This is not the worst day Tintin has ever had by a long shot.

Admittedly, he did not anticipate the amount of trouble he could get into, and thus left Milou behind in the encampment with Captain Haddock and Professor Tournesol. Then he got lost in the jungles of darkest Africa. Then he found himself in a trap-filled temple, the mechanisms of which he barely evaded, and in one case did not quite evade, leaving him with a stone arrowhead lodged in the left cheek of his rear end.

He has not removed the arrowhead, because that is how one bleeds to death. Tintin has not bled to death yet, and he does not intend to do so any time soon. Blood is still trickling from the seat of his pants, which is unfortunate because he rather likes these pants. Liked these pants, rather.

He finally comes to what appears to be some kind of treasure chamber. Rather than gold, it contains a plinth, atop which is a crystalline sphere. It glows, faintly; Tintin clicks off his torch, and it continues to glow. How mysterious.

He reaches out to touch it, and -

vworp

- he finds himself somewhere else. A city. Grander in scale, but filthier in detail, than any city he's been in up to this point in his life.

"Excusez-moi," he says to a passer-by, who hurries along without acknowledging they've seen him.

"J'ai l'air d'être perdu," he says to a different passer-by, who does the same.

Sighing, he steps up to the curb and hikes out his thumb, hoping to flag down one of the strange motorcars racing past.