Superhero Adventures, UK Style

Since the two Mary’s return from Dublin and the attacks by Abyss, things had been a little tense in the BASEment, especially with the ongoing renovations so when a call came in from Marcus asking for their assistance they were all happy to jump into action.

Marcus explained that he needed their help – and this time a lot closer to home. There were reports of mass hallucinations coming in from Port Meadow Park, down by the river… People had been complaining that the scenery and people were undergoing visual transformation.

Police officers had been dispatched but once they entered the park all radio contact had been lost with them.

At the centre of the hallucination zone was apparently a group of strange-looking people having a tea party by the riverbank. They did not appear to be hostile but they were believed to be responsible for, or the source of, the illusions.

It has been assumed that this was the result of meta-human activity rather than a gas or contaminant as Wessex Police had been unable to find any chemical or psychotropic traces in the air, soil or water. Could they provide support to the officers on the ground?

The park was also currently hosting the Fantastigorical! Book Exhibition as well. In fact it was located in three massive marquees in the park grounds. Rare books and manuscripts on display included the original bound manuscript of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, first editions of Mallory’s The Whole Book of King Arthur and of His Noble Knights of the Round Table, Stephen King’s It and T.H. White’s the Once and Future King amongst others.

Could this be a meta-human robbery? Akira quipped “Just as long as long as we don’t have to join a book club, I’ll be happy!”

Akira teleported himself to Port meadow Park whilst Sam flew there, happy to give his wings a stretch. Banshee originally started out flying under her own powers but was so slow that Sam elected to pull her along as a passenger.

Leaving without the Raft meant they also left without letting anyone know and without the drone ‘Tinks’ being deployed. Something they were to regret later.

There were a number of signs advertising the Fantasticorical! book exhibition on the way into the park and on the trees. As they got closer to the exhibition and the riverbank itself the atmosphere felt excessively oxygenated and there was a sudden sharpness to the natural colour of the trees and grass and the river seemed to take on a shimmering silver colour.

Walking towards the fleeing crowd of people was what seemed to be a figure composed out of books, a walking, talking library of the rare and fantastical brought together into the menacing shape of a person. Following behind and from the direction of the exhibition was a crowd composed of several other ‘unlikely’ persons; a pink Rhino was meandering towards them (apparently muttering to itself?) as was a large walking tree, limbs outstretched towards the book golem followed closely behind by several menacing figures dressed like 5 foot tall clowns, their faces all wearing the same maniac look and wielding sharp and shiny blades. The latter were focused on pursuing the book golem and the fleeing crowds.

Behind them all was a young girl (or woman) – long blonde and braided hair who could have been any age between 14 and 22 given the makeup and clothes; around her neck hung a large green crystal amulet. She followed the weird group gesturing with her hands and weaving arcane figures in the air in obvious frustration.

By the riverside there appears to be a tea party taken straight from Alice in Wonderland; complete with a mad hatter (floating in the air by the river bank reading what must be a stolen, bound manuscript), an oversized and immaculately dressed lizard in a suit and bowler hat, serving an Alsatian-sized mouse-like creature (The Dormouse?) and what they initially assumed was a young woman in Victorian-style children’s clothing who seemed to be constantly changing size!

The tea party from Alice in Wonderland?

The whole thing looked and felt real, not a hallucination at all. Just then the white rabbit rushed passed them from the book exhibit towards the tea party; to their surprise it was just a man in a fancy outfit and hat with fake bunny ears! So, this wasn’t the book come to life!

“I’m late, but I’m never late…” he paused for a second to nod at the three heroes, “Have we got hold of a copy? Is this the right place after all?” he shouted as he pushed passed them heading towards the river bank.

Before they could do anything, the area was filled by the arrival of the book golem and clowns, chased by the young woman with the angry eyes and downturned mouth.

Akira decided to join in the fun and cast the illusions of Idolon on himself turning his appearance into a copy, though admittedly a taller copy, of one of the clowns and walks towards the gesturing girl. “Hi, I’m Kiki the clown. Who are you?”

“I’m a librarian and you’re letting the books get away! FOOL!!” and with that fire burst forth from her hands which Akira narrowed avoided but which still scorched his clothes and burnt the ‘make-up’ off his face… “Ok, let’s start again” said Akira, “What’s your name?” “I’m Lillian and I’m with the library… Don’t you dare!” she suddenly screamed at the clowns trying to get closer to the golem with their blades, “There are some rare first editions in there…”

It caused Akira to drop his illusion and as the book golem tried to run away from the deadly clowns the walking tree reached out with its long limbs and picked it up and began to cuddle it like a long-lost child. As the woman watched the clowns tried to get closer to the books and by extension Sam and Mary. Mary unleashed a Wail on them all. The effect was surprising; the clowns backed off slightly, the book golem disintegrated into a pile of books that fell heavily to the ground and the tree apparently upset at the situation (or affected by the wail itself) suddenly ran away back towards the woods. Lillian screamed “Sirs, madam stop your attack; there is a preservation order on that tree!”

Lillian looked down at the dishevelled pile of books in disgust as the clowns appeared to be trying to decide whether to stab the humans, or worse the books!

Sam tried to be defensive, jumped in front of Akira and tried to reason with the murderous looking clowns as Akira cast an illusion to disguise the books making them appear as balloons though the spell was only partially successful and they appeared to be more like multi-coloured inflated sausages.

Sam continued to try and argue as the clowns separated so three each targeted him and Mary leaving Akira to choose between maintaining the illusion or blasting his remaining clown. He was momentarily distracted when an animated ivy started to crawl up and caress his leg humming to itself and muttering “mine, mine…”

Banshee elected to turn insubstantial causing the clowns attacking her to fall through her mist and attack each other instead.

Akira managed to maintain the illusion and dodged the blade of his clown as Sam continued to try and reason with the other three facing him warning them that they needed to “stop immediately or risk being placed under arrest”. Two of the clowns replied by trying to stab him but only succeeded in scraping his scales!

Lillian made it clear she wasn’t very impressed with their efforts to protect the books. Akira replied by dropping his illusion and teleporting the heap of books back to one of the now empty marquees. “Nice!” said Lillian as she wandered back to the exhibition leaving them to deal with their clown problem. Sam, frustrated, picked up one of the clowns and threw it into two other. Definitely no hallucination, it crashed with a great deal of satisfaction in a heap and two downsized min-clowns each armed with a sharp, shiny blade pulled themselves out of the huddle. Damn, how long before they had to fight nano-clowns in their blood stream?

In the meantime Banshee turned substantial again and tried to use her harp to calm them down but it seemed to have the opposite effect on them as the three clowns turned on each other and stabbed their way into smaller and smaller clowns who then became clown-faced bubbles and with maniacal giggling vanished into the atmosphere. That left a full sized clown for Akira and multiple mini-clowns on Sam.

Before they could do anything else, the pink rhino reached them using his horn to shove the clowns aside and muttering aloud… quoting Hamlet’s soliloquy “To be, or not to be, that is the question: Most certainly is old boy, most certainly is… Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms… Arms, I have no arms! Ah, to take horn against a sea of troubles, and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep No more; and by a sleep, to say we end the heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks that Flesh is heir to? “… He stopped to bow his head and wish them all good day and continued “Devoutly to be wished?”  As he wandered off they heard, “Devoutly indeed!” and vanished.

Akira frustrated, cast an illusion on one of the clowns to make him appear to be a pile of books which the others then attacked with great glee until the ‘illusion’ vanished in a cascade of smiling, gibbering bubbles from between the clowns. Sam again grabbed a clown and threw it into the ground causing it to break into four smaller clowns, too small to be more than an inconvenience under foot.

Time to focus on the tea party. They moved close enough to see and hear what was going on.

Hatter was sitting cross-legged and floating in the air, reading the book, muttering away to himself “well that isn’t right, and that is just preposterous… No self-respecting caterpillar would ever be seen dead smoking a hookah..!”

He was seemingly (and very politely) guarded by the Dormouse, White Rabbit who was constantly dashing up and down, never stopping, the Lizard and Alice…

On seeing them, Alice rushed towards them growing as she did so and tried to cuddle them, thanking them for seeing the real her inside and babbling on and on, thanking them…

For what though? Then they started to get flashbacks of her without her glamour; this was the Gargantua. The size-changing villain from the warehouse and Dalton’s apartment attacks! Did this mean the others were also? Through the babble they finally understood that their teasing at Dalton’s apartment had been inspirational and when he’d fallen in with this group they’d somehow cast a glamour over him to allow him to find his heart’s desire; as a her!

Happy within herself, the renamed Alice was contented and she suggested they join them at the table, accidentally stamped down on the remaining mini-clowns causing them to become psychotic bubbles in the wind.

They allowed Alice to herd them towards the table but before they reached their goal they heard a cry of “Orf with their heads” and a robotic Red Queen appeared from the Book Exhibition chasing fleeing civilians – surrounded by a suit of 12 monofilament-thin cards on legs – each was a card from the heart Suit and determined to attack the fleeing civilians.

Before they could do anything the Dormouse rushed towards Mary; “too old for fun, too old!!!”  it screeched and  set a glamour on Mary making her look younger but still with white hair. “Better!” it declared and rushed back to jump on the table and chase the animated teapot that was pleading to be left alone and unviolated.

Mary immediately recognised the glamour for what it was; fae magic in play. It was now part of her but that type of magic she was familiar with and she knew she could control it when she wanted to.

Sam asked Alice “are they responsible for what’s happening?” and immediately followed it up with “who found who?”

Alice smiled, happy within herself for the first time in her life. “They found me and gave me my heart’s desire. As for responsible, this sort of follows us around… oops!” The last was said as the Red Queen and her suit of cards caught up with some people and started hacking them into pieces. The three of them ran from Alice and Arika tried to blast the Red Queen but missed due to her enhanced speed. The Queen attacked back with an antique looking axe with incredible speed and thankfully missed by a centimetre. Sam rushed in and interposed himself between the Queen and Akira and tried to use his persuasion by asking her forgiveness and using polite and courtly language and a courtly bow which seemed to work, calming the Queen down sufficient for a conversation about what perchance she liked doing other than beheading things.

Unfortunately it didn’t seem to work with the cards which continued to attack all organics, including fleeing humans and cutting them in half or removing their heads

A fluffy cloud suddenly crashed into the ground and bounced off with a loud Bong and a “Sorry!” It was that kind of day.

Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek that caused two of the cards to disintegrate whilst Akira telekinetically picked up and “threw” one card so it cut another in two. Over his earpiece he heard Sam whisper “Call Annie, robots are sort of her thing, she might know what to do…” Akira did so only to find without more information Annie was helpless to assist. Damn!

Banshee unleashed another shattering shriek which this time took several more of the suit out.

Then they looked closely at the ‘victims’ which despite being decapitated were still speaking; how? They realised that they had thick red jam instead of blood coming from the bodies, not blood and the flesh looks like it’s made of tart mix. Looking around they saw the real humans had been teleported to safety seemingly by the Dormouse and the White Rabbit was somehow replacing them with Jam Tart doppelgangers to please the Red Queen.

Meantime Sam was watching a patch of soil in front of him and the Queen turn fiery and into glowing lava. In the distance they heard Lillian Scream “Abyss!!!” and apparently hid.

The Red Queen hacked at the ever expanding circle of lava with her axe whilst decrying the damage to her “beautiful grounds!” The axe head merely melted. Abyss had again caught up with them.

Akira blasted at the figure emerging from the magma hotspot to little avail. Sam worked out that their best defence was either distance or something to cool down the attacker. He started to beat his wings hard creating a strong backdraft at the emerging creature, causing the ground to cool slightly and forcing the creature to try and re-emerge further away. As it finally managed to emerge, Banshee decided on a hail Mary play and ran in and grabbed hold of Abyss, badly blistering her hands but she managed to hold on as she tries something she’d never done before; turning insubstantial with a passenger.

The pain vanished as all aspects of Abyss turned insubstantial with her. Heat doesn’t work when you have no matter to burn. Holding on tightly she rose up and high over the River Thames and pushed the startled creature away from her. The moment contact was lost it turned substantial again and landed deep in the middle of the river causing a massive wave of stream and mist to blast over the tea party. The White Rabbit asks Dormouse to “banish it to the other side of the world, pretty please?” and Dormouse, obviously unhappy at the change in the weather then banished the mist and its cause in a teleporting hissy fit. “Let’s see how it copes on Krakatoa.”

The exhausted team approached the table and politely asked if they can sit down. The lizard, who introduced himself as ‘Bill’ invited them to partake. Initially hesitant, they saw that Akira was unaffected by the tea (despite the teapot screaming “I’m empty, you cruel people have drained me, drained me!!”) and they asked where they were from? Bill replied “Well, not from around here obviously.” Leaning it close Alice whispered “You may not have realised it but Dormouse and Bill aren’t human…”

Dormouse spoke up while trying to grab the fleeing teapot “Very unusual to find two dragons in the same locality.” Sam sat upright suddenly… “two? Where’s the other?” Bill politely pointed towards the book exhibition… Assuming the Black Dragonkin had followed them there; Sam immediately flew towards the marquee followed by Akira whilst Mary talked about fae glamours and watched the White Rabbit and the Mad Hatter discuss the book he had been reading.

Inside the exhibition tent, they could only find Lillian busily examining the books, placing some on the table and occasionally putting another aside for “the stacks”.

Sam asked her if she’d seen the Black Dragonkin and was surprised when she said no, the only other dragon she’d seen today was him… Wha..? She looked surprised. “Another dragon? Three dragons is a bit unusual.” Three..?

They both look at her “who are you?” “Lillian, I work for the Library… You know the library, you got an invitation; I can see it on you.” She momentarily pulls out a library card which she shows them as though that explains everything.

“Ah, and at the library can we take away books?” Lillian looks annoyed “of course not, stupid, you don’t even have a library card only an invitation to see the Chief Librarian and he’ll decide whether you should have a card and that to read only, not to remove…” She briefly explains that they would need to make an appointment to visit the library. In the meantime she needed to remove these dangerous books before others came back. After all she doesn’t really cope well with humans.

The penny drops and they stare at her and the large amulet. “Who are you?”

“ Lockleann Sheeramanneth of the Sheeramanneth. Who were you; you’re not all there are you?”

“Tiamente.”

“Oh, you fought against us in the great shadow war between the Dragons and our human enemies and won, the Court was very upset at your decision.”

“Shadow war?” “You’ll find out.” Akira jumped in and asked “so the pendant isn’t holding your dragon essence?” She glowered at being interrupted; taking the pendant from around her neck she dropped it to the ground. “Of course not silly, my essence came from the Dragon’s dying breath which was sealed in a mystical urn until released to heal this little mouse…”

“So does any of the human remain?” “This? She was just a library brat, parent’s both librarians; she’s now a vessel for what came out of the urn.” “How much of her remains?”

“Some, a little, none, I don’t know. I don’t ask, not any more… Look I have to go; I told you, I don’t cope well around humans.”

While this is going on Akira reached down and using sleight of hand pocketed the amulet Lillian had dropped on the floor. It felt mystical but he wasn’t sure in what way.

Lillian turned away, gathered her cache of books and walked out leaving them to head back to the tea party.

As they arrived back the Hatter had just finished skim-reading the book, puts it down and with a deep sigh said “not bad, not bad at all, but NOT OURS. Time to go kiddiwinks!” White rabbit nodded and signalled to Dormouse by spinning his index finger in a circle. Dormouse nodded to Mary and he waved his paw to teleport the party away. A hole in the sky appeared showing an identical park and riverside on the opposite side of the portal.

As the party (the table bypassing them all running on its spindly legs) ran through the Dormouse’s portal, the scenery seems to suddenly turn pale and washed out. The last item through was the teapot still bemoaning its perpetual fate to be ‘drained’.

Nothing remained of their adventure as they remember they failed to get Adam to record the situation.

As they start to leave the park, a 1.2m high bearded man in a raincoat and hat (with a feather stuck in the brim) walked by and asked “Where is this? I seem to have got lost. Where exactly am I?” “Ah, you’re in Wessex.” “Ah, can you give me directions to the Globe Theatre in London; I’ve an old friend I haven’t seen in centuries and I really must catch up with Will now I’m back in the Country…”

Akira looks amused as Sam replies “Shakespeare? He’s been dead for centuries.” No Will, I only saw him last week.” Akira turns and says “So you’re Mr Goodfellow?” The diminutive man smiled and looked up at him “Oh, you know of my brother – and you’re still sober? Amazing! Now London, directions?”

When he was told London’s 50 miles away in that direction he just smiled. “How are you going to get there? What is your name by the way?” “Puck” and tapped his boots “As another friend used to say – these boots were made for walkin’ and that’s what I’m gonna do…” he then stepped forward and vanished. In the wind they heard a voice “they are 7 league boots!”

As they set off for home, Akira asked “So do we get paid for today?” Sam replied “Yes, dealing with a public disturbance etcetera, but we’ll likely be charged for the stolen items taken by Lillian, damaged property and so on…” Mary smiled and didn’t correct them. She’d been doing some reading and knew that one of the advantages of being HCP certified is that you don’t have to worry about unavoidable damage caused in the line of duty; that was covered by the Government scheme. They responded to a call; the UK Government picked up the tab… However given the other two’s tendencies perhaps she wouldn’t mention it just yet…

Back at the BASEment, as they settled down and tried to figure out what exactly to put in their incident reports, Jeeves approached them with hot beverages and a verbal report for Sam.

“As per your instructions I have prepared gift baskets for the Challenger-Wildeman and extended family. Can I confirm whether you are happy with my selections?

For Mr Wolfe – a bottle of 25 year old single malt whiskey, for Master Max – a bottle of exceptionally fine wine and a second edition of Darwin’s Origin of the Species. I obtained it in the unwanted books section of the exhibition in the park for an extremely reasonable price. Ms Tesla – a bottle of fine white wine and a pre-release copy of a trashy romance novel I understand she really likes, Nani some rare orchids and an bottle of finest maple syrup. He has an extremely sweet tooth so I’m told. For Alex – what do you get an aware android? I settled for a rare CD of Dr. Delirious’s “Odes and Songs to Supers everywhere” which he currently lacks from his DJ collection; for the middle children – I got both of them some smuggled out A&W root beer, and for Ms Vicki concert tickets to Sakura Wind (a Japanese pop-hero band; a personal favourite so I’m told) including a back stage pass and the latest pre-release computer games for Master Verne. For the two youngest children; Miss Andi and Master Sharik – sweets, toys etc. Sorry my intelligence failed me at that stage. For Flossie – I have got a 30cm robotic modular T-Rex for her to chase and attack without risk of swallowing or damaging herself etc. ​ I hope that meets with your approval?” “That’s wonderful Jeeves and for Bethany and the staff?” “Still seeking a suitable gift for Ms Bethany as for the Staff? Ah well, a bonus never goes out of fashion, does it sir?”