On the Hunt for Hyperborea

Episode 5: On the Hunt for Hyperborea
Dates: May 26-29, 1937

Click here for the New York Times front page for May 26, 1937

Locations:
 * Marseille, France
 * London, England

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Laroche's confession

 * "They threatened me with my life if I didn’t get the book of Pytheas to them. I’m sorry but it was either your lives or my own.  When you were waiting for me to pick you up in front of the museum, I called them and told them we’d be taking the funicular.  They set up an ambush to stop you.  That’s why I didn’t want to get on the funicular with you.  I knew what was coming and didn’t want to get caught in the crossfire.  But once I realized I could obtain the book with your help, I decided to follow along until you acquired it and then try to take it from you by force and hand it over to them.
 * "Those men are thugs for the Nazi party. They are looking for a place called Hyperborea.  They told me that they want to find a lost island named Thule, which they claim is the capital of Hyperborea.  I don’t know why they wish to find a mythical lost island, but they’re obviously willing to murder anyone that stands in their way!"

Information about Hyperborea derived from Description of the Ocean by Pytheas

 * Hyperborea is several days' sail north of Britain
 * Pytheus wrote about his visit to Hyperborea. There he saw a circular temple of standing stones.  He also encountered a native tribe that lived there.

Information on the Thule Society

 * An occult group called the Thule Society was formed in Germany and headquartered in Munich after the Great War by founder and war veteran Rudolf von Sebottendorff. Members of this society have included Rudolf Hess (now Deputy Fuhrer to Hitler), Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank, Dietrich Eckart, and many others that would later go on to help create the Nazi party.  The Thule Society claimed to be the true descendants of an Aryan progenitor race and its symbol is a sunwheel-like version of the swastika (pictured at right).  In 1933 the society was suppressed by the Nazi party and by 1934 its founder was exiled from Germany.

Livingston's notes on the world map of Ptolemy

 * Notes on ancient navigation:
 * Finding latitude was fairly straightforward in ancient times. The angle of the pole star above the horizon gives your latitude.  Finding longitude was much more difficult in ancient times.
 * If an accurate timekeeping device is available one could use the time of day that the Sun achieves its highest point (“culmination”) to know how far east or west they’d gone. However, this method didn’t exist until the 18th century with the invention of accurate marine chronometers.
 * Notes on Ptolemy's map:
 * Comparing Ptolemy’s coordinates with modern coordinates shows that (not surprisingly) he was quite accurate with latitude but inaccurate with longitude.
 * To correct Ptolemy’s longitude:
 * Puzzle: Thule is located at a longitude where culmination happens 12 minutes after it does at the prime meridian. Find that longitude.
 * Solution found by the players: Thule's longitude is 3 degrees West. Combining this corrected longitude with Ptolemy's latitude for Thule places it (after consulting a modern map) in the Orkney Islands
 * Click here for a PDF version of Livingston's notes

Episode Summary
Previously in Harrowing Tales, our heroes were escaping from Notre Dame de la Garde via a horse path down the backside of a mountain when they heard the sound of approaching hooves. Just then, Pierre Laroche betrays them, pointing a gun at Nick Danger and demanding that he turn over the lost text of Pytheas.

Now we pick up right where we left off...

Nick Danger, the private eye with the third eye and inveterate paranoid, already suspected Laroche might try to double-cross them. Therefore he is prepared with a plan of action. He agrees to hand over the book and in fact actually does so. However, just as Laroche places it in his satchel, Nick uses an old carnival sleight of hand trick to secretly remove the book from Laroche's bag and replace it with something of similar size and heft: Nick's shortwave radio transmitter. Laroche is none the wiser and, thinking he has now secured the book, proceeds to back away (still crawling on his stomach) from the rock behind which he and Nick had taken cover.

Meanwhile, Zhang Wei, Milo, Adway, and Beverly spring their ambush on the approaching horsemen. Zhang sprints and then makes an incredible flying leap -- soaring through the air as if suspended on wires -- and collides feet first with the first horseman. The rider manages to hang onto his mount and Zhang lands nimbly on his feet just beyond, then quickly turns and flings a coin at the man's rifle-carrying arm. The coin strikes a nerve and the man's arm goes limp. He drops his rifle and shortly thereafter topples from his mount. He lands hard in the dirt while his horse continues galloping down the trail towards the rest of the ambushers. Beverly fires a shot at the second rider from her concealed position but misses. Milo fires his pistol at the second rider and scores a direct hit in the rider's chest, unhorsing him too.

The second rider clambers to his feet, wounded but still conscious. He aims his rifle one-handed at Zhang at point blank range and pulls the trigger. Zhang deftly sidesteps the rifle barrel and strikes the man's arm, again with a nerve strike that paralyzes the arm and causes the man to drop the rifle. The mounting toll of his wounds is too much for him and he loses consciousness.

Meanwhile, a little further up the trail where Laroche is making his exit...

From their vantage point hiding behind a rock that's just behind Nick Danger and Pierre Laroche, both Ellie and Aliester have witnessed some of the exchange between Nick and Pierre. However, Nick's sleight of hand fooled them as well and they are both under the impression that Laroche has the book and moreover is escaping with it! Angry about this betrayal and seeking revenge, Ellie marches up to Laroche from behind and points a gun at him, demanding that he turn over the book. For good measure, she fires a shot into his back.

As blood begins to darken the back of his taupe jacket, Laroche drops his pistol and rolls over onto his back. Holding his hands in the air, he begs for mercy. Laroche agrees to turn over the book and reaches into his satchel, only to pull out the radio transmitter instead! He swears to his assailants that he doesn't know where the book is, but Aliester doesn't trust him and pumps another bullet into him for good measure. Laroche begs for his life but before they inflict more damage Nick hand signals to Ellie that Nick does in fact still have the book.

Just then, more approaching hooves can be heard. Gary, who is posted even farther up the trail (at the rear of the ambush), turns and sees four more horsemen headed down the trail approaching from the other direction. He shouts a warning to the others then starts to gingerly (he is still injured from jumping out of a third story window in Episode 1) pick his way across the rocky ground to find a more strategic position. Adway and Nick turn to face the new threat while Ellie covers Laroche by holding a gun to his head.

There is some debate between Ellie and Aliester as to how to prevent Laroche from getting away. Laroche has a belt that they could bind his hands or ankles with. Or they could just "pants him" (pull his pants down around his ankles) to make it difficult for him to walk. They decide to do both and save the time it takes to remove Laroche’s built: Ellie pulls "pants him" and then Aliester cinches the built tightly around Laroche’s ankles.

Meanwhile, back at the front end of the ambush, Milo and Zhang have incapacitated the first two horsemen and the riderless horses are continuing down the trail at a full gallop. Milo makes a daring leap into the saddle as the first horse runs past. The second horse is corralled by Beverly. Zhang picks up one of the dropped rifles but has no interest in using it so he tosses it to Beverly as she situates herself in the saddle of her new mount.

With the riders coming from one direction incapacitated, everyone now turns their attention to the new threat coming from the other direction. Four new riders have galloped into view. Each rider is leaning off the side of his horse, aiming his rifle with one hand and using the horse itself as a shield from being attacked from the opposite side.

Nick draws two pistols and charges from cover, firing several shots with each hand and filling one of the riders full of lead. The man drops from the side of his horse, dead before he hits the ground. The riderless horse continues down the trail and Aliester calls it over and uses a calming voice to soothe it so that he can climb into the saddle.

Wanting to face the threat and impatient with holding a gun to the traitor Laroche, Ellie fires a bullet into his arm to incapacitate his weapon hand, then turns to face the action.

Milo engages the second rider that’s hanging off the side of his horse by galloping directly toward him until his horse collides with the rider. The impact unseats the man but through an impressive display of strength he manages to hang on. Milo is now galloping up the trail with an adversary clinging to the chest of his horse! The force of the impact took a toll, however, and the man eventually loses consciousness and drops off before he can climb up and threaten Milo.

Injured, limping, barely conscious, and unarmed, Gary nevertheless refuses to quit. He picks up stones from the ground near his feet and hurls them at one of the oncoming riders. Since the rider is hanging off the far side of the horse’s trunk, the thrown rocks hit the horse rather than the rider.

Ellie takes cover behind a rock and fires several shots at the oncoming riders. Beverly also fires from horseback, though she’s unaccustomed to using a rifle and misses. Adway contemplates using his blowpipe but decides the enemies are out of range. The last two riders are now greatly outnumbered and in short order they are subdued by a hailstorm of bullets.

Ultimately, six attackers have been defeated: one dead and five unconscious. Our adventurers tie the bodies of their adversaries together as a gift for law enforcement when it arrives. They then mount up on the six riderless horses and head back down the trail, taking a heavily-bleeding but still-conscious Laroche along with them. At the bottom of the trail, they return the horses to the stable where they had apparently been previously stolen and then make their way back to their hotel.

Deciding a new hotel where their names are unknown would be safer, the group moves their base of operations to a cheap hotel in a seedier part of Marseilles and registers under a fake name.

In the hotel room, Zhang showcases a particular “talent” for “extracting information” from Laroche. Intimidation doesn’t get him too far, so he leaves Laroche in the bath tub with water slowly dripping on his forehead. drip ... drip ... drip ... The effect is maddening, and after hours of this Chinese Water Torture Laroche is ready to talk.

Laroche explains that he was not working with the German assailants, but rather working for them under threat of death. He was doing everything he could to get the book of Pytheus into their hands because he feared for his life if he did not. While the protagonists — right after first meeting Laroche — were waiting for Laroche to pull his car around the front of the museum to pick them up, he phoned his mysterious contacts and told them he would take the funicular up to the cathedral. He then didn’t want to ride on the funicular because he knew an ambush would be sprung and he feared he would get caught in the crossfire. When he was coerced into coming along, he decided he would lay low, use them to get to the book, then take it from them later and turn it over to the German men.

When asked about the identity of the mysterious men, the only information he can share is that they are Nazis. They are seeking a mystical place called Thule (“thew-lee”), which they believe is the capital of a land called Hyperborea, and clearly they are willing to kill any competitors. Aliester, an expert in the occult, recognizes the name Thule (see Clues section above).

Satisfied that Laroche was acting primarily out of self-preservation, they spare him from further harm and decide to hop a train back to Paris and then make their way to London. During the voyage, they busy themselves studying the materials they’ve acquired...

Ellie can read ancient Greek, so she goes to work poring through the entirety of Pytheas’s book. In it, Pytheas describes his travels to Thule, an island north of Britain. The details are sparse, but Pytheas does report meeting a tribe of natives on the island and also seeing a “circular temple” there. Could this be a reference to one of the famous stone circles of Britain?

While Ellie reads, Aliester goes to work using Livingston’s notes to reconstruct the map of Ptolemy. Such work is straightforward for Livingston although it is laborious and time-consuming. Importantly, Livingston found errors in Ptolemy’s coordinates because in ancient times latitude was easy to determine but longitude much more difficult. As a group, they collaborate to correct Ptolemy’s longitudes (see Clues section).

By the time they arrive in London, Livingston has recreated Ptolemy’s map, which includes the island of Thule. After corrections it appears that Thule is located somewhere in the Orkney Islands, just north of Scotland.

While in London, Gary finally gets a chance to rest up and heal up. He spends 5 days at the doctor's office to recover from his wounds and get his cast removed. Meanwhile, Zhang is fed up with everyone's disheveled appearance, so he takes measurements of his traveling companions to get new clothes tailored for them. Checking Livingston's notebook again, Milo finds that he has a number of notes on the Orkney Islands so he heads to the library to do some research on some of the clues in Livingston's notebook.

What secrets will our intrepid adventurers uncover in the Orkney Islands? Will they find the mythical land of Hyperborea? Or will the Nazis beat them to it on their mysterious quest for the fabled island of Thule? Tune in next time to find out... same pulp time, same pulp channel!