Jemima Duggins was a collector. She had traveled all the world over in search of the strange, dangerous, and downright wacky. Her knowledge of mystical relics and haunted castles was as wide as the sea. She was also only eleven years of age, but if you asked anyone who knew her, you would find that she didn’t consider it an obstacle. Her father, the elderly Professor Shealtiel Duggins, joined her on many of her expeditions, as he was the one who nurtured her outgoing behavior. Their home (or “Headquarters,” as they called it) was the reputably odd Seraphina Manor in Wales. The large manor had many roles in the studies of the Duggins, including but not limited to:

1. A zoo (including a herpatarium, aquarium, aviary, insectarium, and an assortment of mammals)
2. A greenhouse (housing some of the most exotic plants (un)known to man)
3. A laboratory
4. A library (being the second largest in Great Britain)

All this is to say that the Dugginses were quite ahead of their time. Professor Duggins had three daughters, all highly intelligent and all adopted. On his adventures, he would sometimes happen upon a soul in need of help, and Mr Duggins never passed by a chance to help. Jemima had been told that she had been found in Laos while Professor Duggins was researching Giant activity in the Plain of Jars* He had been looking for megaliths when he heard a cry from under a hill, and when he went to investigate, what did he find but a baby wailing in a puddle of water. The Professor didn’t know what to make it, and neither did Jemima herself. She was the youngest of the lot, and possibly the most adventurous if it wasn’t for Phoebe.

Phoebe was fourteen, an age at which most young women of her day and status would be learning proper etiquette, trivial things like starting conversations and setting the table. Phoebe, however, called such things “repulsive, tedious, and downright stupid.” Phoebe would much rather wrestle alligators in the Amazon then make the bed, so that was what she did. Phoebe had an extraordinary list of feats to her name, and the good people of Wales thought nothing good would come of a woman, a girl no less, amounting to more than a popular housewife. Phoebe had the adoption story that had the most explanation of the Dugginses. She was a Scottish priestess-in-training in the Raven Temples of Boudica the Red. In true fact, Phoebe herself was of direct lineage to The Raven Queen of Scotland. When the Professor found her, she was about to be crowned as the Raven Queen of Faerieland*, but he saved her before it was too late.

The oldest of the bunch was Candace, a brilliant young woman of twenty. The Professor had found her in an ancient temple in the Congo, and that was all anybody knew. She was a child progeny in her younger days, so incredibly smart that her tutors ran out of elementary books to teach to her when she was five years old. By ten, she had discovered three different properties of magic, and by thirteen she had been admitted into the Beouwulf Hidden University of Sweden*, the most prominent cryptoscience school in Europe. Now, at the nice and independent age of twenty, she now was trying to find the ultimate source of magic.*

Professor Duggins himself had never been married in Jemima’s time, but Candace could sometimes remember the loving touch of a mother who had passed on from this world. If Candace had ever asked her father about her mother, she didn’t remember, and her father probably did not answer. The girls often wished they had a mother, but as far as they were concerned, a father (especially their father) was good enough for them.

Jemima was very disappointed. After weeks of studying the history of Angor Wat in search of a clue for the Elixir of Life*, she had come up short. No record indicated any sign of trans-mortal energy, and nobody had ever really even searched for hidden doors or booby-traps. Jemima dropped her pen and leaned back in her chair to look through her cluttered room’s circular window. It was still outside save a few birds, and the entire landscape was beginning to be dyed a warm gold by the falling sun.

“I suppose that’s all for today.” Jemima sighed. “But there just has to be something there, dash it all!” She crankily pushed back her work-worn chair and dropped, exhausted onto her bed. Then, looking towards her open door, she gave out a odd sort of whistle. Immediately after this, the sound of scuffling and knocked over furniture reverberated throughout the house. Jemima’s serious red-brown lips gave way to an amused smile as the sound seemed to crash up the third set of stairs. When the catastrophic clanging seemed like it could get no closer, the door exploded open.

*What Professor Shealtiel was researching was The Legend of the Giant’s Cup, an ancient Lao legend concerning the Plain of Jars. The legend says that in the ancient days, Giants lived in the Xiengkhoung province of Laos, and they crafted for themselves liquor cups for drinking their strong mead. This idea was shunned by the scientists of the day, saying that the evidence of human bones in the jars destroyed this idea. Professor Shealtiel, on the other hand discovered that the Giants made their mead out of humans. (This species of Giant is called the Indochinese Djinn)

*The Raven Queen of Faerieland is the appointed sovereign of the magical district of Scotland. Scotland and Ireland, some of the most faerie-populated places on Earth, are also some of the only places that appoint Dark Queens (Queens that are given the power of Dark Sorcery) as their leaders. The Raven Queen may never leave her position until she dies, and if she lives long enough, she will become one of the Babd, the Bird Witches.

*The Beowulf Hidden University of Sweden was founded in 653 AD by King Beowulf of the Danes. It teaches dozens of subjects, and is the most famous of the Hidden Schools. It also houses the arm of Grendel the Giant. The Hidden Schools are those that teach true magic, and all are hidden from the public.

*There are sources of magic for every realm, or “magical district” in the world. For example, the source of magic in New Engalnd in America is in Salem, Massachusetts. What Candace was trying to find was a single place that the entire world drew it’s magic from. This idea is called The Ultimate Terrestrial Source Theory.

*The Elixir of Life can be acquired in many ways, but in Hinduism one of the most notable ways is depicted on a wall in Ankor Wat: The Churning of the Sea of Milk. This is an incredibly complicated process that requires a nagaraja (a serpentine naga) to spin an enormous pillar to make a magical body of water turbulent enough that it will mix in a huge list of rare ingredients. This has been done only twice, and Jemima was trying to find out if the remains of the Elixir were in Ankor Wat.