The Return of Tillingtast (oh yeah, and King Arthur)

To England! Ambrose wants to try to convince Tillingtast that Sir Quinn is a bad guy. Faris points out that won't work until they know what lies Quinn has been telling him.

In England, they hear a report that two robot knights robbed the British Museum on horseback and stole the Glastonbury Round Table. Following the trail away, it leads to the dead end of an alley. Ambrose finds a secret switch that opens the wall...and on the other side is Wales.

Ambrose hesitates. "See...if I go with you guys, he'll be suspicious. But if I go by myself...I don't wanna go by myself." Faris and Mark point out that Tillingtast doesn't know them. Ambrose smiles hopefully.

Mark rolls his eyes. "I'll go with you."

The Garou sense recent Umbral upheaval. All the spirits have taken cover. There's a temporal disturbance ahead--the castle on the hill. A very functional castle. Flying Balor's flag. In a four square mile pocket of Mythic Age.

Ambrose guesses that Tillingtast rebuilt the time machine using the Round Table to travel back along its time line, probably using fae energy to power it, but from where? He spots projectors on the towers.

Disguising themselves to suit the time (Saxons), the group heads in. Ambrose heads right up to the castle, escorted by a dubious Balor, who says Tillingtast is insane (no news there). Inside, a lion spirit is trapped in a cage, providing power to the time machine. The table is being used to try to open a gate to a locked realm (Sonya puts her bet on Avalon). Ambrose admires the robot knights. Tillingtast greets him enthusiastically.

The others sneak into the castle as staff helping with the feast Tillingtast decides to hold.

There's a young unconscious man being held in the castle. Tillingtast says it's Lancelot. "My mistake. Apparently this is why he didn't show at Caemlynn." As to the lion, "Lions always look angry. He's happy, Ambrose! He brought down many Balor when we caught him. Flailing about all teeth and fangs. Very happy." And Morgana is upstairs, locked out of Avalon, behaving erratically, getting along very well with the Balor. "They all like Fomorians," Tillingtast observes.

"This is...very impressive," Ambrose admits. Tillingtast adds that he also stole the Crown Jewels of England. Ambrose admires the diamond.

Jonas and Aila go into the kitchen to poison the food with iron filings (Jonas's suggestion). He backtracks when Jared and Rey are horrified (though probably plans to go through with it anyway). Rey and RF head upstairs to deliver mutton and come back down to tell the others that Tillingtast is holding Lion in a cage. Lion is one of Griffin's brood. Is this the reference to Griffin's favored son?

Lion's got about an hour left to him, the way his energy is being drained. Tillingtast says the castle is charged enough to hold for about a day after Lion kicks the bucket. Ambrose mentions that Black Spiral Dancers, who Tillingtast has guarding Lion, are Pictish, which has the intended effect of Tillingtast booting them out of the castle on grounds of being Scottish.

Tillingtast asks Ambrose to sedate Lancelot. Ambrose clandestinely feeds the man a system purifier instead to clean out the sedatives he's already got in him. The others come in with food.

When Tillingtast decides to move backward in time a bit further to speed up unlocking Avalon, the Garou decide they can't wait. They attack to save Lion. Two BSDs haven't left, seemingly mesmerized by Lion. RF and Sonya begin pulling out tubes from Lion's cage. Rey stands next to the door to lock and guard it. "Rey," his sword says. "Morgana is on the other side of the door."

Lancelot wakes up and begins trashing stuff, attacking Tillingtast when the scientist starts yammering about English greatness and Lancelot sleeping with the queen. Jonas makes a snide comment about Tillingtast having a thing for Ambrose. "That's just creepy!" Ambrose snaps at him. "Yes!" Tillingtast agrees, then makes a weird face.

"Hey, didn't Lancelot have a horn?" Ambrose asks. Then he spots MiBs in the doorway, aiming something at the Garou, and knocks them down. "No, Ambrose!" Tillingtast calls, still under the impression that Ambrose is on his side. "They're on our side!"

The BSDs turn into white wolves and start attacking robots. After they discover they can't get through the glass, Sonya grabs a robot and smashes it into Lion's cage. She feeds Lion the Gnosis she can spare, considering the battle, and asks Turtle to help him. Lion is too weak to protect himself.

Mark trips Morgana as she busts through the door. Jared tosses Lancelot the horn. Balors turn up behind Morgana, and get vaporized by a familiar boy with a staff. Lancelot blows the horn, which turns the burgeoning gate into a sucking vortex. "Is it a Pavlov response?" Aila complains. "Get horn, have to blow it?" Then everyone gets drawn in.

Everyone's split up. Sonya, Rey, RF, Tillingtast, Mark, and Aila fall into 1927 Chicago, in an alley. Tillingtast gives them the time frame, then leaves, telling them, "I'm going to England."

Then at the end of the alley, Doc Eon and his Terrific Trio turn up. Rey fanboys.

The others land in Avalon. One of the BSD/White Howlers land on Ambrose, who complains that he's very heavy. "RrrRr," the Howler replies, rolling off him. Looking around, they notice a big tomb and a castle. Lancelot is confused. Ambrose starts to explain about King Arthur's death, but Jonas shuts him up. "Oh, right." Ambrose remembers how it had a lot to do with Lancelot not being there, and revises his story. "He was fairytale-killed and his body was kidnapped by Morgana who brought him here to the tomb."

"So we have to get in there," Lancelot summarizes, and kicks in the door.

In Chicago, Rey fanboys enough to mention it twice. "You've read the books," Doc notes ruefully. He takes them to his awesome urban lair to explain the situation, and says he'll send them to England from there. "I can send you back, but you have to capture that fugitive." Referring to Tillingtast. He takes them to England in his experimental hyper-plane.

Doc Eon calls Rey by name. "How do you know who I am?" Rey asks.

"Your future, Rey."

"He'll never shut up," Sonya notes wryly.

"So Tillingtast is his name?" Doc notes. "We have to stop him before he becomes his own grandfather or something."

"I don't think that'll be a problem," Rey snickers, riffing on Tillingtast's unsettling fondness for Ambrose.

Doc suggests they use sonics to get through Tillingtast's force field, then starts blathering about the science of it. Everyone else commiserates about Etherites. Doc wonders what Tillingtast wants to do, so they explain to him about Tillingtast and the fae.

the folks in the tomb find a long hall. Ambrose throws a rock, anticipating a trap, but nothing happens. Skeptical, he puts up a force field and heads in. And well he does, because lightning bolts blast from the walls and bounce off the shield. Noting that the traps take a bit to reset, he motions the others through.

At the far end, there's a circular chamber with doors in many directions. Each has the blazon of one of the Knights of the Round Table. Gawain's door is notably huge. Lancelot explains that Gawain is a werewolf. He followed a sun spirit, he sasys, indicating Gawain's crest. "Only door you could fit a coffin through," he notes. "Unless they tipped it sideways."

"Okay...," Ambrose mutters.

"You think it's too easy?" Lancelot asks, apparently taking that for criticism.

"No, I'm just thinking how to get the door open."

"Well, you're a scientist. Like your friend."

"He thinks he's my friend," Ambrose retorts. Lance tells him Tillingtast talked a lot about Ambrose, who really doesn't want to know.

Ambrose spots a mechanism on the floor. The elaborate patterns, reflecting the Knights' blazons and the seats of the Table, can be rotated. Lancelot notes there's a spot for the Seige Perilous, but no corresponding shield for Galahad, then starts spinning the mechanisms to line them up and unlock Gawain's door. They head down the hallway.

Which leads to a room with a dragon in it! Lancelot jumps forward to fight the beast. Faris helps the others slip around it to get to the door it guards. Ambrose feels sorry for the dragon, trapped in there. He has to haul Lance along to keep him from getting distracted by a thrilling fight, and then strengthens the door to keep the dragon from busting through it after they close it behind them. "We'll have to deal with that on the way out," he notes.

In 1927: at the airport, Sonya hunts up a spirit and asks if it's seen a big man out of his time. The spirit points her toward town, where there's a freehold. The place doesn't bear any House markings, but then it's during the Interregnum. It's a Redcap bar. Rey offers candy around and asks the inhabitants if any of them have seen a "round guy."

"Fukkin' round guy came through about a hour ago. Shunted 'im into the Dreaming," a Redcap growls, grumbling that some kind of force field kept them from getting at him. "Tammy nearly fit the whole bubble in his mouth!" But since they couldn't eat him, they shoved him into the Dreaming. Rey negotiates to use their Trod to chase him down. "Big gay fuzzy people who don't belong," the Redcap grumbles by way of agreement.

Doc Eon keeps referring to the Dreaming as "Arcadian space."

They follow Tillingtast's trail to a scrap invention junkyard, where they split up to look for him. RF and Sonya, Mark and Aila, Doc Eon and Rey. RF hears Tillingtast harrumphing to himself. He's built a work bench and four or five robots. RF calls the others over. Sonya considers drawing the robots off, when Tillingtast lifts a huge gun. One of Doc's companions cusses to himself and fiddles with an electro-damper.

Rey makes stupid fake Army motions to catch Tillingtast's attention. Sonya makes real ones to signal the pack to surround and shut down the robots. She distracts him with cell phone feedback and the pack attacks. Tillingtast flees with a jet pack, but Rey leaps on him before he gets far. "I'm steering!" Rey crows.

"Steer me to England, then."

"No."

"You're steering me into the ground," Tillingtast rumbles.

"Yep!"

"Horrible beast-person."

Lucky Skunk ruminates over how he'll write this as an adventure. "I'll have to add some ambushes on the road or something, flesh this out."

"Well, it might not be over yet," Sonya points out.

Rey realizes the guy with the electro-dampener is a younger Tink, the head Nocker at Dreamsoft. Doc Eon hauls Tillingtast, figuring to take him back to Chicago and get him back to his proper time. Rey, less of a Dreaming navigator than Jared, guides them as best he can.

He does so successfully, and back at Doc's base, he warns them about the danger Tillingtast poses. Rey has Doc autograph a book for Doc Quantum. "Why did I know you'd ask that?" Doc quips.

"Because you already said you're from the future," Sonya replies. "The bluntness is rather refreshing."

Rey wonders aloud if Doc is Ambrose's son. "He'll never have sex," Mark disagrees derisively.

"Astarte likes him," Rey defends his friend.

"Oh good god," Mark groans.

Entertaining as the conversation is, Doc has to get going. He has business. Sonya carts Tillingtast, belting him on the jaw to make sure he stays unconscious and out of trouble.

In the tomb, Ambrose ponders breaking the summoning circle around the dragon's room to banish or clear out the dragon. "If it's freed, it might make us another exit," Lance considers. So they decide to wait and head on.

When Doc sends them back, the group with Tillingtast is immediately confronted by Nazi ape-men and a walking eye. "Oh my god Nazi ape-men!" is Aila's response.

"Focus!" Sonya snaps. Mark calls Horizon while the others fend off flying Nazi jet-packers and Sonya protects Tillingtast with the Turtle Shell Gift. Jet-men bounce off the force field. "This couldn't get cheesier!" Aila shouts...then sees a guy wandering outside with armor, a beard, and long blond hair, who looks very confused.

RF tears apart the walking eye and beats up rocketeers with the legs. Rey grabs a jetpack and takes to the air with his sword. He sees the confused man, too. "You know who that is?" he asks his sword.

"I think that's Arthur," the sword says, sounding a little wobbly. Nazi jet-men go after him while he absent-mindedly wanders toward the lake a little ways from the castle.

Back in the tomb, Ambrose and the others reach the central tomb, but it's empty. A portal hovers above the open sarcophagus, slowly closing. Well, looks like Arthur's already out. So they leap through the portal back into Tillingtast's lab, and then run out into the fight they hear outside.

"Oooh, yeah," Ambrose hoots in appreciation of the chaos.

"Have you seen Arthur?" Jared shouts to the general crowd.

"Heading toward the lake," Rey swoops past to call back. "I gotta fight jetmen!"

Tillingtast stirs, so Sonya thumps him off the inside of the force shield. Knowing there's got to be one, Ambrose uses his visor to spot a Nazi zeppelin coming in under cloak. "Use your goggles, man!" he calls to Rey.

"Where is it?!" Mark yelps, also realizing there's got to be an airship around here someplace. Rey points; Mark hits a button on his phone. A Hermetic lightning bolt rips down from the sky through the zeppelin. The Hermetic courier stumbles out from his landing point,disoriented. "What just happened? I think I hit a zeppelin!"

"An evil Von Allman zeppelin!" Ambrose tells him cheerily, as the zeppelin comes crashing to the ground behind them.

As Arthur reaches the edge, a hand rises from the lake with a sheathed sword. Jared calls a tornado upon the jet-men. Ambrose shoots down some flying ape-men. Lancelot steals a jet pack and heads for Arthur. The Hermetic heads toward Tillingtast.

Ambrose watches the zeppelin for movement, and spots an SS lizard-man climbing out. "Nazi Sleestak!" he shouts, tagging it so he can follow it with its camouflaging.

Sonya's force shield goes down, finally crushed by a robot knight. The two BSD/Howlers leap on the robot before she even needs to do anything. The Hermetic grabs Tillingtast (whom Sonya knocks out again).

The Nazi fliers are cleaned up. "Anything else?" Rey asks.

"Sleestak!" Ambrose calls. Nobody moves toward it, seemingly stunned by...well, by the fact it's a sleestak. It runs. Ambrose bolos it. Rey walks over to look at it.

"What do we do with it?" Rey wonders.

"It's an officer! We interrogate it!" Ambrose tells him.

"How can you tell?" Rey asks, baffled.

"It's obvious!"

Seeing an opportunity for unparalleled chaos, Rey leaves a message for High King David: "We found King Arthur, talk to ya later!" and hangs up, then starts following Ambrose toward the famous knights.

Jared gets the callback. "Seriously?!" Jared gets to be stuck with the explanation, as usual. Rey laughs at him.

The Garou, meanwhile, do pay attention to the sleestak. It tells them Von Allman wants Tillingtast's technology. "He's tangled with Doc Quantum before," it hisses with a touch of drama. It also informs them that the Nazis have taken over a good chunk of Hollow Earth. They're still beseiging the Great Library and the Rainbow City, and having trouble with the Dero, as always. Von Allman is tapping Hollow Earth's resources, building stuff, and hiding something.

The Garou are kind of flabbergasted about all this talk of Hollow Earth. Ambrose gives the knights some hot tea, figuring they could use a nice soothing hot beverage.

With the mayhem fading, Faris carts everyone to Tara, where he talks about turning the lizard-man ("Sleestak!") over to the Ailill. The lizard-man tells them that Hollow Earth connects to Pangaea and the Garou Homelands. Von Allman plans to build a spirit bomb to blow up the werewolves, but he needs a casing for it from one Wilburforce Sanders. Ambrose explains that he's an Etherite armorer who specializes in indestructible materials. He's usually to be found at the Gernsback Continuum, but he's currently on a speaking tour for Paradigma and not due back for three weeks.

Rey gives Ambrose the autographed book, which says, "Ambrose, till we meet again," and then lists a complex equation. Signed "Doc Eon." Ambrose spaces out a bit.

"Do you need a room?" Sonya asks him.

At Tara, they're shown in to the king immediately. "We found something of yours," Aila tells David.

"I think he belongs to himself," Ambrose counters.

"It was a joke, and you ruined it!" Aila laments. "Why...?"

Ambrose calls the Etherites to warn Dr. Sanders, and to tell them about Von Allman taking over Hollow Earth and blowing up the werewolves. "He has a thing for them, in the bad way."

"Like the Tillingtast way?"

"No, in the 'I'll destroy you all' way. And what?!"

"Nothing! He just really likes you!" Ambrose is requested to try to talk sense into the good doctor. Ambrose ponders getting King Arthur to come talk to him. That'd certainly get through to him.