austro-Serbo-Hungarian Empire, has married King Edward of Great Britain. The Grimnoir naturally fear an Aussie plot (not an Australian plot, thank heavens) to influence the British. So they want to get their Finder, Doc Caliban, within range of Miss Krasnik to see if she's a vampire, a Mouth, or just a gold-digger. (That last is in jest; Doc doesn't understand women any more than the rest of us.)

The European Grimnoir should be on the case, but only one, Jack Hawksmoor, turns up. Seems they've had a couple of last-minute emergencies that have taken the attention of most of the Euros, and he can't seem to find the other English Grimnoir, Jenny Sparks, anywhere.

Hawksmoor is a unique Active, termed a "Citizen" by Doc: he is perfectly adapted to live in cities. He can jump and climb like Spider-Man, travel between cities, find people, and see through windows. Any window, anywhere. So getting into Buckingham Palace is blue tea for him, plus he can lead the others.

Jack calls Claire a "Blinky", George a "Bluebell" and Heinrich a "Shade", because, you know, England. They have their own names for all the Powers. And he thinks the Scots names for them are a hoot.

Once inside the Palace, everyone's Powers increase dramatically. Melody is able to keep from bursting into flame, but just barely. George shocks himself, Doc sees ghosts everywhere, and Monk feels the itch of every rat and spider in the place. Ham stays resolutely silent.

Extra Power isn't bad, so they sneak in further. They are spotted by Earl Grey, a Finder who sees the spirits in the steam from his tea. He's accompanied by Bulldog, a thin bespectacled librarian who may be the world's strongest Brute. Jack, Doc and Dex (in his antimatter-powered iron armor!) have their hands full with Bulldog. Everyone else dodges into different parts of the Palace.

Heinrich and Francis run into Franks, who is here on a secret mission. He can tell us, but then he has to kill us. He visibly thinks it over.

George, Melody, Ham, and Monk find the Royal Astronomer, who is looking at a chart of the sky. The chart updates continually; it's like a window to the stars, free of clouds, sunlight and glare. It shows a drifting crystalline starfish with tentacles, which Dex (were he here) would recognize as the Power itself. It also shows a narrow pyramid with many sculling wings and rows of red eyes diving toward the Power, on course to impale it like a harpoon.

The Astronomer is pleased by this. Soon, he says, he will be free of the Power at last! The Grimnoir don't see why that's a good thing, but then, they aren't demons trapped on Earth by the Power's influence. Once it's dead, they will regain their true strength and ... well, he doesn't say exactly what they plan to do, but he's got an evil laugh. Everyone's Powers fade out, so Melody shoots him. He didn't see that coming.

Once the Astronomer is blown to bits, he howls a last despairing demon-scream, which is answered by someone on the other side of a wall. Our heroes shoot two drums of Tommy-gun ammo through the wall, shooting the living heck out of Katrina Krasnik, who was being fitted for her wedding dress. She's a demon, obviously, and heals all her wounds with a gesture. This would be a difficult fight even if we HAD our Powers; since we don't, it's pretty bad.

Fortunately, the mirrors are expensive, backed with silver. And we know silver is poison to demons. Wounds made with silver don't heal; the offending weapon has to be plucked out of the wound first. So a handful of broken mirror fired from Heinrich's shotgun is going to take forever to fix!

This is not merely theoretical. Heinrich shoots her, and yes, it does indeed take forever.

Everyone feels a cold shock as the black creature from space (called a Void Ripper by Franks, as if he knows) stabs into the body of the Power.

Franks says, "Habbakukinell -- what the Hell are you doing here? Instead of in Hell." Habbakukinell recognizes Franks, who replies, "I beat you into surrender once, I can do it again," and punches her through the stone floor, although this blow destroys his hand.

As the Power ebbs, the demon gains in strength. Soon she's spitting poison and swinging razor-edged wings around like it's no effort at all. Dex holds forth his chemical virus which he made to destroy the Predator, after his in-depth interview with the Chairman. Dex says "Once I drink this, I will have ten times the access to the Power that I --" and doesn't even get to finish his sentence, because Katrina grabs it with her frog-tongue and swallows it whole. Green light erupts from a hole in her stomach, then two, then ten, then she's all green, then she's just gone, her matter converted into light and fear.

Unfortunately, that was all the virusol Dex had, and the Void Ripper is still sawing away at the Power up in space. Heinrich realizes that the chart in the Astronomer's room can see the Power in real time -- perhaps it reaches both ways? If only we had some kind of super-bomb that could fly up there ...

George, meanwhile, is concentrating on his Grimoir ring. He has a perfectly etched image of the Chairman, because Ham told everyone not to forget anything about their last encounter. George tries to contact the Chairman, who after all knows all about the Space Predator, and the Power spares one tentacle from grappling with the Void Ripper to send George a surge of Power. George uses every watt of that magic to make electricity, shoots it through the chart into the Void Ripper, and shocks it to death.

Every Active on Earth gets his Power back as the Power (the entity) recovers its health. Did the Chairman, in fact, save the world? No, as it turns out, because the Power sends an extra treat of Power down the line to its favorite human, George, whom it believes to be the Chairman.

George, although he may later reconsider, makes no attempt to correct the Power's mistake.

Franks admits to Francis that he's here to arrest Doc Caliban. And now that Francis knows the truth ... unfortunately, they are separated in the wild fight with the Palace's desperate demons which follows, so Franks doesn't get to arrest Doc, nor does he get to kill Francis. For now ...

Sources:

The Void Ripper is from the Chronicles of Old Guy, which I heartily recommend.
Jack Hawksmoor, like Jenny Sparks, is from The Authority.
Bulldog is from the World War II superhero game Godlike. That is also the source of the dice mechanics I use in this game, sorta-kinda.
Earl Grey is my own invention, from a Godlike game set in Colditz that I hosted 15 years ago.
The Astronomer is not the one from Wild Cards, and a good thing, too!
Katrina Krasnik originally appeared as a Communist agitator whose Dreamlands image was supernaturally beautiful, in a Call of Cthulhu/Dreamlands game in, let me see, 1988. All I had to do was point out that her limbs were as white as the foam on the wave, and the curve of her neck as graceful as a swan, and the boys lost all interest in killing her. The girls' interest in killing her, paradoxically, increased a hundredfold.