Issue #3: Shield of Raman

Tom (Solidream) almost attacks CoT in university when David, the fiance of the girl he loves, steps in and beats the cultists; Richard Hughes is attcked by nemesis Simon Crey's phantom hog in his house; the Watcher's abusive step-dad (also Tom) brings his sister breakfast in bed, scared after the 'Brotherhood' case was blown open; the heroes meet in a burger joint in Blackman's Square and DeLight explains about Armand's operation for finding mystical artefacts; he asks them to help him retrieve an artefact called the Shield of Raman; the Compass, a small item which points the way to the Shield is already in the hands of Armand's people; a scream - and suddenly the sqare starts filling in some acidic matter, spewing from a central spout; the heroes remove all civilians from harm's way; the Watcher and Soildream dive in but find nothing but broken barrels of toxic waste; in a formiddable feat Hughes summons an Earth spirit which binds the spout with two great stone hands, finally containing it; in the aftermath they see another hero, Fire Salamander, and Joshua Clay, the blind sax player, tells them they "better find out [what caused the toxic burst] before the riot..."; Going back to DeLight's place he decides to show them the reason why the Shield bothers him and lets them into the secret base, despite Fran's bitter disapproval, to show them the Tome, saying the Shield might enable Armand to walk into the plasma that protects the Tome; back upstairs Mr. Burns awaits and presents himself as the spokesman of an organisation called The Truth, concerend with the city's mystical equilibrium; the heroes check in the Sixth Chakra about the Shield but the books about it are missing; turns out the lady who took them made the owner of the shop forget her somehow; the Watcher locates Armand's people in a flat coverted to a scribes' lab and base of operation; the heroes attack only to be overwhelmed by the Undying Marshals, supernatural troops in Armand's service; one of the Marshals flees with the Compass but the Watcher snatches it out of his hands and soars away; from the books in the lab they gather that the shield is actually a lantern; the Compass leads them to a small pawn shop where they fight the Undying Marshals over the Shield of Raman and invoke its powerful magic to defeat them altogether; the Shield is sent to be hidden in the Hughes' Mansion in London.