Kent, England:
03:00 AM:
The cultist Wesley shot falls dead from the upper floor to land on the lawn in front of Simon. He briefly checks the body then moves to the front door. Trixie signals not to open it. They need to be cautious as it may be booby-trapped. Wes remains hidden in the tree line covering the others with his now reloaded elephant gun.
Using one of the cars in the drive as cover Trent and Natalja push it towards the front door near Simon’s position. The front door opens into the ballroom. Beyond this is a large dining room leading to the kitchen at the back of the house via a short corridor.
This is where Greg remains, in the kitchen, covering the steps going down. Natalja crouches down at the end of the corridor. She can see that it leads into the dining room. Listening intently she can hear at least two people moving in there.
Back outside Trent and Trixie reach the front door. With both of them able to cover, Simon tries the door but finds it locked.
Trixie has traversed the grounds going right round the house from the outside. She has now reached the opposite side of the Ballroom at the front of the great house. Thinking she sees movement, Trixie fires a burst of fire through an open window into the ball room. She stays low, so the occupants can’t return fire but hears a cry of pain as her volley hits home. Joseph and Natalja approach her position.
Inside, in the kitchen Greg and Gupta hear the shots.
Trent tries the front door with his lock picks but it is bolted and doesn’t move. Frustrated we fire another volley of fire into the ballroom. Another window is smashed somewhere in the house. An English voice cries out
Cultist: “Discipline! Bloody Wogs!”
Creeping down the corridor Joseph enters the dining room. He hears the click of a hammer just in time to dive to the floor avoiding a blast from a shotgun. Hearing the blast Greg and Gupta move along the corridor to give Joseph some support.
Natalja also having crept into the dining room gets sight of the cultist with the shotgun and shoots him dead before he can fire at Joseph again. Seeing his chance, another cultist pounces at her from behind some furniture. Before he can get near her, Joseph fires a burst from his BAR splitting the poor man in half. There is now blood everywhere.
Meanwhile Trent silently opens the letterbox. He then fires his .38 into the belly of a cultist behind the door.
In the dining room a third cultist leaps at Joseph who is still stuck on the floor. A spiked club smacks uselessly into Joseph’s body. The Skin of Sedefkar has protected him. Natalja shoots him but only wounds him. Recovering his composure Joseph ten fires at the wounded cultist killing him.
In the ballroom Trent’s hand is thumped by a club spoiling his aim as he tries to shoot the cultist a second time. There must be at least two of them behind the door.
In the corridor a maid tries to charge Gupta with a club. He shoots her dead with a volley from his Tommy gun. They are bringing clubs to a gun fight. How good of them. In the dining room the last remaining cultist breaks cover running for a window. Natalja, not wanting him to raise the alarm, shoots him in the head. The dining room has been pacified.
In the Ballroom Trent readies a grenade in his bruised hand to drop through the letter box. Simon calls out that there is no need.
Joseph enters the ballroom from the dining room. He can see that it is decked out in a mock Egyptian style. On his left are some stairs going up. To his right, across the room he can see the bolted front door and two dead cultists behind it. Joseph hears movement on the stairs.
Trixie still on the outside of the house, on the far side, has reached the Ballroom window. She is nearly shot in the head by Natalja but is recognised at the last-minute.
With Simon able to see through the window Joseph silently traverses the ballroom and opens the door for Trent. He comes in with Simon following close behind.
Wesley remains in position scanning the upper floor windows for any activity.
With the large rooms cleared, Greg checks the rest of the ground floor. A parlour and a wash-room. Both are empty.
From her position on the other side of the house Trixie looks away surveying the grounds. About 100 yards away there is a small motor launch beyond a clump of bushes.
In the ballroom Joseph whispers that he heard movement upstairs. As Natalja covers the stairs going up, Trent, Simon and Joseph go outside. They have a plan to climb up the outside of the house to gain access to the first floor and so surprise their foes who will be expecting them to take the stairs.
Trent takes the lead. He climbs the wall near the front door to the upper storey window.
From her position at the bottom of the stairs Natalja hears footsteps coming down. She steps out from cover firing at an elderly Indian man in a shabby butlers outfit. He was wielding another spiked club.
His dead body sprawls across the stairwell, silence returns.
Below Trent, Simon slips as he tries to follow. Trent opens the window of the upper storey room. He steps inside. It is a small guest bedroom.
Outside Wesley is alone in the undergrowth. He smells the air. There is a strange odour present which wasn’t there before. Then from the window Wes sees Trent give a thumbs up, there is a flicker of a torch-light. It was probably nothing. Keep attention on the building trooper, your comrade may need you.
Inside the room Trent hears whispering in a foreign language, maybe Arabic or Egyptian, from beyond the closed-door of the bedroom. He presumes this door opens onto the upper floor corridor.
Downstairs in the kitchen Gupta and Greg have been guarding the stairwell leading down to the cellar. There has been no movement for a long time so they take the corridor to the dining room pulling the kitchen door to.
As Simon can’t climb up the outside of the house, he re-enters the ballroom. After seeing Natalja shoot the butler he advances upstairs.
Still outside the far side of the house, Trixie sees movement on the upper floor. However as she is isolated she can’t tell anyone.
Trent opens the door of the bedroom and sees four cultists in the corridor beyond. He shoots one through the heart. One cultist swings a spiked club at Trent but misses. At the top of the stairs a young maid swings a club at him. Has the entire household been brainwashed? Despairingly Simon shoots her in the belly killing her instantly. Up the corridor he spies Trent, positioned at the doorway, shoots a cultist with a club. The body falls next to that of his comrade. A third cultist remains. He tenses to swing his spiked club when Natalja, having followed Simon upstairs, shoots him in the back of the head. Fine shot.
Trent wipes the gore from his face with a silk handkerchief but nods to Natalja in appreciation. He’d rather be messy than dead.
Wesley Is Attacked:
03:10 AM
Downstairs Greg hears Wesley yelling, “Get it off me”. He rushes back to the open window in the kitchen.
Trent has also heard the shout. From the upstairs window he sees Wes fighting an unseen foe. Trent gets out some powder of Ibn Ghazi. When this mystical powder hits an invisible foe it will reveal it for 20 heartbeats.
He throws the powder. As it falls sparkling over Wesley a strange misty tendril is seen wrapping around Wesley’s body. Desperately Wesley throws his Dust of Suleiman at the tendril. It was so effective earlier when we used it to attack the Servitor of the Outer Gods. However on this occasion against this foe it has absolutely no effect. The creature has no material body so the magic dust just falls through it landing uselessly on the lawn.
Back in the kitchen Gupta calls to Wesley from the rear door. Wesley rushes for the door followed by the misty tendrils.
Greg intercedes allowing Wesley to get away. Greg is than attacked by three separate tendrils. Their touch is unnerving but there is no damage. At least not yet anyway, Greg knows that it is only a matter of time.
Upstairs, Natalja heads into the bedroom next to the one occupied by Trent. Joseph follows her in.
Simon stays in the upstairs corridor in case cultists still reside in any of the other bedrooms.
Back in the kitchen Greg tries to close the door on the fog beast. The door breaks as the creature smashes it with some kind of spectral power. It can affect solid objects but has no substance itself. This thing will be very hard to kill.
Greg falls to the ground as the smell of burning hair fills his nostrils. The powder of Ibn Ghazi has run out. The thing is no longer visible. Wes and Gupta see Greg flailing on the kitchen floor but can’t see the foe. Wes throws more powder on it to make it visible. As it comes into view once more Gupta empties his Tommy gun into it. Alas it has no effect. Greg gets out his magic ghoul knife but when he slashes the beast, this too has no effect.
Think, Think, THINK MAN!
What else is there? Desperately Greg reaches into his tool belt and lights a flare.
The monster is repelled. It flees or is forced back. It rapidly departs out of the kitchen. Saved, for the moment at least. Is this why all the downstairs lights were left on downstairs?
Finding The Basement Complex:
03:22 AM
In the ballroom, Trixie has been checking the walls and fireplace. On either side of the fireplace there are odd bricks that are ever so slightly out-of-place with those around them. Could this be a priest hole or secret room?
She signals for help. Trent rushes from upstairs to her side.
Gupta backs out of the kitchen shutting the door. He heads to the dining room where he gets out his flare pistol. He can cover well enough from here. Wes and Greg follow-up walking past Gupta‘s position after retrieving the ghoul knife and Gupta’s Tommy gun. You can’t leave anything like that lying around. It could be used against us.
Upstairs, Joseph and Natalja sweep the remainder of the upper floor finding Gavigan’s bedroom. They then move back to Simon to check the rest of the first floor rooms.
Standing by each brick on either side of the fireplace Trent and Trixie examine the area more closely. There are scuff marks around the floor area in front Trent, but there are no marks on Trixie’s side.
Gupta, Wes and Greg enter the ballroom and cover their comrades.
Trixie pushes her brick and opens a door in the wall which reveals a steep stairway descending into the basement. She can see it opens out at the bottom but the area below is dark.
Trent pulls his brick to reveal a separate opening. Again steep stairs descend into to the basement. However he can hear tittering from the chamber beneath. He has heard this tittering before. When travelling on the Orient Express they had raided a cultist’s lair and summoned and star vampire. Invisible until it feeds it is an invisible mass of protoplasmic flesh with many mouths hovering in the air. A fearsome creature indeed.
Doubly so as it is not visible. Coldly Trent hears a groan from one of the cultists at the door he shot earlier. Trent knows a star vampire likes living prey.
Trixie drops a flare into the priest hole she had found. It is unused and deserted.
Trent grabs the groaning cultist, drags him to the entrance and drops him into the chamber. The man screams as the horrible titters get louder interspersed with the sounding of eating. A rough way to go but he was a cultist. We do need to see the star vampire to kill it so better it feeds on him to become visible than one of us.
Simon and Wes climb down; they are momentarily shocked by the appearance of the star vampire feeding but quickly recover and shoot the beast with a volley of automatic fire. The stream of bullets overwhelms it, killing it instantly.
Upstairs Natalja finds a ledger in Tewfik’s bedroom. A brief skim of this shows it has numbers, names and comments of all the misdeeds done by the English members of the cult of the Black Pharaoh.
Next, they sweep Gavigan’s room again but find nothing.
Going downstairs, the investigators regroup in the ballroom before all heading down the narrow stairwell Trent found into the basement area.
The Star Vampire is now already decomposing. We can see it resides in a chamber. There is one door out of the chamber. Going through it we see it leads to a series of cells. None of them are presently occupied. We find a light switch. There is some evidence of recent habitation in three of them. Perhaps this was where the poor unfortunates were kept prior to being chained to the obelisk and sacrificed to the great beasts summoned by Gavigan earlier tonight.
Another door is located in the far wall beyond the cell area. It is quite a heavy door. Simon listens at the door, hearing nothing he then opens it using the key he found on Gavigan.
Inside is a large room full of all manner of Egyptian artefacts, some busts of the Black Pharaoh and most importantly a large black ledger.
Greg examines the busts. He is quite shaken. Having actually encountered the dread being Nyarlathotep previously when he summoned the Black man, he can’t fail to see the close resemblance of the black pharaoh to this evil god. This is confirmation that this cult is absolutely evil; though events of this night have already proved that.
On a desk in the room is an unfinished letter addressed to Aubrey Penhew from Gavigan, dated earlier today.
The letter reads as follows:
5th February 1925
My dear Aubrey,
Elias has been dealt with. However, his associates who have taken up his investigations have eliminated the New York operation. This is of little importance now but they cannot be allowed to learn more.
This group have a seaplane capable of crossing the Atlantic and made much of this fact. We were prepared for their arrival but this was a ruse and some of them had slipped into Britain beforehand and have already interfered with several of our London premises.
Tewfik has insisted on informing the Brotherhood in Egypt even though I told him this was the action of a craven. This kind of base grovelling behaviour is all too common in the modern Egyptian, Alas, only our immortal leader has any of the Pharonic majesty of Dynastic times.
You must stop Brady. It is stupefying that he has evaded us for so long. This man may become an obstacle to our great Lord. Rest assured I will take swift against the interlopers here but as a precaution I have contacted the other group whose…..
(LETTER ENDS HERE)
Proof positive that at least two members of the expedition are alive: Penhew and Brady.
It may also be that we have an ally in Brady. Though how on earth can we get in contact with him?
Clearly they have an operation in Egypt, as well as one in Shanghai and possibly something in Australia. The items we have intercepted from the hold of the Ivory Wind confirm the latter two and the letter mentions the former. Clearly this is globe spanning conspiracy.
Don’t like the idea of an immortal leader, is this Nyarlathotep? Or is it some other individual of the stature of Carl Stanford from the
“Hermetic Order of the silver Twilight?”
We can’t be sure but Greg thinks it must be Nyarlathotep himself.
There also seems to be a schism between the English members of the London cult headed by Gavigan and the Egyptian members headed by Tewfik. Both kept notes on the illegal activities of the other’s group.
This will be most useful to Tommy Hayes our friend from Scotland Yard.
When we examine the ledger, we see that it has three full years of shipping records with manifests and dates of what was delivered to whom and when. It will take quite some time to study. A quick perusal tells us that there are a large number of major electrical components amongst the orders. However there is just so much material we can’t determine what kind of machine it could be for. A lot of the shipments are being sent to Randolph Shipping just like the hold contents of the Ivory Wind.
It would definitely seem like this infernal cult does have a presence in Australia.
There are also several items of jewellery presumably taken by Gavigan for himself during various archaeological expeditions. There is also some gold. Our London expenses may have been taken care of at least by this little lot. No need to sell the Eastern European landholdings just yet then.
If only we had Curtiss with us. His expertise may have been able to fathom the nature of the machine they are building. This reminds Greg that he must check on Curtiss and Irma at the New England sanatorium. Greg will also need to check on Lucy’s progress too. She had a mathematics paper to hand in today.
We may need them sooner than we think.
Prologue:
Gupta: “You are asking me about what happened at Misr House? Why do you want to know about what happened at that bloody place?”
Journalist: “Yes, Mr. Singh, please, for the record just tell us what you can remember.”
Gupta: “You know, sometimes I try to imagine what my life would have been like if I had not been attacked by a tiger, kidnapped by the Thugees, rescued in Amritsar and then travelled to the United States via Great Britain. I have no bloody idea. Making chapatti, preparing chai, all of that kind of thing? No matter how hard I try, I cannot imagine what a normal life in a village in Punjab would be like. You see, there comes a point where everything becomes its opposite.
Civilization becomes barbarism, lies become truth, death becomes life and madness becomes sanity. And this is what had become of myself and my fellow investigators: There was so much completely crazy and insane things happening that it was, for us, a type of normality. What happened on the island in Essex that night was just another day ‘at the office’, as you might say. You know, I did some things and I saw some things that would make you crawl into a hole and never come out again, if you don’t mind me saying so, Sir. We all did. During the quieter moments, like when we were travelling and not directly fighting or finding clues and evidence, I would think about what happened there. The monsters, the midnight ritual and all the people who were killed, that crazy bloody woman with a carving knife… The stuff we found…”
Misr House, Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex:
00:15 AM:
Natalja and Joe keep moving down the hallway towards what must be the dining room, their faces illuminated by the chandeliers swaying precariously from the ceiling. Yegor continues to cover the stairs down to the basement and Gupta covers him and the advance of Joe and Natalja.
Outside, Madame La Belle continues to advance towards the front door. Spotting movement her reflexes once again prove to be deadly as aims and fires her Mondragon rifle through the window, instantly dropping the shadow with a dull thud, injuring but not killing her target.
Trent and Simon meanwhile attempt to get the front door open. Trent realizes that it is bolted on the inside negating any lock picking options he may have been considering. A silent nod to Simon and plan B is brought into effect as he smashes the window next to the front door with the nozzle of his rifle.
From within, the stereotypical bark of an upper-class sergeant major resonates throughout the teak panelled great hall:
“Discipline you bloody wogs! DISCIPLINE!”
Simon and Trent don’t need to refer to the “Rules of Military Engagement for Members of His Majesty’s Imperial Armed Forces” pamphlet to realize that whoever is on the other side of the door is probably poorly trained and equipped to deal with the heavily armed, well-organized and experienced threat they are faced with from the investigators outside the main entrance.
Their only strength and hope is in numbers. Simon and Trent begin by evening the odds with a grenade. The predictable results leave any hopes the cultists had of a successful ambush quite literally in tatters. Trent begins shooting at survivors through the letterbox while Simon jumps in through the window, shotgun in hand.
Natalja and Joe’s timing is impeccable. Kicking open the door from the dining room into the great hall, they catch the cultist reception party in flagrante. Natalja blasts one with a shotgun while Joe’s trench gun blows another into two wholly separate pieces. Neither of which show any signs of life.
The only casualty on the side of the investigators turns out to be Trent’s pistol. A resourceful cultist smashes his club onto its barrel through the letterbox, rendering it useless. Sadly for the cultist, he swiftly suffers a similar fate.
Meanwhile, Gupta and Yegor exchange glances and make their way towards the battle. Gupta tries to make a stealthy approach in case there are any further ambushes laid, but Yegor brushes past him across the dining room, rushing to aid his comrades in arms.
Looking to his left, the Sikh notices a pantry door, left slightly open. He creeps forward, tommy gun at the ready. Using the barrel of the sub-machine gun he gently opens the door. There is a sudden flash of metal, and a carving knife slices through the air narrowly missing Gupta, who sidesteps the attack before releasing an instinctive hailstorm of lead into the pantry. To his horror and surprise, Singh watches as the lifeless and perforated cadaver of an Arabic woman staggers and crumples to the floor before him.
“Crazy bloody cultists! By Guru Granth Sahib’s beard these bloody bastards should be cursed to an eternity of untouchable!”
Back in the great hall, Joe begins to make his way up the staircase to the first floor. He pauses, hearing the creaky steps of someone who has the stealth skills of an inebriated elephant on roller-skates.
“Bejeezus! Youse’ve got nowhere to go – just feckin’ give it up before I send youse to meet your feckin’ martian makers!”
“Kiss ikhtak! Infidel!”
The defiant reply leaves little doubt about the strength of conviction these cultists have – in any language.
Joseph’s response is to send the cultist to the place he intends to go to: Via the barrel of his B.A.R.
Outside, Trent and Trixie are climbing up opposite sides of the house to the upstairs floor. Simon also attempts to climb up but finds the task too much of a challenge and re-enters the house. As Trent and Trixie reach the darkened windows above they can easily hear that there are still a number of cultists waiting for them, moving around in confusion not entirely sure where to expect the next attack.
Seeing that the battle has moved on from his sniping position, Wesley decides to move closer to the house but suddenly hesitates, not because he can see or hear anything, but because the odour of something unpleasant and stiflingly pungent reaches his nostrils. For someone who has dedicated the greater part of his life to annihilating his sense of smell with an endless assault of conveniently packaged tobacco in the form of a rarely interrupted stream of Lucky Strike cigarettes, the strength of the odour surprises and troubles him instantly: Only its identity evades him. But suddenly he realizes. It is the smell of burning hair.
Something is clearly not right. Wesley shoulders his M-16 and begins to back track towards the house, pulling out a stick of dynamite as he does so, figuring that this strange stench could only entail something alien and large, considering everything that had already happened so far on this bitterly cold February night.
The smell intensifies, and suddenly Wesley finds himself grappling with an invisible, tentacle-shaped entity that has wrapped itself around his throat and is attempting to either suffocate him or crush him. Before his vocal cords are constricted to silence he manages to scream:
Wes: “HELP! Something invisible attacking meeEEUURRGHH!”
Wesley’s grip on the dynamite loosens and it falls to the ground. He remembers the powder of Ibn Ghazi and finds enough strength to grab it from his pocket and scatter it into the air in front of him: Before him the terrible sight of a strange grey cloud emanating more than thirty writhing tentacles is revealed.
Next up: The Dust of Suleiman! No effect!
Back inside, Gupta and Yegor have been mopping and sweeping the remaining ground floor rooms for cultists and hear Wesley’s cry for help. Yegor is the first to react by casting open the front door, the light of the twin chandeliers illuminating the forecourt.
Inexplicably, Wesley is released and able to back away from the monster and into the temporary safety of the house. The three investigators consider their options and decide to head towards the basement, via the kitchen. Perhaps there they will discover the source of this abstract evil.
Running through the double doors to the dining room, Yegor leads Gupta and the visibly shaken Wesley towards their objective. Without warning, the invisible alien entity reappears and attacks Yegor. Wesley throws an enchanted Ghoul knife at it. No effect. Gupta issues a single blast from the Mi-Go mist projector:
No effect. Yegor, as a final act of despair fires off a flare.
Light. Dazzling. Colourful Blinding.
The invisible tentacled monster reacts to light like mammals to fire: It burns and runs.
Natalja and Joseph have finished their sweep of the upper floor and the full time results are in: Investigators 8 Cultists 0. A decisive victory. Natalja finds Tewfik Al Say Ed’s room, complete with fez, etc. but little else of interest.
Downstairs, Trixie has been examining the disproportionate fireplace in the grand hall. She discovers a concealed mechanism which opens a secret door to the basement below. Yegor brings his stethoscope to bear on the wall of the sharply downward angled staircase.
Gaidar: “A summoned creature. It’s a Star Vampire. Grab a recently dead cultist. We’ll use it as bait.”
A body is quickly retrieved and Yegor launches it down the steep stairwell. He waits, silently counting, before firing another flare down into the gloom.
Trent: “Flush it out and kill it.”
Trent rushes past him, a handful of the powder of Ibn Ghazi in his hand, half slips and half runs down the stairs, just in time to see the Star Vampire drag off the cultist’s cadaver.
The others follow him and they quickly corner the summoned creature, dispatching it easily.
There are a several small cells and rooms in the basement for the investigators to examine. But there is only one that really captures their imagination. It appears that the cult’s entire horde of treasure and wealth has been assembled here. A huge and exceptionally lifelike bust of Nyarlathotep causes the minds of the investigators to take several steps closer to the abyss of madness.
Amongst the countless relics an unfinished letter penned in the name of Aubrey Penhew…
