A new kind of warfare dawns in the early years of the twentieth century, planned and perpetrated by a mysterious individual known only as the Challenger. Rumor has it this challenger could fit in the palm of your hand.

This won't do for the residents of Minimil, a city in a barn that has a reputation to keep up. Filled with shoulder angels and devils, fairies, enchanted toys, Lilliputians, and every other kind of small magical creature, they can't simply stand by and watch as the name of the tiny is smeared.

So they send out an elite team including a gingerbread soldier haunted by battlefield visions of the nutcracker and mouse king, a tiny automaton built by Leonardo da Vinci, and a ghost of a not-really-notable Christmas past to investigate in this novella inspired by Alan Moore's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. (The full novella and its sequels can be found here.)