Play@YSDC

Long John cannot smell anything unusual - but he does feel Stephenson stirring, and a feeling of tugging or falling towards the station entrance.

Cautiously, I descend, trying to sense where the 'turn' on the map actually lies down the underground entrance.

"Come along John, don't tarry behind ... he who is left behind is lost!"

Long John performs a comic sniff at the air around him. "Bloody 'ell, sir, I can't smell nuffin'." He hobbles after Luke.

When I reach a point where I cannot smell the odour anymore I turn and retrace my steps and follow the smell back up to the surface once more. "Come along John, nearly there!" I say as I help my odorous companion up the last few steps back to the street.

Looking at the map once again I determine that I need to head off in this direction. "This way ... this is exciting is it not John?" I ask, not really expecting a response, other than maybe from the parrott. 'Intriguingly, the avian seems to be the brains of the pair,' I muse to myself with a grin breaking out on my face for the first time in what seems like ages

"Sure is exciting, sir," says Long John unenthusiastically.

The parrot cocks an eye at Luke. "Oooooo! He's smiling, smiling. Funny it is!"

I pause in my tracks and exhale slowly, in part to clear the odour from the man before me. "John, please ... I am not a Sir, far from it. Please call me Luke, it puts us on a much better footing don't you think - I believe it does? Let us not tarry now John!" Without waiting for an answer Luke continues to follow the map until his and Maraduke's senses tell him to deviate, or they come across an underground station.

Luke, Long John and Marmaduke continue on the route marked by Harwood, which leads them on from Leicester to Charing Cross Station.



As the two men walk towards the grand Victorian edifice, their attention is suddenly caught by a large group of young, fashionably dressed women, who have joined hands in a circle around the Eleanor Cross at the front. Drawing closer, the sound of plainsong can be heard in their sweet, high voices, although the words make no sense "caresa ta vavale zodirenu tol hami..."

A fierce wind presses through the square in front of the station, causing Marmaduke to flap in alarm and dig his claws into Long John's shoulder. The smell of church incense and hot iron fills the air. The wind whips around the Cross, forming a whirl of dust, rubbish, and then the young women, who are picked up like leaves in a hurricane! The geyser of dust abruptly drains down the entrance to the Underground, carrying the women with it, and the air is still again. No-one appears to have noticed anything odd.

I stand open mouthed at the spectacle we have just witnessed ... not sure if we have even seen it at all judging by the indifference of those passing by.

"It seems John that we must venture down here next. Keep Marmaduke's and your wits about you now."

Long John's lips move but a cultured, slightly high pitched voice emerges: "Enochian Magic. Those women were chanting words of power"--abruptly the tone changes to pure "East End"--"Bloody Hell! Lead on, Mr. Carse."

Perhaps anticlimactically, the Underground station appears much the same as it always does, full of the frenetic bustle, screetches of metal and oily smells of the modern age. Following their noses and subliminal promptings from Stevenson, the two men descend and then reascend again, as they have done twice before.

When they return to the surface, they blink, as dusk appears to be coming on early. Perhaps it is an oncoming storm, but a lamplighter is already lighting the streetlights. Hang on, isn't this area on the electricity?

"MY tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky;
It’s time to take the window to see Leerie going by;
For every night at teatime and before you take your seat,
With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

Now Tom would be a driver and Maria go to sea,
And my papa’s a banker and as rich as he can be;
But I, when I am stronger and can choose what I’m to do,
O Leerie, I’ll go round at night and light the lamps with you!

For we are very lucky, with a lamp before the door,
And Leerie stops to light it as he lights so many more;
And O! before you hurry by with ladder and with light;
O Leerie, see a little child and nod to him to-night!

"Jesus!" blasphemes Long John, "where did that verse come from?" He wonders: "There hasn't been gas streetlights since my pa was a boy." The incontinent Marmaduke poops again--a squirt of ochre fecal matter drips down Long John's tatty coat.

Long John's phrase about Enochian power is not lost on me and I look sideways at the dishevelled man standing next to me, but decide to say nothing at present, choosing instead to watch my companion more closely. "Had I heard him aright? Enochian Magic? I would have scoffed at such notions before these recent events but now ..."

"I cannot remember gas lights being hereabouts either Long John, and although I cannot swear to it I am almost certain the lights were of the more modern electric variety." I creased my brow trying to think back ... "Perhaps we are getting closer to our goal." I shake my head to clear the thoughts that were crowding in.

As the two men stand in the courtyard of Charing Cross, looking askance at the street lights, they are abruptly forced to jump aside by a horse-drawn hansom cab - a rare sight since the War. The driver yells something at them in antiquated cockney slang before pulling up at the station's taxi rank.

"Oi! Bloody watch where you're driving!" yells Long John, one arm gesticulating, then he re-grabs his crutch and hobbles over to the taxi rank.

"Hsst - John. Come here for a moment."

Assuming he does I continue; "Let us not get distracted from our task in hand my good man, this may be important to our friends back at the bookshop as well as ourselves. Now I am not from London or it's environs myself, but this looks distinctly odd to my jaundiced eye." I gesture at the scene before us "Hansom cabs, and the strange way that coachman talked to you ... does that suggest anything to you ... anything at all?"

I look squarely at the scruffy man before me and once again think that he is more than he seems. 'What was it he said again ... Enochian Magic? I would have to look that subject up upon my return to the shop.'

"It's like a dream," says Long John, "of how it was in the . . . well, the past; although I'm still missing me leg"--he seems a bit miffed. "I won't get distracted, but I want to see who that passenger is in the cab." Long John hops across to the taxi rank so that he can see.

Long John hops forward to look into the passenger area, and sees...

What Long John sees,A distinguished-looking, elderly military gentleman. It is Field Marshal John French, British commander at the disastrous Battle of Ypres where John lost his leg, and dead these last eight years. [img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/John_French%2C_1st_Earl_of_Ypres%2C_Bain_photo_portrait%2C_seated%2C_cropped.jpg/441px-John_French%2C_1st_Earl_of_Ypres%2C_Bain_photo_portrait%2C_seated%2C_cropped.jpg[/img] French leans stiffly forward to stare back at John. As his face moves into the dying light, the flesh seems to fade as if under an X-ray, leaving only a skull, grinning fixedly in John's direction. [i]Stability test for John! Difficulty 6 against a 3 point loss. Each Stability point spent adds 2 to the roll as per house rule (see house rule thread)[/i]

Stability test,[url=http://invisiblecastle.com/roller/view/4334558/]Stability test; 2 pts. spent; a roll of 2 or higher to succeed. (1d6=3)[/url]

Long John staggers and almost falls, with his peg leg slipping along the grating of a drain; almost falls, but not quite.