The team was ready to infiltrate the compound in which there was to be a meeting between a Worm Cult personage and the heads of the three largest trading families of Moerus Lacus.
A few sundries were obtained, and a quantity of what the American chaps might call “Mickey Finn” was brewed up by the ever resourceful Doctor Phipps. The plan was to dose the food for the night’s gathering (which was understood to be over dinner) with this concoction, then improvise once the major actors in this treasonous play were unconscious, with the possible kidnapping taking into custody of the Worm Cultists.
The plan was as sound as any plan made in complete ignorance of any but the grossest details of the evening’s agenda could be, and each member of the team worked well toward its end.
The adventurers dressed themselves as innocuously as they could to avoid undue interest in their comings and goings after dark, and made their way with a cart to a spot they had reconnoitered earlier.
Then they continued on foot to a small, dry drainage culvert that was guarded by a locked gate, which Halliwell made short work of with his trusty lockpicks.
The team observed some servants coming and going, then made their way to what seemed like a servant’s entrance which gave access to a cloakroom connected to a large kitchen, currently occupied by a sole elderly Martian, who was muttering to himself and clanging around in a manner common to chefs all over the solar system.
The team then attempted to sneak up on this worthy, but failed to allay his suspicions and a dreadful fracas ensued with the chef throwing knives and cleavers at the adventurers while they attempted to subdue him.
Which they did in the end, thanks to Phipps and his little black bag of tricks, and they stashed the now comatose chef in the cloakroom.
Then it was a matter of a few moments to dose all the visible dishes with Dr Phipps’ elixir of Lethe before there were sounds of others arriving in-theatre.
Our brave lads then took refuge inside the storage areas offered by the kitchen’s working surfaces while a Shadowy Figure in black searched for the source of all the commotion. Sniffing at the food bowls, he gave servants terse orders, then stormed out. The servants began tossing out all the food Dr Phipps had so carefully seasoned.
The kitchen emptied out and the team emerged, shaken but resolved. They eavesdropped on a Worm Cult Priest berating the three heads of family and exhorting them to join a plan to poison the city’s Red Devil population with a poison dust of which he happened to have a ready supply.
At this point someone in the room became aware of the team and a fight broke out between the Worm Cultists and the brave British lads, watched by a Shadowy Figure and alternately heckled and cheered on by the vacillating nobles sitting at a lavishly spread table.
The fight was. very uneven, and the team retreated to the kitchen where Phipps spilled oil on the floor to discommode the enemy while a strategic withdrawal took place. This was in part successful, though Hartwell took a drubbing from the Worm Cult Priest’s staff, which was emitting some sort of pain ray, and of course the Worm Cult’s High Martian priest could fly, which put a crimp in Phipps’ otherwise brilliant “oil ploy”.
The Shadowy Figure emerged into the kitchen, but seemed to be mostly ineffectual as his frantic pounding at his belt implied a failure of some sort of weapon, no doubt technological.
The team retreated to the cloakroom, where they were momentarily pinned down by fire from an unseen target in the garden.
It was Forsyth who finally voiced his concern that these figures clad in black were possibly assassins who once worked for the dread Brotherhood of Luxor, and that if that were the case the team was caught in a pretty dicey situation indeed, one which might only be resolved by resolute girding of one’s loins and putting one’s best foot forward, then one’s second best as rapidly as possible.
Retreating into gunfire was something even the bravest might have quailed before, but our plucky lads formed a stern intention to do just that and once more steely British courage under fire was demonstrated as the team charged at the then-unseen attacker, overwhelming that assassin and killing him.
More gunfire, along with the certain knowledge of a second like-minded assassin suggested that further withdrawal was called for, and the team escaped back across the grounds and into the culvert without further injury.
A report was made to the authorities, but without proof and without conspirators under citizen’s arrest scandal was almost sure to be the outcome, with the Colonial Office deploring the actions of an unknown group of fanatics dedicated to the erosion of relations between the British Empire and Mars.
Privately, the Colonial Office representative was livid, pointing out that this was an unsanctioned operation by private mercenaries whose reputation was once again to be dragged into the gutter and who very might find themselves the recipients of Martian retribution if British Justice didn’t do for them first.
The team would need to call in some favours to make this one “go away”.
