Rowen and I heard a huge fight breaking out upstairs, with men cursing and women and girls shrieking, and (though I did not identify it at the time) a leopard roar. Hoping to get the old man to open the front door, I knocked on the window and yelled to him to summon the police. When he did not, I followed Rowen around to the back door. There we saw the old man come out and blow upon a whistle. We rushed up the stairs, where we saw Alvin and Bernhard squaring off against the largest snark I had ever seen. A woman and a girl cowered in the corner next to a leopard who had just raked his claws upon Alvin's back. I crooned a "befriend the beast" spell to the large cat and got it friendly to all of us. Rowen performed a blessing upon Bernhardt. The Snark retreated to the bedroom followed by Alvin, with Bernhard covering. I went over to the now friendly leopard and the females, and made sure that they were all OK. I noticed they both had trunks that were all packed and ready to close up, but also noted that it did not look like the young girl had been living in the flat for long, though she might have stayed for a few nights.
I had not even finished introducing myself to Miss Milstead when the Snark, realizing that 4 to one odds were too much, burst back through the front room out into the hall, and started to tangle with Rowen trying to get down the stairs. I stepped up behind him and clawed him. He backed away down the stairs, with me following, and as soon as he entered the back garden I cast Entangle upon him, causing the garden plants to seize him and hold him in place while I quickly interrogated him and the ladies. The woman of course was Miss Milstead. The girl turned out to be named Alice Grace, niece of the engineering partner. She seemed to be recently orphaned and that her uncle had told her she was to be sent to live with some cousins in Austra that very day. She had been the girl playing at being a childlike Marseille Haunniman.
We knew that we did not have long before the police showed up. I quickly determined that neither the girl nor the woman felt they had been kidnapped by the Huge Snark, and I think he was just there to make sure they both got on the train to the coast on time. We got his name, and that he could be contacted through Scantily in Inverness. This was, of course, before Scantly was sent to Darkmoor prison. We let him go as soon as the binding spell had run its course and he left with his leopard "Mr Kittens". I think Alvin was sorry to see Mr Kittens go, as he was starting to fancy having a Leopard himself. When the police arrived we explained that Miss Milstead's newspaper was concerned that she had not shown up to work that day, and asked us to check up on her. The large unfriendly man who answered our knock would not let us talk to Miss Milstead and we were very concerned that she was being held under duress. Miss Milstead, seeing which way the wind was blowing more or less backed up our story.
We brought the two to Miss Hanuman. I personally think that Miss Milstead, if she had played her cards right and claimed that any false claims that young Alice Grace was really Marselle Haunniman that had appeared in her paper under her byline were the result of her being lied to by Mr Grace, but Milstead seemed to think her local reputation was probably unsalvagable and that she would be better off starting over in a new city. Apparently Mr Grace had already paid her to leave the country and given her tickets for her and his niece to Austria. Milstead extracted another 100 pounds from Hanuman in exchange for a signed statement that the articles and photographs that had appeared in the paper were not the genuine Hauniman, but rather Alice Grace, niece of Mr Grace, and we escorted the two of them to the train station in time to catch the train that would take them to their boat. Young Miss Grace was kind enough to send us a letter when they safely arrived in Austria.
This pretty much wrapped up the Hauniman case. The engineering firm of Hahnemann, Grace & Hutt suffered a Serious Scandal from all of that, but Hahnemann ended up pretty firmly in control and over time was able to rebuild their reputation. She suffered a moderate scandal personally, but frankly most of that was just from having the ill grace to allow herself to be affected by the Rabbit Hole in a physically visible way, I mean if she had had the ill grace to allow the rabbit hole to turn her into a snark, well that would have been worse since that would be something that she would not have been able to grow out of within a few years. Her scandal was somewhat offset by her newfound notoriety as a talented young genius. Years later I heard that when she was finally beset by old age she made several trips to the Gruv and back hoping that maybe the rabbit hole would once again knock a few decades of age off of her.
Grace blamed the loss of his limbs on a railway accident and suffered from a Moderate Scandal because of his 'carelessness with the trains' (railway accidents with serious personal consequences seem to be moderate scandals, making bad bargains with Fey where they take an arm and a leg as payment for services rendered would have been a much more serious scandal). Hutt and Grace also suffered from personal Serious Scandals for mischaracterizing her condition, which allowed Hahnemann to keep them in line and working hard for years to come.
With the Hanuman case wrapping up, We patched ourselves up and did a quick investigation of "The Florist" in Wapping. His shop was in a neighborhood that was safe and busy during the day, but rough after dark. Alvin went in and made vague inquiries and hints about buying something other than flowers, and was told to be at a certain warehouse at 11 that night. The rest of the team went to the meet and met two dwarves, an elf, and a human. The dwarf that was the mouthpiece said his name was James Ducal, but talked as if he was not really in charge. The elf seemed to be a magic user of some sort, and gave his name as Florian Davis, He had something magic on his belt. At one tense part of the negotiation, the elf pulled a hidden rapier, so the magic thing might have been an invisible sheath or an astral pocket of some sort. The party eventually decided that it was probably the elf that was in charge, and that the Elf felt contempt for his companions and sense of possession of the product. The party gave some sort of story that Alvin (whom the others had heard of by reputation, and recognized because of his arm) was arranging the buy on behalf of a corrupt churchman, who wanted to deal bang snuff out of his church! Frankly, I would have thought that it would have been easier to disguise the fact that Rowen was a churchman than to work the presence of a churchman into a drug deal. Anyway it worked, they purchased 5 doses of snuff for 5 pounds with an understanding that if they liked it they would buy about 100 doses every few months. For some reason they had a rat inside the bag of drugs. Personally I would have worried that the rat would eat the drugs, maybe it was an exquisitely trained guard rat. Anyway, the deal was completed and everybody left.
I had turned myself into a pidgin and had been eavesdropping on a windowsill. I followed them when they left and caught a cab. The elf and the dwarf who had not spoken got out of the cab carrying the case of drugs and entered a different warehouse a mile or so away. Lights went on upstairs, and I checked out a few windows until I spotted the alchemical lab with the jar of dinosaur glands and the mystical symbols. In the morning we reported the address to PC Campbell, and he thanked us for our information and told us he would keep the place under discreet surveillance.
We still had a few more days until Haunimans trial, which we wished to attend even though everything seemed well in hand, so we spent the time setting up a new company. We had a bit of a discussion on the name of the company, I favored "Ft Alice Exotic Animals import/export company". Alvin Baker favored "8th Wonder Gruv Exports", which is what we decided upon after it was pointed out that we could export things other than animals under that name.We wanted it to start out as just a sideline and part time thing that shared some of our existing resources..The mailing and telegraph addresses and front office functions were shared with the Faraday firm (for example the postal address just had a "suite E" appended). We made arrangements for part of our existing expenses on staff (receptionist, clerical, accounting) and facilities (one filing cabinet) to be paid from our new company, depending upon how much time they spent working on which company's projects.
We eventually built a small barn on a farm one of us had acquired just outside of Ft Alice. Inside we would have a number of sturdy cages of various sizes and a secure "run" outside for exercise and training. We also made arrangements to acquire a large steel traveling cage (with a smuggling compartment). We eventually hired a part time stable hand for morning and evening feedings.
While we were still in London we engaged the main Faraday office for articles of incorporation, licenses, permits, etc. Brief on relevant import/export and transshipment laws, regulations, and paperwork that will need to be filed on periodic and per shipment basis. A large bulk of our startup expenses were spent on the paperwork.
Also in London we made a contact at the Regents park zoo, and with all the exotic animal dealers based in London.I also contacted the Hyde Park Stables, and tried to convince them that having a half dozen buffs and Harpies available to rent would make them even more the the height of fashion than they already were, and attempted to plant the idea that someday they might want to have hunchbeak or Sihrstuulah as well.
We talked about setting up personal correspondence with all the world's major zoos, circuses and freak shows that we could manage, but in the end settled on regular advertising in the two biggest zoological magazines, one focusing on zoos themselves, and the other with a more scientific zoological bent.
Our basic business model was that we let everybody who travels though fort Alice know that we bought live exotic animals, and let all zoos and other interested parties on Earth know that we sold exotic animals, that we take custom orders plus whatever we happen to have in stock.
AP 1000 + 800 + 1000 + 200 = 3000 + Journal raised to 200)Adventure total 14,380 + 9 journals at 200 = 16,180.18 pounds. minus lifestyle. £1/8s x 2 = £2/16s = £15/4s Minus £10/8s for investment in the new company gives £4/16s Profit.
Spend:
130 karma.
Skill Knacks learned: Long Range Casting Skill: Spellcasting Rank: 6 (1300 AP)
Increase Cha 2nd time (1300 AP)
Spell "Honour Permits No Lie", Base Spell: Force the Truth (jm) 1300 AP
Spell: "Tracking" Base Spell Find (novice), 800 AP
Learn two new free skills at rank 2, First Impression and Winning Smile (500, 500 AP).
Hypnotize Journeyman Optional Skill 4 -> 5 Spend 1300 AP
Safe Path (Magic Spend 2100 AP
Willforce Journeyman Core Skill 3 -> 5 Spend 2100 AP\Wood Skin Novice Core Skill 5 -> 6 Spend 1300 AP
Summon Profession Prof Skill 5 -> 6 Spend 1300 AP
Durability Novice Core Skill 5 -> 6 Spend 1300 AP
Equestrian Novice Skill 1 -> 2 Spend 300 AP
Animal Talk Novice Core Skill 2 -> 3 Spend 300 AP
Animal Handling Initiate Optional Skill 2 -> 3 Spend 300 AP
(new total 115)Statistics:Posted by ChrisDDickey — Tue May 24, 2022 10:48 pm
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