Late May 1880. Sacramento, California.

Ronald Chase was known among the right circles for having made good from prospecting, a man who succeeded in chasing the American Dream. Taking advantage of the somewhat wild nature of the west, he has gone from strength to strength to establish himself as one of California’s foremost industrialists. Ever one to appreciate the risk-takers in life, Mr Chase’s organisation elected to host a Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournament on board the luxurious steam boat, Kerykeion.

The year was 1350. It was. It had also been 1351, 1352, 1360, 1380, 1400, 1450, 1500, and 1550. In fact, unbeknownst to the members of the humble hermitage of Our Lady of Absolution, the world beyond their boundary had progressed two centuries and was five months into the year of our Lord, 1564.

Employees of the NFQ Antarctic facility 119 found the drudge of their day-to-day lives broken by the arrival of an innocuous new Foundling, one whose processing and quarantine should have not caused much difficulty to the highly trained Research staff. Unfortunately – and somewhat predictably – things did not go as intended. After a series of unfortunate events, the site was subject to a series of increasingly severe alert states. Unfortunately, this escalated up to secret Delta Level which would see the entire site nuked from orbit unless order could be restored.

Colorado. A lonely waystation with a grim past sits on a treacherous pass of the San Juan Mountains. Between 1860 and 1880, no one could have guessed the events that took place there and in the surrounding area just 10 years before. Sure, there were stories told of a lost pioneer family and their belongings as they attempted the dangerous route during a bad winter, but stories are stories. Just fanciful things to entertain and educate. “Don’t go up there during the cold seasons”, they said. “Don’t even try – the mountains will swallow you up just as it did that poor family in 1849, and any others who’ve been stupid enough to head that way since.”