For lunch, we all go to the Atlanta Bread Company (call 1-800-398-3728 for franchise information). Tim (Serpentine) ordered soup and cheesecake. He found that he was forced to ask the surly employees three times for his bland, nearly inedible food. Bruce (Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs) rather optimistically ordered a grilled chicken pesto sandwich, and was horrified to see one of the staff spritzing the sandwich with what looked like cleaning solvent. He determined later on that the sandwich would have been improved if the sandwich had been spritzed in cleaning solvent. Chris (Michael Sangaree) tried to play it safe and order a normal sandwich. He finds that he is only able to finish it by coating it liberally with surprisingly bland horseradish sauce. He asks the not-quite-rhetorical question, "How can horseradish be bland?" Mike (Jack Smith) notes that they didn't manage to screw up his Wisconsin Cheese Soup and actually compliments the bread as being similar to German brot. He then turns around and notes that only post-Apocalyptic sub-devolved sub-terranean ape-creatures could make bad Wisconsin Cheese Soup. And while the staff might embody several of those traits, everyone agrees that they are probably not post-Apocalyptic. Paul (Kumar Singh) ordered another of the toasted sandwiches, but a mere twenty minutes afterwards he could neither remember nor identify any of the ingredients. Chuck proudly notes that he had the Atlanta Bread Company "special", but then offers that the food has the same kind of pre-fab quality normally associated with airline food.
The decision is made that we shall never return to this place. Bruce offers the hope that the Atlanta Bread Company will soon follow in Fiestarita's path of oblivion, to be replaced by a La Madeleine franchise.
The session begins with the characters exploring the caves deep underneath Maku Island. The Blue Dragons have left behind quite an array of evidence of their lack of archaeological prowess. In particular, Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs is deeply unimpressed with their skills, to the extent that he can barely refrain from sniffing with disgust. But all is not completely lost: the Blue Dragons left behind quite a variety of stuff, including heavy-duty batteries, drums of fuel oil, and boxes with Chinese lettering on them.
The kidnapped Royal Geographical Society member Sir Reginald Davies-Forsythe is very much the worse for the wear. Michael Sangaree offers him a shot from his hip flask, hoping to prompt a small diminution in the amount of frantic shivering the man was indulging in. Davies-Forsythe drinks the whole thing down in mid-shiver. Serpentine steps in and tries to develop some rapport with the fellow, an attempt that is ruined when Sangaree (still upset over the emptying of his flask) shoots the man's chains off. Davies-Forsythe screams and runs into the darkness of the cave complex.
Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs looks up from his ongoing examination of the Blue Dragons' leavings and sees his opportunity to rejoin the Royal Geographical Society attempting to escape. Fortunately, Davies-Forsythe is no longer in the sort of condition that allowed him to take first at the Hilfingdon-Wherry-on-the-Sea Varsity Championships. Pulfrey-Downs easily runs him down and brings him back to the rest of the group.
Reginald Davies-Forsythe decides to take this moment to give voice to several of his more persistent inner demons. He howls out, "Seen terrible things! Horrible things! Aaaaggh!" He grabs the notebook from Pulfrey-Downs' hands and scribbles in it with insane determination. Pulfrey-Downs, moderately put out at the discourtesy, comments, "I understand that you are quite eager to submit your letter to the RGS, but could you tell us about some of the wonderful things you've discovered." Davies-Forsythe ignores Pulfrey-Downs, so Pulfrey-Downs simply looks over the man's shoulder at his scribbles. It develops that Davies-Forsythe is actually writing down snippets from children's rhymes in a dozen different alphabets, from Arabic to Sanskrit and then back again.
Pulfrey-Downs announces his interest in deciphering the hidden meaning in Davies-Forsythe's ramblings. Serpentine takes a look at the pages and tells him, "Careful with that: the nutjob might have been turned into some kind of latter-day Sutter Cain or something." As an alternative, Serpentine suggests that the characters should work on providing him with some quality psychological care. He indicates that electroshock would be a fine initial choice, but that stronger approaches like sensory-deprivation and vigorous shaking should be available in the wings.
Michael Sangaree enlists the aid of the strongest man to ever leave the French Foreign Legion to break open some of the crates. Jack Smith obliges, though not without implying that meager tasks like breaking crates barely even scratch the surface of his abilities. They find several crates containing various foodstuffs (rice, dried fish, and things only edible to Orientals). Many more of the crates contain machine parts and huge industrial batteries. They deduce that the parts (especially the batteries) look like submarine parts. The cavern includes a fairly substantial dock. They conclude that it was probably used to dock the submarine that took most of the Blue Dragons out of the caves.
With no living Blue Dragons in the area, the characters turn to their natural inclinations and make plans to loot the area. Michael Sangaree's plan is simple: Kumar Singh will persuade the coolies to carry stuff for the characters. With the help of the coolie labor, the characters will cart all of the foodstuffs, batteries, and useful machine parts up to the dirigible. Along the way, Pulfrey-Downs will examine the machine parts to determine what kind of submarine the Blue Dragons might have.
Surprisingly, this plan proceeds more or less the way Sangaree envisioned it. Pulfrey-Downs gets five successes to examine the machine parts, swiftly concluding that the submarine was probably a custom-designed "Archvillain Special" vessel. The parts are designed to English units, but the makers' marks are stamped in Chinese characters. He is demoralized by the fact that he doesn't have enough lab equipment available to figure out what sort of alloys the parts are made from.
Michael Sangaree heads up to call in the dirigible. He is quite upset to see smoke pouring from the side, though he is reassured by the fact that nobody seems to be falling from the wreckage. He briefly considers flying up to the dirigible to take control of the situation until he realizes that the dirigible is coming in to land. Very swiftly. And without the sort of fine control he normally associates with dirigible landings. He compromises his plan to simply moving the cargo plane out of the way.
The landing is pretty dicey, but not a total disaster. With the dirigible on the ground, Sangaree is able to see that most of the smoke is coming from a single fried engine. The panicked crewmen he talks to report that they were fired on by a submarine. Michael Sangaree asks the obvious question, "How high up were you, anyway?"
By this time Kumar Singh has arrived on the scene. He tries hard to ask more relevant questions, starting out with, "What did they use to shoot at you?" The pilot explains that the submarine had a deck gun, and used that to take out the engine. Beyond the engine, there was only one casualty. Jimmy was standing next to the engine when it got hit, and got blown to flinders. None of the characters are able to remember who Jimmy was, so they presume that his job functions were not necessarily critical. Kumar Singh is also able to determine that the last anyone saw of the submarine, it was heading to the East.
Michael Sangaree leaps into the Origami Spad and flies East to shoot at the submarine in the Origami Spad. Jack Smith announces that he wants a periscope to put on his trophy wall and leaps into the passenger seat. He mollifies Sangaree's irritation by bringing along an extra bottle of Bloody Olde Kaintuckee Rotgut for the trip. Some of the other characters catch a glimpse of the label and speculate on exactly how this distillery manages to stay in business. Michael Sangaree gives it not a second thought.
Within a few minutes, the two of them are able to spot the submarine. They are able to see some crewmen stowing the deck gun. Sangaree tells Smith, "I have no idea what's vital on a sub, so I'm just going to shoot at the crew." Jack Smith offers, "Well, it is a boat. I'd say you just need to make a bunch of holes in it." They try a strafing run with the Lewis guns and are terribly disappointed to see that the machine-gun bullets simply bounce off the sub's armored side.
Michael Sangaree grouses, "We need to get Pulfrey-Downs to make us some bombs or torpedoes or something." Jack Smith ignores him, as he's hit upon the plan of using his long rifle against the crew. He blazes away. He gets their attention. Seeing that this strategy is much more successful than the earlier hull-shot plan, Sangaree does a strafing run with the Lewis gun to follow up, dropping four crewmen.
The two of them continue to make passes by the submarine. After they clean up all the crew around the deck gun they take shots at the observers in the conning tower. As a bonus, they also manage to damage the periscope. This lasts until the submarine dives, leaving the characters without any targets to shoot at beyond a few stranded crewmen floating in the ocean.
Michael Sangaree explains to Jack Smith that they're going to try and collect a prisoner. He uses small words to explain that he will fly very slowly over the water, and that Smith will need to reach out and pluck a crewman out of the water. Jack Smith stares at Sangaree as if he'd lost his mind, but he agrees to follow the madman's plan anyway. Against all rationality, he manages to grab a thoroughly terrified Chinaman out of the water.
Captive in hand, Smith asks Sangaree if he has anything on board to toss the remaining crewmen. Something like a float or a life vest. Sangaree reminds Jack Smith that this is not a humanitarian mission, and that the Origami Spad doesn't even come equipped with parachutes. They return to the island. By the time they land, Jack Smith has almost finished writing up a list of safety features he wants to see incorporated into the Origami Spad. Michael Sangaree doesn't bother telling him that Pulfrey-Downs will probably end up using the list as blotter paper.
While Michael Sangaree and Jack Smith are off having a smashing good time at submarine-hunting, Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs rolls up his sleeves and repairs the damage to the submarine. He is a bit short on spare parts, so he expects to adapt some of the Blue Dragons' submarine parts as needed. And once he's done, he decides to convert some of the barrels of fuel oil into simple depth charges.
The engine turns out to be quite easy to fix. More problematic is the big hole in the side of the dirigible. One of the gas cells has been punctured, which Pulfrey-Downs doesn't think is that big a deal until he remembers that there are only four gas cells in the whole dirigible. Pulfrey-Downs shouts out deprecations at Michael Sangaree, until he realizes that the drunkard pilot is nowhere close, and that the fellow had previously argued that the dirigible should have many more gas cells. Pulfrey-Downs had cut the number down to stay within the budget for repairs. Even more interesting, the budget had to include money for a $4 million bungalow staffed by 20 nubile young women. Kumar Singh purports complete innocence in this manner.
It takes Pulfrey-Downs a couple of attempts before he is able to re-sew the punctured gas cell. Lacking a supply of spare helium, he proceeds to refill it with hydrogen gas obtained by electrolyzing sea-water. When the other characters ask him about the status of the repairs, he reassures them, "Don't worry, this will be fast. I'm not going to be using a lot of safety precautions. Oh, and I'd appreciate it if you could put out that cigarette."
When he returns from his submarine-hunting endeavors, Michael Sangaree listens to Serpentine's rather breathless explanation of Pulfrey-Downs' repairs. He adopts a concerned expression and indicates, "I'm going to be staying away from that gas cell. The rest of you should probably do the same..."
Once he has finished filling the dirigible with explosively-dangerous gas, Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs launches himself into an even more crazed project. He sets up a chemical process to convert the barrels of fuel oil discarded by the Blue Dragons into an explosive slurry. He is able to distill and concentrate forty barrels of fuel oil into eight barrels of explosive slurry. Hearing that the distillation column Pulfrey-Downs has constructed is similar in function to a still, Michael Sangaree tries drinking some of the slurry. It doesn't make him blind, but it does give his flatulence a disturbingly high-explosive aspect. Most of the barrels get carted up to the dirigible to become depth charges. Those that remain are placed on the dock to destroy it.
At this point, Serpentine realizes that nobody has been paying attention to Professor Davies-Forsythe. He quickly discovers that the Professor has wandered off. He finds the fellow banging his head against a wooden crate with the sort of enthusiasm usually reserved only for player characters and the truly insane. Serpentine chooses to use this moment as an interrogation opportunity. He pays careful attention, filtering out several useful phrases from the Professor's babbling, including: "Doctor Li Fu"; "The Gems of Urighu"; and "No, no! The fingers! The eyes!"
The characters speculate that Dr. Li Fu might be on the submarine. Kumar Singh exclaims, "Dr. Li Fu! He's a significant criminal! Possibly even a master villain!" The other characters are suitably impressed by Kumar Singh's knowledge. They are rather less impressed when Arthur Michael Vincent Pulfrey-Downs enters into a long lecture upon the Gems of Urighu and their long-sunken home. He speculates rather wildly upon how they probably came from an ancient and mighty island nation that was destroyed by cataclysm and sank under the ocean. He goes on to claim that the Gems of Urighu were responsible for the destruction of Mu, the Eighth Continent, and can sink Heaven and Earth. By the time he is claiming that the Gems have many ancient powers only known to the long-dead Mystics of Urighu he is clearly working up a full head of steam. Then he shatters the moment by expressing his deep skepticism that the Gems could actually sink anything larger than a leaf.
Michael Sangaree yawns and grumbles, "Well, if we knew something useful, like what the gems do, then maybe we could guess where old Dr. Li Fu might be going." Pulfrey-Downs stammers out, "Uhh... I'm going to go work on pressure detonators now." Sangaree finds himself in the unusual position of being the one who has to call up the Paragon Club librarian on the shortwave for advice.
At this point, Serpentine remembers the characters' captive submarine crewman. He turns on his interrogational charm and starts asking questions. He swiftly learns that the crewman's master is an old Chinaman. The master is also apparently quite impressive, as he trained all the Blue Dragon ninjas who have been doing a respectable job of kicking various characters' butts.
The other characters, unimpressed by Pulfrey-Downs' lack of faith in the Gems of Urighu, start to theorize about what Dr. Li Fu might want to point his Earthquake Gun at. Serpentine asks Pulfrey-Downs, "Professor, let's say you sank California." Pulfrey-Downs responds rather brightly, "Okay, I can do that!" Serpentine interrupts the mad Englishman's enthusiasm with a sharp yell, "No! What I meant is that if someone were to sink California with an earthquake, would the tidal wave hit Japan?" Pulfrey-Downs considers for a moment, then offers, "Yes, it would wipe the place out."
The characters become convinced that Dr. Li Fu's master plan is to fire the Earthquake Cannon at California. When California sinks beneath the Pacific, the resulting tidal wave will be enough to completely destroy the Japanese islands, giving Li Fu his revenge for the Japanese excesses in Manchuko.
Pulfrey-Downs slinks off to his lab and very promptly builds eight pressure detonators. He doesn't even need to spend inspiration points. And then he turns to his Directional Acoustic Mapping Predictor, DAMP for short, a sort of sound-emitting buoy intended to provide a means of detecting submerged submarines. Michael Sangaree, keeping careful watch of Pulfrey-Downs' progress, is horrified to realize that Pulfrey-Downs spent the first two days of the project coming up with the name for the device and little else. As far as Pulfrey-Downs is concerned, the Texan pilot simply doesn't understand the way Mad Science is supposed to be done. And seven successes later, he emerges triumphant, staggering under the weight of his DAMP buoy.
The Flying Dutchman is several days out over the Pacific when the Paragon Club librarian sends back a message on the shortwave. She reports that the misuse of the Gems of Urighu caused the island of Mu to sink, and that they were subsequently hidden all over the world to keep them safely out of the hands of the likes of Dr. Li Fu.
The session ends with the Flying Dutchman nearing the California coast, hot on the trail of Dr. Li Fu's submarine in a race against time. Will the invidious Chinaman reach the coast and use his Earthquake Projector to shatter the West Coast? Stay tuned to find out...
Each character gains three experience points.