The night has been plagued with unreliable alliances and the sorts of encounters that would make a less pragmatic person than myself question her place in the universe.

We are now aboard a train en route for London, in the hope of finding the missing girl. This search has taken on a new urgency in light of this past night’s events.

We went to Doverton Abbey last night, more-or-less as planned, and were surprised at being admitted at once. Mr William Plank had in fact just sent a messenger to summon us, because Mr George Plank had been found collapsed in the study, and had not regained consciousness.

The Cuthberts, not a part of our first group, joined us shortly after W Plank’s messenger reached Brinkley Court. Mrs Cuthbert discovered that G Plank’s “soul” had been “removed from his body,” similarly to Col Dunbar’s and perhaps also Sir Robert’s. She could still perceive its traces, and she followed it as a trail to the study.

Meanwhile, Mr Frazer and Wilhelmina had been puzzling over the secret panel that the Mystics’ scrying had suggested would be behind the desk. The painting concealing it is in such poor taste, it discourages scrutiny. They managed to open it, and to discover the room beyond. Within were some books and a pale green “x”-shaped crystal artifact, (which we have since decided is a remarkable single piece of peridot). Mrs Cuthbert determined that G Plank’s “soul” was imprisoned within the crystal.

At approximately this same time, Lady Cowperthwaite and I were descending the main staircase, after settling our respective infants in a guest suite with their nurserymaids. There was a series of accidents on the stairs, the end result of which was a rather serious concussion for Sir Cosmo and the destruction of an Assyrian sculpture of some antiquity. Mrs Cuthbert was able to mend the worst of the damage to Sir Cosmo, but he was still unconscious for most of the night. The case of the statue is entirely hopeless.

Wilhelmina, Mrs Salmalin, and Mrs Cuthbert made some interesting discoveries regarding the crystal cross and some associated items:

They took the cross to G Plank’s sickroom to try to transfer his soul back. While there, Wilhelmina found another artifact, this a bronze disc or medallion with a peridot stone at the center and a Latin inscription around the edge: “Ex Lumen ut Manus” translating roughly to “Out of the Eye to the Hand” Wilhelmina noted that the medallion’s stone glowed when in proximity to the crystal cross. She said she perceived a voice in her head, saying “information crystal in range.” Anytime Wilhelmina starts hearing things, I worry, but I was not present to raise objections at the time.
She attampted to ask for more information, and to examine the crystal cross. According to Mrs Cuthbert, the cross then nearly removed Wilhelminas’ soul from her body. This was prevented by Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin.

Concern about the “soul”-absorbing qualities of these crystals caused my colleagues to search the house in earnest for crystals of any sort, lest any others start taking up unsuspecting persons. I believe that Sir Spencer and Lt Wooster emptied many of the crystal decanters in the smoking room in a typical effort to be helpful.

Meanwhile, I was finding interesting material in the study. I found a quite old book titled in Latin which purported to be the chronicle of a monk of an obscure order. This order believed that it had received a visitation from Heaven, in the figure of Eve “the mother of our race.” This monk claimed to have received three objects: The Scroll, the Glass, and the Key. It was dated 612.
The manuscript included an illustration of a female figure, looking like a medieval saint, bestowing three items. One was a rectangle or possibly a cylinder, one a round object, and one a 4-pointed star. Why medieval people couldn’t draw with more instructive accuracy is beyond me.

I found a slip of paper with the phrase “Ex Lumen ut manus” written on it, with other strange markings juxtaposed with the Latin in close correlation. This appeared to be a coded and a decoded phrase. I showed it to Mr Frazer, who did not recognise it as an alphabet or a known code.

I also found an unusually-bound document, again written in Latin. I opened the covers to find that rather than being paged like an ordinary book, this unfolded in 4 directions from a common center. It featured some diagrams which seemed to indicate the cross artifact. The Latin was idiosyncratic–even less comprehensible than the writings of that cretin Julius Caesar. I could make out a few phrases–“heavenly fire,” and “containment.” Even the paper was peculiar– very smooth and white, very strong, and judging from marks on the binding but not on the pages, impervious to water damage or fire. Mrs Salmalin joined me then, and I hoped her training with codes and foreign alphabets might give us insight into the meaning of the writings.

Just when I hoped we were getting some grip on matters, another person arrived and asked to see Mrs Salmalin. This man introduced himself as Major Powell, and presented credentials from Mr Moody. He was purported to have particular expertise in matters of Rambaldi artifacts. Keeping in mind the acquisitive tendencies of the only other people I know who are so interested in these artifacts (i.e. the Comte and Comtesse de Brabant), I viewed him with some skepticism. Fortunately, I was not alone in this distrust.

Because we needed his supposed expertise to try to get George Plank back into his body, and because he had been sent by an authority our Mystics recognise, we could not simply send him away. Even so, although we could not easily conceal all of what we had found, Wilhelmina had the good sense to conceal the medallion and pass it surreptitiously to me. Mrs Salmalin quietly sent a wire to the LHW to confirm the credentials and the assignment.

I found it necessary at this point to attend to the babies. Unfortunately, while I was upstairs, Major Powell prevailed upon some of the others to go down the narrow stair in the secret room. The party consisted of Major Powell, Inspector MacGreggor, Mr Frazer, Mrs Wooster, Wilhelmina, and Owen. Mr Frazer instructed Turgenov to guard the top of the stair.

I eventually went back to the study, where Turgenov reported exactly who had gone without me. You can imagine my comment.

Mr O’Flaherty came in from the corridor to investigate the cause of my exclamation, and he and I determined to follow down the stairs. Turgenov still remained above. We had not gone far when we were also followed by Sir Spencer and Lt Wooster.

We followed the tracks of the first party, and once we found them I listened with astounding patience to the explanations proffered. It was apparent to all that we were directly under the mysterious “dead” spot in the grass. Wilhelmina told me that the room in which we found ourselves contained a device which had been tampered with in an apparent effort to restore its function. Sir Robert (if it was he) had contrived to connect a number of crystals into the machinery, which caused an unsafe sort of power to emanate from the room. Wilhelmina had perceived the incorrect connections and carefully disengaged the inappropriate crystals. She and Mr Frazer were documenting the positions of the crystals when I entered.

At the center of the room was a circular platform covered with markings. Wilhelmina was standing on it, looking at the arrangement of partially-connected crystals and wires around her. Mrs Wooster was, as usual, keeping very close to her. Unfortunately, the next event was not something Mrs Wooster could protect Wilhelmina from.

Lt Wooster, contrary to any instructions any of us have ever given him, was messing about with some of the crystals on one of the consoles at the outer edge of the room. A sudden light and sound signaled the activation of some kind of device; some large circular artifacts appeared, seeming perhaps to come down from the ceiling, and encircled our partisans on the dais. The circles then flew up again, and the platform was empty. The wires which had connected some of the crystals ended abruptly at the edge of the platform, cut cleanly off.

I am ashamed to admit that I lost my temper. I lunged at Lt Wooster, too late to stop him from what he had just done, but well in time to strike him hard in the face. It took him some time to understand when we told him he might have just disintegrated his own wife.
We could not tell what had happened, so all of us there set to examining the room, looking for clues as to what the device was meant to do, and whether it could be reversed.

I was trying to translate the inscription on the platform when Mrs Salmalin came into the room, followed by Lady Cowperthwaite and our own friend Mr Ramsay. Mrs Salmalin told me, sotto voce, that Mr Ramsay had come to warn us that though Maj Powell had been sent as his credentials had implied, he was still not to be trusted. He was known to be ruthless in the execution of his assigned task: to whit, collecting Rambaldi artifacts and storing them “safely.”

Mrs Salmalin and I laboriously decoded the inscription, to discover that it was a mundane safety instruction–“stand clear of the yellow circle while the rings are activated.” There was some speculation that the rings were a transport device, with an unknown destination. Major Powell suggested it might operate using a remote control–and I had an idea that this might mean the disc device that Wilhelmina had passed to me. I told Mrs Salmalin that it was in my pocket, and that I was going to try to use it to operate the ring device. I held it in my hand, still inside my pocket, but nothing happened. She whispered that Sir Cosmo seems to share Wilhelmina’s knack for operating unfamiliar devices. I was just wondering if it would help to take it upstairs to him when he came in–looking much better.
Mrs Chigwidgeon had come with him. We don’t seem to be able to operate without some percentage of seemingly inappropriate hangers-on.

Major Powell seemed eager to leave suddenly, and declared that he knew how to restore George Plank to his body. We sent him off to try it, with the “help” (supervision) of Mrs Cuthbert, Mr Salmalin, and Mr Ramsay.

Once they had left, I passed the medallion to Sir Cosmo. It immediately began to glow. I confess that I found this frustrating.

We continued to work on the platform device for hours. He worked first on reconstructing the configurations of the crystals which had been so abruptly disconected when the activation of the rings severed them. Wilhelmina's sketches had presumably gone wherever she went. Mr Frazer's were mainly of the crystals on one of the other consoles, but he had some helpful observations. I had only had a few minutes to look at the crystals on the platform before the accident, but I could still picture them fairly clearly.

While Sir Cosmo muttered and fussed with the device, the rest of us spent several hours improving our understanding of the history of the site and the order that built it, yet not making much headway in the actual operation of the device, or how we might retrieve our partisans.

Mrs Salmalin and Mr O’Flaherty went back up into the house to look for any additional crystals that might be used in the repair efforts. Meanwhile, in G Plank’s sickroom, Maj Powell attempted to gain the upper hand and take the peridot cross artifact. He used some mystical trickery and knocked Mrs Cuthbert, Mr Ramsay, and Mr Salmalin unconscious. Mrs Salmalin later said she could perceive something untoward occurring above her. Down in the chamber with us, Mrs Chigwidgeon looked suddenly alert and declared that she would "just go check" on those upstairs. The two of them were able to thwart Major Powell long enough for Mr Salmalin to recover his senses.
Mr Salmalin struck Maj Powell, and knocked him out through the window.

As soon as he realised how hard he had struck, Mr Salmalin leaped out the window, hoping to catch Maj Powell (recall that I have seen him--and George--accomplish this paradoxical feat before). He was not quite able to catch him, and thus we found them–Mr Salmalin standing in knee-deep depressions, and Maj Powell rather pulverised on the ground beside him. Mrs Cuthbert began to work on the Major immediately, as I’m sure we all want to see him answer for his disgraceful actions.

Just as she was beginning, who should come racing up in a weird conveyance but the Comte and Comtesse de Brabant. There was some amount of aggravation and blame-laying between Mrs Cuthbert and her sister. I simply kept my eyes on the Comte and Comtesse, with my hand resting in my pocket with my pistol, in case of any sudden actions.

I learned somewhat later that Mr O’Flaherty had seen this pair on the road, overlooking the Abbey and planning some opportunistic design or other. I’m sure I should have expected it, but how could even they be quite so brazen as to follow us here?

Finally, Mrs Cuthbert and her sister came to some terms, and some of our party (not me, mind you) thought that we should recruit these two to help solve the riddles of the room below. The Comte professed some knowledge of these types of devices and matters were seeming rather desperate regarding the recovery of Wilhelmina and Mrs Wooster.

So we took on another uneasy alliance and trooped down he narrow stair to continue the work at hand. After lengthy consultation, Sir Cosmo and the Comte de Brabant made the necessary connexions and were satisfied that they understood how to operate the ring device usingthe medallion.

We put some food on the platform, and a note indicating that we would re-activate the rings in 10 minutes, in the hope that Wilhelmina and Mrs Wooster would be able to position themselves to return at that time. Sir Cosmo activated the device, and again its light and sound filled the room. The food and the note were gone, but to where? When Sir Cosmo again activated the device, precisely 10 minutes later, the redeeding rings left, apparently unharmed, Mrs Wooster and Wilhelmina. And two other...forms.

The first of these “forms” was rather amorphous, tall, with what would correspond to hunched shoulders in a human figure, draped with a subtly lustrous fabric. Nestled between the “shoulders” was a not-at-all head- or face-shaped extrusion, with a single dark aperture in the center front. This creature was introduced by Wilhelmina as “Semkhet.”

The other form was a series of metallic spheres stacked into a somewhat human (if quite round) figure. This comical contraption tipped over and fell off the platform with a loud clatter.

Wilhelmina was exhilarated to tell us that she and Mrs Wooster had been inside some sort of structure high above us, orbiting around the Earth as the moon does. I was not sure if I could believe this declaration, but Mrs Wooster was certainly frightened enough for it to be true.

Wilhelmina immediately busied herself with the piled bronze spheres, opening little hatches, placing and removing crystals and gears. This project took some minutes, even with bemused help from Sir Cosmo and the Comte de Brabant.

Mrs Cuthbert and Mrs Salmalin occupied themselves with reassuring Mrs Wooster, while I endeavoured to keep my eye upon the Comtesse and Wilhelmina simultaneously. As Wilhelmina finished her adjustments, she announced that she required the crystal cross to complete the project. After a surprisingly short discussion, the item was given her, and she installed it in the largest, central sphere. She concluded by winding three keys which protruded from that sphere.

Once wound, this crystal-powered clockwork creature seemed to have an intelligence of a sort, or at least it could speak and move about with an appearance of volition.

These two creatures had been up in that orbiting structure. They had been there for a very long time, unable to use their ring device to come to this chamber, but with Wilhelmina’s help they were able to circumvent some restriction and leave their post.

The “Semkhet” entity was speaking to us, but it seemed unable to answer questions clearly. It seemed incapable of giving a comprehensible answer to even the simplest questions. After a frustrating period of nonsense, it offered some other sort of communication, requiring a volunteer to be a sort of liaison–to “become cosh.” After determining to my own satisfaction that the intermediary would not sustain permanent harm, I stepped forward. I would certainly have the best chance of grasping whatever ideas the entity was trying to convey, and would have a good chance of keeping my own identity intact.

I was not the only person of our company to meet this offer, however, and My Own Husband held me back. Or should I say he held me up. He actually lifted me by my arms and held my feet off the floor to keep me from advancing. A bright light surged across the several of us who had volunteered to act as intermediary.
Mr O’Flaherty put himself to the fore. The light intensified, and a glowing creature emerged from the Semkhet body. This creature matched the Mystics’ description of the Seraph entity they had seen in their scryings. A bright light surged out of Mr O’Flaherty’s eyes and mouth. This was worrying, since this seemed just how Dr Kenyon met his end.

Mr O’Flaherty was still on his feet however, and after a few moments, the brilliance cleared from the air. Mr O’Flaherty began to speak.

Mr Frazer set me down, and I proceeded to kick him in the shin. The very idea of his using his greater height and strength to win an argument was more than I could stand, after being passed over and thwarted time and again all day long.

I should note here that I have since accepted my husband’s apology for this behaviour. After we boarded this train, he humbly came to beg my pardon, and explained that he was overwhelmingly concerned for my safety. When I was not immediately mollified, he haltingly added, “Children need a mother.” I am not heartless-- I had considered my children before volunteering, I knew them to be perfectly safe, and even nearly weaned. Mr Frazer, however, has considerably more experience, personal experience, with the concerns of motherless children. He bestowed upon me a most speaking regard, which made me repent of my anger.

This is not to say that I will accept this sort of behaviour from him any time he thinks me in danger. Indeed, I am determined to request of Mrs Wooster specific instruction and practise in eluding the hold of a stronger opponent.

But I digress... The conversation that followed in the chamber beneath Doverton Abbey was nearly as confounding as the questions without the benefit of an intermediary had been. That Mr O’Flaherty should be the guiding force of delicate questioning was extremely aggravating. I suppose I should simply be grateful that Lt Wooster wasn’t selected.

These are the chief points of this discussion, as near as I can understand:

-this Semkhet is a being composed primarily of Energy.
-it is one part of an entity called “Cosh.”
-this entity’s purpose is to watch over our world and the collective safety of its human inhabitants
-at various times, the “Cosh” entity can divide itself, --perhaps something like a budding process?-- and each of the resultant parts becomes independent, until such time as they meet and rejoin.
-the Cosh parts can either use a human vessel (such as the “part” newly resident with Mr O’Flaherty), or they can travel in an exo-skeleton type contraption (such as that containing the Semkhet part)

We surmise the following 2 other parts of Cosh:

- the one using the girl Evie Botley as a vessel
- the entity which attacked Dr Kenyon, Col Dunbar and Sir Robert.
-There was some discussion of a part which "budded" some 500 years ago perhaps in Egypt, which adopted a person there as host, and which was subsequently "handed down" through a series of hosts. It is not clear to me if this part is the same as one of the ones noted above.
-Mrs Salmalin recalled that some of the Rambaldi documents she had examined spoke of a device he had contrived to "house a spirit," and indicated that he had actually captured something in it. If he captured a part of Cosh, and learned something about using these crystals from it, it would account for some of his inventions. If this is the case, is that part still on earth? Is it one of the parts already on our list, or is it another altogether? This is all very speculative, but worth consideration.
-the Semkhet portion of the Cosh entity was assigned to stay with the orbiting vessel, and seems to have used subterfuge to leave the vessel with Wilhelmina. It has been suggested that this part is considered defective by the other parts.

Despite the apparent benignity of this part of Cosh, and the seeming helplessness of the part hosted by Miss Botley, I cannot feel quite sanguine about these creatures. One part is responsible for the deaths of 2 men and the comatose state of another. Another might be responsible for some very dangerous devices in the hands of the lunatic Rambaldi. Who or what gave the Cosh this supposed mandate to "shepherd” human beings, and why would we want their supposed help? Frankly, they just seem to be causing a good deal of harm and trouble so far, for very little benefit.

Indeed, we shortly met an even greater trouble--the clockwork creature announced that “Shadows” were coming and that we must flee. I was feeling quite exasperated already, and this statement about “shadows” was not at all welcome. We had enough craziness without adding those black-pyjama lunatics back into the mix. But, I was to learn that this “Shadow” was not the same “Shadow” at all. I suppose that evil forces everywhere have only so many clever ideas for themselves. Let’s just call them all Comte Shadow, and have done.

The best we could learn from Semkhet was that these Shadows were somehow antithetical to the Cosh. Since at least 2 parts of Cosh were roaming about, the Shadows would ransack the Earth in order to get at them. Our best hope to protect Earth was to find the lost part of Cosh and reunite the parts, which would make them strong enough to repel the Shadows. A revolting turn. Here are these creatures, supposedly charged with protecting us, but instead drawing an enemy down on us and being too weak to help significantly. We have to save them as well as ourselves. And we don’t even have a good idea of what the enemy is! Really.

Suddenly, we were all in a muddle as to how to escape this unspecified but urgent threat. These shadows would, according to Semkhet, be attracted to this place by the presence of a Cosh part or by the power emanating from the equipment here. Some of us wanted to use the ring transport device to escape (I admit I was very curious to see the vessel above the Earth), but others argued that the way back was uncertain. Semkhet and the clockwork creature told us that there was another way out of the room, away from the Abbey, After further assorted arguments, our party all took the “secret” passage, and Semkhet and the clockwork said they would use the rings to return to their vessel.

We ran along the passage and emerged from a hillside at some distance from Doverton Abbey. We still felt a strong urgency to escape, but we had very little idea about the nature of the threat, and whether it would pursue us or endanger the innocent people in the house (including my children, need I mention!). Mrs Cuthbert, Mrs Salmalin, and Mr Ramsay all said that they could perceive an hostile entity in some kind of confrontation with the Semkhet part of Cosh.

We determined that we should return to the Abbey and contrive to evacuate the people there on any pretext we could think of.

When we arrived, we were informed that Mr George Plank had awakened, quite suddenly, and gone down to the study. He seemed “not himself”. The instant surmise among our party was that he was possessed by one of the “shadow” entities. He had likely gone down to the room with the ring device. It could have been looking for Semkhet, or for us, but we couldn't be certain.

Since the Shadow had not thus far ravaged the innocents in the Abbey, we hoped that it would pursue us and leave them be. The possessed George Plank had not rescinded William Plank’s orders of hospitality, so we had help from the stables to get our carriages ready. We set out for the train station, in the hopes that some of our (well, particularly Edward’s) contacts might have located Miss Botley. Not that we know exactly what to do when we find her.

We had gotten all our party, including our nurserymaids and children, loaded up and were rushing down the road. We were made to halt by, of all people, Mr Oliphant and his 2 oriental servants. Unfortunately, he was not himself either. He was possessed by that Shadow creature. He ordered his servants to attack us. They did not question this, despite our superior numbers and firepower, and despite our previously friendly relations. I could not tell if they were possessed as well, but it seems possible.

I started with throwing rocks. Some of my colleagues opened fire on Mr Oliphant with high-caliber firearms--this seems unfortunately harsh, considering that he could not be held entirely responsible for his actions, but there is no repairing it now. A strange darkness surrounded him. It seemed to coalesce into a dark violet blob with 8 or 10 jointed rays--like a spider’s legs. This, I supposed, was the Shadow. I shot at it, trying now to avoid hitting Mr Oliphant..

His servants fought hand-to-hand with Mrs Wooster, our George, and Mr Salmalin, in a varying blur.

My attention was then taken up by a dark dot high in the early dawn sky–it was growing larger and taking on detail as it came down upon us. It was difficult to discern, being quite black, but as it neared, I could see it consisted of a central body and some dozen forward-directed spines, emerging symmetrically from the sides, almost as the legs of a crab.

I felt a deep vibration through the air all around me, as if I stood in the center of a storming thundercloud. The shape kept coming closer, becoming impossibly huge, and going more swiftly than I had ever seen an object move.

My transfixed state was broken by a cry from Mrs Salmalin: “Scatter!” For once, I was not inclined to argue, but ran, away from the road and our cluster of carriages. I heard Simon Inspector MacGreggor call to the horses of one wagon, and he careened past me atop the box of the carriage I had been riding in--the one which carried both nurserymaids and all three babies. I blessed him, and turned again to see to the fight.

I held my pistol, but could not easily discern a target. The three opponents in the road were down or nearly so, and the idea of shooting at the black vessel in the sky with my tiny pistol was frankly absurd. Some of the others were firing more formidable weapons.

Then I noticed that there were two Mrs Salmalins and two Mrs Cuthberts at one of the carriages, and they seemed to all be working together, with added assistance from Mrs Cuthbert’s sister.

After a few moments of this, I looked up to see two lines of light–bright as lightning, but absolutely straight–fly forth from the black vessel toward us all. Then the light seemed to fold back on itself, some distance yet above our heads, deflected by some action of the Mystics. I felt heat as the light splashed against its source.

By now the vessel was so close that its lowermost spines nearly touched the ground--and I could see a light in the otherwise featureless surface at the fore end of the central section--a port. A very strange set of features looked out–a bilaterally symmetrical array of glowing ovals, very reminiscent of the eyes of a jumping spider. My view was then obscured as a shot from a rocket gun burst against the port. The vessel rose swiftly, but not entirely smoothly–it might have been damaged, but I couldn’t guess how seriously.

Mr O’Flaherty told us that the part of Cosh he was carrying with him had left him for a few moments and gone the the black vessel. The Cosh had adjusted the vessel’s controls to make it depart after its pilot was disabled. I must be glad that the thing did not fall to the ground. Even if it didn’t crush us, we would have had some difficulty explaining it. It would be Conspicuous.

I looked back at the Mystics, and saw that the doppelgangers were gone. Mrs Salmalin told me later that this effect was due to a particular trick by the Comte de Brabant, but she could not readily explain it. She could only say that it had saved us all. That may be so, but it was two of her and of Mrs Cuthbert, and not two of him, that deflected the fire, so he was hardly our only saviour.

Mrs Cuthbert made a swift examination of Mr Oliphant and his servants, but it was too late to save them. This is quite a shame-- Mr Oliphant, not to mention his hapless servants, deserved better. We moved their bodies off the road, but we could do little more for them at present. I think it highly likely that Sir Anthony will suggest we lay public blame for many of the recent untoward occurrences on Mr Oliphant and a relapse of his “brain fever.” I would prefer to lay blame closer to its real source, if we can manage it at all.

We gathered ourselves once more and made our way to the station. We found a messenger to send to Brinkley Court to apologise for our precipitate departure.

We can only hope that we find the girl in London, and that she can provide further answers, and that at least we can salvage Col Dunbar and George Plank.

Proceed to Not surprised by our antics

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