Exercises in Recursion

Drake Mallard

Wherein the team engages in some well-deserved R&R - or D&D, if you will.

"What's with the photo of these... really big marbles?"

"Oh, you want to know about the Lost and Found Orbs of Platippia? It's a really interesting story - not an Uncle Scrooge story, mind, but I found out about them during my Greek Mythology phase, so I kept tabs on them."

"You had a Greek Mythology phase?"

"Oh yeah. Greek myths and history are full of *fascinating* torture methods. They had this thing called a 'Brazen Bull'-"

"Moving on now! Orbs! Lost! Found! Why?"

"Right! The Lost and Found Orbs of Platippia! It's important to know that they weren't originally known as Lost - or Found, for that matter. You see, they were first discovered in 1893 in the ruins of a temple for Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture, on the Greek island of Platippia. The 3 archaeologists who found them called them the Demeter Crystal Orbs, because they appear to be made of an extremely strong kind of crystal. However, they had a falling out, and ended up each taking 1 Orb home with them."

"So what are they for? Scrying tools? Telling the future?"
"Who cares? I just wanna know how much they're worth."
"None of this explains why they got a different name, though."

"I'm getting to all of that, don't worry. You see, 12 years later, in 1905, one of the Orbs disappeared. The archaeologist who owned it accused the others, of course, but had no proof - and then their Orbs disappeared too, in 1906 and 1908. It was a really big scandal - three members of high society accusing each other of grand larceny. And then one of them showed up in the possession of an American oil tycoon. Of course, all three of the archaeologists claimed that this was *their* Orb, but the tycoon insisted he bought it from a salesman in Greece, and since none of them could prove it was theirs, he kept it - until it disappeared from his home, too, a few years later. And that cycle basically continued over the last century - an Orb would show up somewhere, the new owner would gloat for a few years, and then the Orb would disappear again a few years later. The only thing the Orbs all seemed to have in common was that they seemed to be found in or near Greece."

"Ohhh, so *that's* how they got that name."
"So they just bought these orbs... so they could lose them again? Rich people."
"Couldn't they be different orbs, though?"

"Oh no, people started keeping track of that, trying to solve the mystery, and there have never been more than three Orbs in circulation. Anyway, at some point the British Museum decided to do an exhibition on Greek history, so the exhibition organizer, Teri Fisher, managed to convince the museum to buy all three of the Orbs from their current owners. She figured that their security was good enough to protect the Orbs, and even if it wasn't, they had a legitimate owner claim to any Orbs that showed up again - which is a good thing, because no insurer wanted to have anything to do with them by that point."

"Sounds about right."
"Eh. True."
"Makes sense."

"Unfortunately, even the museum's security proved insufficient - 2 days before the exhibit would start, *all three* of the Orbs disappeared from the museum! So Fisher panicked, and contacted Mercenaries Eleventh Hour - MEH for short - which is like an employment agency for mercenaries that you need at short notice. They're SUPER expensive, though.
Three mercenaries were close enough for the job, and they arrived at the museum soon after - Drake Mallard, who looks like a regular guy but seems to hide some kind of dangerous secret; Nicky Heron, a dashing swashbuckler; and Zwaantje Hans - which I think means something like Cygne Johns? - a battle nun... I think."

"You made these dossiers yourself? The laminating is exquisite."
"Woof - she can buckle my swash every day."
"Hey, that guy kinda looks like that actor Launchpad is a fan of."

"Aw, thanks for noticing! Anyway, the three investigated the museum, and following what appeared to be claw mark traces, found one of the Orbs in another room, where a large dinosaur skeleton had been smashed through and the biggest bone stolen. That's where the tracks ended, though, and apparently the camera footage was nonfunctional in precisely those rooms around the time of the disappearance, while the cameras in the surrounding rooms showed nothing of interest."

"Wait, how do you know all this?"

"I... *maaay* have hacked their security footage archive?"

"..."
"..."
"..."

"But you guys don't want to hear about that, right? So since their leads in the museum were exhausted, they returned the one Orb to Fisher, got promised a bonus for returning the dinosaur bone, then boarded a plane to Greece to investigate Platippia itself - on a pretty short deadline, since they had less than 48 hours to locate the Orbs and return them to the museum before the start of the exhibit. Of course, when they got to the town there, the locals were downright hostile once they were told the three were after the Orbs, and the mayor, Jennings, immediately ordered them arrested before they could explain they were working for the British Museum. Drake threw a smoke bomb, and then he and Nicky took off, but Cygne let them arrest her, preaching at them the entire time. The other two sneaked towards the police station to break her out, but she beat up the police chief and broke out on her own before they could come up with a plan. Although Cygne is from the Catholic Church, not the East-Orthodox one, they still were able to take shelter in the local church, which was surprisingly fancy. See?"

"Oh wow, the varnishing on those church pews is *really* well done."
"Those statues look SUPER expensive."
"Hang on, how can they afford that?"

"Well, turns out the priest's predecessor found an Orb once and sold it, then used the proceeds to renovate the church. He also told them the reason the townfolk was so hostile was that a lot of treasure hunters flocked to the island in the 50s through 70s, looking for the Orbs and causing all sorts of trouble, until Jennings's father took over and basically kicked them all out. Ever since then, the temple - now rebuilt - was guarded by police 24/7."

"Again, how can they afford that?"

"That's a good question, which Cygne already had the answer to - she'd noticed the town was a lot more prosperous than you'd expect given their lack of tourism or anything worth exporting, and came up with a hypothesis that the mayor's father figured out what happened to the Orbs when they disappeared, and had been secretly selling them to fund the town. Banning the treasure hunters was just a way to prevent others from interfering with their scheme."

"Man, that's evil!"
"Eh, sounds like how I'd do it."
"And they did that for over 40 years? You'd think people would find out earlier."

"True, but even before Jennings's father took over, the Orbs had been found all over Greece, Turkey, and North Africa. The island was just a central place to look for those too lazy to do proper research.
The next day, they went to investigate the temple, and almost ran into Jennings again, who was driving to the temple. Luckily, they managed to hear him coming at the last minute, and took cover. From their hiding place, they noticed him taking a large package from his car and enter the temple with it. So they snuck past the guards and inside the temple - which was completely abandoned! After some searching, they found a hidden passageway, which led them down *below* the temple. There were a lot of traps, but they were able to deduce how to bypass the traps by the traces Jennings left."

"Man, a hidden passageway underneath an ancient temple, filled with traps? Maybe I should join MEH."

"Oh no, I checked, and you have to be at least 21 to join, so that's a long while off. Plus most of their jobs involve getting shot at."

"Yikes!"
"​​​​C'mooon, I want to hear the rest of the story! What was below the temple?!"
"Even better!"

"Right! Well, after several traps and a looong way down in a spiral, they arrived in a large cavern, with a tall statue of an unknown woman, and an altar with three shallow receptacles big enough for the Orbs - and saw Jennings, carrying an enormous slab of meat, and trying to convince a giant three-headed dog to drop the two Orbs it had in two of its mouths."

"Wait - a second underground temple underneath a temple for Demeter, a three-headed dog, three indestructible balls... no way!"

"Yes way! The second temple was for Persephone, daughter of Demeter and wife of Hades, Lord of the Underworld! And the Lost and Found Orbs of Platippia were actually three balls that Persephone could use to play fetch with Hades's dog Kerberos! Which is why the Orbs had been disappearing: even after the temple collapsed, Kerberos would return every now and then, and when he noticed the Orbs were missing, he decided to play fetch with them, returning them to the island - although he'd often drop one or more of the Orbs on the way back. Then he'd wait a while for people to throw the Orbs again, and when that didn't happen, leave!"

"AAAAA!"
"AAAAA!"
"AAAAA!"

"AAAAA! WHY ARE WE YELLING?!"

"BECAUSE THAT'S AMAZING!"

"OH! Right! Yeah, it is!"

"So, what happened then?"

"Eh, Kerberos's central head ended up accidentally knocking out the mayor with the dinosaur bone, and then the three mercenaries decided to steal back the Orbs and the bone, by using another smoke bomb. That didn't quite work out, but fortunately for them, Cygne was able to convince Kerberos to take them back to the British Museum in exchange for them playing with him. He warped them out of the temple, then took a running start and in a few warps, returned them to the museum, knocking over the dinosaur skeleton again in the process. They explained the situation to the museum staff, and the staff was able to bribe Kerberos with a *lot* of doggy treats.
And that's basically where the story ends - the exhibit was a success, and although Jennings was arrested for fraud, the museum agreed to sell the Orbs to the town of Platippia, where they use the games of fetch with Kerberos to draw in tourists."

"Aw, I love a happy ending."
"Needs more treasure, though."
"He looks so happy in these photos!"