Imperium Obscura is my current front-runner.

Very nice.

I was trying not to clutter the forums with too many threads. Yours seemed a way of advertising my availability whilst saving space. Sort of a 2 for 1 deal, if you like.

That website clearly knows it stuff. I suspect Kada El's decorations alone would take up 5 million of that budget.

As Lenin gazed across the now ruined, smoke-filled cityscape of his beloved Moscow, his mind drifted back to the events of past years. He recalled his failed uprising of 1905, his defeat of Plekhanov and the Mensheviks, of the long months of hardship abroad, where he had nonetheless written the bulk of magnum opus What Is To Be Done?, of years of struggling against doubters, cowards, and oppressors, years of exile, of doubt and of financial and spiritual hardship, of years where he privately wondered whether he could meet the challenge that History had laid down to him.

But he had survived. He had persevered. And he had finally led his glorious band of democratic socialist vanguard elites to the promised land. He wondered if Marx was looking down on him now and approved. He frowned suddenly and cursed. Such bourgeois notions sought to infect him even now, at the cusp of his greatest triumph. He must remain vigilant, ever vigilant.

Lenin turned swiftly and walked back to the dilapidated, burnt building that was serving as Bolshevik HQ. Suddenly, to his left, not two feet from him, appeared from the very air itself, a shimmering, glowing portal. Before the portal stood a masked man, eating a sandwich. The masked man beckoned Lenin nearer. As though in a dream, Lenin suddenly found himself inexplicably drawn toward the portal. Nearer, ever nearer he inched toward the strange, glowing light....

Slowly, Lenin opened his eyes. His head throbbed slightly and his hands were shaking slightly. He looked around him. He was on a vast Plaza, near a fountain with a strange statue in the middle. A bearded man with a beret stood before him, gazing at him adoringly, tears welling up in his eyes. "By the light of the peasants. Senor Lenin. You as well! You as well!!" said the handsome young man in an excitable voice.

Lenin stared at the young man. "And who are you?" The young man smiled back and replied "I, comrade, am Che Guevara. And this," he turned to a companion at his side, "this is my friend Fidel. We are both.... worshippers... no.. that is.. you are our hero, comrade."

Before Lenin could respond, the air next to the three men suddenly began to crackle. An instant later, there was a sudden intake of air, a small pop, and two individuals stood where before there were none. Both were bearded, but one was larger and more unkempt. He looked around with a puzzled air. "Fredrich," he said to his well-dressed companion, "this isn't the British Library. So much for your blasted shortcuts. By the way could you lend me 10 pounds? I appear to have forgotten my wallet."

The smaller man looked up at the larger with an exapserated expression. "Again?" he sneered. "How convenient."

It was now Lenin's turn to stand in silence, his jaw slack, his eyebrows raised, his eyes wide open. Before him stood Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels.

Guevara stepped forward. He could not continue to be overawed by events, he thought. Clearly something was at work for all of them to be at this place, at this time, together. Hastily, Guevara introduced the two new additions to the others. After some confusion from Engels, and initial disinterest from Marx, introductions were made. As the men together pieced their stories, common themes began to emerge. Each was transported here at the moment of their greatest triumph through a portal, seemingly created by a masked man eating sandwiches.

But for what purpose and what end?

[To be continued]

I have personally been championing your application.

Hence why you have heard nothing.