Agent Elsinore Hughes's page

Down the road, in the dark of the night, to the west of Torch...

Agent Hughes releases Ritmush from the harness, and then steps out of the raft onto the desert floor and points toward the hill to the east

Well, that must be the town that K’vin told us about, but I don’t see any flare or “torch” as he called it.

Agent Danvers climbs out to stand next to agent Hughes, and he shows her a small device in his hand, and whispers to her

Yes, yes. This is, this is, not great, not good at all, but, um, wait, what is this Agent Hughes points at the device in agent Danvers’ hand and then shakes her head.

Look, the woman holds out her hands to all four of you and pleads, These readings are off the charts, and they don’t correlate to anything in our database, and that is not something that usually happens. We need to get back to our ship and file a report, right away, but don’t worry I haven’t forgotten my promise. I’ll head back to For Horizon and pick up supplies, a couple of good sized tents if I can find them, and be back here tomorrow night. After we drop of the tents and the supplies we are going to head to our base, which is a long way from here. We need to file a report, and catalog what we’ve discovered here. There is a good chance that once our superiors learn about what is here a lot more of our people will be headed to this world. So, in the mean time, good luck I hope you find Drespor and discover what he is really up to, and if you learn anything about this town that you think might be helpful to us, anything at all, just open a journal in the goggles and record your findings, you can talk about what you found, or even ask the goggles to capture images of what you can see. After tomorrow night we won’t be back for five days. So six days from now we will return to this spot, and hopefully by then all of us will have succeeded in our missions.

I want to be absolutely sure I am clear on this, are you releasing all of the prisoners?

When Unboloth asks about the patrol, Hughes answers,

ten, maybe more, not too many more than that. I think, I was a little sore in the head last night.

I edited a typo in this post

As Unbolath frees Agent Hughes, Ritmush calls out for Kethinna.

Agent Hughes staggers out of her cell, she is bloodied and beaten, and nearly collapses into Unbolath.

I have no way of knowing when they will show up. Were were ambushed in Mystic Valley yesterday, early in the evening, then brought here. During the night a patrol of lizard men came through, roughed up that fellow there, she points to a cell then left. I haven’t been able to track the time, but it feels like it is the middle of the night now, and they may come around again. It might be better if we made a run for it while we can. If you got in this place without being noticed we should get out as soon as we can. I can explain what I know, but it will take time. Also, when you free the others here, be careful with whoever is in that cell, she points at the cell she pointed at before. I don’t know who or what is in there, but these lizard men seem to hate him in a bad way, want him dead, but are keeping him alive for some reason. The lizard men didn’t treat us all that badly, they seem more curious about us than anything. What was done to us was done by Drespor’s men, dwarves.

When Agent Hughes realizes Ritmush is calling out for Kethinna, she walks, with a limp, to Ritmush, puts one hand on the boy’s shoulder and says

I’m afraid she’s dead, Ritmush. She was captured when we were, but the dwarves were much harder on her than they were on us. They left her body in a cell, down toward the end, I heard them saying that she was done, and wouldn’t be hurting anyone with fire anymore. I don’t know what they meant. I’m sorry.

Agent Hughes will want to leave immediately, to convince her to stay and explain more, and risk being caught by a patrol will require a Diplomacy Skill Check, the DC will be 16+

Unbolath, Ritmush, Portia, Calliope, thank the stars it’s you, hurry there is a patrol that checks these cells every night, and they are due soon I imagine.

...

"If I have misjudged this conversation, and you in fact are the contact, things will of course go very...

Agent Hughes drops her head and places her hand on her forehead.

No, I didn’t say you were lying, just saying you don’t need to always be so dramatic

Now, see, that’s what I’m talking about. Why do you insist on being so dramatic?

Oh, stop it, Agent Hughes laughs at Agent Danvers, You know, just stop being like you are. Anyway, Ritmush right? We didn’t come down from our sky boats just for that object, in fact we had no idea it was there. Like I sad. A report was filed that said certain technological devices that did not originate on this world were being found, and then being moved around until they dropped off our rada…um we couldn’t track them anymore. You see that is what is important to us. This world, though it’s not a protected world in that way, could have serious problems if the wrong kinds of devices get put into the wrong hands, and we, the IRS, work as hard as we can to make sure that the wrong people don’t get their hands on the wrong kinds of devices. We do this when and where we can, and try not to draw a lot of attention to ourselves when we do it. Now, that particular object makes this whole matter a lot more dangerous, and delicate, than us two just trying to keep a plasma rifle from being ending up in the wrong hands. That object, in addition to being very powerful, very difficult to control, and very hard to maintain, is also very rare, and can bring a very high price in the right markets.

Satisfied that the “thing” is safe, Agent Hughes reaches out and closes the box once again, leaving the strange picture frame and cord attached to it.

Yes, let’s get moving, she says. Derrick, can you help me replace the canvas?

Happy, it seems, that at least one of these heroes has believed her story, Agent Hughes smiles at Droka and says, The connection on the top of this unit, if intact, should accept a universal type J interface.

She gently touches the top of the device with two fingers, then glances past Droka and nods at Agent Danvers, who quickly retrieves a long cord from his bag, connects it to the picture frame, and then hands the other end to agent Hughes.

Agent Hughes holds the end of the cord over the top of the device, and slowly lowers it into place and a “click” is heard.

Agent Danvers touches the picture frame a few times, and suddenly the circular frame of the devices begins to glow with red symbols, symbols that were not apparent until now. These symbols cover the rings, in swirls, and geometric patterns that seem oddly familiar.

If you are interested, please have your character make a Perception Check, the DC is 20, or an Intuition Check, the DC is 14

Agent Hughes sighs in relief, then says quietly to Agent Danvers

So the containment is still intact, that’s a relief.

She then approaches the wagon, looking around at everyone else nearby and seems to be looking for any sign that someone objects to her approach, when she is certain no one does, she slowly reaches out a hand toward the top of the strange object.

Agent Hughes turns toward Agent Danvers and asks

Does that sound familiar to you? Look it up, see if we have any data on something called a Sphere of Annihilation

Agent Hughes goes on

Now, what complicates the matter, severely, is that several years ago it was finally proven that there are many material planes, possibly even an infinite number of them. So, and maybe this is difficult for you to understand, but, you see this world, my home world, and Agent Danvers’ home world are all part of this plane, this reality. We come from worlds that are reached not by magic, but using advanced technology. We travel in ships built to move between the stars. We work for an organization dedicated to helping people anywhere where there is a need, and sometimes that work involves making sure technology that is common on some worlds, but dangerous on other worlds, doesn’t get placed in the wrong hands.

She finishes examining the coins, and says flatly, I can’t identify these coins. They appear to come from an ancient civilization, probably of this continent, but I can’t be sure. If you will allow me to keep one of them, I can run a few tests on the materials to try and find the world of origin, the place where the metals originated.

Agent Danvers stands and hands the goggles back to Agent Hughes, who hardly misses a beat, and simply passes them back to the boy, while saying, There, try them now, and if you want to know what they can do, just ask them, and address them as Diana

She turns toward Unbolath, nods and says, Yes, that is my plan exactly. We believed we were able to convince the Captain of Fort Horizon of our sincerity, and our disguise. I don’t believe he suspected us, but this ambush does raise questions.

Then she addresses Droka, We did not move from pone plane to another, but we did travel from our world to this one, by means of a plane we call the Aetherspace, you know it as the Ethereal Plane.

As Derrick and Minerva walk a few paces away from the group, Unbolath mentions the need to understand the objects and Agent Hughes goes on, We can examine the items as we move on toward Mystic Valley, if there is anything here useful, and within my permission as a team leader, I might be able to allow its use, but that box is strange. I’ve haven’t seen or heard of anything like it so far in the reports, maybe we should open it up and see what’s inside.

We are not from another dimension or plane as you would call it. You see, on this world, your world, you would refer to this plane as the material plane, and then, as I understand it, your access to magic allows you to make contact, sometimes even visit, other planes. We call those other planes dimensions, and they lie outside of the material universe in ways even out best minds cannot fully comprehend. But, keeping the discussion to only this plane, the material plane, there are many things you probably don’t know. The first, most important fact is that this world is only one of many, countless hundreds of similar worlds, all existing on the material plane. When you look up at the stars at night, each of those stars is a sun, and some of those suns, very far away, have planets, that are similar to this one that obit around them, similar to this one as well.

As she talks, Agent Danvers takes a slim flat picture frame like device out of his bag, and a small tool bag, followed by what appear to be thin multi-colored strings, he goes to work connecting the strings to the goggles and to the picture frame, and says quietly, so as to not interrupt Agent Hughes

If you’ll let me examine those goggles on your head, for a moment, I can perhaps show you that I am telling the truth.

Let me finish, please the woman you know as Waini goes on. Our organization first received a report of unusual technology being found on this planet three years ago. Six months ago one of our agents came to Fort Horizon on a tip. She filled several reports and then went missing. Miguel and I were sent here to find out what might have happened, under cover, in disguise. We learned about the WEAC’s role in recovering these unusual artifacts, and as far as we can tell everything they are doing follows protocols monitored by the IRS. Then we learned that the Captain of the fort was selling artifacts to an unknown buyer by smuggling recovered items out of the fort. That’s when we concocted the story of us wanting to move to Mystic Valley. We believe that the captain’s contact for selling these items is in Mystic valley. We suspected the shipment was going to include such artifacts be we did not know exactly what would be included. We were going along for the ride in hopes of uncovering the captain’s contact and what was happening to the artifacts. Now maybe your friend Victor there can explain what he knows. For all I know he is the captain’s contact. I’m telling you the truth, and I’ll cooperate with you in any way I can, but I need to find out who these objects were going to and why.

You’ve got it all wrong, soldier, Wiani says holding her hands up defensively in front of her. We never knew what was in the wagon, exactly, we only suspected. Please let me try to explain. Give me a chance. This might be hard to understand, but you’ve got to believe me. My real name is Elsinore Hughes, and my associate is Miguel Danvers. We are not from this world. We resemble your worlds elves well enough that we were selected for duty here. We work for an organization known as the Interplanetary Relief Society and …

Please, just be careful

We work for people very interested in what’s in this wagon as well.

How do you know what’s in the wagon The elven woman asks, seeming genuinely surprised

Don’t look under the tarp. There’s nothing we can use in the wagon! the young female elf snaps