Inspector Lestrade and the Mystifying Mesmerists.

[Silbuster]

Rumours of dark “goings-on” in the beastly wood behind the ruined church were circulating. Lucky old Inspector Lestrade (that’s me) and his band of quivering jelly were ordered to sort out the supernatural. Terrific. Just how I love spending my working hours; staring into the eyes of the undead. Give me the Ripper any day of the week.

Happily, Holmes and Watson were along for the chase and I lent them half of our force as we split into two groups working our way down the wood with Detective Red covering from the church. Pretty soon, looming out of the gloom, we could make out some arcane relics which looked pretty damn suspicious. Particularly as they were also being pored over by some underdressed strumpets accompanied by as disreputable a bunch of reprobates as misfortune could find. There was something vaguely foreign about them…

I managed to get off a nice “Who goes there, friend or foe?”, before the first bullet hit the tree six inches behind my left ear. That’s probably not “friend” then. Manfully we strode forwards, exchanging shots with the nefarious villains. I turned to Sergeant Tough but, suddenly, he went all peculiar and brained Constable Postlethwaite.
“Sorry, sir, I don’t know what came over me.”
“I know what came over PC Postlethwaite. About two feet of wood!”
“It won’t happen again, sir”, he said, trying to shoot me between the eyes.

And this became a recurring nightmare. These forrin’ strumpets were casting some sort of spell over decent Englishmen! The fiends! Not only did you have to keep an eye out for bullets and axes coming in from the front, you never knew if you could trust the officer beside you. Even I’d swear that I smacked Constable Throople right in the kisser. Only Sherlock Holmes’ iron will prevented complete chaos though I feel that he might look askance at Dr Watson in the future after he tried to take his eye out with his walking stick. Realising that our only chance was to take out the ladies with disgraceful dress sense first, we charged in blazing away. After a fierce fight, I looked about. All the ladies of the night were recumbent but their friends were closing in on myself and Sherlock. Everybody else seemed to be resting. I turned to Holmes and the lights went out as somebody clobbered me from behind…

Poor old Holmes. He was more than a match for them, but he could hardly stop them all from taking away the valuables, could he? Even he can’t be in five places at once.
 
So there you have it. Yet another dreadful danger stalks the streets of London. Mind you, we’ll have to be careful about how we solve this one or there won’t be a strumpet left in England for any of us… just edit that last phrase out, would you Constable Purebright. It might be subject to misinterpretation. What do you mean, you can’t because it’a already “out there” on Steambook. What the hell is Steambook?”

Lestrade of the Yard,
I’m pretty sure of that.
Though not so sure as I used to be.

** There were nine objectives masquerading as mystic cubes with Roman runes. If a figure moved into contact, then on a roll of four or more, they were the real deal.

*Mesmerism doesn’t quite cut the mustard as it stood so it was made more deadly for this game. Its practitioner had to pass a pluck test in order to use the magic as per the basic rules. But, instead of passing his pluck test in order to resist it, the victim has to beat the mesmerist’s die roll. So, if the bride rolls a seven when casting her spell, the victim has to roll an eight or better to resist. Naturally, this means that the mesmerists target leaders; just like snipers. It’s a hell of a lot more effective. “Iron will” is also well worth having.