In reply to GM StarMaster (msg # 879):

Grimsby replies to the guard, "I quite understand that your pavilion is not yet open to the public, but we have been cooperating with the Bourbony authorities in seeking a possible troublemaker on the grounds, and we have reason to believe that this person might have sought refuge here. We request admission to search the pavilion."

Bellgrove smiles sympathetically at the guard, but says nothing further happy to let Grimsby do the talking.

"But, of course!" the man replies. "We would not want a criminal scaring the people that visit our pavilion!"

"Where could he possibly be hiding?"

Grimsby replies, "We have reason to suspect he may be in the attic. If you permit, we will take the responsibility of searching it."
This message was last edited by the player at 02:14, Wed 15 Aug 2018.

"The attic? Oh! The attic!" the man replies. "But... but how could he have gotten up there? He would need a ladder!"

He glances over at where the ladder is laying on the floor on its side. Then he looks up at the attic hatch.

"We have guards here all the time." He shrugs his shoulders. "If you insist. We only keep the extra supplies up there. It was a convenient place to keep them out of the way."

He then goes over and gets the wooden ladder and brings it over. You can see now that the ladder has little hooks on the end of the uprights that fasten into opposing holes on the hatch frame.


Even as he sets the ladder in place, the three women come running up.


Remi decides that being in front of a Gatling gun probably isn't a good place to be even for the black ship, so he steers it around to the side of the pavilion.

"If charging up San Juan hill isn't to your taste, Dash," Remi calls back to Dash, "how about a spot of tent diving!"

In reply to GM StarMaster (msg # 884):

Grimsby says to Bellgrove, "It seems our companions are coming, but I would rather deal with this danger before the ladies arrive. If I go up the ladder, will you follow me, or would you rather go first?"

Dash swings his head around to glare at Remi,

"It was Kettle Hill we Rough Riders ran up, you Algerian Pirate!  The Buffalo Soldiers of the 10th Cavalry took San Juan Hill!"

"And while I may be a Blueblood, Remi, I'm an American Blueblood, not some inbred, aristocratic, European Blueblood!  I am not crazy!" Dash shouts over the sound of the engines floating in through the open window, "Even if you get this airship down close to the tent top, making for a short drop to the tent, if the fabric doesn't hold and I break through, it's a long fall to the ground through the tent!"

Dash looks over at the clockwork brass dragon perched nearby, and points at it.

"And who's going to watch the Vril Death Dragon if I jump out?  That thing could detonate the gasbags at any moment!"

Dash turns back to the window and looks out - just catching sight of Grimsby and Bellgrove entering the main tent, below.

"Dammit, I've trained to be a sailor - falling is something we try to avoid!" Dash shouts in frustration, turning back to Remi, "Alright Remi, get the ship as low as you can - get it to hover right over the tent, if you can!"

Dash steps over to the door in the side of the airship's control cabin and slides it open, increasing both the wind and the noise level in the cabin.

"And keep an eye on that clockwork!" Dash shouts back at Remi while pointing at the brass dragon, "Don't let it get to the gasbags!"

Dash readies himself at the open door, reaching into a pocket of his jodhpurs and pulling out his penknife.  With penknife in his left hand and Mauser in his right, Dash watches the tent top approach as Remi brings the airship closer.

Using his experience in the rigging of company clipper ships, Dash waits for the best time, then leaps out and down towards the top of the tent with a battle cry of "Lord Jesus Christ Save Me-e-e-e-e-e-e-e. . . . ."

In reply to Grimsby Baskerville (msg # 885):

Bellgrove blanches a bit, but nods, "Er, yes, quite so. I've got the the blunderbuss, so I should probably go first."

While he quickly moves to the ladder and begins to climb he clearly has to work up the courage to do so.

In reply to Bellgrove G. B. Wander (msg # 887):

Grimsby, calmly assuming his companion shares his ownhabitual sang-froid, responds"Very well" and follows Bellgrove up the ladder, gripping the rungs firmly with his left hand while holding his large pistol ready in his right.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:12, Fri 17 Aug 2018.

Should Marian see the men go up the ladder she considers for a moment following, but decides to wait a moment and see what happens. If the Vril agent somehow eludes them and gets out, someone has to be on the ground to chase him right? Besides, too many people in a small space could end up making things worse. She turns to Mercy and Rosabelle. What do you think? Should we go up too? Or stay here and be back up? I'm inclined to stay out of the way if I can, but if you think they need us....Oh, I wish we'd gotten here even a minute sooner! Then we could just bloody ask!

In reply to Marian Holroy (msg # 889):

I believe we should wait. Too many cooks, you know. But also, I am certainly not dressed to be climbing ladders, at least not in haste. Rosabelle shakes out her skirts as she says this and eyes the other woman's more practical attire with some envy.

She looks up at the airship hovering to one side of the tent, seeing Thorn perched where she'd sent him, and suddenly gasps, slapping her hand over her eyes. Good gracious! What have I done? I did not even think beyond sending Thorn to safety, but your comrades aboard the ship would have had no idea where he came from or who sent him. I am surprised that they have not attempted to contain or destroy him.

Marian, while we wait, will you call up to your friends aboard the ship and inform them that Thorn will not do anything to cause them harm?

"Yeah, I think we should wait down here," she answers Rosabelle. "I've already done enough damage for one day!" She taps the lightning gun tucked into her belt.

She glances up at the ceiling.

"We should spread out. I don't know how secure that ceiling is, but if he tries to escape through it, we should be ready."

Bellgrove climbs up the ladder and pokes his head through the opening. As the sun is just coming up, there's not a lot of light... just that which comes through the opening from below. When Bellgrove can see are a number of wooden crates and cardboard boxes stacked around the opening. He can't quite see past them.

This is abruptly rectified by something heavy crashing onto the top of the tent and ripping through the lightweight canvas. This is quickly followed by cursing and the sound of scuffling.

Dash, having correctly deduced that the Gatling gun would be set up to target the most people and that the gunner would need to see his field of fire, aimed for the back of the tent, half expecting to land on top of the gun instead of the operator.

He seems to have estimated the length of the gun correctly, for his impact with the canvas causes it to split open and dump him right on top of the gunner. The collision stuns both of them for a moment, and then they are grappling.

Dash's dive bombing was certainly a surprise, but Bellgrove recovers as quickly as he can and moves to assist his comrade. His intention is to smack the Vril gunner with the butt of his shotgun if he can, but will hold his attack if the brawl is too close to avoid accidentally hitting 'Death from Above' Dash.

In reply to Bellgrove G. B. Wander (msg # 893):



The drop down onto the tent was--terrifying--to say the least.  Dash hadn't felt this mix of fear and excitement since that mad charge up Kettle Hill.  Still, like then, there really wasn't much choice but to just leather up and do the thing.

Striking the canvas of the tent and tearing through it was not so much a surprise--he had half expected it to happen--but the impact with the crouching gunner underneath at a speed not much more than that of running into someone in a hallway at full speed (something he'd done several times at the halls of his Alma Matter) was a surprise.  Those Graustarkians knew how to build a pavilion tent!

When he'd jumped from the dirigible, Dash had put his pen-knife in his left hand on the off chance the canvas held under his impact and he needed to cut his way in--in his right hand he held his Mauser pistol.  But now he was inside the tent and a blade was better in a dust-up than a pistol--but it was only a pen-knife, and the pistol was much heavier as a blunt instrument...

Dash decided on trying to pistol-whip the Vril gunner, and dropped his pen-knife.

As soon as he can scramble up the ladder, Grimsby joins Bellgrove and Dash in trying to subdue the Vril gunner, slashing at him with his pistol barrel.

Marian is a bit worried about Rosabelle's request, not sure if they will be able to hear her or not, but she tries to shout up to the zeppelin that they should not fear the dragon; hopefully that would be enough to sate both her new companion and the crew. She'd feel simply horrible for the woman if they did anything to Thorn.

In the meantime, she follows Mercy's advice and spreads out, gun in hand, in case the gunner should escape and try to flee.

In reply to Marian Holroy (msg # 896):

Rosabelle doesn't have a weapon, so she sticks close to Marian. I shall have to see about acquiring a firearm for myself if this situation continues much longer, she whispers to the other woman as they move to one side. Rosabelle keeps looking up at the airship in concern, hoping that those aboard heard Marian's call about Thorn. He was programmed to respond to her voice commands, but she did not think the processor would be able to pick up the sound over such a distance and with so much noise. She'd never tested it to that extent.

The floor of the 'attic' was fairly sturdy, and it had no problem supporting weight that was distributed across the boards. Unfortunately, the weight of the Gatling gun, the gunner, the ammo, Dash, and Bellgrove proved too much for it.

With an ear-splitting *CRAAACK*, the boards give way beneath all that weight, and boards, gun, gunner, ammo, Dash and Bellgrove come crashing down to the floor of the tent below... right in front of Marian... and just barely missing Rosabelle!

Dash and the Vril agent are still locked together in a grapple. For a moment, though, they appear to be stunned as they don't move... but neither do they let go of the other.

When he recovers from the fall Bellgrove moves to where Dash and the Vril are locked together. His thought is to put himself into a position to kick the agent in the lower back or side in the hopes that doing so will cause him to loosen his grip and give Dash the advantage.

When the ceiling of the tent comes crashing down, Rosabelle squeaks and tries to take a large step back, treading on her skirts and landing unceremoniously on her hands and posterior.

(OOC: I presume Grimsby was also involved in the crash, since he had reached the attic and joined in the fray) Once Grimsby had recovered from his fall, he tried to strike the Vril agent on the back of the head with his revolver, hoping to knock him out or at least distract him.

In reply to Grimsby Baskerville (msg # 901):

Stunned and confused, Dash flashes back to the last time he was in such desperate straights,

"Suelta el arma! ... Suelta el arma! ... " Dash mumbles, maintaining his desperate grip on his 'Spanish' prisoner...

Marian gives a gasp of surprise and then points her gun at the Vril. Of course she'd never shoot with him this close to her friends of course, but she was ready if he tried to split off. Enough! Surrender! she shouts over the din, hoping he saw her gun. Of course knowing the Vril he was ready to sacrifice his life for his cause but it was worth a try. In the meantime she keeps at the ready, hoping the others can subdue him.

By the time the Vril agent regains his senses, he realizes he is now surrounded, not only by Dash and Bellgrove and Grimsby and Marian, but the Graustark people as well.

The Graustarkians are more astounded at the Gatling gun now lying on the floor than they are of the Vril. They can't figure out how the gun was ever placed up in the attic, though it soon becomes evident that the reason it hadn't been spotted is that the storage boxes had been stacked in such a way as to block the view from the attic hatch. The discussion quickly turns to how they are going to repair the tent!

They also make vociferous protests that they knew nothing about the gun or the Vril, and they aren't responsible for it.