What’s an 18th century fireplace doing on a 21st century cruise liner

The Girl In The Fireplace

Introduction
All the PC’s are members of the coastgaurd. While sitting in harbor the PC’s are called to an SOS from cruise liner Jean-Antoinette. The PC’s get in their ship and sail out to the givin coordinates to find the Ship docile but in no apparent danger. The PC’s board the ship.

Onboard the Jean-Antoinette
It won’t take the PC’s long to discover that they are alone on the ship. There are no sounds coming from the engines, no sound of life, no presence of corpses, blood or any sign of violence, it is as if the ship has been abandoned, however all the life boats are still on board. The PC’s begin to search the ship, and quickly fall upon a strange sight on the very modern ship.

What’s an 18th century fireplace doing on a 21st century cruise liner?
You walk into a service room, it is disheveled but doesn’t seem particularly disturbed. In the center of the wall on your left is a computer showing diagnostics of the ship. It shows that the ship’s propulsion is broken down, Power has been cut to heating, lighting, surveilance and all othe non-essential processes. The engines however seem to be running at full capacity. A brief scent passes by you. It smells like pot roast. Drawing your attention away from the computer you advance through a corridor into the next room. Here you find a truly strange sight. Against an exterior wall you see a fireplace. The wall it is set into is painted a rich mahogony, and decorated with golden Fleur De Lis. Two Sconces adorn the wall on either side of the mantle. The fireplace itself is intricately carved, and sitting on the mantle above is an elaborate clock. Ther is a fire burning in the fire place.

The PC’s should now be curious as to what an 18th century fire place is doing on a 21st century cruise liner. And if the engines are running at full capacity why is there no sound being generated? What happened to all the people on board the ship? There should have been passengers, service men, crew, a captain etc. where have they gone? These answers wil become apparent to the PCs in short time. For now they should focus on the immediate problem of the fire place. When a PC bends down to look into the fireplace he will be confronted by the face of a young blonde girl, perhaps 7 years old. She wil make conversation with the PC looking into the fire. she will ask the PC what he is doing in the fire place, and according to response conversation will continue, until the PC chooses to end the conversation. The girl is not aware the she is on a 21st century cruise ship, her name is Reinette, she is in Paris, in the year 1727. She is in her bedroom.

After the PC ends conversation and stands back up to talk to his friends they should search the room. Should they decide to search the ship thy won’t find anything else of interest immediately available, other time windows have not yet been opened, and they are unlikely to do an intricate enough search to isolate the other oddities with the ship until they make themselves known. Once the PCs search the room with the fireplace one of them, preferably the one whom Reinette first saw, should end up hitting a switch on the fireplace that will spin the wall and leave him in Reinette’s room several months after the night on which he spoke with her through the fireplace.

What the hell is ticking?
Reinette is fast asleep in her bed. Her room is well decorated and it is evident that she does not come from a poor family. The loud ticking of a clock resounds in the air.

Reinette will not wake immediately, leaving the PC a brief period of time to look around the room. Should the PC take special notice of the clock on the fire place he will notice that the glass over the face has been smashed and that the gears of the clock has stopped running. If the PC is not an idiot he may then be curious what is making the ticking sound, as there are evidently no other clocks in the room. After the PC has had a few moments to notice this anomoly, or not, Reinette will waken. Her first response is shock , but then comfort when she realises it’s her “fire-place man.” Should the PC approach her bed he will notice the Clockwork noise becomes louder the nearer he gets. Reinette will respond to whatever conversation the PC makes with her. If the PC ultimately looks under the bed(promote this as needed) he will takea speed checked, if failed he takes minimal damage from a knife, if he succeeds he dodges the knife as it darts at him. when he looks under the bed again he sees only feet standing at the other side of the bed. When the PC stands he sees a humanoid figure in 18th century french garb wearing a masque. For GM purposes this is not a human but a clockwork robot. It is capable of speech but will not respond to the PC. The Clockwork will however respond to Reinette, although unless prompted she will not, at this time, make any attempt to adress it unless prompted to do so. The ultimate trick, and the PC’s will hopefully figure this out in a later encounter, is to have Reinette command it to respond to any questions put to it, or to ask the questions of it herself. The PCs will be distinctly lacking in information to get any clues from the clockwork at this time, however if the PC should do anything that the clockwork may find threating it will assault the PC. Look for any reason for the clockwork to attack. If(when) the clockwork attacks treat it as an automatic BOHICA. The clockwork will miss and it’s knife will become caught in the fireplace. Depending on what the PC does at this point he will either miss out on useful information or potentially learn how to fight with the clockworks.

If the PC attempts to dissasemble the clockwork here it will teleport away. If the PC chooses, as is wise with any confrontation, to spin the fireplace back to the ship and let his friends assist in the fight, then they should figure out how this fight works. Against aware opponents the clockwork should do very little damage. It is equipped with three weapons: a knife, a bone saw, and syrringe of tranquilizer. In a straight fight the clockwork will use the knife. It is important to note that the PCs should have no means by which to destroy the clockwork. If this means that your PCs are unarmed that would be easiest. Otherwise choose someway to explain that the clockwork is invulnerable to fire arms, baseball bats etc. If the PCs who didn’t visit Reinette are worth a damn they will have noticed some strange looking large fire exstinguishers in the room with them. These can be used to freeze the clockwork, temporarily. That is the only point of this particular encounter, and before the PC gets any oppurtunity to damage the clockwork it should reactivate and teleport away from the PCs.

Maybe there is some answer in that room!
The PCs may search the ship again, they still shouldn’t find anything else. They may choose to send someone back through the fireplace. Either way it isn’t particularly important what they do as long as they dont leave the ship, and as long as you get the PC back through the fireplace. Reinette will behave favorably to which ever PC she first saw, and with distrust to any other PC. This trip is meant to give any historically minded PCs a hint as to what is going on. Little should happen on this particular trip through the fire place. It is now several years later and Reinette is around the age of 19. She should have some conversation with the PC, perhaps referencing him as an imaginary friend. If the PC is male she may show some affection providing further insentive for that PC to continue the effort. She is called by a steward toward the end of this encounter he calls her Madamoiselle Poisson. Any PC with personal knowledge of French history may at this point connect this with Madam De Pompadour. Or if a character has a skill in history they may be permitted a check to indentify this information. After Reinette departs the steward will arrive at the doorway, he is armed as are the two men with him. They are not hostile but should take a distrusting attention to the PC. The PC should at this time retreat through the fireplace once more. If they don’t leave on their own have the men draw their weapons and advance to promote the retreat.

Meanwhile Back on the ship
The other PCs may be getting sick of watching this progress without getting to get their hands dirty. Hopefully they continue to search the ship(if time and again you’ve had to show them nothing for their effort you ay have to find a way to provoke this) This can also wait until the other PC returns from Reinette. While they search the ship this time they will be randomly confronted by a surveillance camera. But not any normal camera sitting attached to a the ceilling and swiveling. This camera comes down to them on a long metal extension, and the human eye set in the lens blinks at them (kinda like a camera shutter). This will provoke an unatural check. If the PCs examine the camera they may notice the sound of a heart beat eminating from the nearby wall. They will find a small hatch in the wall, which when opened will reveal a small chamber with heart wired into the ship.

Another look at a day in the life
Treat this however you want, it’s jsut further information to help the PCs pull the puzzle together. Preferably the same PC who has been visiting Reinette will find the window, whether it be alone, or with the rest of the group, or if the others find it on thier own, doesnt matter. This window can not be entered, but merely looks through on Reinette speaking with a friend about trying to become Louis XV’s mistress. This information is really only neccessary if the PCs havent already figured out who Reinette is.

Let her meet your friends.
The third trip through a time window can be taken by everyone in the party, They’ll need multiple heads to get the answers they need. The PC’s will come across the back side of a mirror looking into a room at the palace of Versailles. Here they will see a few moments of Reinette speaking to a steward, revealing that she is to dance with Louis XV tonight. An astute PC may at this time recognize that there is a broken clock in the room. At the sime time Reinette should react to a figure she hadn’t previously noticed in the room. At this time the Pc’s can push open the mirror, like a door, and enter the room. The clockwork will activate but not assault. If the PC’s try to speak with the clockwork it will not respond, dont let the PCs sit to long before having Reinette say something that will provoke a response from it. At this point or shortly thereafter the PCs should realize it will only speak when adressed by Reinette or told to by Reinette. They now have an oppurtunity to get some answers, and by this point they should have a lot of questions. The clockwork is a repair unit for the cruiseliner they are investigating. If asked what happened it will explain that the ship has lost 82% of its funcionality. If asked why they havent repaired the ship it will respond that it did not have the parts. If asked who sent the SOS it will respond that the captain of the ship sent the SOS. If asked what happened to the captain(or anyone else aboard) it will respond that it did not have the parts. At this point(after seeing the camera and the heart etc.) hopefully the grim realization will dawn on the PCs, that the clockworks used the people aboard to repair aspects of the ship. Now if your PCs are especially astute they will ask why the clockworks are stalking Madam De Pompodour. If adressed with this question it will respond that she is compatible. If they then ask why they haven’t taken her yet it will respond that she is not ready yet.

The clockwork will Teleport away after the PCs run out of questions. At this point you want to force a split. Give the PCs cause to chase the clockwork back to the ship, but leave the Reinette’s PC behind. the two groups will gain further information that will assist in solving the puzzle. After the other PC’s depart their should be further small talk between Reinette and her Man in the Fireplace. Find away to reveal that she is, at this time, 23 years old.

In hot pursuit
The PCs who chased the clock work should stumble upon another data bank. There are two imporant pieces of information here. A) the ship is run on nuclear power, providing a tremendous amount of energy to the ship. B) The ship has been in commision for 37 years. using this information along with Reinette’s age the PCs may figure out that the clockworks don’t believe she’ll be ready until she is 37. If they don’t, don’t worry abou t it, it’s all flavor and they can get through without that information. at this point however the PCs have all the information needed to solve the puzzle, now they just have to wrap things up.

Now to add a moment of action, relatively. Have 3 or 4 Clockworks descend on the unaware PCs. tranquilize them. The clockworks will then take them back to the maintenance room and strap them to slabs where they intend to “part” the PCs into components for the ship.

Just in the nick of time
There is one PC free though, let him find them before they are mercilessly slaughtered. He has two ways of freeing his friends. Provided he has an exstinguisher he can freeze the clockworks. If he doesn’t then there is a lever that will power them down in the central console. This will last for a decent period of time. Long enough for the free PC to free his friends, and for the PCs to take notice of a laptop sitting on a nearby table. The laptop contains a number of files on mechanomancy, two of particular importance. One describes the nature of the construction of the clockworks, useful for the purposes of disassembling them(or building them), dont let the PCs destroy the clockworks, this is a thinking scenario, make them solve the puzzle. The other important file is theoretical dissertation on time windows. It goes into deep explanation of how to create one, how they function, etc etc. The PCs must learn from this file that Time windows can be shut down only if all partys are in their appropriate time line. It should also explain that time windows can be locked, to prevent entrance through a particular window. Finally it must explain that if ia time window is destroyed it will shutdown every active time window to that “location”

If the PCs decide to try to close the windows it will fail, since there is a clockwork out of its timeline about to discover Reinette age 37. After trying to shutdown the time window, or if the PCs attempt to dissassemble the clockworks they will reactivate. A message comes for them stating that Reinette is ready. At this point all the clockworks will teleport out.

We have to find her before they do
The PCs will find the last two time windows almost simultaneously. Time window A is behind a tapastry leading into Reinette’s room at Versailles, age 32. Time Window B looks through the back of a mirror into the great hall of Versailles, Reinette age 37. Behind Time window B there is chaos in the hall and people running for their lives from the clockworks that are attacking. The time window, however, is locked. Ideally one or two PCs will fo through A to explain the situation to Reinette. Earnst while the other PCs will be looking for a way through Time Window B only to discover it is locked. When they meet up again they have descisions to make. Should the PCs decide to stop their crusade here, and let the clockworks take Reinette, then all the PCs should take a self check(rank 2). If the PCs decide to smash the time window from the the inside, leaving the clockworks stranded and Reinette’s fate undisclosed, then the PC who has been directly interacting with Reinette should take a self check(rank 2). Or finally one of the PCs can decide to go crashing through the time window leaving himself stranded on the other side, and stuck in 1758, but gaurenteeing Reinette’s safety. This PC should take an Isolation check(rank 2, if not directly relating with Reinette throughout, or Rank 1 if he did). Should a PC choose to crash through the window, then they aren’t actually all that screwed. All the windows that they had previously looked through are destroyed, except the fireplace that Reinette had moved from her childhood home. This presents the PC with an oppurtunity to return to his friends.

Jean-Antoinette “Reinette” Poisson
Final summation is as follows. A mechanomancer manned the ship with clockwork droids to do the maintenance, thus saving on costs for operating the ship. Massive internal failure at sea caused the ship to break down, and the droids attempted to repair the ship but found that they lacked the neccessary parts. Using files contained in the Captains laptop they scrapped all the humans on the ship to make pieces to get the ship operating again, this included the captain. Finding that the ship lacked a brain to control it they pursued the ships namesake Jean-Antoinette Poisson, aka Reinette Poisson Madam De Pompodour, to be the ships brain. The assumed that since the ship was 37 years old, then they would have to wait for Madam De Pompedour to be 37 years old before she would be compatable with the ship. They had to open a number of time windows, being that it is not an exact science, in order to find Reinette at the appropriate year.

Leads
This scenario doesnt leave much for the adventure seeking guns blazing kind of player, it does however make for a very good trigger event. It leaves the PCs with a laptop full of information that would be new to the occult underground, but whose to say that they hadn’t heard someone was working on it. Give the PCs the laptop, and decide what their adventure from their is going to be, its a long way back to harbor.

Further research and one word of advice
Reinette Poisson was a real person, the uncrowned queen of france. Look into her history for better insight into her character. Secondly this Scenario is adapted from The Girl In The Fireplace, and episode of the BBC series, Doctor Who. Watching the episode would help give you a clearer idea of what is going on, at the same point, make sure none of your PCs are Dr. Who buffs, because they’ll I.D. this right away.