#149: Untold Tales of the Lair Legion and Forebears: What Mortals Are Not Meant To Know
Meanwhile, the Hooded Hood has used the confusion to further his own agenda and gain an interview with the mysterious founder of ITC, Dame Jana, an ancient creature from before time. We have a lot going on, so naturally we start our story with a cast and plotline that seem to be a long way off from where the action is; because things really just aren’t complex enough. “There is properly no history; only biography.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson The bleak spit of rock off the Northumbrian coast was linked to the mainland only by a track across the sands that vanished with the rising tide. Even now it was covered in places so the carriage wheels splashed through the sea, sending up sprays of spume as the horses raced frantically through the waves. “Faster, man,” Father Septimo Alarçon called from the rocking coach’s interior. “They’re gaining on us!” Florentino de Clement ignored him and concentrated on keeping the pair of horses under control. They were near to exhaustion already, and if he pushed them any harder they would fall dead in their traces. Besides, the panic they were experiencing was already driving them harder than the Italian cartographer ever could do. Sarah of Dunboggie leaned out from the carriage and peered backwards through the wet mists. “I can’t see them,” she reported. “But in this weather I’m not surprised.” “Oh, they’re there,” Father Septimo promised her. The Jesuit scowled. “And they know if they’re going to catch us they have to do it before we reach the priory.” The carriage rocked wildly as it caught a submerged rock but de Clement kept it going. “I don’t understand,” admitted Buckland Dean. The scholar had been saying that a lot since his new companions had saved him from Provost Malvolio Frost’s inquisition in Venice. “Why are they so keen to get me?” “To get us,” Sarah corrected him with one of those heart-stopping little smiles. “Frost wants us all in his dungeons, every scholar of the Improbable College.” Dean tried to follow. “Is that where we’re going then? Is this priory the Improbable College?” Father Septimo snorted. “There is no one place that is the Improbable College, Master Dean. It is an idea, a concept, an inspiration held in the minds and hearts of those who are members. That is why Malvolio Frost and his lackeys can pursue us till doomsday and will never be able to find where it is hidden.” The marker was almost completely covered by the rising waters, but de Clement was an experienced traveller and noted the breakers swelling over the low milestone. He wheeled the carriage, tilting it dangerously so that water actually washed across the floor of the cab. Dean tried to work out why it was so important to get to the priory. “But… this abbey will give us sanctuary, then? Frost won’t be able to get to us?” “The abbot is one of us,” Sarah told him, “An Improbable. And he has ways of making us simply disappear from under Frost’s nose.” Buckland Dean wondered how literally to take this. Since eight weeks earlier when the Provost had come for him in the night because his scientific observations had revealed the existence of a hidden race of Abhumans of which Malvolio Frost was a bastard member he had learned to redefine the world impossible. Then a shot hammered into the carriage, shattering fragments of woodwork as the lead ball embedded itself into the frame. “Damn! Here they come!” hissed Florento de Clement. He stood on the driver’s board and discharged his musket back at the grey horsemen who were now appearing out of the sea fog. “We’ll never get away like this,” Buckland Dean judged, cautiously ducking his head out of the carriage window to see the hunters. “Sarah, help me get my case open.” The natural philosopher’s fingers were still healing from Frost’s earlier ministrations. Sarah of Dunboggie didn’t question him. Her nimble hands unlatched the leather holdall Dean had purchased in London. He pointed to a thick glass jar filled with grey lumps suspended in oil. “That,” he told the adventuress. “Take the lid off carefully then tip the whole lot into the sea behind us.” Father Septimo watched with interest. “Flowers of phosphorus?” he guessed as the slivers of metal hit the water and burst into actinic flame. The horsemen, who had been only a couple of lengths behind the coach, plunged from rearing horses and toppled into the sound. Florento grinned. Of all the Improbables he was the only one actually enjoying the chase. The sea was shallower now, and he could just see the track leading up the shore onto the sometimes-island ahead. “I love science,” he announced to the world. “On, lads! On!” Then the horses screamed and foundered, dragged over in their harness. The carriage rolled with them, toppling on its side and crashing into the water. The horses were pulled under and the sea around them blushed red with blood. De Clement was thrown free. He struggled to get to his feet – the water here was less than four feet deep – but strong webbed hands grabbed him and tried to pull him under. Buckland Dean saw four pale flaccid humanoid shapes rise up from the sea. Seven feet tall with thin emaciated faces surmounted by distinctive bone head-crests, these obviously amphibian beings had webbed hands terminating in vicious claws. Sarah was already ahead of him, pushing open the carriage door that was now the roof of their toppled coach and helping Father Septimo out. Dean plunged into his bag again and dredged up a sealed package in oilpaper. “Throw this at them!” he called to her urgently. The adventuress caught the package and spilled it over the three approaching amphibians. The white salts of alum adhered to their wet bodies, absorbing moisture from them, forcing them to dive back down beneath the waves to wash it off. Florento de Clement surfaced again, bloody rapier in hand. “Run for land!” he called out. “I’ll hold these creatures off!” Dean and Father Septimo were atop the crashed carriage now, but they saw the horsemen behind them closing fast. Land was too far away. “We’re not going to make it,” Sarah realised. “Oh.” But the Jesuit was looking at a sea that had become suddenly luminescent, and a sky that had turned a colour never seen in nature. “Everybody,” he called out, “hold on!” There was a ripple like nature hiccupping, and then the sea mists scattered as if dispersed by a giant’s breath. When the fog cleared, amphibians and mercenaries alike were gone. Only the four soaked Impossibles remained on their wrecked carriage in the shallows by the island. “What… what was that?” gasped Buckland Dean. “Everything went… it was…” “Don’t look a gift dimension-shift in the mouth, I always say,” shrugged Sarah of Dunboggie. “Well I don’t say it always, but when it seems appropriate.” Another figure appeared on the shore. He was a Moor, dressed in the rich colourful clothes of a North African traveller. He was such an incongruous sight that Dean wondered if he was still suffering from the shock that had made him imagine amphibian humanoids and vanishing horsemen. “Samuel the Falconer!” Sarah cried out joyfully as she recognised the newcomer. And sure enough, as she spoke, a large hunting bird wheeled down and alighted on the Moorish scholar’s arm. He waited solemnly while they rescued what they could of their baggage and waded the remaining distance to land. Then he gave them a formal little nod and a big toothy smile. “Welcome to Herringcarp Priory,” he bade them. “The Marquis is waiting to receive you.” The Brainless Ones poured out of a rift between dimensions from their subterranean caves in the Far Mythlands and spilled out amongst the teeming crowds in Paradopolis Plaza. The slate-grey one-eyed monoliths lumbered forwards, their huge single eyes firing their paralysation beams to hold humans still long enough for two-fingered hands that could crush steel to rip them to shreds. Except that one young woman somersaulted over the screaming masses and managed to kick one of the Brainless Ones back into its neighbour. Interpreting this as an attack the second monster lashed out in reprisal. Soon the growing mass of invaders from another dimension were preoccupied with each other and any civilians in the plaza were able to flee. Dancer had no time to celebrate though. Three of the Brainless Ones turned their paralysis beams upon her, and only by performing a perfect splits and then a triple barrel roll was she able to avoid their deadly assault. “Hey, LL,” she called into her communicator. “A little back-up, please?” “Backing up right now!” promised CrazySugarFreakBoy!, blurring over the rooftops and binding together the monsters with thick wads of silly string. “Who sent out for Ditko monsters?” “They’re pouring through that door hanging over the Plaza,” Dancer pointed out. “There must be thousands of them through there. We’ve got to get it closed.” “They’re Brainless Ones, originally indigenous to the Dreary Dimension,” the Librarian called out. “I’m looking for a way to deal with them, but I need more information.” His hands raced over the colourful subway diagram map by the steps down to the Plaza station. “Um, yes, that’ll help,” agreed Dancer diplomatically. “But closing the portal?” “Tough one,” agreed the newest Legionnaire to arrive. “Better leave that to Br’er Trickshot!” And the irritating archer released his hold on his pulley arrow, used the top of a Brainless One as a stepping stone, vaulted to the edge of the strange rectangle that linked Paradopolis with the realm of imagination, and loosed an arrow at the interface. The shaft carried the neutralisation field generator that Killer Shrike had carried to exclude him from the now-defunct blackout wave that had crippled the city overnight. The generator caused all kinds of unpleasant feedback in the delicate dimensional doorway. After a lot of complicated physics and less than three picoseconds the rift exploded with a deafening crash that would warm the wallets of glaziers across the city. Trickshot tumbled backwards, landed awkwardly, and clutched his side as he ripped the emergency field dressing keeping his previous injuries in check. “Agh,” he gasped, unable to rise as a Brainless One raised his foot to stamp down on the bowman’s head. “You are really to be taking more care of cute Tricky,” Yo scolded the arrogant archer as s/he slid across and pulled Trickshot out of harm’s way at the very last moment. “Who is to be annoying all Yo’s cute-friends if you are to be squished flatting?” “Point,” agreed the bleeding bowman. That still left close to a hundred inhumanly powerful rampaging Brainless Ones in the middle of Paradopolis Plaza. “I think I know how to deal with them,” the Librarian shouted up to the struggling heroes. “We need a really big hole right about here.” Falcon rejoined the melee, having donned the combat harness and flight gear he had not been able to use earlier. “No problem,” he told Lee Bookman. “Right now I’m just spoiling to blow the hell outta something!” Although he didn’t understand the plan, Falcon loosed off a volley of air to surface missiles from his wing assemblies. The fountain and pavement churned up into fragments, and then the whole of the centre of the Plaza slid down into a chasm below. “The subway tunnel,” CSFB! recognised. “Nice going, L!” “I’m not L,” the Librarian answered testily, although he was pleased with the results of his instant tactile absorption of subway routes information. “Now we need to flood that gap with water. The third rails are live again down there.” “Yo is seeing a mains here,” Yo called out, “but chances of it flooding where you are wanting…” “Are pretty good,” pointed out Dancer. “On-board telemetry can track water mains,” Falcon called down. “Stand aside.” He peeled off a couple more missiles and watched with satisfaction as they slammed into the city’s water supply. A huge spray spurted down on the scrambling Brainless Ones then made contact with the electricity in the subway rails. There was a bang and the Brainless Ones twitched then became stationary. The city’s power again went out. “Oops,” said Dancer. Then the Plaza was illuminated by the bright landing lights of a hovering LairJet. “Get aboard,” called Visionary over the speaker system. “We have Negativity Zone Blastopods raiding the Gothametropolis Mall.” The Marquis of Herringcarp was an ascetic-looking man affecting monkish robes of grey, whose upper face remained shadowed by a deep cowl. He welcomed his visitors in a reserved manner, gesturing for retainers to bring them fresh clothes and waiting until they had changed before formally greeting them. “Good evening. It appears that you have had many adventures on your journey.” “Adventures indeed,” agreed Father Septimo Alarçon. “and none more than our last chase. I presume you had something to do with the sudden reversal of fortune that led to the disappearance of our troublesome pursuit and of those remarkable Artemia Nyos?” They were sat at board now, waiting as servants brought forth food and wine. The marquis indicated the other person at the table, an elderly woman of distinguished appearance, clad in a mantle of green and pale orange. “I am only responsible obliquely. It is Dame Jana here whom you have to thank for your deliverance.” De Clement bowed deeply. “I have not had the acquaintance of the lady,” he prompted. “Dame Jana has travelled a long way to be with us,” the Marquis said. “I brought her here to have a little peace and quiet to talk with her. I believe she can assist me with my researches.” “You are a scholar, madam?” Father Septimo enquired. The old woman had the most curious eyes, deep as eternity. “I have an enquiring mind,” she admitted. “And since your… colleague here has gone to such immense lengths to arrange an interview with me I finally consented to the discussion.” “How did you do what happened back there, though?” Buckland Dean wanted to know. “One minute we were being followed by those thugs and attacked by those…” “Sea monkeys,” Sarah supplied. “A sub-sea race created by the Abhuman people whose existence Frost was trying to protect. Like him, they serve the Church of Conformity, Humbolt Vernold’s conspiracy of control.” Dame Jana’s eyes flickered for a moment. “Ah, you oppose HV.” Then she went back to the original question. “I have a facility for creating gateways, rifts, passages between places, times, and other dimensions. Removing threats from my vicinity is a natural instinct.” She glanced across at the Marquis of Herringcarp. “Although in this case it seems to have been deliberately directed, and it may not have eliminated the major threat.” “What is the nature of these researches with Dame Jana?” de Clement enquired. “And how came she to have this facility for gateways?” “That is between me and your host,” the last of the Janus beings from the beginning of time answered sharply. “It seems he has already come into possession of a tool I helped design some time ago now, the Portal of Pretentiousness. Now he wishes assistance in seeing… further.” “The eternal quest for our reality’s creator,” Father Septimo surmised. “Of course,” agreed the Marquis. “The Improbable College is founded upon the sole principle that there is nothing that man was not truly meant to know.” “Or that if we weren’t meant to know it, we should find out anyway,” added Samuel the Falconer. The Improbables raised their glasses to that. And on the far shore, Malvolio Frost and the Legions of Order arrived to wipe out every living being in Herringcarp Abbey; but the whole promontory was gone, vanished as if it had never been there. “Welcome, my pretties! Welcome to Level 101!” The hunchbacked game host looked frighteningly like Flapjack as he lurched forward across the night-shadowed ruins towards the players trapped in Balefire’s virtual reality mind-game. “Nothing called Level 101 was ever good,” Randy Robinson said to his companions. “Dinnae worry,” said dull thud for the fifteenth time. “Sorceress will be dragging us out of here and back to the real world any time now.” He raised his voice a little. “Any time now,” he hinted. ~~I think something might have gone wrong~~ admitted Cressida the Wonder Worm. “Yeah,” agreed Mindy Pyrite, Art’s human-looking robot girlfriend. “Like how I ended up wearing this cheerleader bikini outfit as soon as we entered this level.” “Yeah,” agreed Art. “Damn.” ~~And why am I wearing a transparent negligee?~~ wondered Cressida. Since she was a giant pinkish tapeworm that usually lived in dull thud’s intestine this was an unusual experience for her. Then again, being projected into the VR game in a separate body from thud was an unexpected experience too. She was currently coiled around her host’s neck and trying no to panic at the agoraphobia. “All part of our exciting final level,” their host assured them. “And all you have to do to win this level and be released is to solve a little mystery… before the monsters get you.” “We still got those laser rifles from the Aliens level?” Art asked Randy urgently. “Guess,” hissed back his fellow LL intern. “Monsters,” scowled Mindy. “It’s monsters and I get to be the cheerleader.” “Hey, that’s okay. You’re the last one slashed,” dull thud pointed out. “I’m the plucky comic relief who gets taken out in act one!” ~~What’s the puzzle?~~ Cressida demanded of the hunchback. “There are five dwellings in a row on a desolate road, “ the host explained. “In each dwelling lives a different kind of monster. Each of these five monsters consumes a particular food, listens to a particular kind of music, and is served by a particular kind of minion, no two alike.” “Can we at least have a pen and paper?” demanded Randy, checking the pockets of his football player’s uniform. “The Dragon lives in the Haunted Mansion,” the hunchback continued. “The Chimera keeps Enslaved Fairies as minions. The Vampire consumes Blood. The Ruined Lighthouse is on the left of the Ancient Crypt. The Ruined Lighthouse owner eats Virgins. The entity who listens to Gregorian Chants is served by Whispering Poltergeists.” “Aye well, he would be,” dull thud muttered. “The owner of the Abandoned Asylum listens to Punk Rock. The creature living in the central dwelling eats Carrion. The Lammasu lives in the estate furthest on the left. The monster who listens to Chamber Music lives next to the one who is served by Rotting Zombies.” “Can you go slower?” pleaded Mindy, who was trying to get all this down on a gravestone with the bright pink lipstick she’d found in her micro-purse. “Who was listening to Rotted Zombies?” “What’s a Lammasu?” puzzled Randy. ~~Lion-bodied monster with eagle’s wings and a human head~~ Cressida supplied. ~~Not really party people~~ “And you know that how?” thud wondered. He realised he had to find out more about his intestinal companion before too long. “Excuse me,” the hunchback interrupted gruffly. “The clues? The creature who is served by Gibbering Reptiloids lives next to the one who listens to Punk Rock. The monster who enjoys Country and Western devours Buildings.” “He’s gotta be the most evil one,” dull thud reasoned. “Unless there’s one that listens to boy bands.” “The Kraken listens to Jazz. The Lammasu lives next to the Foetid Swamp-Hut. And the entity who listens to Chamber Music has a neighbour who feasts on Souls,” concluded the host. “All clear?” “Except why would anybody listen to country and western?” frowned dull thud. ~~Focus, Davie~~ the wonder worm advised her partner. “I need more lipstick,” complained Mindy. “And possibly some panties that don’t ride up so much.” The hunchback leered and let out an evil laugh. “All you have to do is answer the question and be right first time round, before you’re eaten or slashed or hacked up or possessed or blood-sucked or tentacled,” he told the players. “Heh. And the question you have to answer is: which monster of the five is served by the charmed mortals?” “Is this a trick question?” Art demanded. “Is one of them actually served by charmed mortals then?” “Yes,” admitted the host. “Damn,” sulked Art. The hunchback checked his hourglass. “Your survival time starts… now.” Then the dragon leaned over the ruins. ~~Into the house!~~ commanded Cressida, transmuting tombs to rooms. Art, Randy and Mindy dived inside the stone chamber just as the wash of dragonfire splashed across the outside. thud had no time to move so used his ability to teleport vertically. Unfortunately this manoeuvre landed him right on the dragon’s neck. “Ow!” he complained. “There spine-ridges are sharp!” Inside the stone chamber the floor was shattered by dozens of tentacles worming their way up through the rock. “Eeek!” squealed Mindy, as they seemed to sense her white-knee-socked legs and squirmed towards her. The rear wall was shattered by a beast with the heads of a lion, a serpent, and a goat. “Whichever one that is, I bet he has really complicated culinary requirements,” Randy noted. “Let’s see if he likes sushi,” suggested Art, grabbing a kraken tentacle and dragging it so it flailed around the goat-head. The kraken tried to drag the chimera down into the depths and the three-headed horror took it personally. Outside thud tumbled aside as the dragon he was straddling toppled over when Cressida changed flame to lame. She managed to arrange for the giant reptile to land on the leonine thing with the head that resembled Jimmy Carter. ~~That flat thing?~~ Cressie told thud ~~That was a lammasu.~~ Art, Mindy, and Randy raced from the crumbling stone room and joined them in fleeing the war zone. “Has anybody worked out the puzzle yet?” asked Randy desperately. “Did anybody think to bring the tombstone with the notes on along?” thud asked sarcastically. Then the mists formed up into Bela Lugosi. “Goot evenink,” he said to them as he fixed them with his hypnotic stare. “I do not drink… vine.” ~~Right, that does it~~ announced Cressida. ~~Fog into smog. Then pollution into solution. What’s the answer to the riddle on that piece of paper, Davie? Davie?~~ But dull thud was staring entranced at the vampire, unbuttoning his shirt at the neck, just like Art and Randy. Mindy said an unladylike thing then and ripped the vampire’s head off. As a robot she wasn’t susceptible to supernatural hypnosis, and her costume really was strangling her, so to speak, and she was getting cross. The angry dragon rose up behind the players, even crosser. dull thud read the answer on the sheet of paper that Cressida had transmuted into existence. The monsters froze. The hunchbacked host reappeared. “Well done!” he called out insincerely. “Very well done, if a bit cheaty. By the rules of the game you are now free to leave.” “Really?” checked Art suspiciously. “I thought there’d be some nasty last-minute catch.” “No, not at all,” the hunchback told him. “This young gentlem… person can go right away, before the rest of you are deleted.” “The rest of us?” Randy frowned. “But we won.” “This person gave the answer,” the hunchback giggled. “He won. He goes free. The rest of you get deleted. That’s the rules.” ~~That’s not fair!~~ complained Cressida. ~~Davie wouldn’t abandon the rest of us, so we’re all still trapped here.~~ “Aye,” admitted dull thud “I wouldn’ae.” An idea occurred to him, “Would it help any if I kicked the living crap out of yon hunchback chappie?” “You don’t want to use your escape opportunity?” the host shrugged. “Then it’s back to the game.” He vanished, and the dragon roared forwards again. And Xander the Impossible pulled the plug on the VR system, waking the players up. “I hope you don’t mind,” the master of the mystic crafts told the dazed prisoners as they struggled out of their psychic interface chairs, “but you seemed to be running out of lives.” “That’s fine,” Randy assured him. “Really, really don’t mind.” ~~I’m back inside you, thuddy, Cressida called telepathically. ~~Although I’m thinking now I might decide to redecorate in here.~~ “Where’s Whitney?” thud wondered, wisely not responding to Cressida’s new ambition. “And why is De Brown Streak lying here?” DBS moaned gently to acknowledge their presence. “Hey. Just bring me a soft pillow and some soft women and I’ll be okay in about three years,” he promised, “As long as nobody asks me to move.” The Sorceress was sitting in a quiet corner being held by Sir Mumphrey Wilton. He stroked her hair and whispered something in his granddaughter’s ear that nobody else could hear. “I think we missed a chapter,” suggested Art Corben. “And why is there a man dressed like a deer tied up in our LairJet?” Mindy Pyrite had another urgent question. “Does anyone mind that our escape from Balefire’s VR game seems to have triggered off a floating-castle-wide self-destruct countdown?” she wondered. “Hmph!” grouched Sir Mumphrey. “Dashed unsporting bounder. Right, better fire up the old LairJet, you youngsters. And help young Clement into the plane. He’s done bally well today.” “Are you alright?” thud asked Xander, who was looking almost as ashen as the Sorceress. “Headache,” the sorcerer supreme answered. “It’s been a long night.” And that was pretty much all the explanation the Lair Legion ever got about how Whitney was released from her pact with Blackhurt, Prince of Fibs. “Leaving would be good right now,” Mindy called from the Lairjet pilot’s chair. “Right now!” “We should make it out just in time,” Sir Mumphrey promised, checking his pocketwatch. The LairJet just broke free of Balefire’s floating castle when the countdown ended. But the fortress didn’t explode. It vanished with an audible pop through a dimensional rift, and was gone. The Improbables had retired at last to their first night’s safe sleep in a long time. Samuel the Falconer had slipped away into the night on some self-imposed vigil. That left on the master of Herringcarp and his reluctant guest sitting beside the fire drinking their mulled wine. “Are we going to drop the pretences now?” Dame Jana asked him at last. “I don’t see we must,” answered the Hooded Hood. “If you would feel more comfortable in your fluorescent orange and neon green tripedal Janus form…” “I don’t mean that,” the old woman cut him off. “You seem to delight in games and ploys, mortal. This time-shift to 1720, your masquerade with this Improbable College. Why have you brought me here?” “I thought all the chaos Balefire will be causing with the ITC dimensional technology might be a little distracting for you in the time-zone I brought you from,” the cowled crime-czar replied. “Whereas here, the College is busy in a secret war of ideas with HV’s Church of Conformity, in an era where HV is the Emissary of Order and Wilbur Parody the Chronicler of Stories. My brave fellow-scholars seek after truth whatever the cost. It seemed like a proper ear for us to have our conversation.” “Balefire would never have managed to break into ITC without your assistance,” Dame Jana accused. “Don’t underestimate him”, the Hood advised. “He’s brilliant and determined and he knows how to harness his insanity to his purposes. I think he’s got potential.” “You mean he could be manipulated for your purposes.” The Hooded Hood steepled his fingers. “My purpose now is to discover how to get to the creators who ordained this joke of a Parodyverse,” he confessed. “To find them and bring them to bitter grievous ends for their callousness and neglect. To free the people here from their control and the eventual doom they will be subjected to.” “You can’t,” Jana answered curtly. “There’s a barrier there you cannot break.” “No barrier is unbreakable,” answered the Hooded Hood. “You, of all people, should know that.” “You mean Exu,” hissed Dame Jana, colouring and spitting out the syllables as though they were an obscenity - which, to her, they were. “He probed too far, strayed from the collective Order, unleashed the raw Chaos of both Creation and Destruction into the nascent Parodyverse.” “You and he are the last remnants of the Janus, the first guardians of the Parodyverse, who were destroyed before time even began in our reality,” the Hood noted. “And although you are both much less now than you once were, you still have that instinctive understanding of time and space, of dimensional travel that allowed you to form the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation in the first place.” “I had sponsors,” answered Dame Jana. “And it was a long time since I was one of the Janus. I have forgotten so very much, almost all but my hatred of Exu for what he did to us.” “He tells the story differently,” the cowled crime-czar observed. “I have asked him.” “Dr Xeno Phobia is a mere shadow of the GatewayTraitorGalaxyTraveller! who shattered our race with his self-serving experiments and became the first... CrazySugarHistoricHero!,” the old woman scorned. “A nothing. And he is not to be trusted.” “But the creators?” the Hood persisted. “Who are they? What did they really do? What is the question that their Resolution War is supposed to answer? Why does it warrant the creation and destruction of a whole multiverse? And how can I get them?” And in the flickering candlelight of Herringcarp asylum, the conversation continued. “Sit down,” Lisa advised Mr Epitome, as she helped him stagger aboard the Epitome Express. “Try not to bleed on your carpet.” “I’m alright,” wheezed the battered paragon of power. “Don’t fuss,” he told Agents Dawes and Gardiner as they tried to give him emergency aid. “Get us off the ground.” The Lair Legion claimed to have located and neutralised the technology field generator but they hadn’t received confirmation from Nats and his companion yet. “I’ve got to stick around down here,” spiffy called to Lisa and the Shoggoth as the advanced aircraft underwent its pre-flight checks. “There’s organisation and stuff to do. And somebody’s got to coax Warden Westwood out of the bathroom.” The Safe was a disaster zone after the recent breakout attempts. “Glory will stay with you and make sure there’s no more unauthorised exists,” Epitome told Mayor Hopkins. Glory limped over to spiffy and licked his hand. “Will you be alright, Dominic?” she asked worriedly. “I’m healing fine,” Mr Epitome assured her. “I don’t need both my lungs anyway.” “Glory will be fine with me,” spiffy assured her human partner. “We’re used to working together in the ‘junior’ LL” – he managed to vocalise the speech marks – “and Vizh is sending Kerry and Asil over to help out. And hey, I’ve whistled for Hound-Dog. You two can meet at last.” “Joy,” signed Glory with an ironic pawswipe. “Get us over the city,” Lisa told Agent Gardiner. “We need an overview.” The Manga Shoggoth looked over the nervous OPS agents’ shoulders out of the windscreen with interest. “There are some interesting dimensional anomalies occurring,” he bubbled enthusiastically. “Sorry, humans, did I drip on you? I’m sensing dozens, maybe hundreds, of minor spacial ripples all over the planet. Doorways to all kinds of interesting places.” Lester Dawes wondered how easy it was to get Shoggoth-goo off his jacket. “Sir?” he asked Mr Epitome, “This, um, being is right. We’re getting confused reports from all over the place. Monsters and strange phenomenon and, um, pixies?” “Pixies taste like chicken,” muttered the Shoggoth. “And you always want another one half an hour later.” “What did Nats do now?” wondered Lisa. “Well, let’s find out. I summons Nats and Uhuna” There was a ripple in the air and Bill Reed and the Abhuman princess Uhunalura tumbled in a heap onto the floor of the Epitome Express. They were dishevelled and still partially covered in the rubble they’d been buried under when the anti-tech generator had discharged. “Fascinating,” admired the Magna Shoggoth. “I just love it when she does that. It makes me go all tingly.” “Ouch,” groaned Nats. “Sorry to interrupt your date,” Lisa told Nats, “but what did you do?” “I never touched her,” swore the flying phenomenon. “I believe Ms Waltz was referring to the multiple dimensional breaches occurring across the planet,” Mr Epitome clarified, scowling at the crumpled young hero. “Dimension breaches?” puzzled Uhuna. “The technology suppressor can’t do anything like that.” “Right,” scowled Lisa. “Let’s get to the bottom of this then. We know Balefire’s behind the blackout, right? Well I summons Balefire” But Balefire didn’t appear. “Damn,” growled the amorous advocatrix. “He’s shielded. But at least I got an echo of where he is. I think he’s somewhere in the Interdimensional Transportation Corporation building.” “That could be a problem,” noted the Manga Shoggoth. “ITC protects itself behind a dimensional consciousness barrier. Only people they want to find them can pass through it. Otherwise the building is always somewhere else.” “We have very sophisticated sensors aboard the Epitome Express,” Mr Epitome assured them. “Not good enough to find ITC if Balefire’s using their tech to hide it,” Nats contradicted. He picked himself off Uhuna reluctantly, dusted down his ITC flight jacket, and added, “But then again, I work there, so I’ve kind of got a pass-key.” “Sir,” called Agent Gardiner, “We’re getting calls about Frosting Giants sitting on the Pentagon.” “Get us to ITC, flyboy,” the man of might told Nats. “Fast.” There were many, many portals open now; but only one interested Jeremiah Frost. “That one,” he told Birthday Bandit. “Open it here, in the main Conduit Chamber.” The portal apparatus sparked and the doorway to the dancing green corposant flame appeared. “Ahhhh,” breathed Balefire. “At last.” “Uh-oh,” worried AL B. “This isn’t good.” Balefire stepped through the shimmering portal to become one with the Source. Next time, in our special celebratory 150th issue: More historical happenings. More dimensional doings. Nats vs ITC. Miss Framlicker vs the Birthday Bandit. Epitome vs Lisa. Mumphrey gets grumpy. And Balefire takes on the Lair Legion at last. Don’t miss our yet-again-double-sized one-hundred and fiftieth issue (if you don’t count #0 or the HH Chronicles or any of the crossovers and extras, naturally), Untold Tales of the Lair Legion: Agents of Destiny, or Knock, Knock, Who’s There?, featuring some unexpected guests, some unexpected twists, and an unexpected death. Footnote Follies: The Improbable College: We first met the Confraternity of the Improbable College in 1720, which revealed them to be a secret society of free-thinkers, adventurer-philosophers, and Renaissance interferers dedicated to fighting oppression of the imagination The beginnings of the so-called Improbables lie shrouded in mystery. Many trace its origins back to the publication around 1614 of The Alchemical Wedding of Visionatus Improbablus,, an allegorical tract published by the “Honorable Confraternity of the Improbable Circle”, purporting to detail the historical journeys of a hapless simple who stumbled upon the secrets of the Parodyverse. It claims that this Improbablus founded the Improbable College on his return from mythical lands such as Vesalia, Atticland, Ausgard, Wakandybar, Chemmis, and Austernalia, reviving and revising the earlier Knights Improbable, which had been suppressed by the church over three hundred years earlier. Of special interest is the role of the shadowy Marquis of Herringcarp behind the scenes. The College maintained that researches at one of the ancient sites of the Knights Improbable had uncovered Improbablus’ tomb (although the corpse may have been fake), behind a door marked “Post CCCLXX Annos Paterbo (when 370 years have passed) containing information about the future, and preserving the inscription “Nequaquam Parody” (“The Parody Should Not Exist”). It seems however that the Marquis may have been responsible for recruiting many of the key active participants in the improbable College from at least the latter part of the fifteenth century. The Improbable College became a public legend with a declaration nailed to the door of the Church of Conformity in Dresden in 1700 which began the secret war between imagination and repression that became one of the defining conflicts of its age. And More on the Improbable College: In “real life”, the Rosicrucian movement followed a similar path as the “Invisible College”, including the 1614 publication of The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreuz, claims of decent from the Templars and of traditions dating back through the wisdom of Solomon to ancient Egypt, and support from many of the greatest scientific and philosophical figures of the age (such as Francis Bacon, Leonardo Da Vinci, Rene Descartes, and Ben Franklin – allegedly). Many of the Masonic movements today like to claim descent through the Society of the Rosy Cross. The Monster Problem: Those of you trying to solve Level 101’s knotty monster puzzle have a real challenge ahead of you. It’s based on a question posed by Albert Einstein, but it is capable of solution. It’s claimed less than ten percent of the world’s population can solve it. The clues are as follows: 1. There are five dwellings in a row on a desolate road. 2. In each dwelling lives a different kind of monster. 3. Each of these five monsters consumes a particular food, listens to a particular kind of music, and is served by a particular kind of minion, no two alike. Other Hints: 1. The Dragon lives in the Haunted Mansion. 2. The Chimera keeps Enslaved Fairies as minions. 3. The Vampire consumes Blood. 4. The Ruined Lighthouse is on the left of the Ancient Crypt. 5. The Ruined Lighthouse owner eats Virgins. 6. The entity who listens to Gregorian Chants is served by Whispering Poltergeists. 7. The owner of the Abandoned Asylum listens to Punk Rock. 8. The creature living in the central dwelling eats Carrion. 9. The Lammasu lives in the estate furthest on the left. 10. The monster who listens to Chamber Music lives next to the one who is served by Rotting Zombies. 11. The creature who keeps Gibbering Reptiloid servants lives next to the one who listens to Punk Rock. 12. The monster who listens to Country and Western devours Buildings. 13. The Kraken listens to Jazz. 14. The Lammasu lives next to the Foetid Swamp-Hut. 15. The entity who listens to Chamber Music has a neighbour who devours Souls. The question is: WHO IS SERVED BY CHARMED MORTALS? For the answer, highlight this line: The charmed mortals serve the KRAKEN The Hooded Hood's Homepage of Doom Who's Who in the Parodyverse Where's Where in the Parodyverse Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2004 reserved by Ian Watson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2004 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Ian Watson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. |
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