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Notes taken by Alastair and Samantha Beadle.
Standing in a field near the burning wreckage of Blitz's aircraft, he, Servo and Void decide which of the two 'tugs' in London to open a gate to. Void states that he cannot really tell them apart in terms of position, so perhaps it would be best to go there and then decide when we can tell a bit more about them. Or at least distinguish them. That being so, we decide at random.
Void declares his intent to return to the barracks afterwards, to preserve the safety of his new family. We agree that perhaps this is the way forward.
With that decided, Void opens a tiny gate to close to the 'tugs'. It seems to open high in the air, and the roar of a crowd chanting "Hail Cromwell! Hail Cromwell!" is faintly heard through the gate as it opens.
Blitz and the others peer through and can see the Puritan rally going on below.
Void moves the gate to search for a more subtle location to allow us to step through without being noticed.
In a jail cell somewhere close by, Noesis examines his squalid new quarters.
It is a small, dirty room with a bed, mattress and blanket, a bare bulb behind a grille in the ceiling, a view hatch and food hatch in the door and a smelly hole in the corner for a toilet. Even so, it is much better than some of the cells Noesis glimpsed while being brought here.
He wonders how he might escape, and sees whether he could make himself sufficiently snake-like to slither out through one of the hatches in the door. He decides that he probably could squeeze himself out that way if things come to it.
In the coffee house, also not far off, Truth has failed to drown out this nightmarish new world with caffeine. In fact it seems even more real now. Yay.
That being so, and with the sounds coming from outside indicating that the rally seems to be over, she decides to return to Westminster Square and see what is going on.
She can sense the nearest 'tug' from the Ministry of Security at the edge of the Square.
Void moves his gate across the London skyline and finds a filthy alleyway behind a row of shops and coffee houses that looks like it would do the job. He moves the mini-gate into a corner there and opens it up to full size.
He, Blitz and Servo step through the gate, feeling the two 'tugs' greatly increase in strength as they do so.
Meanwhile, Truth and Noesis feel the three distant 'tugs' disappear and be replaced by three very close 'tugs'.
Truth, just leaving the coffee shop, turns away from Westminster Square and the soldiers marching out of it towards them instead, to investigate.
Finding a narrow (but filthy) alley between two buildings on the other side of the street, she slips down it, going 'glassy' and drawing her pistols as she approaches.
From inside the alley, the other three sense one of the tugs getting stronger, and Servo hears someone approaching.
We all look at the alley from which the tug is approaching, and see a strange, possibly female, facetted humanoid shape approaching. Holding two large pistols.
There is a meeting. Truth does not look like her real self in 'glass' form, but Blitz and Servo guess it must be her given who they each found the other tugs to be from. Re-introductions are made, and a discussion ensues.
A plan is formed. First we will find the final 'tug' that is similar to those from each of us, assuming it is a last member of our group who has been brought here. We will then, as a group, go off to find the distant but strong 'tug', that we presume is from the person who summoned us here, to have a word with them. Possibly not a very polite word, because we conclude that none of us like it here very much!
"I want to go home!" complains Truth.
We move into the first part of our plan. Void gates himself to several close-by locations to triangulate the position of the last 'tug', and when he has its position reasonably well pinned down, forms a gate to it.
In his cell Noesis sees a red disk appear and expand out into a small red-edged hole in space.
"Err, hello?" he says to the hole.
We peer through the hole at the person in the cell on the other side, wondering who it is. Noesis peers back, doing likewise.
Finally we recognise that the person in the cell resembles Noesis' body before his infection by the hideous flesh-eating disease caused everything but his brain to be amputated. There were plenty of pictures in the newspapers at the time, and it is these that we recognise the person in the cell from.
We talk through the gate, and Noesis requires little encouragement to leave his cell and join us. Void opens the gate further, and he steps through into the alley.
Further 'getting up to speed' discussions take place as we all exchange stories again.
In particular, Noesis tells us about the Witch-hunter.
Given that he is now a wanted fugitive, he then changes his appearance to that of Professor Napoleon Barker. He also experiments with using his powers to change the writing on his identity card, and finds he can do this. He changes the name 'Raymond James' on it to 'Oliver Barker'.
After some discussion on the subject of our various new powers we decide to go somewhere quiet to think things over.
Void opens another gate and takes us to a copse of shattered trees in war-ravaged France.
With that done, he decides that now is the time to return to his military camp to be seen by his superiors to be toeing the line. For, if nothing else, the sake of the family of the person whose body this is.
The rest of us wonder about the safety of the families of those our versions here who have them. Blitz, Noesis and Servo decide that their families here have nothing to worry about, and carry on.
Blitz experiments with his powers. In addition to being able to thicken and thin the air, he finds that he can reduce friction on things and slide acrobatically around the battlefield. He can also slow himself using friction, including when he falls, so that he floats gently to the ground. He finds that, by manipulating friction, he can also climb any surface and walk on water. With these discoveries made, he thinks rather better of the powers of this body...
Truth expresses a concern that if we are in these bodies then their original owners are in our bodies back in our London and quite probably causing chaos there. A fair point.
We agree that we want to find out what is going on and get back home as soon as possible.
At this point a flight of the Spitfire-like fighters roars overhead, towards the front line.
Servo tunes in to their radio and from listening in finds that they are on a routine mission, and not looking for us. Nor have they seen us.
By now we are all quite hungry, but do not have much food.
Noesis experiments with turning some mud into cold cooked pasta. It looks and feels representative - but still tastes like mud. He absorbs some of the cheese that Servo has, then focuses on its form ("Be the cheese!") and tries to use some more mud to copy it. The grit and sand fall away from the mud leaving just the humus behind, which changes to look like cheese. And which still tastes like dirt. Damn.
Servo shares out some of his real meat, cheese and bread to us instead, which helps.
Then Noesis uses his powers to change Servo's clothes into something more suitable - a farm labourer style. Blitz and Truth remain in their Puritan-style clothing for now.
At this point, off in the distance we notice a dogfight begin between three Commonwealth fighters and two twin-engine, twin-boom larger fighter-type aircraft. Servo hears the aircraft pilots talking over the radio, too.
After a brief battle one of the twin-engined fighters is brought down, with the other one escaping. Two of the commonwealth fighters are damaged and head off westwards while the third one chases the twin-engined escapee into the clouds.
Servo and Blitz go off to retrieve the pilot from the downed twin-boom aircraft who we can see has taken to his parachute.
Servo picks up Blitz and begins to fly off with him. Blitz quickly discovers that he can speed Servos flight by reducing air friction using his powers, and does so.
They race cross-country, low to the ground. Some miles away they catch up with the pilot just as his parachute is about to bring him in to land. He is wearing a leather flying helmet, goggles, a heavy leather jacket over a scarf, heavy gloves, heavy boots and heavy trousers, all apparently insulated or fur-lined against the cold. And he has a large pistol on his belt.
They make no attempt to approach subtly, so the pilot notices them and draws his pistol.
Blitz turns his friction-field to a high degree of air resistance, and this catches the pilots' first bullet. Blitz then tries to talk him into surrendering, stating (in fluent French) that we are here to assist him. The pilot does not seem to be convinced.
All three land, and Blitz approaches the pilot as he tries to quickly extricate himself from his parachute.
Several more shots are fired but they are all caught in Blitz's force field.
Blitz leaps forward the last few feet and pulls the gun from the pilots hand with no effort whatsoever. He then orders the pilot to remove his parachute.
He grudgingly does this. "Filthy puritan scum," he mutters in French.
The pilot does not look happy at being taken away by us, but does not resist. Servo tries to lift the three of them off the ground, but finds that he cannot quite make it. There is then some discussion about how to get back.
Eventually they come up with a plan and the pilot's parachute is turned into an improvised 'water skiing' harness.
The pilot is bemused by all of this and makes a futile escape attempt, quickly stopped by Blitz.
With the harness completed, Blitz carries the pilot, 'skating' across the ground whose friction he dramatically decreases while Servo pulls them along while flying at low altitude. By the time we have got back to the copse the pilot is praying.
Noesis and Truth watch all of this from the shelter of the shattered copse.
Once they have arrived back with the pilot, Noesis goes off with Truth into the limited cover of the trees to arrange a change of clothes for her. After some consideration he gives her a floral pattern dress, with a nice hat.
Blitz sits the pilot down and changes into his disguise kit clothes. Those of a French peasant are chosen from the various sets in his large kit-bag.
We discuss the prisoner and what to do with him. After a short while, Servo notices that, from his reactions, he must understand English.
We confront him on this, and he admits it.
After a little further discussion, we decide that we have to take him with us, as he is now a security risk.
Before we go anywhere else, though, we question the prisoner about this world and its history.
According to the pilot, the Kingdom of France is the greatest in the universe. The New Commonwealth invaded Brittany last year - 1995 - and will be thrown back. The current King of France is Louis XX.
We point out how badly things seem to be going for the French at the moment. The pilot tells us that if things get too bad then the other nations of the Octuple Alliance will be allowed onto French soil to assist.
With little prompting he tells us that the Octuple Alliance consists of the Kingdom of France, the Netherlands Republic, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Russian Empire, the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Portugal and the Holy Roman Empire. Some of the Italian states are members of the Alliance too, particularly the Papal State.
Both the New Commonwealth and the Alliance have people with superpowers on their side, in the form of what the pilot calls "the Blessed" if they are on his side, or "Satanic Puritan scum" if they are not.
We ask him what caused the current war.
"The heathen Puritans wanting to convert the world," he replies.
He also tells us that the New Commonwealth is based in the New World, that is, North America. They invaded England in the 1920s.
The pilot tells us that he does not know what happened to the original Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, in a manner not unreasonable for someone asked about the history of events in a foreign country more than three hundred years ago.
He does tell us that one well know French 'Blessed' is The Golden Cavalier, who is blessed with the power of flight and a glowing aura that repels bullets. He can also fire beams of light from his eyes. He knows of no 'Blessed' who has dream-related powers, but then he is only a pilot.
We ask him more about France, and he describes the Kingdom as a happy place, with music, dancing and wine! There are poor people and there has been famine, but not for quite some time. Being Protestant and criticising the King are apparently frowned upon, but not strictly offences.
The pilot is most confused that we do not know all of this and keep asking him what seem to be, to him, stupid questions.
At this point we realise we don't know the pilot's name, so we ask him. Apparently he is Captain Jean-Marie Valois of the Royal Air Force.
At this point Void's red disc appears and opens into a gate that scans about, then out of which Void's voice comes.
We ask him to bring food, water and a radio through with him. He does so, and is introduced to the Captain Valois.
Void tells us that he is a little worried. The New Commonwealth priests seem to be getting a bit suspicious of his cover story that he has been feeling too ill to perform his duties.
This adds further urgency to our task of finding out what the hell is going on here.
Captain Valois is stripped of anything he might use to escape, and told to behave himself and not attempt to escape or declare us to the authorities.
He agrees to do this. "For now."
We then decide to head for the main 'tug' we have been feeling. Void opens up a gate in the direction of it, and we look through.
It turns out to be open over some wintry farmland. The area is clearly not war-torn like the parts of France that we have seen so far. Void moves the gate down into a copse of trees, and we go through. There are farmhouses dotted across the landscape around us with smoke rising from their chimneys. The nearest is about a mile away.
The 'tug' is now much stronger and a little to the north-east of our position.
A few more gates and jumps across farmland that turns into hillsides covered in vineyards and we find out that the 'tug' is close to the town of Laon, inside a hill above a village.
Void localises it further and finds that it is near the top of the hill, on the far side from the village.
We go directly to that part of the hill, stepping out of Void's gate onto the slope away from the village, where we will not be seen.
From here, Void attempts to open a gate to inside the hill beneath us, as near as possible to where the 'tug' is. After a little triangulation he manages this and we find ourselves looking through a small gate into a dark space with flickering lanterns visible around its walls. Some muttering in French is heard through the gate, but Blitz cannot make out the words.
Void opens up the gate, and Blitz puts up his high-friction shields and steps through. "Good afternoon, Madame," he says in French as he steps into the cavern.
"Ah, good afternoon, Monsieur," says a male voice in what sounds like upper class French.
Blitz turns and can see several people standing in the cave. The cavern is reasonably large and dry, but dimly lit. A number of very old-looking standing stones are set around its perimeter. A dozen or so soldiers in French uniforms also stand in a ring around the walls of the cave, holding rifles at the ready, though not aimed directly at Blitz. Three older men and an old looking woman are off to one side, all bar one sat in folding chairs with the other standing in front of his chair. The men's chairs are set around a folding table.
The old woman is dressed in traditional gypsy type clothing and the 'tug' is clearly coming from her. Two soldiers are standing on either side of her, and it is not clear whether they are protecting her or holding her captive.
Of the older men, one is a tall, wiry man apparently in his fifties, standing up, wearing an ornate French uniform. One is a shorter, plumper man apparently in his forties, wearing glasses and wearing a plain dark blue suit. The last appears to be in his sixties, fit-looking but with white hair, wearing an ornate uniform in a different style to that of the first man. It is the first man who spoke.
The attention of everyone in the cave is focused on Blitz and the gate.
Blitz turns to the old woman. "I believe you summoned us?" he says in English.
She nods, but says nothing and appears to be unhappy.
"Indeed she did, at our request," says the man in the French uniform. "To this world and to this place."
"Not willingly," says Blitz accusingly.
"No, but we need you to save this world," he replies suavely.
Blitz asks what is happening back in our world, and whether our counterparts from here are inhabiting our bodies at home.
The lady confirms that this will be the case.
"Any chaos that they may cause in your London is nothing compared to what is happening here," says the Frenchman forcefully.
Seeing that Blitz appears in no immediate danger of being shot, all of us other than Void (who stays behind in case we need a quick exit) and Captain Valois go through Void's gate into the cave.
We immediately being to make the case that we need a quick exit back to our world as our counterparts from here could destroy our home if we stay here for too long.
The Frenchman suggests that if we destroy the New Commonwealth command structure then we could go home. Then they would allow the old woman to send us home, that is...
Truth and Servo are upset by the suggestion that they might have to kill to be allowed him. "We don't do that," says Truth. "Apart from those people I killed in London, but they shot themselves, really..."
"I do not kill," says Servo angrily. "But I would happily hunt you lot down if given the chance."
The soldiers become more alert and ready for action when he says this.
The Frenchman suggests that everyone calms down and has some food and wine. He gestures, and soldiers bring up more folding chairs, and places some food and bottles of wine on the folding table. Wine is poured and offered to us.
Blitz refuses the wine.
The man introduces himself as Baron Charles de Bourges, of His Majesty's Intelligence Service. He then introduces the other men as Master Lucius van der Stel from the Netherlands (the man in the suit) and Duke Otto von Würzburg, of the Holy Roman Empire (the oldest man), and the woman as Madame Drakulich.
The Baron tells us that the New Commonwealth has mastered the powers of its Blessed individuals better than the nations of the Octuple Alliance. The Alliance, although they have some Blessed, is more limited in the range of powers their Blessed have (tending towards physical powers such as strength and flight) while the Puritan side has been building up their forces for some time. The Alliance is only just keeping up with the New Commonwealth because of the great advantage their Blessed give them.
Blitz wonders whether perhaps we could kidnap the leaders of the New Commonwealth and drop them somewhere. "Australia, for example," he suggests.
The Baron points out that a great deal of Terra Australis is part of the New Commonwealth, so this would not be such a good idea. Hmm...
Truth is concerned that the powers we have are good for killing people, as opposed to the powers we have at home, which are more suited to 'suppressing and arresting'.
Servo also suggests that he is not prepared to stay here for ages while our other selves could be wreaking havoc at home.
Before we make any binding decisions, the Baron suggests they tell us more about their world. To begin with, a map of the world is produced, from which it can be seen that the New Commonwealth consists of most of North and Central America with parts of northern South America, some of Australia (called Terra Australis here), New Zealand (called England-in-the-South here), some of Japan, the Philippines, and some other south-east Asian islands. There are quite large Dutch, French and Holy Roman Empires in Africa, southern India and south-east Asia. Russia includes the Asian part of Turkey and a lot of India. Italy is fragmented in many states. There is an Ottoman Empire in Egypt and North Africa, and a Fulani Confederation and a Caliphate of Darfur in central Africa. Hmm.
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Noesis comments on the size of Russia here.
The Baron tells us there are Treaties that restrain the Russians. Hmm again.
Noesis gives them a small potted history of our world, and they give us an equal potted history of this world. It seems that in this world Oliver Cromwell did not have enough support in Parliament to have King Charles I executed, so that instead Charles went into exile in France, where he was a constant thorn in the side of the Commonwealth until he was forcibly restored to the Throne in 1657. The Puritan leadership fled to the New World, and Charles did not have the resources to hunt them down. Persecution of Protestants, and Puritans in particular, led to their fleeing to the New World until, in 1685, the Puritan states declared independence, became the New Commonwealth, and have been expanding ever since. They are now the biggest nation in the world, with a population of more than four hundred million people. They are, so the Baron tells us, a Puritanical Religious Dictatorship, with their capital in Boston, Massachusetts.
After expanding around the Pacific they invaded Britain in 1923, and have since been consolidating their rule their. It turns out this was to use the British Isles as a launch pad for their invasion of Europe.
In return, Noesis tells them more of our history, about the British Monarchy and its subservience to Parliament, and about freedom of speech, particularly in the press.
Baron de Bourges seems to find this a very odd concept, and doesn't like the idea at all.
As we discuss things further, it turns out that they also do not seem to have encountered the idea that racism is a bad thing. They seem genuinely surprised at the thought of different races being equal, even in theory. They seem to think the same about everyone having freedom of speech, too. Apparently the New Commonwealth does not have racism.
Noesis argues that we wouldn't want to help them unless they are willing to consider changing their own governments to a better system. For example, one with no racism.
We ask them about slavery.
The Baron tells us that it does not exist any more in most places, and that the New Commonwealth actively fought against it, to stamp out the practise.
He then suggests that there are half dozen New Commonwealth leaders that they need removed before they have a much improved chance of victory. Matthew Cromwell is one of them. Our taking five of the New Commonwealth's more powerful Blessed out of the fight is quite a significant thing in its own right, too.
Servo asks how we were chosen.
"I searched for non-Puritans to replace the Puritan Blessed," says Madame Drakulich.
Blitz suggests we go away and discuss what to do next.
Baron de Bourges agrees that this might be the way forward, and asks whether we would like any supplies to sustain us while we talk.
We agree that this might be a good idea, so they pack us a hamper.
Truth suggests we hand Captain Valois over to them, as he will be safe here.
We explain the situation to them, and tell them that the Captain did his duty as best he could.
The Baron agrees to accept the Captain from us, and says that they say they will deal with him.
That being so, Void passes him through into the cave from the top of the hill. In return we take the hamper and step out onto the hilltop.
Void gates us away from the hill, with the picnic hamper, and via several jumps to a barn where we sit and begin to discuss what to do next.
Noesis suggests that we could ferment nationalist uprisings in Britain. Truth tells everyone else about the 'Voice of Liberty' radio station whose station she helped to smash up. From what she saw in the barracks there are a large number of different resistance groups spread across the country.
Blitz suggests that we reinstate the British monarchy by finding a legitimate heir to the throne. Or failing that by kidnapping Cromwell and the other leaders and changing their faces, to remove them without killing them.
We all agree that we need to deal with the Witch-Hunter.
Truth wonders if we could put people into a local equivalent of Project Safeguard. However, it is pointed out that the local technology does not seem to be up to the job.
"It is not our war," comments Servo at last. "Whatever we do, we are quite likely to put the people we remove into the hands of people who will kill them."
Very true...
