Germany 1911
"There it is!" said Oswald Birlington, pointing to an object in the glass case of an old curiosity shop in Cologne, Germany.
Mr. Peaches pointed to it also. "Mr. Puh-puh-puh-Peaches!"
The Benevolent Lodge of Mystery still looked the same after over thirty years of adventures. It was a beneficial side-effect of being a five-alchemical-element team that they barely seemed to age at all. The only difference was that now Scotty wore an adjustable monocle that Abigail made for him, which could be anything from a magnifier to a telescopic zoom lens.
They had gone round the world several times over, looking for alchemical artifacts of the Anunnaki. They had tea with Queen Victoria in 1890, escaped from China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1899, and gone on safari with Teddy Roosevelt in 1908. So far they had failed to locate any pieces of the Planispheric Disk, but they found a user's manual for it in Spain, written it by its maker, Bartimeo Magnus, the master alchemist to Holy Roman Emperor King Charles V.
They also found a genuine mask that had been worn by the Anunnaki Anubis, in France among the spoils captured by Napoleon when he invaded there. They had purchased a shaman's hut made of terror wood from the Amazon from the British Museum, and found numerous other books and artifacts over the years. And they had solved mystery after mystery, everywhere they went.
They were now in Germany because Abigail had been invited to join the new Kaiser Wilhelm Society for the promotion of scientific research. The artifact they had found this time was an old broken compass. Curiously, the pole ends were labeled with the words "Gut" and "Böse" instead of the normal red tip on the pole that points north.
"Good and evil," said Abigail. "The Moral Compass of the Krampus."
Marianne said, "I believe the Krampus is an Anunnaki, with advanced technology to detect good and evil. He is the opposite of Santa Claus – he punishes bad children, rather than giving presents to good ones. A moral entity, though a frightening one. This compass must be one that he broke and discarded."
"Lyke, what good is it if it's broken?" asked Scotty.
"Abigail, can you fix it?" Oswald asked. "It would allow us to solve cases faster so we can get on with our research."
"I think so, with the help of the alchemy books we found in Spain," said Abigail.
They bought the compass and headed back to their hotel.
That evening, Abigail told the others, "I have got it working."
"Excellent. We will have to guard it carefully so it doesn't fall into the wrong hands," said Oswald.
"I thought of that," Abigail said.
"What do you suggest?" asked Marianne.
"I put it in a new gold case with self-destruct mechanism, to disable the compass instantly if we are captured," said Abigail.
"Very good," said Oswald. "I will keep it on me at all times and be prepared to destroy it if necessary. This find is worth commemorating. Let's get a new group portrait painted with me holding the compass and I'll send it back to the Burlington Library to hang in the front hall."
Russia, early 1914
The team was in St. Petersburg, Russia, where they had managed to get hold of an indestructible piece of sailcloth, with "Cuarto Llave" on it, after solving the case of a haunting by someone pretending to be Koschei the Deathless. This was the end of a trip all over Europe: to Germany, Serbia, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, Britain, France, Belgium, and Romania.
Now Oswald was trying to get an audience with the Tsar so he could get permission to look at the hut of Baba Yaga, one of the artifacts in the royal storehouse.
A bearded man approached Oswald as he waited in an antechamber in front of a burning fireplace.
"I am Grigori Rasputin," the man said. "I am a holy man, a healer, and I have the ear of the Tsar because I have healed his son, Tsarevich Alexei. I will help you get access to the hut of Baba Yaga if you will give me something in return."
"Let me check something," said Oswald, drawing out the compass and pointing it towards Rasputin. The needle jumped and the evil pole pointed to him.
"Aha, that is exactly what I want," said Rasputin. "Give it to me!"
Oswald tossed a small stick of wood onto the fire and backed up. Rasputin came after him, but when he breathed in the smoke of the burning stick his eyes became wide and he ran away in terror.
"I thought a piece of terror wood might come in handy," thought Oswald to himself. He left the room so he could stop holding his breath.
The group decided to leave Russia before the healer could talk the Tsar into arresting them. Oswald put the incident into his journal to remind himself to try again later once things had cooled down.
Burlington Library, July 1914
They arrived by train at the Burlington Library using the special branch line Oswald had installed. It was July, but this high in the mountains there was always snow.
Mr. Peaches was carrying their sailcloth find, when he suddenly stopped and blew it up into the air. He caught it again a moment later.
"Why did you do that, Mr. Peaches?" asked Scotty.
Mr. Peaches shrugged.
They entered the Library. The caretaker, old Mr. Fluunk, was there to greet them.
"Welcome back, Sir. Here is your newspaper, Sir."
The headline read, "WAR IN EUROPE."
"Oh no!" said Oswald. "Austria-Hungary has invaded Serbia."
"Didn't you expect that?" asked Marianne.
"They have an excuse, since they thought Serbia was behind the assassination of their Archduke, Franz Ferdinand. But since they issued an ultimatum to Serbia to make a complete investigation, and Serbia agreed to it almost completely, I thought there would be a diplomatic solution," said Oswald.
"There is a lot of bad blood between those countries. They are spoiling for a fight," said Abigail. "They knew Serbia was behind the assassination. I told people high up in the government while we were there that Serbia was plotting such a thing."
"You told them? How did you know?" asked Oswald. He suddenly thought of something, and pulled out his Moral Compass. There was a scratch on the back of it that he knew he didn't make.
He opened the compass and pointed it toward Abigail. The evil pole twitched in her direction.
"What have you done?" he asked. "With all the alliances in Europe right now, Germany will have to come to the aid of Austria-Hungary; and Russia, France, and the United Kingdom will be pulled in on the other side. You may have contributed to the start of a world war."
He turned the compass all around, and in each case the needle twitched.
"Aye, she wasn't the only one. I asked Mr. Peaches to fetch me the compass while you slept, and I did a bit of spying for the sake of Irish independence. Lyke, I have relatives there," said Scotty.
"And I spied for the sake of France," said Marianne.
"It has happened," said Oswald. "Corruption has finally caught up with us after all these years. I must ask you to get back on the train and leave at once. The Benevolent Lodge of Mystery is dead."
He pressed the self-destruct button on the Moral Compass and threw the ruined artifact into the fire.
"Mr. Puh-puh-puh-Peaches?"
"You stay, of course. But I'm very disappointed in you. You've betrayed me, too."
Mr. Peaches hung his head.
Next morning, Oswald Birlington looked in the mirror and saw his hair had suddenly become gray.
He ran to find Mr. Peaches. It was too late. Orangutans can live up to 50 years in captivity, but the sudden shock of the years catching up to him had been too much.
Oswald sank to his knees beside his old friend, weeping.