Goings on at home, and losing my commission

I've been so busy with one project or another that I haven't had time to explore my own town. I decided to remedy that. Lunar's new saloon is marvelous..reminds me of the Jardin in its opulence.


Baron Wulfenbach asked me to take a look at the flags on his embassy..and lo and behold, he fashioned a NEW Steelhead flag based upon my original crude designs! Trading the blue stripe at the bottom or purple was an intersting touch..it brings out the yellow of the scroll much better.

(Bloodwing tells me that the Baron always modifies the flags of the nations he conquers, but I told him that's rubbish. Besides, we just got annexed by the American Empire anyway.)



As for the failed experiment I was ranting about..well, I received a cross-time communication..I was invited by a foreign government to reanimate their recently deceased leader for a handsome sum in gold bars, vodka, fur coats and caviar. The Spark took over my judgment. I eagerly accepted the package from the portal they created, glass case and all!

But I soon realized this would not be a simple case. You can imagine my outrage when I started the procedure and found out the brain was missing! Someone had removed it surreptitiously to foil my goal! Furthermore, what was left of his nervous system was severely damaged by bullet wounds, and there was evidence of damage from venereal disease as well.

Normally I can only resurrect those whose souls have just departed their mortal shells, but with slain leaders, especially the more tenacious types, their ghosts can haunt the palaces in which they were deposed for centuries, and they are more than eager to inhabit a new body in an attempt to regain what they had lost. However, this subject was an avowed atheist..the fastest way to lose your soul after death is to deny that you have one. The late Comrade was a hopeless case.

I began drawing up plans for a mechanical brain to give their former head of state a semblance of life. However, the new ruler of the empire yet to come paid me a visit. Steelman, I think his name was. He was obviously opposed to my project since he barged into my laboratory with a bevy of armed guards, held me at gunpoint, and pulled my subject back through the time portal. "Property of the State", he said.



Qlippothic was highly upset after I told her what happened..he said that mustachioed dictator was the same one that, so her recovered journals from the future tell her, deactivated her and left her languishing in an unmarked crate for a century before waking up in one of the Dark Future of Toxia.

Hmm..Stalin..Steelman..Qlippothic Steele..perhaps another piece of the puzzle.

~Dr. Mason