Ability Improvements[]
- Colonel Gentleman improved Helmsmanship from Average to Average+, and Sorcery is improved from Poor to Poor+.
- Edward the Red improved Leadership from Poor to Poor+, and Stealth is improved from Average to Average+.
- Ting Wu improved Tinkering from Average to Average+.
- Dr. Orpheus improved Fencing from Average to Average +.
Episode Summary[]
The party was sent to determine the origin of some of the writing on the discs acquired in the previous episode. When the party arrived to the clubhouse of "The British and Foreign Society for Improving the Embossed Literature of the Blind", they found the door unlocked with nobody home. Proceeding inside, they found on the dinner table the body of a Thomas Arden with several burn marks and chunks of flesh torn from him. Soon after they discovered this, Basil Merryweather, his investigative partner arrived. With some initial accusations, eventually Basil (a supposedly capable Eleusinian) cast a spell to determine what sort of murder took place. To his (and the party's) surprise, the spell went wild, burning what little hair Basil had left as well as his clothes and Edward's cloak. The rest of the party escaped unharmed, but the body was turned into a green powder, splattered all over the room.
The party made some inquiries to the neighbors and investigated the clubhouse, which apparently was totally empty. Suddenly, Ting Wu and Edward was attacked by some sort of dimensional/time leech. After fending it off, the party investigated some more. A half-torso of one of the blind professors appeared out of nowhere in the front library. Using necromancy, Dr. O managed to find out that there was arcane Science! afoot, by a certain Jack Peers, PhD, a physicist who was obsessed with regaining his sight by developing a machine that would tap into his "Sixth Sense".
Finding the secret lab of Peers downstairs, the group fiddled with the Sixth Sense machine (after judicious use of Gorgon-zola! to petrify a straggler Time Leech) until they were drawn into a rift in what was apparently an alternate dimension, filled with purple haze and a number of the Time Leeches. They managed to bring back some of the lost blind men from the alternate dimension, and herded the Time Leeches using horseshoe magnets acquired in the lab. They rigged the electric dynamos to the Faraday Cage, electrocuting the Leeches into oblivion.
One of the professors was able to translate the embossed dots of "Braille" on the disc. It is a personalized dialect of embossed writing developed by a blind Muslim statesman and scholar named Zain-Din al Amidi. The party decides to travel to Damascus, hoping to find a lead through the history of this particular scholar.
- Sword Canes lost - 1 (left in alternate "Purple Haze" dimension)
Quotes[]
- "What if we reverse the polarity?" - Colonel Gentleman, on Science! plot devices.
- "Let's just throw it into the English Channel" - Doctor Byron Orpheus, remarking on how to get rid of a petrified Leech.
- "I'm going to start chucking blind people through." - Edward the Red, on the appearance of a black rift.
- "Why don't we get out of there, run away, and not tell anyone?" - Colonel Gentleman