"It's not dead, it's just resting."
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daigoro
Question 10 (Open Question)
What are some organisations dedicated to confronting the monster menace?
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Answer 10b
Lady Burton's Oriental Teahouse and Reading Rooms
From a small establishment on Baker St, Marylebone, the
Lady Isabel Burton, widow of Captain
Sir Richard Francis Burton, provides a worldly selection of beverages for the delectation of a wide clientele. The main parlour is warmly decorated in an oriental aspect, provided with steeply cushioned divans draped over with Bedawin rugs of fine, colourful weaves. Customers are offered a variety of
narghilehs or
chibouques to partake of, lending the room an exotic fragrance, while exquisite Turkish desserts are served on plates of shell-thin porcelain. The walls and sconces bear Eastern pictures, Moroccan urns, Persian enamels and mementos from a dozen lands. The far wall is dominated by a full-size portrait of Sir Richard, dressed in a loose white hunting blouse and sporting a wild growth of whiskers. Surrounding the portrait almost amounts to a shrine to the memory of the man, with busts, stacks of his books, photographs and other relics.
Taking a narrow staircase to chambers above the shop, visitors may peruse the substantial collection the Burtons amassed in Trieste, comprising some 8000 volumes, as well as copious notes and manuscripts of Sir Richard's own hand.
It is from here that Lady Burton pursues the invidious invaders of our mortal realm. From a sheaf of Burton's notes made decades before, such statements as,
"This desires further investigation," or,
"Sources lack specifics," or perhaps,
"Such a manifestation demands immediate attention," may be the only clues to the existence of infernal dens or hidden cabals that need to be addressed.
When Lady Burton's research of her husband's manuscripts turns up new avenues of investigation, she engages parties of appropriately talented individuals to lead expeditions to wherever is necessary around the globe.
She further administers a world-spanning network of informants, explorers and academics that tracks the emergence of inhuman and astral entities in far and disparate locales, collating their leads and rumours for deeper investigation or elimination.
The expeditions are funded from sales of her husband's literature as well as her own writings, and by donations from high society benefactors that she can convince of her cause.
Personally, Lady Burton fell seriously ill in the mid 1890's, such that work on her autobiography was taken over by a colleague, WH Wilkins. Of her work pursuing monstrous entities, he
wrote:
The conflict between the powers of light and the powers of darkness, between good angels and evil angels, between benign influences and malefic forces, is no figure of speech with her, but a reality. In these past years of her life more especially the earthly veil seems to have fallen from her eyes. She seems to have grasped something of the vision of the servant of Elisha, for whom the prophet prayed: "Lord, I pray Thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
Fortunately for said good work, however, she recovered from her illness and seems to have found new vigour, often remarking that she feels as spry as when she first met her dear Richard. Any eagle-eyed investigators that she employs, however, would find it diplomatic not to mention the reddish hue that they might notice in her complexion.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm
Answer 3: The monsters run the gamut from the classics of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and Frankenstein creatures...
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Question 26
Who is it that is making Frankenstein-like creations, and by what means?
Question 27
How did Lady Isabel Burton recover from terminal cancer and regain a youthful vigour? Has she compromised herself to "malefic forces" or not?