In which our heroes track a sinister ring of white slavers from San Francisco to the mystic East, to save an innocent girl from a life of toil and shame.
Act 1: The Girl with the Scarred Face
Act 2: The Jade Dragon
Act 3: The Vixen
Act 4: The Peking Express
Act 5: The Sinister Dr Sin
Original Game Notes (Zipped Word document)
Our story begins with our three heroes summoned into action by a phone call from Zachariah's mother. With the speed of justice, they dash from their not-so-secret lair at Mountain Hold Airfield, to the city of San Francisco, where they learn that Jack Coombes - a college friend of Zachariah's younger brother Isaac, and a budding young capitalist to boot - has lost his sister.
The sister, Sarah, disappeared while visiting a restaurant on the outskirts of Chinatown with several of her friends, and Jack's friend Thomas Kent along as chaperone. After a brief and unhelpful interview with Kent, our heroes pay a visit to the locale, splitting up in order that the Mi Li can better talk to her people.
A couple of hours of digging go by without Zachariah and William turning up anything of consequence - although Zachariah manages to purchase an obscenely expensive and possibly not very high quality dress from a street vendor for an unspecified 'lady friend' - but Mi Li has more luck. Although no one has seen a rich girl being abducted, on the day in question, a girl matching Sarah's description, but wearing a fairly plain dress, was seen talking to a local girl, named Lin Po, with a characteristic scar on her face. The locals seem reluctant to talk about Lin Po.
Still roaming the market, William and Zachariah bump into one of Sarah's friends, Katie Burroughs, doing some investigating of her own, in the company of a Mr Roebuck of the Continental Detective Agency. From Katie, they learn that although girls go missing from this area, they are never girls of what the police consider 'quality', and so few investigations go far. Katie also says she saw a girl getting into a dark blue sedan with an old Chinese woman the day after Sarah's disappearance.
The heroes reconvene and compare notes, not realising that Sarah was abducted because of her habit of dressing very plainly and not acting like a rich girl, because not a one of them has thought to ask anyone what Sarah was like.
Following up on the blue sedan, they try the two local garages. At one, Mi Li insults the owner with an attempted bribe, then fails to intimidate him and gets chucked out. Somewhat embarrassed, she does not look back, and so does not see the man head straight for the telephone.
This time out, William and Zachariah have more luck, claiming at the other garage that they were shunted by a blue sedan. The receptionist promises to contact them if such a car comes in with a dent, but won't give out client details. Scanning her mind with his psychic powers, Zachariah gains an image of a green dragon.
They meet up with Mi Li, and are set upon by a gang of thugs, and the girl with the scar, who proceeds to pretty much take Mi Li to the cleaners, as Stuart - despite superior dice pools - seems unable to roll any damage successes. After much nastiness - and a pause to quickly revise the rules fighting mooks - the thugs go down or flee. Lin Po escapes into an alley, but not before taking some hurt, including a pen in the shoulder and a hit from William's patent-pending concussion cane.
Our heroes pursue Lin Po into the alley, and into next week's exciting episode - The Jade Dragon.
Despite her injuries, Lin Po - the girl with the scarred face - makes a clean getaway from our heroes, springing with astonishing grace over a high wooden fence. Despite valiant and stylish attempts to follow, the Adventurers are simply not quick enough, what with failing to have their funk altogether on, and taking altogether too long to cross the fence.
Fortunately, William Hamilton-Hunter, that eagle-eyed champion of good, espies a trail of blood from the girl's wounded shoulder, which they track to the Jade Dragon, a reputable restaurant for rich white people. Breaking into the garage where the receptionist denied all knowledge while thinking of a green dragon, they are able to ascertain that the blue sedan does indeed belong to the proprietress of the Jade Dragon, Madame Wen, whose cousin runs the garage. Moreover, she has a large sum of money deposited in the company safe.
Reserving a table for the following night, William and Zachariah - in the company of two charming, yet deeply inconsequential young ladies - go on surveillance, while Mi Li sneaks in through the back door with an Oscar-worthy performance - or a performance that would be Oscar-worthy five years later when the Academy Awards actually exist - as 'Skivvy number 3'. While her companions order dinner, Mi Li sneaks from the kitchen to the opium den and brothel area of the club. She notes immediately that while the kitchen staff are local, all of the waitresses are native-born Chinese.
Then, disaster strikes. Zachariah is seen by Lin Po while answering a call of nature, and Madame Wen demands they settle up and leave, accusing Zachariah of assaulting one of her girls (and producing a bruised young waitress as proof). When our heroes refute the charge, Madame Wen tells her men to eject them from the premises. They fling the money on the floor - because they can - and prepare to depart with dignity.
At that moment, Lin Po spots Mi Li in the basement vice palace, and vice versa, and a servant rushes in to tell Madame Wen an intruder has been caught downstairs. Furious, Madame Wen orders her men to deal with William and Zachariah, and at once they try to fling them bodily through the plate glass window. With a tricky reverse, the two men each slip one of their two assailants, and send the other flying though the window. Unfortunately, Zachariah slips, and ends up hanging from the curtains, leaving William to handle two goons alone.
And his cane is still in the hat rack!
Downstairs, Lin Po - more bruised than she should be just from the fight with the Adventurers - summons three goons, but Mi Li drops all three with a single flying windmill kick. Lin Po - a smart girl - runs through to the kitchen, yelling for help.
As Zachariah tries to climb back in through the window, William snatches up a tablecloth and throws it over his two attackers. Madame Wen meanwhile takes a swing at Zachariah with her heavy cane, which he barely evades.
In the kitchen, skivvies scatter, unused to seeing Lin Po afraid of anyone but Madame Wen. The enraged chef - who unbeknownst to Mi Li is Lin Po's lover - flies at her with a massive meat cleaver. Undaunted, she scoops up a pan of hot soup and flings it in his face. Scalded and in pain, only his protective-boyfriend rage drives him on, but his aim is poor.
William grabs for his cane, while Zachariah attempts to tangle Madame Wen's cane in the curtains, but gains a nasty bruise for his trouble.
Deflecting a knife thrown by Lin Po, Mi Li strikes out at the chef, wounding him once more, but failing to incapacitate him. With a fierce bellow, he chops at her with the cleaver, shearing her queue (sp?) clean off as she ducks desperately aside.
With a well-placed shot, William brings a chandelier crashing down on the two goons, but miraculously they keep on coming. Zachariah and Madame Wen square off, as he recovers his balance, and she untangles her cane.
Double-trouble for Mi Li as Lin Po leaps at her with a heavy ladle, and the chef winds up for another swing. She grabs the chef's arms, holding the cleaver inches from her body, but an attempt to follow through fails.
So much for subtlety, breathes William, and drops the nearest goon with a shot from the concussion cane. The second jumps into the fray, but without notable result. Zachariah, determined not to stoop to - say - throwing a little old lady, however psychotic, out of a second storey window, instead rips down the curtains to entangle her. Sadly, a slight error of judgement brings the heavy fabric down about his ears, and he barely evades a nasty tumble to the glass-strewn street.
Running out of space, Mi Li takes a nasty blow to the side, but manages to pitch the chef into Lin Po, sending both sprawling. A shower of pans and utensils collapses on them, and Mi Li - not trusting to a fortunate coincidence - beats the retreat instead of trying to close for the coup de grace.
William takes out the last goon, and fires a warning shot over Madame Wen's head. As Zachariah disentangles himself from the curtain, and Mi Li joins them in the - now abandoned - restaurant area - Madame Wen surrenders, and the episode ends.
Having triumphed in battle against four waiters and a little old lady with a mean arm, our heroes begin the process of questioning, demanding to know where the girls are and what the old lady does with them.
Madame Wen bewails her fate, to be surrounded and beset by these ruffians, and Li Mi, emerging fro the wreck of the kitchen, tells her that this is what happens when you associate with people like Lin Po. Being no fool, she immediately tells them that it was all Lin Po and the chef, and that she was but a hapless victim. Li Mi asks what - then - were they doing in her kitchen, to which Madame Wen rolls her eyes, bemoans the fate that sees her beset by ruffians and surrounded by idiots, and tells her that they were using her restaurant as a front for their vile trade, so of course they were in the damn kitchen!
Li Mi seems all set to get into a long debate with Madame Wen, but William suggests heading into the kitchen and interrogating the chef and Lin Po. Zachariah is about to go with him, but they think better of it, and he stays to watch Madame Wen, instead of sending the two - effective - non-coms to corner the badass martial artist.
In the kitchen, they find Lin Po herding the last of the waitresses out the back door, and when they approach, she threatens them with a blunderbuss. The chef is lying on the floor; bandaged but not in a good way, and it is a testament to Lin Po's resilience that she can even stand, let alone aim a blunderbuss in their general direction. They tell her to surrender, and Li Mi suggests talking it over live civilised people.
Lin Po retorts that Li Mi came into the restaurant and beat up the chef, while she works for a white slaver; they are not, she suggests, civilised people.
William tells her that if she tells them what she knows, they will get medical help for the chef and herself. Shrewd enough to guess that they won't let anyone bleed to death on their watch, she refuses to spill, and Li Mi realises that although afraid of them, she is much more scared of someone else. She tells them that medical attention won't do them any good if she talks, because she'll end up in a worse state, but does agree to put the gun down if they call an ambulance.
They agree, and she goes and sits by the chef.
Upstairs, Madame Wen gets Zachariah's number, and offers to tell him where 'Lin Po' keeps the opium if he'll let her slip away quietly. He is tempted (it's in his vice nature to be so), but wary of her, and of his comrades' reaction, he stays firm, even when she offers to throw in the restaurant.
Having called for an ambulance, Li Mi searches around the basement, and finds Madame Wen's office. Tapping around the walls, she finds a hollow panel, but Madame Wen denies that there is anything there. Li Mi begins to break through the panel, discovering quite a substantial void.
While trying - without much success - to appeal to Lin Po's better nature, William realises that her wounds come from Madame Wen's cane, and offers as incentive that the old woman will be going to prison. Further lured by the promise that if Lin Po helps them to connect her to the white slavery ring Madame Wen will likely go away for life, the girl shows them the switch to work the secret panel (by now half destroyed), plus the spare key for the big door at the other end of the hidden passage.
Here they find two girls, frantic with fear, and Madame Wen's black ledger, where she keeps records of all her slaving transactions - white women shipped out, Chinese women shipped in to be slave labour and prostitutes at the Jade Dragon and elsewhere - until the tongs pay up, then burns them. Lin Po also tells them that a man named Mr Lo is responsible for collecting the girls, and taking them to ships at the docks. She knows little about Lo, but thinks that the next shipment was to go out on a ship called the Vixen.
The cops arrive, and are told to go easy on Lin Po. Zachariah uses his power of mind control to work on Madame Wen, so that when the cops show, she breaks down and confesses. She tells them that the Captain of the Vixen is a man named Harriman Willis.
With barely a pause, it's off to the docks, and the Vixen at Pier 7. Offering work, they are directed to seek Captain Willis at the Mermaid Tavern, a waterfront dive where bitter old sea dogs go to drown their sorrows.
William tries to bait Willis by asking him to transport Li Mi to China, but he says he doesn't do that kind of business. A quick brainskim however reveals that he does, and he hates it, and lives in fear of Mr Lo. In fact, because he obsesses constantly about his predicament, and fundamentally _wants_ to get caught, the brainskim picks up almost every detail of his work.
When the pressure gets up, Willis legs it, and Li Mi gives chase. She loses the wily old captain on the waterfront, but Zachariah and William simply walk to Pier 7 and accost him as he arrives. William tells him that he doesn't have to keep doing this work, but Mr Lo pops out of nowhere - a suave, sinister mandarin in black robes, queue and that little mandarin mook hat, with a voice that is 100% silk; in a word: Evil - and asks if there is a problem. Willis insists that he has no choice, and orders his men to attack the Adventurers.
Mr Lo batters the cane from William's hand, and plants a nasty blow in the centre of Zachariah's back, and nine sailors leap down from the Vixen to join the melee. Luckily, as the crew of the leap down onto the jetty, one of the rotted supports gives way, tipping them into the drink. Our heroes keep their feet, as does Lo, but a falling net catches him, toppling him off the pier, just as Li Mi arrives.
But wait!
Mr Lo caught the edge of the jetty, and flips back up in front of them. He goes for Li Mi, but at the last moment smoothly dodges a blast from William's retrieved concussion cane (it's a bought Gadget, so can't be lost). Unfortunately for his so far swinging mojo, Mr Lo then proceeds to plant his foot right on top of the loose plank which Li Mi stamps down on, toppling him from his feet.
But it's not over yet!
Flipping up from the ground, Lo evades another concussion shot, simultaneously launching a double kick to Li Mi's chest, which she barely avoids. Lo lands right by Li Mi, body-to-body; much too close for gunplay. The others have no choice but to close.
Lo launches a powerful strike, which all but dislocates Li Mi's shoulder, then dodges a return attack, and weathers a weak blow from Zachariah. He follows up with a spinning triple-kick, snapping his foot just past Li Mi's chest, and shrugging off a nasty bludgeoning from his three foes to land a nasty, but superficial hit on William, and a crippling blow to Zachariah's hip.
Mr Lo is not in a good way, but things are not looking great for our heroes either.
The next turn, Mr Lo ignores Zachariah, and focuses on William and Li Mi. Zachariah desperately grabs a crate, swinging from a crane, and launches it at Lo.
Deciding to play it safe, given the approaching crate, Li Mi and William go on the defensive. This proves sufficient for Li Mi to evade a snap kick, but a sweeping crescent catches William in the head, laying him out full length on the jetty. Fortunately, Li Mi also evades the crate, but Mr Lo is knocked flying, to catch himself at the very edge of the pier.
Seeing his chance of escape, Captain Willis cracks the sinister oriental over the back of the head, sending him headlong into the water.
Li Mi tends to the fallen William, while Zachariah learns from Captain Willis - heartbroken that he is bound to lose his ship now - that the girls are in the hold, and that Lo's contact in Hong Kong is a craven weasel named Li Shen.
Acting on the information they gained from Captain Willis, our heroes travel by zeppelin (what else?) from San Francisco to Hong Kong, and pay a call on the offices of Smith, Li and Goyzen Imports, where Li Shen, craven weasel and contact man for the Black Scorpion has his offices.
Breezing past the bored looking receptionist, they find Mr Smith's unoccupied office, and Li Shen's pretty young secretary, Wen Ti-an, who tries to prevent them entering his office, facing them with a certain dilemma: their gentlemanly manners prevent William and Zachariah from either shoving past a pretty girl - even a pretty foreign girl, so long as she is not obviously a knowing agent of evil - or even setting Li Mi on her.
Calling on all his righteousness, William announces in a clear, firm voice that Mr Li is connected to a ring of white slavers, and that they are here to stop him. Convinced, cowed and shamed, the girl steps aside, and the heroes march in. William stride up to the desk, where Mr Li is talking on the phone, and slams his hand onto the receiver. Angrily, the three bold adventurers face the lone craven weasel, and demand to know where the girls are.
After a few failed attempts to bluff his way out of this one, Li Shen folds like an origami crane, and blubbingly confesses that he was involved, but that he doesn't know any names. He tells them that he takes the girls by train to Peking, arranging blank letters of transit, and hands them over to a Tong courier at the station. His next 'shipment' is due tomorrow, and he tries to get them to agree to meet him at the station. Realising that indeed two white guys following him around might look suspicious and tip off the bad guys, William and Zachariah leave Li Mi to guard him.
As they go, they see Wen Ti-an taking some money and documents from the safe for her own security.
Li Mi watches Li Shen like a hawk, but alas while her kung fu is strong, her investigative abilities are not, and she fails to spot the signal he gives to alert his tong minders.
Next day, the three adventurers board Li Shen's private carriage on the Peking Express. They find already on board a couple of Chinese bruisers and two young women - Sandy Williams and Tessa Wainwright, recently of San Francisco - who, fearing that they are to be prostituted to these two white men who are friends of the awful Li Shen, become even more frightened than they were before. Consequently, after less than an hour the Adventurers decide that Something Must Be Done (TM).
Zachariah uses his mental powers to send one bruiser to the lavatory, then William shoots the other out of the carriage door with his concussion cane, and Li Mi opens the toilet door and punches the baffled bruiser in the face, knocking him cold. Li Shen is petrified, the girls baffled, until William and Zachariah assure them that they are here to rescue them.
The long trip to Peking continues, until, some hours later, they hear all the doors on the carriage lock from the outside. A pair of oriental eyes appear at the Judas window of the front exit, and a mocking voice tells them that 'This is the fate of all who dare oppose the Sinister Dr Sin and the Tong of the Black Scorpion'. His maniacal laughter is somewhat cut short when William shoots him in the face, and his companion takes this ill and unloads a Thompson into the carriage. Fortunately, no-one is hurt.
Realising that the doors are not an option, and that they have to get to the engine, because the train is getting faster, the adventures smash the windows and climb out onto the roof of the carriage. Well, William climbs: Zachariah kind of gets stuck halfway, and Li Mi just flips up onto the roof in a dazzling acrobatic display.
Here they come under fire from two goons with Mausers, and see two others with Tommy guns climbing up onto a first class compartment at the far end of a flatbed car, on which sits a tarpaulined mass (William, the engineer, recognises a large autogyro when he sees it). So while William snipes at the Tommy-gunners from the limited cover of the roof, and Zachariah clambers onto the roof, Li Mi swings down, kicks the Tommy-gun from the hands of the goon at the door, and engages him in fierce hand-to-hand combat.
Having put him down, Li Mi sprints down the side of the flatbed to tackle one of the remaining goons, while William chalks up his fifth mook of the evening.
Onwards, and through the first class compartment. Li Mi barrels through, emerging at a flat run into the face of a Mauser, taking a graze to the shoulder. Undeterred, she throws herself flat out at the goon, knocking him for six, but taking a round to the gut for her trouble.
Li Mi is out of the game, and there are still twelve cars to the engine, and the train is still accelerating!
Leaving their trusty comrade in the care of a doctor in the first class car, and moving with greater caution, William and Zachariah cut through the next first class compartment, take out the guard between cars and open the door to the first class restaurant.
Horrors!
There are three mooks here, one with a gun to a girl's throat, and one swinging a Tommy gun at our heroes. With a noble disregard for his own safety, William blasts the man with the hostage, sending the goon spiralling to the floor, but leaving himself and Zachariah exposed to a burst of Thompson fire. Luckily, they are in some sort of cover, but William still takes a nasty wound to his arm. Fortunately, Zachariah is able to bring down a chandelier on the enemy, and they are quickly mopped up.
Swiftly onward, stopping only to bandage William's arm and reload his cane, our heroes enter the standard class restaurant, where a pair of ungentlemanly mooks are terrorising two pretty young things. 'Enough of that' say our heroes, and sweeping up a hotplate, they bear it between them and clothesline the two goons, dropping them like ninepins.
On through the passenger cars - with a fortunate absence of guards - our heroes go, until they reach the coal truck. There they spy a goon, and William grapples with him while Zachariah goes on to look down into the engine, and the train speeds out onto a mountain pass. Zachariah crests the coal heap, and sees another Tommy-gunner and a big Chinese with a Mauser. The driver lies on the floor of the engine, a bullet-hole in his head.
Thinking fast, Zachariah opens the coal hatch, letting the coal pour down into the cabin. The Tommygunner is knocked aside, but as Zachariah slides down the stream of coal, he is shot by the last of the Tong assassins. As the coal heap dwindles, and his opponent lapses into unconsciousness, William looks up, and takes his shot through the coal hatch, knocking the goon back, and the Mauser from his hand. Alas, not enough, and the man leaps knocks Zachariah down!
With desperate speed, William leaps through the hatch - unable to shoot with the goon so close to Zachariah - while Zachariah makes a desperate attempt to evade a vicious kick to the ribs. He fails, sees stars explode before his eyes, and the world gets very black. With a nasty smile, the goon leaps at William, but William deflects his momentum, and sends him flying out, off the mountain pass and to his doom.
Drama! The controls have been sabotaged, and there's nothing for it but to bank the fire and let all the pressure out of the boiler, but that's going to make it damned hard to get to Peking in time to force Li Shen to reveal the location of the next girl auction before Sarah Coombes is sold.
Besides, Li Mi is badly hurt, and Zachariah practically comatose.
What on earth can happen next!
After receiving the attention of a doctor, and a few charming and ever-so-grateful lady passengers, the Adventurers borrow 'Betsy', a rail-launched experimental lightweight autogyro from Dr Sir Winston Marbury-Smith, inventor-at-large and grateful train passenger, and speed to Peking. They leave the two girls they rescued in the presumably capable hands of Sir Winston, and promise him that they will give him a full report of how Betsy handles once he and the other passengers arrive in the city. They land outside Peking, and take Betsy in to the premises owned by Zachariah's father's company, which will be their Peking base of operations.
Learning from the craven - and now very airsick - weasel Li Shen that the courier who comes to collect the girls at the station is identified by a red poppy, they hand him over to Aeon-vouched honest elements of the police force, and head to the Peking station, where the news that the train has been delayed has not yet arrived. Searching the crowds, they spot a Chinese woman in man's clothing, wearing a red poppy.
Li Mi attempts to grab the woman, but she slips the expert and subtle martial arts pin and begins to back off across the platform. As the Adventurers fan out to try and cut her off from the exit, she leaps into the air, and begins to run across the heads and shoulders of the crowd. Crying 'Stop! Thief!' the Adventurers give chase, but she is quicker than them; especially than Zachariah, who trips on his own feet and falls flat on his face.
In an attempt to stop her, William fires at the chain holding a station sign, allowing it to swing down on its second chain, high enough not to hit the regular punters, but low enough to clip the woman. With dazzling grace, she grabs the sign, and tries to swing to the exit, but her hand slips, and she lands awkwardly on the ground.
At the gate, Li Mi is right behind the woman, who vaults over and runs for a large automobile. The doors open as she approaches, and Li Mi loses ground as she runs out of wind. The driver attempts to start the car, but to his horror, it won't go. Knowing she is cornered, the woman turns to face Li Mi, and a pair of armed goons get out of the car.
Li Mi tries to slide-tackle the woman, but she leaps over the sweep and lands a nasty - yet superficial - kick to Mi's trailing leg. William takes out one of the goons with his cane, as Zachariah draws his twin Colt .45s. The two martial artists battle fiercely, with Mi losing the advantage and taking a sharp blow to the arm from the woman's fighting fan. The second goon draws down on Zachariah, but another cane shot drops him like a sack of potatoes.
The enemy martial artist doesn't need a weatherman to know which way the wind shines, disengages, and vaults over the car. She begins to run off for an alleyway, but is felled by a heavy shot from the concussion cane. Zachariah meanwhile drags an unconscious goon out of his way and holds a gun to the driver, who stops trying to start the engine.
Feeling justifiably proud of themselves, the Adventurers pile into the car, restrain the martial artist, and demand to be taken to wherever the girls would be taken to. At the same time, Zachariah brainskims the driver. mostly what he gets is: "If I tell them anything, I'll be flayed alive and fed to the master's scorpions". But occasionally: "If I tell them I was supposed to go to the Red Lotus, I'll be flayed alive and fed to the master's scorpions" crops up.
"Drive us to the Red Lotus!" Zachariah demands. Freaked, the driver slams his foot on the accelerator and takes his hands off the wheel. Zachariah tries to control the car, but being a 1920s American sedan, it's big and heavy and has no power steering. The car rolls over, battering the occupants about, and in the confusion the gun goes off, killing the driver.
Battered and less triumphant, the Adventurers flag down a couple of rickshaws to take them and the unconscious woman back to their temporary base of operations. Searching her clothes, Mi finds a matchbook, with the address of the Red Lotus. Since the woman shows no sign of regaining consciousness, they hand her over to the police and head to that address.
The Red Lotus is a private gentleman's club in the strictly Chinese part of town, so the Adventurers realise they won't have much time to recce. Deciding that decisive action is called for, they take only long enough to locate the warehouse behind the club, and then Li Mi piles into the four goons guarding the rear entrance. Flipping up off her hands, she kicks down two of the goons, lands on her feet and punches out the other two.
Busting in, William comes under fire, but dodges and is unharmed. Zachariah dives through the door, both guns a' blazin'', and in a hail of bullets and concussion blasts, one goon is killed and the second knocked out.
Hearing four more goons moving to attack them in a pincer movement, William and Zachariah attempt to drop some heavy crates on their approaching foes, while Mi climbs a crate for a bird's eye view. Zachariah heaves a load of opium onto his two goon, taking them out of the picture for good. William however, succeeds only in pulling a muscle, and is almost ventilated by two goons. Fortunately, Mi leaps to the ground, and drops the two tong thugs in a flurry of fists.
Nothing now stands between the adventurers and the door at the end of the warehouse. Behind this door, voices are raised in anger, and a woman screams. That's all William needs to hear, and he kicks in the door to reveal the Black Scorpion tong's auction house. A group of girls are restrained and terrified in a roped off 'pen', while men - and a woman - of assorted nationalities sit on benches, surrounded by large bodyguards, and in one case, a black panther. One man, an American, has Sarah Coombes by the wrist and is dragging her from the pen, while a grizzled gunman stands at his side.
At the head of the room is an auctioneer with a stand and gavel, and behind him a high throne, on which sits a sinister mandarin (and yes, I am trying to think how a small orange might be sinister), who can only be the Sinister Dr Sin. Surrounding these two, are four more goons.
With impressive calm, considering that they are outnumbered five to one, and all injured, William informs these assembled low-lifes that they are taking the girls out of here, and that if they don't make trouble, they can all leave unmolested.
Well; this is actually a smart move, for as William had surmised, none of the buyers owe each other any allegiance. Consequently, they all start heading for the exit, not willing to take the risk that there might be more of these loonies. The American however keeps dragging Sarah away, and his bodyguard draws his gun, as Dr Sin orders his goons to the attack.
Once more, Mi springs into devastating action. She scissors her legs around the first goon's throat, warding off attacks from the others. As the goon topples, she punches out to either side, felling two more, then as she lands, headbutts the final thug into unconsciousness.
For William and Zachariah, there is only one possible target, the scumbag dragging Sarah Coombes away. He takes a concussion blast to the chest, which all but incapacitates him, then Sarah takes him the rest of the way with a well-aimed elbow. The bold act incidentally protects the Adventurers from potential harm, as the bodyguard - instead of shooting at them - chooses to backhand her into the wall with brutal force. The panic of the other buyers is heightened, as Zachariah shoots out two of the gas lamps.
A solid shot to the chest reveals the one weakness of the concussion cane, as the hardy mercenary all but shrugs it off, and in return sends a bullet whistling past William's ear. Zachariah isn't standing for this kind of thing, and takes out his frustration in .45 calibre slugs on the wall behind the gunman. To complete a poor round, Li Mi advances on Dr Sin, and is hopelessly cowed by the Celestial mastermind's terrible psychic presence.
Zachariah manages to score a hit with the .45, but barely clips the gunman, who in return slaps a bullet through William's shoulder, winging him badly. With a final shot, William grazes the mercenary, and - thankfully - while the damage is slight, it is enough to send him down. Li Mi does far worse, meets Dr Sin's gaze, and is cast into a hypnotic trance by the awesome power of those sinister black orbs.
As the remaining heroes round on him, Dr Sin orders Li Mi to kill her companions, and although fighting the compulsion with all of her being, she rounds on them. Secure, however, in the knowledge that no insidious force could truly turn his loyal comrades against him, William shoots Dr Sin in the face before he can make his escape, sending him wounded and stunned, tumbling back through the curtain behind his dais.
Since the building is on fire, the first order of business is now to get the girls out of the building, which they do, assisted by the cool-headedness of Sarah Coombes. Then Zachariah - for perhaps the only time in the game, not the most injured Adventurer - returns to check behind that curtain.
Sure enough, Dr Sin is gone, and a trail of blood leads to nowhere. With time running out, he grabs up a stack of ledgers, and flees, and the Adventurers return to their base of operations with the girls. The ledgers prove to contain listings of the sales made by the auction house, and these are turned over to the authorities.
A letter from the Aeon Society
The Aeon Society follow-up report