The adventure begins. In Paris, Jules Verne, a student with the ambition of becoming a great novelist and playwright, unwittingly attracts the attentions of the League of Darkness and its leader, Count Gregory, with his visions of fantastic machines and ideas for the future. The League, hoping to use Jules' ideas for their own nefarious purposes, kidnaps Verne and tries to steal the images directly from his imagination. He is saved by British secret agent Rebecca Fogg who had been sent to Paris to find the very machine being used to extract the images from Jules. Meanwhile in London, Rebecca's distant cousin, former secret agent Phileas Fogg, has embarked on a life of gambling after the death of his father, Sir Boniface Fogg, former head of the British Secret Service. Unaware of the greater plan, Phileas "wins" the airship Aurora and her navigator, Passepartout, during a game of cards.