GM: Sam Tillis
Players: Adrienne Mueller, Dylan Arena, James Lawton, Sean Nittner, Sarah Terman, Matthew Fisher
System: Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition
Content warning: body horror and graphic violence masked (like this)
Last session, we did a LOT. This session we dealt with the fallout. Notably, Francois was given a map of Grey Dragon Island, the locations our coordinates pointed to for the next ritual.
The night is warm, the air is thick, and the last gasps of the battle-that-was echo through the lightless predawn city. The explosive juxtaposition of a death and a rescue, a sacrifice and a kiss, impregnate the scene with potentialities—futures unlocked and futures denied. On the street beneath the hotel: Charles, and the broken body of the late Carl Stanford; somewhere nearby awaits a truck with stalwart Chu Min. In the ravaged hotel suite: Catherine, Colby, Amos, Iris, Francois, Li-Wen, and Nails Nelson coughing up salt water, a very heroic cat, and Jimmy just beyond. And on the ceiling, a horror welcomed by your own invitation, a ceiling a’crawl with thickly painted characters, blasphemous morphemes that demand attendance.
Inside the Hotel
Colby stood in our hotel room, confused about what he had witnessed, wondering the effects of optics and how the affect perception and reality. Talking to himself, rapid-fire, eyes darting every which way.
“A kiss! A cat and a kiss. Reveries and fantasies. Illusions. Not chemical. Optical? That ceiling. M’Dari! Not chemical—optical!”
He stands with eyes closed for a few moments. Then his demeanor shifts: He squares his shoulders and begins to talk as if he’s delivering a lecture, to no one, speaking too quickly to be clearly understood.
“My field is trained to understand primitive people’s myths and fables as their best efforts to understand the world—crude approximations of complex phenomena that provide the illusion of explainability and predictability. Even hard scientists smirk at our civilized forebears’ attempts to understand heat or heavenly bodies. How, then, did we manage to make the wildly unwarranted assumption that this millennia-long cascade of shaky approximations had finally arrived at truth instead of yet another wobbly model, perhaps more sophisticated but no more true than phlogiston, Apollo’s chariot, or Ptolemy’s sphere?
“So let us take light. The Greeks understood light and darkness, reflection, refraction, and diffusion. Romans explored perception but confused emanation and absorption. The Persians and Arabs corrected that and pioneered various advances in lenses and mirrors. And everyone thought we’d understood fully and all that was left was to tinker—until Newton and then Einstein revealed new vistas. Are we now done? Or have we simply reached another plateau?
“My eyes have betrayed me many times since the Larkin expedition, and I’ve assumed chemical influence, but I see now that I’ve been looking at things the wrong way. Hume reminds us that all we’re given is our sense perceptions. What are they but fodder for our imperfect models of the world around us, molded by our minds into shapes that suit situations? It briefly suited me to stare up into Stanford’s eyes as if I were a cat (ha!). Minds do such silly things to make their way in this world.”
The lecture ends. Colby’s shoulders slump again, and his eyes return to rolling around as he mutters.
“I understand that I don’t understand, which I must. I have no recourse except not to look, which I cannot. Let light be for me as time is for Catherine. Let me learn to mistrust it, interrogate it, shape it when necessary, When next we meet M’Dari, let me wield light as a weapon the way he did in Westchester!”
[Thank you Dylan for sending that over. It was incredible]
Catherine tried to reassure him. She took the glasses that she had made for him out of his coat pocket and offered them to him. He took them from her like a shepherd in a field, receiving a gift from an angel. It was unclear if the refraction would truly help him, but as his focus was on optical perception, she hope it would at least provide some placebo.
Francois witnessed the interaction and in his state of megalomania whispered to Catherine that we can’t coddle Colby or shield him from the truth. Through gritted teeth Catherine smiled a Colby as she admonished Francois. “NOT. RIGHT. NOW.”
Down Below
Charles picked himself up form tackling Carl Stanford (to death) and after dusting himself off, picked up Stanfords body and carried him around the corner to the truck that Chu Min was idling in. He flopped the body in the truck, announcing this was the sorcerer that Brady wanted dead, and the rifled through his pockets to find a small luggage key on a chain around his neck. He ripped the key away and then returned to the hotel. He could hear the sirens of police closing in, we would have to move quicky.
In the lobby it was clear that the staff had heard something and were whispering to themselves. He disregarded them and ran back up to the room. Announcing the police were coming, we had to get out of their quickly. But what to do about the portal to the maw on the ceiling of our hotel room roof? Could we cover it with more paint. Try to tear the ceiling away? Maybe, but at what risk? And how much time would it take. We could flee now, but what horror would we leave behind?
Finally we decided to set a fire. Horrible, yes, but less horrible than the alternative. Charles learned the word for fire from Li-Wen and began running through the halls shouting it. Francois clumped up all the bedsheets outside the door to the room with the maw, lit a cigarette and then after taking a long drag threw it in the pile. Meanwhile, Catherine was loading crates of Yithian artifacts into the arms of Colby, Nails, and Jimmy. Iris picked up her plant. Amos and Charles (when he returned from shouting the warnings) gathered our other belongings. And almost at the last moment, Francois picked up the injured black cat and gently carried it down with us.
Chu Min’s truck, with all of us and our sordid belongings loaded in the back, pulled away from the hotel just as the police and firefighters were arriving.
On the Road
On the way back to the warehouse, we all checked to see how well we were holding up. Amis and Iris carefully pulled the shards of glass from the cat, wrapped her wounds, and tried to offer what comfort they could. Much was still unsure, but for now the cat was out of danger. As they practiced their ministrations, Colby unconsciously held the amulet of Bastet and it was warm in his hand.
Seeing the others distracted, Francois dove back into the Necronomicon to skim it’s depths [+5 Cthulhu Mythos, he had already lost sanitary from his first look]. He learned of many blasphemous words that could summon BEINGS into this world (“Come Dark Lord” kinds of beings). In the marginalia he found a version of the gate spell that would lead directly to Nyarlathotep. The spell had been tinkered with over many years by someone trying to get it right. Francois could tell the portal would be enough for a person to move though, not the entirely of the crawling chaos so this was probably not the spell that we had foreseen in our visions, but something of it’s ilk. With some horror (and possibly satisfaction) he realized that the spell was not entirely dissimilar to the spell that was just cast in our hotel room.
On the route, Francois (and none of the rest of us) noticed that many of the corners we passed were populated with pairs of women smoking cigarettes and he believed that once that information was collated,
When we arrived (not blindfolded this time, it seemed Chu Min must trust us a little bit more than he did before) we elected to leave the really weird stuff (dream plan, crates of Yith artifacts, etc) in the truck. It was guarded by the New China Militia and we didn’t think Brady would take well to seeing any of it. We did carry the body of Carl Stanford into the warehouse however, as proof that he was dead.
A violent reception
Brady, in his hardened voice was pleased that we had brought him a sorcerer. We laid the body of Carl Stanford on the table and he began using his meaty fists to pulverize the body. Punching it two handed as he crushed all his bones. Most of us found other things to do while he worked.
Amos and Iris pulled Chu Min aside to talk about what to do about M’dari. Chu Min shuddered at the mention of another sorcerer and said “We owe Jack Brady very much, he has organized us and made us formidable, but he has a tendency towards violence and extreme measures. His focus on his obsessions can look like unfocus to the rest of us. If you tell him about a sorcerer arriving, he will force us to send our resources to stop him from arriving. That might reveal us, which would be very dangerous. Should we be exposed before we are ready to strike, all the work we’ve done may be for naught.” When pushed further he asked “Is this man a threat to China and to Brady?”
Amos mentioned the mirror, “He has an artifact that could kill Brady.”
“Then we must be killed.”
“But we might be able to do it quietly [this narrator laughs in retrospect]. If violence is in the street can be avoided [laughs again] that would be best. Most of us want to avoid violence.”
Chu Min looked back at the blood splattered figure of Brady and emphasized “Most of us.”
Amos asked about the seven cryptical texts to see if there was any way we could get access to them, but Chu Min deferred as that decision was up to Brady. “He’s very mercurial. If it turns out that you’re still working with Madam Lin, we’re still in danger.” When asked if it was possible to copy the book, Chu Min said it was unknown.
Charles (aiming to make Brady feel accepted despite his violence) and Francois (utterly unperturbed by the violence) stayed behind to speak with Brady when his work was done. Brady regarded them with a measure of respect for stomaching the scene before them. “I am more convinced that you are not working against my desires, but this could be a ruse. You could be baiting me with one dead sorcerer to gain my trust and betray me.”
“Perhaps we can prove more to you. There is another sorcerer who is arriving and we want your help to stop him.”
In the most gravely voice yet “Tell me when. Tell me where. I’ll be there!”
Charles cautioned caution. “Your location might be compromised. You should consider relocating.”
“I am not going to leave. My man is reliable. Point me to sorcerers and I’ll kill them.”
When inquired about his man, but he was not interested in illuminating further.
Catherine and Colby asked to check on Mei-Ling, which took some serious convincing of Chu Min’s militia to just let us see her. She was resting. Clearer her feet were in bad shape from the rats and her bandages weren’t the best, but she would survive.
The talked about her condition, but they were really talking about each other. “We have to take care of each other, find a way through together” (from Catherine) and “You can’t see the truth if you’re blinded” (from Colby). It was still a tender moment, even if they probably weren’t having the same conversation.
Unified in Purpose
One the grim deeds were done, Brady gathered us “So….we’re working together? After years of not having anyone who understood what I’ve seen, it’s hard for believe that I have companions who really understand the horrors of the world.” We affirmed our purpose and listed off the sorcerers that we have killed: Gavigan, Shafik, Al-Shakti, Kaur, M’weru, Stanford. And we had another in our sights.
Amos asked about the books and was told they are being translated now. He asked if we could help…no we cannot.
Catherine followed up, asking what would be done with the texts when they are translated. Brady said they would be destroyed. Once he learned how to create a seal, he didn’t want anyone having the knowledge of how to destroy it. So he would destroy the books so that no other could use it. “I’ll make seals in every location these sorcerers have done their work.”
We cautioned that there may be a cost to creating them. Something that must be provided, and that he should grant us access to the translations so we could prepare for that cost. He didn’t think things were that complicated. “We’re going to go to Grey Dragon Island and kill everyone there. Then we’re going to put a seal there. If I have to come back for a special flower to complete the ritual, we will.”
Brady reiterated his hatred for sorcerers. “I watched my friend Carlyle break the sigil and say ‘Now we can be gods!’ Then he and Penhew and Huston went into the pyramid as men and two of them emerged as sorcerers.” He trembled with hatred, but he also told us that Huston was in Australia. One more sorcerer for our list.
When we pressed that it might be a lot more complicated (and time sensitive) than that he finally relented (somewhat). “If you can be useful translating the text, I’ll consult with Mu Hsien [His guy!] to see if he can use your help.”
We then made plans to kill M’dari. We impersonate Ho Fang’s cultists (or Chu Min’s soldiers and Li-Wen would) and then drive him into an ally and murder him.
Iris went to tend ot Mei-Ling and clean her dressing.
Catherine tried to get Brady to help us work with Lin by offering her one of the seven cryptical texts (that he had already translated) but it turns out to be a single physical scroll. So that was off the table, but he was open to the idea of keeping her interested so we could potentially gain access to the other artifacts she had collected. Keeping an allegiance with both Madam Lin and Jack Brady is going to be impossible, but for now we aren’t being actively threatened by either because of our association with the other…so that’s good.
Amos encouraged him to keep talking about killing sorcerers and reassured him that he was not alone in the world. Finally, there is someone who understands him [Psychoanalysis granted +1 Sanity, raising him to 6. Ooof!]
New Lodging
Catherine did have to remind Brady that Quite Repose could mean pleasant times with a companion, or it could mean death…and that Madam Lin dealt in both. It was easier to face this imposing man knowing that Colby was standing right behind her [Delightfully, Dylan got up and stood behind me as I was talking to him].
As we left the warehouse we found Li-Wen in the truck reading the Necronomicon [like you do]. She had been crying but was unaware of it, till Iris slammed the book shut. Li-Wen just looked at Francois and said “She doesn’t understand.” Francois nodded in agreement.
As we were leaving we saw two of Madam Lin’s spies on the corner, one of which was Dai Yuhan (who Amos had taught dreaming). We asked her to convey the message that we’re making progress and that Madam Lin should not take action until we report in. We tried to angle for another night of “freedom” but Yuhan reminded us that Madam Lin values consistency.
Very, very late at night we made it to the docs (passing by the burning remains of the Stumbling Tiger Bar on our way) to check into the Seaman’s Club. Most of us passed out. Charles and Nails stood up to stay on watch. Francois ordered a newspaper in the morning.
Sure enough the newspaper arrived with headlines “Fires rage throughout the city!” as well as “Explosion at the house of prominent respected business man Ho Fang.” We learned that our former hotel had caught fire, but it was quickly contained and hadn’t spread far. Police cordoned off the building.
June 12, 1925
Amos and Francois had their morning meeting about the dark arts. From Amos “We all know how dangerous that can be if our plans fail. What do you think about pitting your…er, boss to fine Penhew’s boss?” There was considerable discussion about what would be required to summon Nodens (Francois had the spell, but was told it was a one time affair). However there was certain preparations (in the form of sacrificing people to gather power) that could be done in advance. The discussed the merits of a trial run and decided that the Lord of the Abyss probably wouldn’t appreciate a check in just to see if he was answering the line. Mid conversation Li-Wen butted in (she had been listening through the door) and really wanted to spend more time practicing sacrificing people to Nodens, but Amos was able to interest her in the Elder Sign, as a potential weapon to use against our enemies.
Charles, Francois, and Li-Wen went to scout the docks where M’dari would arrive, studiously avoiding the Stumbling Tiger Bar. The docks were very busy with boats from many nations arriving in them regularly. They also noticed a strong police presence, but at the time did not think this was out of the ordinary. The flow of traffic for arrivals was: departure from the boat, processing through a customs office on the docks, and then entering the city. From there they could walk, take a stagecar, or hire a cab to reach their next destination.
Charles and Francois looked for alleys nearby where M’dari could be lured and killed. The were able to find, in the irregular cracks between buildings, several places to hide and set up an ambush. The were also inundated with the smells of the city, the potent odor of chamber pots prevailed. While Francois was taking pictures of the area (an act that reminded him of his humanity), Charles was scouting rooftops and sight lines…and being followed as he did it.
Charles turned to see two men with black and yellow ties and sickles that were combing towards him from different sides. One man held out his hand for Charles to stop, while the other moved up closer behind him. Neither had draw weapons, and Charles had no desire to give them a chance to. He leapt at the man coming from behind and tackled him, just as Francois rounded the corner and thew his spear into cultist. The bonespear bit deep and the man collapsed in pain.
Charles wrestled the other cultist to the ground and knocked his sickle away. Eventually the man slipped free and was going to run away but he was impaled by the bonespear and fell dead in the alley. Li-wen, who had been scouting the docks arrived and saw these deaths as great opportunities to serve Nodens, but they agreed it was better to get information from them first and sacrifice them alter. Ah, the high priest and his acolyte. How adorable. Francois packed the wound and sinched it tight with the man’s tie so he wouldn’t bleed out in on the ride home.
Meanwhile, Iris and Amos went to the hospital pretending to be looking for a friend, and making the most of the language barrier to appear lost and confused. Eventually the got to the burn ward where folks in the most pain were centered and Iris set her plant down so that it could absorb their pain. When she was finally ushered out, she left a cutting behind (hidden among other plants) to keep absorbing the pain while she was gone.
Catherine and Colby stayed behind at the Seaman’s Club to examine the Yithian artifacts and the Pale Viper’s blueprints in an attempt to understand their purpose, and see if Catherine’s theories about the possibility of not just seeing alterative timelines, but changing them. As we disassembled the parts they were hard to look at, they didn’t seem like they could possibly fit inside each other once taken apart, and that they were clearly assembled for a purpose.
Catherine’s was methodical and cautions in her approach. She wanted to see if a plan could be assembled from the information they had, but she was very wary of doing anything that would upset Colby further. She tried to heed Iris’ words of caution. As they were tinkering away Nails interrupted to say there was someone at the door who urgently wanted to see us, specifically “The Catherine.” Strange, that.
Colby, protective of Catherine went to the door first and saw an unfamiliar man who looked distracted and distressed. He said that The Catherine must not continue as she has, there are dangers that she does now about and that she will be exposed to if she goes further. We recognized the man as one of the “Georges”, a person who acted as a vessel for the Yith.
We let him into the hotel room and he witnessed the work we had started with the artifacts. He gave Catherine a warning that sounded like it had been rehearsed many times.
If you extract yourself from the ordered flow of time, you become visible to them. They hunt in the gaps between moments, they thrive in the obscure angles of the unspeakable fifth dimension. Massive they are, and yet ten thousand could dance upon the ink of a single semicolon. They are legion, they are Tindalos, and they will hound you past the edge of oblivion.
We’ll, it’s hard to argue with that. Catherine inquired as to how she might hide from the Tindalos, to learn the way of the Yith. She was told it had to be part of her essential nature, and it was not. Wait till you find the Great City (which we believe to be in Australia) and there she could learn to become more like the Yith. More waiting… Catherine hates waiting, but Colby had an idea.
He said if time wasn’t a safe playground to operate in, what about optics? Could the Yith technology be used to change the way he perceived. The George said it was possible, but there would be a sacrifice. Colby asked him to proceed. The George took the glasses that Catherine created so many moons ago and turned to the table of Yithian parts. He hid is work from us and moved in a blur. When he was done, the spectacles had been completely transformed. The lenses were now metal plates, more opaque than welding goggles. The inside of the the lenses however had long spikes that would blind (but also, not blind, more on this) the user in a brutally painful manner. These glasses, once worn, would never be removed.
Colby was matter of fact, asking questions about what these new spectacles would do for him. The George told him that it would allow him to see, and to perceiving things in new ways and that he would never be tricked by visual phenomena again. He was ready to put them on, but Catherine put her hand on his to pause him. “Are you sure this is what you want to do? We can find other ways to learn the truth and to face our foes?”
Colby was sure. They locked eyes and held each other for a moment, and he plunged the spikes through his eyes, into his brain, where the expanded like radials to lock into place. At once Colby’s vision exploded. He could see in all directions, he could see around corners, he could see new colors that he never perceived before. But “seeing” wasn’t really the right word. He was aware of things through new a new sense. One that was distant and analytical. One that would not be susceptible to illusions or perturbed by gore, but also one that did perceive beauty, at least not in the same way. Everything was held at a distance, including Catherine. He also yelled out in pain form the agony of the experience, and he lost sanity (perhaps for the last time) he clutched onto Catherine, who held him just as tightly.
Reunion
Charles, Francois, and Li-Wen returned and we had several back and forth moments of disbelieve. Them at Colby’s transformation, Us, at the bleeding cultist. But as the way of investigators, we adapt quickly, and soon were all up to speed on each other’s activates.
Then Iris and Amos returned and we had another bout of “what’s this now?” that included Iris’ growing dream plant (suffused with pain from the hospital).
Iris tended to Colby’s pain and thanks to her ministrations he would recover much sooner than if he had been untreated [Critical success, removing the major would].
Colby tested his new sense with the “strange” items in the room. The Yith devices showed up in higher resolution than everything else. They were packed with dense information and now he could see how they all held together. The sword of dreaming, however was only visible at it’s edges, the mere outline of a sword, and Iris plant was completely invisible, a pot and no more.
Once we roused the cultist he told us that Ho Fang wanted an audience with us and that he was supposed to bring Charles back to the hotel. When inquired about Ho Fang himself, the answer to does he live was “yes and no.” From what we could gather his body was destroyed when he entered the sanctum, but he looks up and his soul was pulled into the maw. Now he’s communicating to his cultists through dreams and calling them all to the hotel (which of course, was the other entrance to the maw that we created…oh damn). The were given instructions to meet M’dari tomorrow when he arrives and bring him back to the hotel. His final words of taunting “The Bloated Woman will rise! Ho Fang suffered a setback, but that is also an opportunity. Visit him at the Jing Lai hotel and you will learn for yourselves!”
Francois and Li-Wen were discussing sacrificing him to Nodens but there was no point, and none of us liked the idea of ritual sacrifice. Catherine took the man’s very sharp sickle and slit his throat. Quickly covered by a pillow and then dragged into the bathtub to prevent blood from getting everywhere. In his dying words the cultists begged to be dismembered. “Nope, not ritual murder for Nodens, no ritual murder of The Bloated Lady.”
A new plan
How would we convince M’dari we were cultists of the Bloated Women if Ho Fang’s lackeys were also there doing the same? We considered a few options and decided to bribe the port authorities to redirect his boat to another dock (up river) and intercept him there.
That night Charles stayed up late talking to Colby and (Colby had stopped looking at people as he could perceive them equally well from any angle, but Charles begged him to pretend like they were looking at each other, for his own comfort) and spoke of his incredible love and then eventual estrangement from his wife and daughters. “After a time she stopped talking to me. I don’t know why. And my daughters…as I was often gone, they only heard from her, and they became distant as well. I didn’t want to speak against her and I didn’t know what to do… they’ve slipped away from me. They don’t respond to my letters. Why don’t they ever write back? As he spoke the plant absorbed pain…no, catharsis. The memoires were painful, but it was healing to share them.
Iris went to collect the cutting from the hospital. It had absorbed more pain, and had now began to fruit pods that contained all the emotions it absorbed.
Francois lamented to Li-Went that he could not show her the the means of sacrifice to Nodens, but that the cultist would not have been a very powerful offering. M’dari would be much better suited. Li-Wen thought he was equivocating, but didn’t give up hope to feed her master more power.
Amongst the books we recovered from Ho Fang’s cabinet, Francois found not the entire test of the Book of Eibon (formerly we only had the selections) and he got to reading it as Li-Wen translated missives in Shanghainese.
Amos and Catherine returned to the House of Quiet Repose. On the way the spoke of Colby and Catherine’s affections for him. At the house, after perform practicing engaging each of their senses, they reported back to Madam Lin and asked that she give them time to recover the H’san’s cryptical texts. We were close to finding them and while Brady wanted the information within, he might part with the artifact itself once he was done with the translations. She revealed that she knew the location of the text (some of his militia dream very loudly) and she could just take it now if she wanted. Catherine and Amos suggested that taking it would certainly lead to bloodshed and while there were still peaceful solutions that were possible, she should give them the chance to retrieve the artifact without endangering her house. She granted us a week. Hopefully that will be enough.
June 13, 2025
Now the plant had grown enough that it had pods, Iris was able to cultivate and pull from them the pain, and fear, and catharsis they absorbed into physical form, grind it into a paste to coat bullets and blades…so they would pierce magical defenses.
Catherine and Amos returned from the house, very well rested, as before. Catherine studied the Yith artifacts. They were related to time, but she could not tell more than that.
Francois shared what Li-Wen had translated last night. The Pale Viper’s plan to soil the heavens with contaminated metals. These were doomsday plans.
Operation: M’dari
Colby and Jimmy followed Chu Min and Li-Wen as then went to pick up M’dari from the docks. On the way past the docks he was supposed arrive at Colby spotted the figure of Aubrey Penhew, younger than the pictures he had seen of him, and laden in layer after layer of magical protections (now visible thanks to his new senses). He also spotted the Dark Mistress docked at the same port. The ship seemed reinforced in some ways Colby could not fully understand at this distance. The powers of his new vision were still growing.
Tempted but undeterred they cotiniue to the docks where we routed M’dari’s ship, the Laurentides. As they arrived however it seemed the Chu Min’s men and M’dari were in conflict. They rolled down the window to listen and M’dari said that he wasn’t sure he trusted Ho Fang just yet and that he’d find his own way. He sent two of his men (with a mirror shaped crate) ahead to find a cab. He would have gone after them, if Colby didn’t jump into action. He told Jimmy to let us know what was happening and he would lure M’dari.
Francois, who had been preparing a sacrifice to Nodens in the back of they alley for almost two hours was very annoyed by the interruption, but he managed to keep the ritual going. He had barrels of salt water at his side and was spilling them out into the alley to bring Nodens closer.
Upon receiving the news, Catherine told Jimmy to take her back to the docks (good that it was only a block away). She was concerned about Colby and the mirror.
While Colby lured M’dari, by doing a very convincing job of being terrified of him…and telling him to leave him alone, Catherine had Jimmy pull up to the cultists with the mirror (who were struggling with the language barrier to get a cab) and she called out to offer them a ride “I had such a hard time finding an English speaking cabbie, but I did, we could give you a ride.” Convinced this was the easiest way to the hotel they loaded the mirror into the trunk and got in the back of the car.
One less Sorcerer
The fight with M’dari was over before it began. Charles shot a single dream coated bullet at the same time Francois through his Bonespear and M’dari who was one so terrifying to us was dead in a moment. Francois pulled his body back with the tether attached the spear and unnatural strength. The sea water he had spilled as the ritual completed was now recedding back to him as well.
The cultists were tricker. Colby stabbed, Iris shot, Catherine electrocuted, Charles shot, Francois gloated over his murder, Nails stabbed, Amos slashed and even then one cultist managed to run from the alley back to the docks where there were many police, but he could not outrun Colby who tackled and killed him…in front of all the police!
Pockmarked Huang
Catherine ran after Colby saying he had protected. Li-Wen stepped up to translate and so they were all sent to the local precinct for questioning. Meanwhile, Jimmy drove everyone else (even with the windshield blow out an a tire blown up) away from the scene where the dropped the car, took the mirror and made it back to the Seaman’s club.
Charles drew on his families wealth (which required and awkward telegram to his wife) and help from Jack Brady (we had another dead sorcerer to appease him, we’re up to seven!) to make assemble a bribe.
Catherine and Li-Wen were questions and then released. Colby was questioned more and held (despite Aubrey Penhew’s request to see him) until Charles arrived with the appropriate fees (read: bribes).
Police captain Pockmarked Huang said he didn’t know what was going on, but he did know that he was being paid to have additional police presence at the Jing Lai Hotel (where we were, and where Ho Fang’s operation now was) and the docks. He was taking the money, but wasn’t happy about it. He mentions that if we tried to enter the hotel his police cordon would not interfere. Charles understood.
What next?
- Aubrey Penhew and Grey Dragon Island (and the Dark Mistress)
- Ho Fang (and the maw we left him in)?
- Negotiating between Madam Lin and Jack Brady
- The Seven Cryptical Texts and creating the seal of Light and Darkness (I can only imagine what that will require!)
- Colby exploring his new perception.
- Catherine tinkering with time.
- Charles reaching out to his family again. Maybe?
- Brining Francois and Li-Wen back from the edge of becoming the very thing we’re fighting against? I hope so.
