Shadows in the Smoke S1E44 - "What This Will Cost Me"

Shadows in the Smoke S1E44 – “What This Will Cost Me”

Kim
Shadows in the Smoke is intended for mature audiences and may contain material that some people find disturbing. Please see the episode description for content warnings, and listen with care.

[Shadows in the Smoke theme]

Kim
Welcome to the Dusk.

[Quiet, contemplative piano]

Kim
The first thing that we do in the Dusk is roll moves that are rolled during the Dusk Phase. One of which is the Quickening. Hello, Mr. Hutchinson.

T.
…Fuck.

Kim
[Laughs]

T.
Hello, three Conditions.

Cassandra
Godspeed.

Kim
Do you have a Personal Quarters item you’d like to use?

T.
I have one that is unmarked, besides my revolver. And that is a box with a heart in it.

Kim
I have to ask, how are you invoking the heart in trying to stave off this transformation?

T.
The Cursed is hungry. It calls for blood. Maybe if I can give it some blood ahead of time, I can stave it off for another night. So I will be using the box with a heart of one of Athena’s former lovers, and I will eat that heart.

[Rolls dice] 3 + 2 + 1 is 6. Which means I need to spend two, right?

Kim
Yes.

T.
Fuck me.

Cassandra
Wow, this took such a dire turn.

Natalia
Oh god!

T.
Speaking of dire, I’m going to mark my Cosmic Passage, increasing my Sensitivity by 1 to 2, and reducing my Reason by 2, to -2.

Kim
Oh, god…

T.
For a long time, this has been Hutchinson with the beast inhabiting him. Now it is the Cursed, inhabiting Hutchinson. I am going beast mode.

Natalia
I am so scared.

T.
And for my second act, I will re-mark the Darkened Threshold.

Kim
Okay. So now you must narrate another scene in which you hurt an innocent because of your curse.

[Rain. Dreamy ambience]

T.
As the sun sets on the British empire, and England’s fair princes are snug in their beds, we see a townhouse in Wapping, on the north bank of the Thames. Its curtains are drawn, and the warm golden light radiating within is completely caged by thick gold velvet drapes.

On the luxurious bed reposes a man with smooth skin, tanned to a golden brown even in the deep midwinter. He listens to a cylinder of music and idly plays his own harmony on a small harp, lost in reverie. The resin of a pipe glowing gently within reach.

[A Chopin Nocturne]

T.
As the recording switches to Chopin’s Nocturne in E flat Major – music this man cannot abide – he wrenches himself from his stupor and sets the instrument next to a gold mask on his bedside table.

As he stops the gramophone, he lifts his head toward the door.

[A monstrous groan]

T.
Did he hear someone? No, that would be impossible. Probably just the rain.

[Bach’s Cello Suite, Prelude]

He selects a new cylinder and closes his eyes, letting Bach’s cello wash over him, when the glass of the window shatters and chaos invades his sanctum.

[Monstrous groans]

The goat head of the monster opens, and its serpentine tongue lashes out. The man catches it in his golden fist, and it bares his fangs at him. The man wrestles with a monster. It’s not the first time he’s tangled with this snake, but that was in the bright of day, at the height of his power.

He tries now to grab a hold of its neck, but is stung by the tentacles writhing there. He tries to get under it and lift it, but his hands prickle on the barbed quills. His beautifully appointed solarium is brought to ruin by their struggle, its gilded décor destroyed as they thrash about, bound together, muscles intwining. The man, thrashing for his survival.

He does not know what it would mean to die. He does not know if he can, he thinks, as the monster pins him.

[A thunderclap]

T.
After some time, just before dawn, the Cursed monster slithers back out the window and sinks its wolfish head into the raging river, the taste of citron and bay laurel and spiced honey on its tongue.

Kim
…I can’t believe you.

[Quiet, contemplative piano]

Natalia
You’re so wild for that.

Cassandra
Yeah, that…

T.
You broke my heart.

Kim
[Laughs] Now I have to kill your brother?

T.
You threw my soul out the window, onto the lawn.

Cassandra
Did you kill him?

T.
I ate him.

Kim
So Mr. Hutchinson, please replace the Condition: Runaway with Drained.

And Miss Douglas, are you using Moonlight Upon the Waves tonight?

Natalia
Yeah, I think I am gonna do Moonlight Upon the Waves.

Kim
Oh, marvelous. Okay. Now I would like to invite you all to answer a question, should you like to. We have four Threats that we are currently working on. Last and least, we have the Whateley Camera.

Cassandra
[Laughs]

T.
You don’t need to be like this.

Kim
We have only three Clues for our Complexity 8 question, so we cannot even attempt to answer it this evening, so that will go unanswered. We have The Pinkerton, who has a Complexity 4 Question. We have gathered 2 Clues for The Pinkerton. We have Figgs Piggs. We have one remaining Figg on the lam. Or the ham, if you will.

Natalia
[Snorts]

Cassandra
[Whispers] Oh my god…

T.
It was right there the whole time.

Kim
And three Clues with which to try to answer a Question concerning Patrick Figg. I will remind you that the very last Figg must be resolved during the Night Phase. And then we have the Coven, a Complexity 6 question. And we have six Clues. So are there any questions we would like to answer today?

T.
Why? Why are you like this?

Cassandra and Natalia
[Laugh]

Kim
That’s a good question for my mom. Hey Janet.

T.
Hi Janet.

Cassandra
Hi Janet!

Natalia
Hi Janet.

T.
It’s been so long.

Cassandra
I know. I have a pitch for Patrick Figg.

Kim
Okay. The Clues we’ve gathered for Figgs Piggs are various detritus from the river Thames, gathered and formed into a giant nest. A report that a bunch of chickens had been brutally killed, but there were human footprints leading to and fro this supposed animal attack. And Mr. Hutchinson found in a roman ruin beneath London dots of dried marmalade, making a path – as if leading something in or out of a particular place. The Question for Patrick Figg is simply, “What kind of animal does Patrick Figg think he is?” It is a Complexity 2.

Cassandra
My first pitch here is that Patrick thinks he’s a mink? And a mink is a member of the weasel family. They are actually notorious for killing chickens. And as far as like the water, they’re very aquatic-based. And so it would make sense that he would be pulling stuff to make his nest from the Thames. And then because they’re very like scavenger-oriented, they would go after something like marmalade as way to like lure them in, but we’re also still luring a boy at the same time. But they do scavenge and get into trash, as a means of finding their food. So that would cover all three.

As would a raccoon, so either one…

Natalia
Raccoon was what I was thinking.

T. and Robert
[Laugh]

Cassandra
Raccoon’s the other one. A lot of, like, similar traits. The only reason that I say the mink is because it fits the aquatic aspect of pulling things from the Thames just a little bit better.

Kim
But raccoons like to wash their little hands in the water.

Natalia
They do. And they also build nests!

Cassandra
Yeah. So a raccoon or a mink actually, like, covers all the Clues. If he’s just washing his little hands in the river and then – ooh! A piece of trash for my nest! Off I go!

Natalia
[Laughs]

Kim
So do we wanna go mink or raccoon?

T.
I was gonna say mink is very fancy, and I like the idea of wearing Patrick to our holiday party.

Kim
Boo.

Natalia
What is wrong with you?!

T.
I’m a monster.

Natalia
[Laughs]

Cassandra
That was not what I was expecting you to say, and I’m somehow not mad about it.

T.
I have no reason.

Natalia
I like mink.

Kim
Yeah.

T.
Mink is great. Let’s go mink.

Kim
Alright, so this is gonna be at a +1. Who wants to put dice on the table?

T.
Nat and Cass, that was your theorizing.

Natalia
Sure! Be nice to me, be nice to me, be nice to me… Ah! 6!

Cassandra
[Groans] It’s a 1. So it’s a mixed.

Natalia
Yeah. I would bump that, then, to a full success.

Robert
It’s our last Figgs Piggs. Let’s bump it up.

T.
Let’s do it.

Kim
The Mask of the Pig reads as follows: each hunter narrates a dream about the pagan swine god, Moc’h. Did Moc’h demand a sacrifice of riches, status, or blood? What did they each sacrifice?

[Abandoned, unsettling ambience. Monstrous groans]

Robert
Rabbit hasn’t dreamed on his own for quite some time. So it’s been a while since he encountered Moc’h in someone else’s dream. Back when he was wearing a different face. Even the Master of Nightmares knows that when you encounter a power older than the current courts in someone’s dreams, it is best to pay it respect and deference. So, he did. And the man whose dream Rabbit met Moc’h in never woke up.

Natalia
Maesie has a dream of Moc’h, but it doesn’t feel like a dream at first, because it is simply reliving the first moment that she met Moc’h in the pantry. She has this view of herself walking from her room through Hargrave House at night. The house is utterly empty, utterly quiet. And she makes her way down in to the Larder, and is face to face with this writhing pile of meat – larger than she remembered it being. Stinking of rotting flesh.

And in the demanding of a sacrifice, she reaches into the fish tank. But instead of killing the lobster that she pulls out of it, she instead finds herself wrenching its claws, slicing her own wrists, and letting the blood pour forth into Moc’h’s mouth.

T.
Augustus Hutchinson dreams of his native home of Savannah, Georgia, and the manor in which he grew up. He’s walking down a long lane toward the house, but it never seems to get any closer. He’s wearing a fine silk suit. On the way he grows tired and stoops, then crawls to all fours. Sitting on the porch, he suddenly sees his mother. She’s holding her head in her lap, and trying to sew her ear into a purse.

Hutchinson looks to his left, and sees the head of Moc’h on his mother’s body. The porcine eyes gaze into Hutchinson’s, and he knows what he must do. Taking a torch from the ether, he sets his home ablaze, and revokes his status as a man. And embraces his life as an animal.

Cassandra
Ena dreams of the basement of the Figgs’ home that Augustus defiled in her name against Moc’h. As she descends the stairs into this space, there are no walls. It’s more celestial, divine. And that table and two chairs sit in the center of this wide open expanse, with Moc’h in one of them. She approaches, holding Aegis and her spear, but sets them down across the table.

At her seat is a knife. Because from one god to another, riches and status mean nothing. Suddenly, Moc’h produces a hollowed tusk and slides it across the table, and she catches it in her hands. Picking up this blade off the table, she runs it from elbow to wrist, letting her blood fill this tusk-like horn. The material changing to something darker.

As she continues to bleed, she walks over and hands it to him, gives him a slight nod but not a bow. And he drinks it as she moves back to her seat and begins to bandage her wound.

[Quiet, contemplative piano]

Kim
Thank you, hunters. Mask spent, that moves the answer for Patrick Figg up to a full success. Well done. Your answer is correct. Patrick Figg thinks he is a mink. You may resolve this threat by luring the animal out in the open, and then capturing or destroying him.

Are there any other questions we would like to answer this Dusk?

Robert
I would love to take a stab at the Coven.

Kim
I thought you would say that.

Natalia
[Chuckles]

Kim
You’ve certainly been putting ga lot of energy into resolving this Threat quickly. The Clues you have for the Coven are as follows: a tarot card washing up from the Thames – the Magician. The Coven was seen poring through books about old railway stations. Members of the Coven are plagued with dreams of the color green turning into black. A member of the Coven implied that Professor Sommerset could be found “where water is running upstream.” Stories of a local steel mill being shut down, its workers turned out into the street. And a member of the fae said that all the cats in a particular neighborhood have been gathering in the same spot every twilight, and being compelled to gaze up at the stars.

The Question for the Coven is simply, “When and where will the final step of the Coven’s grand ritual take place?” It is a Complexity 6.

Robert
The “when” is fairly easy. It is tonight. And it is specifically tonight starting at twilight, because of all of the cats who have been gathering in the neighborhood at twilight. As the Coven has been working their magic, the cats have been drawn to it.

They have been working their magic in that neighborhood, and specifically in a steel mill that has been shut down in that neighborhood. Because if you’re intending to capture and bind someone with fae magic, what better place to do it than a steel mill?

Which is also why they were researching the old railway stations. Because they needed to find one that was relatively close to where they’re going to do the final preparations. Because while this ritual will bind Rabbit, the final, final step of it actually takes place somewhere else – which we’ll get into if we ever get into my Masks of the Past. But this is the ritual to bind Rabbit.

Water running upstream seems tricky at first. But as part of the Bessemer process of making steel in this era, you would have to pump water in to cool down the hot metal at certain points.

And similarly with the color green turning into black, this represents the green isle of England being crisscrossed with iron and steel railroads as the Coven takes over more and more.

And finally, the Magician is just Professor Sommerset himself, who will be leading this. Fun fact, at this point in time because we are still pre-Rider Waite, the Magician is not some great sorcerer… You know, magi type. The Magician is a conman. The Magician is a charlatan. The Magician is someone who pretends to have magic, and uses powers that he doesn’t. And if that’s not a description of Professor Sommerset, well then I don’t know what is.

[A long pause]

T.
Do we just wanna… [Claps]

Cassandra
Yeah, let’s all just… [Claps]

Robert
Look, I’ve been thinking about this, like, since the last time we played. I’m like, “How can I use every single one?”

T.
The like folklore interpretation of the water running upstream to be a pump was like…

Kim
Green turning into black really sent me.

Cassandra
My guy!

T.
Chef’s kiss. That was like the 2012 Olympic Opening.

Kim
[Laughs] Does anyone have anything else they would like toa dd to that question?

Cassandra
No!

Natalia
No, of course not. He killed it.

Cassandra
I’m so full off of that. Like, thank you. That was a meal.

T.
I would like to posit that the Magician is a magician who uses real magic, and it is not Sommerset, but it is Rabbit.

Robert
I would say that is also a valid interpretation. Is that, which side of the Magician is this?

Kim
This is a flat roll, +0. Who is putting dice on this table?

T.
Robert, only.

Cassandra
I think it’s Robert, both dice.

Robert
I think it’s only fair if I roll this.

Kim
Alright.

Robert
[Rolls dice] I rolled a 2 and a 3, for a total of 5.

Natalia
Oh, no…

Kim
So your answer is incorrect, and I will make a hard move against you. Unless all of you spend a Mask of the Past, right now. There is no Threat-specific mask for the Coven. So if you wish to bump this up tonight, all of you must do a past mask.

T.
I’m in. Three masks, one night, let’s go.

Kim
Dear god, T…

Natalia
Yeah, I’m down.

Robert
I was gonna say, T, you’re the one who this is the biggest ask for.

Kim
T, I am sweating.

Cassandra
I’m also sweating.

T.
I’m an animal, I’m a beast. I’ve got nothing to lose. Let’s go.

Kim
Is everyone willing to spend a Past Mask right now?

Cassandra
I am willing to spend one.

Natalia
Let’s go.

Kim
Okay. I think it’s only fitting that we end with Robert. So if the other three of you, let’s hear your masks.

T.
Narrate a flashback to the time when the Quickening Curse caused you to hurt someone you cared about.

1846. The Sierra Nevadas.

[A snowstorm]

After receiving his curse, the man calling himself “One Shot” John tried to run. There was a pull in him, calling him toward the Atlantic. The dark-haired man said John worked for him now, and that occupation was etched into his bones, calling him East. So John does the opposite.

In May of 1846, he joins a wagon train, taking the Oregon trail in Springfield, Illinois. They aren’t much, as pioneers go. Their patriarch is pushing 60, and John is easily able to make himself useful to the old man as a hand, fixing busted wheels and hunting for game along the way. The oxen don’t take a shine to him, but he doesn’t care for them much either, so that’s all one.

The old man’s wife, some 16 years his junior, does take a shine to the new hand, and insists he stick close to their wagon, “For the protection of our girls.” She has three daughters, and those girls decide their chief occupation is disturbing John’s rest every time they make camp. So he’ll chase them around like a cinnamon bear, while they giggle and squeal. Always the entertainer.

The youngest of the sisters is a little thing, no older than his own baby would be. Maybe that’s why he promises, as she sleeps one night, “I will do anything for you.”

In July while at Ft. Laramie, they receive word of a shortcut. The girls’ mother is dispirited at the thought of taking it, but the old man makes the decisions, and he decides.

It’s rough going. After plodding through Satan’s own summer in god-awful Utah with the muck and mountains and Mormons, they at last descend the granite slopes standing sentinel between California and the rest of the nation. As if they haven’t been hindered enough, an axel slips on one of their wagons. John offers to fix it, but the old man, perhaps to flex his waning potency, goes into the woods to fashion a replacement and slices his hand open for the effort. John stays behind, and flexes his own with the old man’s wife.

That charlatan Hastings’ so-called “Cutoff” strands them in the Sierras. In the first week of November, a storm comes in so oceanic it lasts for eight straight days – like some sort of perverse Hannukah. A blizzard pins them in the mountains. One Shot turns 23 near to starving, fearing for his life at a spot called Alder Creek.

The oxen die, so at least he has that going for him. The family eats their meat, and their hides, and boils their bones, then leather from their shoes to sustain themselves. There’s talk of setting out on foot to seek rescue, but as John makes his way to descend into the valley, another week-long storm blusters in, and it snows so deeply the remaining livestock die, and the party is covered into an ocean of white.

The old man’s cut turns gangrenous and spreads to his shoulder. Seems certain he’ll perish. No one was doing what needed to be done, and those little girls were going hungry.

[Unsettling ambience]

At night, in the pines, John huddles and shakes in the cold, trying to keep the change from taking over him. But he doesn’t have much practice at it, yet. Eventually he is weak, and he is hungry, and he succumbs.

A man named Burger, appropriately enough, was the first to go. Then the others. Starving hands don’t stand a chance. But the girls are fed. One night, their mother witnesses his transformation. She doesn’t invite John to her bed after that.

When at last rescue reaches the girls in Spring and takes them to Sutter’s Fort, their mother insists on staying behind with her husband. A few days later, the man dies anyway. She promises John she won’t breathe a word of any of the ordeal, or anything she’s witnessed, to anyone for as long as she lives. She doesn’t live long.

There’s some solace that at least her girls didn’t have to eat her. But to the Cursed, all that meat seemed an awful waste.

Augustus Hutchinson never does see the Pacific. When the snows begin to melt, he takes the hint and turns back East.

Cassandra
Narrate a flashback that shows when you cruelly discarded the artist.

[Serene ambience]

Cassandra
The sky above London was a dull smear of ash, the kind of sky that drank color from even the boldest brush. Fog clung to chimneys like regret.

Inside a dim studio near the Thames, John William Waterhouse worked feverishly, brush to canvas, soul to edge. He had painted her before, many times. Once as a whisper in the woods, once as a woman with hands like commandments. But this, this was his masterpiece. She stood atop a marble pedestal surrounded by Greek columns, as if she were a statue on display. The sky behind her is a stunning, unearthly blue, yet dark clouds roil at the edges of the scene. She is wrapped in a billowing ribbon of silk, cinched by a gold cord adorning her waist. In one hand, Aegis. The other, reaching toward the heavens. Her beauty is otherworldly. Her face serene, except for a small, feminine smile playing at her lips. The piece feels almost tranquil, serene, but slowly gives way to boiling, angry waves. Clawing and coiling, unable to reach.

He had named it simply, The Mistress.

She came, uninvited as always. He didn’t hear her enter the studio, only felt it, like a room holding its breath. She stood behind him as he revealed the canvas. He turned, expectant. Hope made a fool of him, every time.

“I made you beautiful,” he said.

“I was already beautiful,” she replied.

“But now they’ll understand.”

“They’ll understand him, John. His need, his hunger. Your mistake John.”

He flinched. “Do you feel nothing?”

She studies the canvas a moment longer. Not with admiration, but with assessment. The way one evaluates a flawed argument. “I feel accuracy, and this isn’t it.”

[The ambient tones grow more unsettling]

Cassandra
Her gaze shifts back to him, cool as cut glass. “You set me above the waters, poised to slip. To lose my footing. You made a promise on my behalf to someone old, proud, and listening.” The air in the room tastes suddenly of salt. “Do you know what this will cost me?”

He swallows. “I… I only wanted to show your power.”

“And instead, you’ve made me weak. An empty shell, to be buried in the sands below the tide.”

She turns from the painting at last, any trace of herself withdrawn from it. Leaving only pigment and presumption behind. “You’ve used my image to settle a debt that was never yours to touch. And with it, I see where your loyalty truly lies. I don’t know what else I expected. Men are so easily swayed by the illusion of power.”

She moves toward the door. The fog presses harder at the windows, as if something beyond the river has noticed the slight. “I will not shield you from the consequences. Not from him, not from yourself. And certainly not from me.”

And then she’s gone. The studio feels suddenly too close to the water. The painting’s waves restless, offended. No longer denied, but no longer answered.

Natalia

Narrate a flashback to when the thief forced you to humiliate or hurt someone.

[A fireplace crackles]

Natalia
His study. The scent of pine, leeching from the desk. A framed portrait of him and his children. The sky still dark, and full of stars. My pelt, thrown over the back of his chair. His fingers, running across the fur.

“Sit there, now. Your little escapade has threatened my child’s future. I don’t take kindly to those who threaten my family.” A hand raised, as he shakes his head. “You will not speak. I am not interested in hearing what lies you might have to try and sway me, sea witch. Unlike my daughter, I have no patience for that sort of treachery. What you will do is confess. This morrow, you will stand before Lady Elizabeth and tell her what you have done. How you have corrupted her spirit with your false promises and your ungodly sorcery. You will tell her you do not love her, and that whatever she may think she feels for you is a fabrication of your own doing.”

A moment of crackling silence. A gaze, obstinately unblinking.

“All of this you will do or I will throw this hide directly into the fireplace, and I will watch you writhe and scream until there is naught but ash.”

[Gentle harp music]

Natalia
Her room. A candle, the wick burning blue on the short wax stub. Her chest, rising and falling peacefully. Moonlight shining off her brow and the ridge of her nose. Sitting at the foot of her bed, eyes running over every delicate feature. Whispering her name in the half dark.

She sits up, her face bright, then confused. “What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting at the shore?

“I have to go.”

“Is it morning already? I can’t believe I almost missed it! Let me grab my things.”

“You misunderstand. You are not coming.”

“What do you mean? Has something happened?”

“I do not want you to come with me.”

“Mae, I know it’s dangerous, but we’ll be together. We’ll be alright. I have you, and you have me.”

“I do not want you.”

“Stop saying that.”

“I do not love you.”

“Yes, you do.”

“No, I do not.”

“Well, I love you!”

“You feel infatuation. Nothing more.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I was bored, and you were an easy mark.”

“I found you! I came up to you!”

“It is easy to make someone believe something is their idea when you have magic. But now, I’m bored again. So I’m leaving. Bye, Lizzie.”

“Mae, wait!”

The door, slamming behind me. Her sobs, echoing through the wood. Pine.

Robert
Narrate a flashback to your young adulthood that shows part of your initiation into The Coven. Name The Coven.

[Magical, dreamlike ambience]

Robert
Months have passed since Morgan and Percy where inducted into the Occluded Sons of Herne. And while the meetings have been fun, Morgan’s initial assessment has proven true: a drinking club with the barest trappings of esoteric ritual and philosophy.

Professor Malcom Sommerset, though, has proven to be something more. He routinely invites them to his Cambridge flat or London townhouse to take a look at his latest acquisitions. Crumbling tomes and ancient artifacts. Or, to simply talk magical theory. To the hand of the whispered monarch, this is a very fun game. One of knowledge and secrets, bluffs and half-truths.

[Wind blowing through trees]

Robert
Sommerset takes the boys to seances and other psychical performances, and meetings of the Royal Society of Esoteric Research. So when his invitation to a private event at Frogmore House came, it wasn’t unexpected, but it felt different.

The coach ride out to the Home Park takes the better part of the day, with the boys arriving too late for dinner – but with just enough time to sneak away for their own little picnic before drinks. On their return, Professor Sommerset greets them warmly.

“Percy, Morgan, I’m so glad you could make it. Now all the real excitement happens tomorrow, but I thought you might enjoy a little preview.”

They descend a flight of stairs, and Sommerset opens a locked door at the bottom.

“The Queen has been very generous to me, granting me several rooms in this estate for my work.”

The room beyond the door was probably a wine cellar at some point in its past, but the bottles and casks have been replaced by a museum of horrors.

[Dark cello music]

Robert
Dissected pixies, preserved in sealed jars. Scraps of devil flesh, emblazoned with spiky runes. The head of a satyr, mounted on the wall. Everywhere Morgan looks, a new terror greets his eyes.

“You see, for several years now I have held the title of Royal Magus. For most, an empty title. Wroth nothing more than the small purse attached to it. But her Majesty has been very pleased with my efforts. And so she’s granted me these rooms to practice my science. She recognizes a will to power, and that is what separates men like us from the herd.

“The Occluded Sons of Herne, the Oannes Society, the Hermetic Temple, the Royal Society for Esoteric Research, the Hellfire Club… Hell, even my predecessors in the role. Foolish boys, performing silly rituals. They probably wouldn’t know what to do with real magic if they ever fell into it. They barely do anything with the wealth and status they already possess.

“But men like us… The kind of men who can recognize power, and are willing to do what it takes to seize it. We are the men who run the empire. We are the men who created the empire. Who took a backwater rock and made it the center of the world. The others are useful, perhaps even necessary tools. But we are the skilled craftsmen. And I think you belong with us, Percy.

“Morgan, by now I’m sure you’ve noticed the iron in the walls. Thin wire. Hardly enough to bother with. Until you run a current through them. It is something to do with electromagnetism, I’m told. It seems to affect your kind in very interesting ways. Personally, I’d love to run some tests. But alas, there is much to do before dawn. Tradition must be maintained, and it’s done this way since before the Conqueror came to our shores. One way or another, tomorrow you will both join the Wild Hunt.”

[Quiet, contemplative piano]

Kim
Masks spent, this bumps up The Coven to a mixed success. Your answer is correct. However, there is a complication or difficulty in resolving this Threat. I’m trying to think of what would be a good complication, here. Does anyone have a pitch for how to make resolving the Coven harder than it could have been?

T.
Yes.

Kim
T., what’s yours?

T.
There was talk about railway stations? It’s not at the station. The train has left the station. The ritual is happening on a moving train.

Kim
Oh!

Natalia
The train has literally left the station.

Kim
I love a train battle with the Coven. That’s very fun. Because we are doing Moonlight Upon the Waves tonight, that means we have to do a London Night Phase. So I will ask… What is everyone doing tonight? Miss Douglas, you are spoken for.

Robert
I think I have a train to catch.

Natalia
[Laughs]

Cassandra
I will go along with Rabbit, to help him take care of Sommerset.

T.
And this big bad wolf is taking down the third little pig.

[A rumbling, ominous woosh]

Kim
Tonight’s Unscene is called A Night at the Museum.

[A Chopin Nocturne]

Kim
In the heart of Bloomsbury, the British Museum has recently been expanded and renovated, housing relics of civilizations plundered by British adventurers, explores, and colonial officers. Kamal Mansour once led excavations in Luxor, but came to work at the museum as a caretaker, and we follow him on his nightly rounds. Cass, Kamal sighs as he sees the soot and grime of industry settling on the Parthenon marbles. What scenes does he see of classical Athens that demonstrate its role as a dominant center of civilization and martial power?

Cassandra
As Kamal is making his rounds, he passes an ancient door to a gallery he does not hold the key for, on his way to where the Elgin Marbles are housed. As he assesses them, he sees the Panathenaic procession winding toward the Acropolis. Youths on horseback with their bodies disciplined and upright, maidens carrying folded peplos with solemn pride, elders walking with grave dignity. It is not merely a festival, it is civic machinery in motion. Every citizen in place, every role understood.

He sees the goddess enthroned, helmeted, composed. Shield resting, but ready. Around her, gods look on, as if acknowledging that here, in this city, thought and warfare are twins. He sees the calm geometry of columns, the mathematics of beauty. A city that believed proportion could govern the world. And beneath the soot, he sees power. Not loud, not crude, but disciplined. An Athens that did not merely survive, but instructed.

Kim
Let’s begin with Miss Maesie Douglas, taking to the waters of London.

[A rainy riverbank]

Maesie
The water is always a comfort for Maesie. And as the pelt becomes more and more fixed – although it is still quite a ways off – it becomes more and more of a comfort to put the pelt back on, and less of a panic or something that causes distress.

[Gentle harp music]

Natalia
And the other thing about the pelt that is more magical is all of the repairs that come with it have added, essentially, scars to it that make it more beautiful. And since the last time she transformed, its’ been mended a couple more times. And the new mends show up as a crust of crystalized salt, from the place where Mistress Beaumont mended it with sea salt and her magic. A swath of fish scales, that shimmer like Merlin’s. And a pattern of icy snowflakes, from where she fixed it with ice from the Sculptor’s lair.

Kim
And Miss Douglas, as you take to the waters, tell me the boons and the complication that you are invoking tonight?

Natalia
I would love to find a Clue for the Whateley Camera, if I’m allowed to.

Kim
Sure.

Natalia
I would also like to repair the pelt with the help of a relative. For complications… I think the least terrifying is to gain the Condition: Sea Longing. Especially if I am meeting one of my relatives, I feel like that feels appropriate.

Kim
Mr. Hutchinson, you have set out to try and lure Patrick Figg to you. How are you going about this?

[An abandoned cavern. Water drips]

T.
I know where his den is, and I know how his mother lured him there. I’m gonna use the same bait. Not far from the riparian entrance to this subterranean chamber is a marmalade trail. Not far at all from that marmalade trail is a tin can with marmalade at the bottom, and two nails put at descending nails within. The mouth of the can is too wide for something without a snout to get its tongue in and lick the marmalade. But it could slip a hand in. however, once it touches it, it won’t be able to pull it back out. Attached to this can is a long chain.

Kim
Mr. Lloyd and Miss Thanero, you have a train to catch. But before that, as you are traveling to the railway station, I have a Paint the Scene for everyone. On this night, how can you tell that the fae who ordinarily call London their home and playground have fled the city, at Rabbit’s warning?

[Magical, dreamlike ambience]

Robert
There is no music in London tonight. All of the buskers on the street have gone inside, because of the rainy weather. Shows have been cancelled. Even the Royal Opera House sits silent tonight.

Natalia
With the clouds that came with the rain, it is already difficult to see the night sky. But it’s almost as if there are fewer stars. Where normally there would be hundreds of bright lights glittering across the sky, the sky is dull and dark.

T.
It is still early evening, and the true notice of this won’t take place till far after midnight. But unless something is done, no one in London will sleep tonight.

Cassandra
As the carriage runs along the cobbled street next to the Thames, normally with all of this rain, the Thames would be roiling and moving very quickly. But the top of it is completely still.

Kim
Your carriage arrives at the railway station, near the steel mill. And you see this locomotive start pulling away. What are you doing?

[Rain falls. A train pulls away]

Robert
Right before the carriage has made its way to the station, Rabbit is going through his carpetbag, making sure that there are a few things that he stashed in there, still in there. He looks up from this, for a moment.

Mr. Lloyd (Robert)
Bugger. We need to catch that train. I thought they were doing it at the mill itself, but no. no. It’s on the train. I can feel it. We need to get on that train, now.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
Alright, well we better run.

Cassandra
And Ena throws open the door of this carriage before it’s even come to a full stop. As she’s going, she’s ripping off a glove, throwing it to the wayside, and pulls out Aegis and has it in hand. And is just pumping her arms, all of her wonderful athleticism on display, as she makes for this train.

Robert
Similarly, Rabbit leaps out of the moving carriage, but he doesn’t seem to hit the ground. His feet seem to stop just a few inches off of it as he full on flies towards the train. But as he gets close, you can see the smooth path start to falter just a little bit. And just as it seems like he might stop entirely, he grabs a handle onto one of the boxcar doors and pulls himself on.

Cassandra
And Ena is right behind him, effortlessly grabbing onto the door handle and climbing into this boxcar with Rabbit.

[The interior of a train]

Mr. Lloyd (Robert)
Right. So. Like I said, dangerous men. Some of them might be, you know, pretty powerful. Not just magically, but in circles of politics and whatnot. So this is your last change to turn back and leave me to this.

Miss Thanero (Cassandra)
I’m not afraid of some little, small men, grasping at power. I’m sure I’ll be able to hold my own. You just let me know what you need from me.

Mr. Lloyd (Robert)
Well, I just need you to get me to a couple train carts ahead of us, where Sommerset is waiting. But first, I’ve got something to put on.

Robert
And Rabbit pulls out of his carpetbag the costume that Miss Beaumont made. The not entirely accurate version, but almost a masquerade version of the cloak and the mask and the armor of the Master of Nightmares.

Mr. Lloyd (Robert)
Let’s do this, then.

[Shadows in the Smoke theme]

Shadows in the Smoke is a Kitten Marlowe production. This episode was edited and produced by Kim Dalton, and featured a theme song by Jake Pierle. You can find out more about us by visiting KittenMarlowe.com, signing up for our newsletter, or following us on socials. For Discord access, an exclusive behind-the-scenes show, and more, visit Patreon.com/KittenMarlowe and join our favorite colony of feral cats, our Kitten Marlowe patrons, in supporting artist-driven storytelling. Thanks for listening.