This week’s play saw our heroes finally arrive in London to inform Zara’s uncle, Lord Trevor Ansom, of his niece and only surviving relative’s probable demise in the Interior World. They passed through France by train, arrived in Dover only to be held up for almost a day due to the weapons they had brought with them. Without permits for the equipment, they had to wait for bureaucracy to be served.

Once the paperwork was settled, they got to the capital and were met by a Geoffrey Reece, a local private investigator and operative for the Terra Arcanum, who was there to drive them in his Morris Cowley around and generally keep them out of trouble.

Their meeting with Lord Trevor and the revelation of their discovery “beyond the Eye of Shambala” staggered the old academic, who had already surmised his niece was dead or as good as. On hearing of their plans to return, the old school professor demanded to be included in their next expedition — as a renowned philologist and archeologist, he would be indispensable. Also having encountered the weirdness of the disappearing city in Africa that started the campaign (a modified version of our White Ape of the Congo module), they figured he would be an excellent addition.

The next day they did some shopping at Abercrombie & Fitch — back when it was an outfitter and not some fashion shop for skinny-jeaned millennials — which allowed Gus to finally replace his gun bag and his hunting rifles. But on exiting the shop, Dr. Gould was contacted by the Russian psychic, Galina Obreva: they know about him, about his two brothers and other family…maybe they have the same abilities he does. The GPU won’t be waiting long to take action against them, and can the Gestapo be far behind? But if he willing joins the Soviets, helps them get into the Hollow Earth, they will be safe.

Gould refuses. At that moment, Gus and Hunter swear they see their missing companion Olga going into Regent’s Park. Dashing into traffic to catch her, Gould realizes they’ve fallen into a Soviet trap! That’s when “the Ghost”, Arkady Lenshev, knocks Gould, Amon, and their minder Reece cold and they never saw him through his ability to cloud their perception of him. Before Lenshev could instruct the burly dockworkers he’s got with him to bundle Amon and Gould into the delivery van, Hunter realizes it’s a trick and circles back for a one-on-one punch up with the man.

Gus is befuddled to have lost Olga, but instead sees Galina and knows they’ve been had. He tries to get at her, but she takes over his mind, causing him to freeze in the middle of Oxford Street traffic. He barely escapes being hit by a horse-drawn truck filled with German beer and a motorcyclist. He loses Galina, but sees Hunter and Lenshev going at it, while the dockworkers drive off with Gould and Amon in the back. He grabs the downed motorcyclist’s Scott Flying Squirrel and races off after them.

In the van, Gould wakes to find himself being trussed up. With a great effort, he rolls over, knocking one of the bad guys over, who in turn knocks the other baddie and Amon out into the street. For his efforts, he gets kicked in the face and knocked out.

With a last moment aid by Lord Trevor, armed with a blackthorn cane from A&F, Hunter is able to knock Lenshev down and run to aid Amon, while Lord Trevor checks on Reece. Lenshev quickly hoofs it and with Galina escapes.

Meanwhile, Gus chases the Morris van with his Scott motorbike, nearly gets pasted by oncoming traffic, but eventually gets behind the van. The last mook throws a length of chain at him, and missed, and Gus decides to board the van by ramming the rear bumper, launching himself into the back and onto the bad guy. (It is a pulp game, after all…) He and the mook wrestle, and in the mist of it, Gus kicked Gould out of the van when it’s taking a turn and has slowed down. For his attention, he gets choked nearly unconscious by the bad guy, but is able to find worm his way loose and shoots the guy at point blank range.

Not wanting to spend time in a British jail, Gus bails out of the van and quickly loses himself on the Underground. The rest of the group has crowded into Reece’s Morris and meets him there. They are visited by the police shortly afterward, who are following up on Gould’s claim of being attacked by communists — most likely a response to their having thwarted an attack on the Marquesa de Montealegre (utter crap, but it sounds good and is verifiable to a point) in Spain. The others corroborate the lie for the most part and the police set them free on their own recognizance while looking for the Russians and their allies.

The group holes up in Zara’s old country home outside of London for a few days while Gould telegraphs a warning to his faily in Spain and Hunter tries to get them Terra Arcanum protection from the GPU and Nazis. Gould is worried that the longer they stay on the surface world, the more danger he puts his family in…

They finally take a liner to the United States, and from there a train to the newly-opened (and beautiful, even today) 30th Street Station in Philadelphia — Hunter’s home town. They are put up by the navy in the Benjamin Franklin Hotel and dine with Admiral Byrd that evening at the Rittenhouse Club. There they learn the main issue with their transport has been Byrd’s support of the heavier-than-air end of the Division of Aeronautics, and he is having to eat crow and aid Admiral Moffett in defending the program from Congress and the budget cutters, especially after the near disaster Akron had offshore. (In our campaign, I had Akron survive her final voyage through a massive storm. Why? I like airships.)

That accident does mean the navy needs a big win with an airship, and a polar expedition — which is what Byrd is selling their mission as — sounds like the ticket. It also means they can’t take Akron and her five scout airplanes…instead, they are pulling the recently decommissioned Los Angeles — sister to Graf Zeppelin — out of mothballs. This takes time as they get her back into flying shape, load her with helium and fuel, and get the victual and crew together.

In the meantime, Hunter is planning to see his family and delinquent friends, and then they are accompanying Byrd up to New York City to meet with a scientific advisor who has been studying the ray guns they brought back from the Interior World.

That was where we left off for the night, with the Soviets and Nazis giving chase, an airship flight in the offing, and a visit with the Terra Arcanum’s mysterious scientist.