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)
There is no peace when you have developed a taste for death. Sorcerers have fallen before you like wheat before the reaper, and with each killing, your sense of your own power has grown. Has there been a cost?—What of it? If two of your own lie broken in a hospital, two more have arisen to take their place. If your own standards of decency, of acceptable behavior, of the boundaries between sanity and madness have slipped like dark waters through cupped hands, have expanded like a hungering flame… well. There is more work, there is more work to do. Perhaps there will be something left of you when it is done.
We’re back in Shanghai doing all we can to stop sorcerers and not lose all our humanity in the process. Really not feeling like we can eat our cake and have it too.
Last session we freed Fergus Chun and burned down a neighborhood in the process. Catherine and Colby were in the hospital. But we persist.
June 15, 1925
The day before the meeting we arranged with Jack Brady and Isoge. With little time to prepare, those of us who could, got to work.
Iris and Charles went to the hospital so that Iris’s dream plant could harvest more pain, and to check that Catherine and Colby were safe. Catherine was sleeping when the arrived by Colby let them know she was getting good care. The told him the plan and Colby suggested to Charles that he “Stand on the side of Brady, but in between him and the Isoge if tensions rise.”
On the way out Iris took notice that there were many police officers who has been hurt by the ideograms also recovering in this hospital and if they wanted to find Catherine and Colby it would be trivial to do so. She considered trying to explain what happened to Pochmarked Huang, but Charles recommended writing a letter. We didn’t really have time a meeting and the police captain couldn’t interrogate a letter.
Amos, with great effort convinced Li-Wen to come and help finish the translation of the Seven Cryptical Texts. She felt completely defeated after her encounter with Penhew and was convinced she could do nothing right. However, once Francois asked her to help, she could not say no to her high priest, foolish as he might be to trust in her. With his aid she made her way through a significant portion of the text [Hard Success] and only suffered in two terrible ways. First, she could not help but entertain the notion that the more you study the Crawling Chaos, the more it lures you it. Even if you seek to destroy it, you lose a part of yourself in the process. [Sanity loss]. Second, learning the spell required more than knowledge, more than devotion, it required blood and degradation of the body to match the degradation of the mind. With the same quill she wrote, she carved he symbols of Nodens into her cheeks. Francois and Amos watched as she scarred herself, knowing that to interfere would also interfere with her progress on the work.
Amos continued work when Li-Wen’s fragile body and mind could no longer continue and he suffered horrors of his own. The ink itself did not want to form the words he was writing and it smudged itself as he worked, undoing some of our progress. He also felt the beckoning to do more than just understand the ways of magic, but to become a sorcerer himself, a breeder of blight. He was able to detect sorcerers around him, and they could detect him as well.
The the spell of Earthly Serenity wore off and Li-Wen observed the marred ink she was filled with rage. “How could you let this happen? How could you lose our work when we were so close to completion?” She tried to choke Amos to death with her bare hands, but thankfully lacked the strength to snuff out his life then and there.
Nails, based on direction from Iris surveyed Ho Fang’s compound and saw there were a dozen or so cultists patrolling armed with guns (they only had sickles the last time we saw them). The looked bored but not sloppy. He didn’t try to penetrate the compound further to learn more. There were some other possible areas of inquiry, but mostly he remembered that Iris wanted to find a good bar with a hotel attached to it (or was it the other way around?). He would have to sample a few to be sure.
Charles, once back from the hospital, visited Brady at the New China Militia warehouse. There he saw dozens of NCM trainees finishing their final classes, led by Brady. He was giving them words of encouragement “You trained for this. You’ve got this.” However when he spoke with Charles he told him privately “Many of these men will die.”
Charles voiced concern that Brady might get into an unnecessary fight with Isoge and urged he temper his rage.
“I don’t intend to make a new enemy, but if he is my enemy, I will destroy him.”
“Yes, but it may be wise to wait before acting, so you aren’t hurt before the more important fight on Grey Dragon Island.”
“I have waited before and it didn’t serve me well. I could have snapped their necks and I stayed my hand, when I should have acted…I will try to to be patient, but no one said anything about going unarmed.”
Charles told Brady of killing Ho Fang and admitted the the fire that Brady suspected we set. “That psychologist Huston talked a lot about moral calculus, but I was never good at math.” Brady thoroughly believed the ends justified the means.
On his way out, Charles was stopped by Chu Min who wanted to know what he and Brady had been talking about, and was disappointed when Charles would not confide in hm. “I hate to have secrets between allies when we have so many enemies already. I do not need more.”
Iris, back at the now C+ hotel (with a B- bar thanks to Nails) wrote a letter to Captain Huang telling him we regretted that we could not stop Ho Fang’s men before they set fire to the neighborhood.” Moral calculus indeed.
Gathering
That night we gathered before the meeting and both Iris and Charles wanted to know why Li-Wen was hurt. “What happened? Who did this?”
Li-Wen was still furious and she took it out on them. “I had a calling. I did this to myself.” When Charles still looked concerned she asked “Old man, how old are your daughters?” When he said they were close to her age as she suspected she spit venom at him “I’m not your daughter!”
Charles was momentarily speechless, but Iris persisted. “We all agreed to watch out for each other. Francois and Amos, did try to stop her?”
“He put the quill in my hand!” Li-Wen once more cast her ire on Amos.
There was a tense moment of silence but then Charles spoke and asked Iris to tend to Li-Wen’s “injury” to make sure it didn’t get infected (Li-Wen wouldn’t allow Amos to tend to her earlier).
As Iris carefully applied her ministrations Li-Wen tried not to wince and said “You have a steady hand. Have you considered taking up writing?” (Another barb for Amos)
Eventually we got back to our task at hand and we agreed that Charles alone would go with Brady on the boat to meet Isoge. He was the only person that both Brady and Isoge trusted (or didn’t actively distrust). We would watch form the docks with binoculars and Iris’ scope incase violence was needed.
Before we headed out Amos checked in on his sister, who seemed even more distressed than usual.
“Aer you going to listen to me or just tell me once again that all of this is necessary?” Iris asked, not trusting he could do anything else.
“It depends. What is upsetting you?”
“What happened to Li-Wen? That had to have taken time? Why didn’t you stop her? Why didn’t Francois stop her?”
“It was necessary to—” Amos began.
“This is exactly how I thought this conversation would go.”
“If you have an alternative I’m open to it.”
“I don’t have an alternative Amos, that’s what makes this so tragic.”
The Meeting
We got to the docs together and Charles was about to meet Brady when Li-Wen approached him. He initially recoiled expecting another verbal assault. “Old man, you didn’t deserve my ire back at the hotel. I was just very, very angry, and I let it out on you. Anyway, don’t get dead out there.”
Charles thought she was going to bring up his daughters again, was relieved and thanked her “Take care of yourself Li-Wen”
“I’m fine.” She said, unable to smile because of the pain of creasing her cheeks.
Brady had a small rowboat ready at the docks when we arrived. We also saw he had had taken one of Chu Min’s trucks. That was going to cause problems.
Charles got in the boat and they started rowing out. Charles tried to distract Brady with stories of hunting on the rivers of Africa but his joviality could not penetrate Brady’s stony demeanor. Looking into the water however he did notice divers beneath them [Critical success on spot hidden].
When alerted to them Brady seemed ready to reach for a weapon “Treachery?”
“Perhaps just a precaution. Let us hear out what Isoge wants from us.”
As it turned out Isoge wanted Brady to get on his junk, go back to Japan, and tell his superiors everything he knows about cults, weapons, and the rivals of the Japanese government.
Brady tried to tell Isoge a lot of information very quickly with the hopes his knowledge of fell powers would be compelling “We need guns. We need weapons. We need fire power!”
Neither wanted to budge on their position and while they weren’t moving towards violence it did seems as they were moving to a stalemate.
Charles tried to turn the tide and get help from Isoge. The spy said he would ask his commanders and Charles said he would be happy to help in ways other than offering up Brady. Isoge consented that he wanted the schematics for the lightning weapon Catherine made.
Meanwhile…back on the docks, another New China Militia truck arrived, found the truck Brady had taken, and began to investigate. Knowing if they found out Brady was talking to Isoge that things would be very bad, we moved to intercept. Li-Wen played the hapless translator trying to make sense of indecisive and confused Americans. Iris meanwhile asked just as indecisive and confused as she could, all in the efforts to buy time till Brady returned.
And he would have returned had Isoge not stopped him just before he was leaving. “Wait…if you can agree that everything on Grey Dragon island is the property of Japan. I can probably get my leaders to agree to help. “
At first Brady wasn’t sure about venturing into political quagmires but then with coaxing from Charles and his own zealous hatred of sorcerers pushing him forward, he made a promise he had no way of knowing he could keep. “Fine. Fine. It’s all yours. Just send troops.”
The New China Militia were stalled until Brady and Charles returned but when these two men came back on a boat, they still wanted answers and we had none. Without a better plan, Li-Wen said “The loverboys are back” which seemed to make everyone who understood her (Brady included) uncomfortable, but the awkwardness was enough to stop the militia from asking more questions.
When the left, Brady turned to Li-Wen and nearly spay “Loverboys?”
“Would you prefer I said the truth?”
“There are many truths”
“I didn’t expect you to wax philosophical Mr. Brady. We didn’t have a better answer. But this isn’t over. What are you going to tell Chu Min about the Japanese helping us out?”
“I’m hoping once bullets are flying they won’t have time to ask questions.”
Nails muttered under his breath to Li-Wen “He’s not much of a panner.”
Late into the night
Charles managed to rustle up some tea from the bar below and brought it up to Iris. The tried to console each other “Today was a good day. There were men in scuba gear beneath us but violence didn’t break out.”
Iris was glad of that “Charles, thank you for being the voice of reason.”
“It’s all you Iris.”
“No. I snapped at Amos today… Charles, you know there are going to be casualties on the island…If you ever want to talk to anyone…”
Barred from Dreaming
Catherine woke feeling a powerful pain held almost at bay by powerful narcotics. She took a sip of water and asked Colby to sit with her. In a pained voice she presented her thoughts.
“Colby. I have a thought, or rather several thoughts that I’d like to share, and then ask what you thinking of my reasoning.”
“Based on the encounter from a few nights ago with the George, the human vessel the Yith used to communicate with us, I believe time travel is possible, if very dangerous. Else, he would have not worked so hard to dissuade us from attempting it. And if that is true, it is possible that a future Catherine and Colby figured out how to do it. “
“We’ve previously theorized that the Mark II device was powered by the energy from the Mark I. Which, if true meant we’ve already performed a safe, if accidental transference of energy across time, yes? What if in the future we realized that energy transference is the only safe method of time travel? Consider that if I hadn’t been unconscious when the door opened I might have been drawn into the maw as you were previously. What if instead of the device simply failing, a future Catherine, perhaps one that had been pulled into the maw, figured out that if she took the energy from the Mark II device at that precise moment, present-state Catherine would recharge it, thereby making myself a target, so that a cultist would stab me, inflicting a terrible wound that you alone would uniquely be able to save me from?”
“It’s a terrible plan, and one with many possible ways to fail, but if an eternity trapped inside the maw was the alternative, perhaps it’s the best that a future-state Catherine could come up with?”
“Which begs a further question. So far all the possible futures I’ve seen are just that, possibilities. But if changing the past is possible it either means that a future-state Catherine eradicated her own existence so that present state Catherine could make another choice, creating a paradox since the future Catherine that would have had warned present Catherine no longer exists and never will exist…A chicken and egg scenario.”
“Or, every possible decision made creates a forking path generating infinite timelines, in which case, a future Catherine merely shifted the rails in a minute way so that our existing timeline took another path, which might be indiscernible from any other unprovoked choice to the Hounds of Tindalos that George spoke of. A mathematically messy scenario since infinite outcomes along infinite vectors are difficult to map.”
“Despite the mathematical headache it incurs, I might be inclined toward the infinite timeline or infinite reality model as it doesn’t necessitate an obvious paradox in this particular scenario, however, if all outcomes occur, the Yith, for all their sophistication, simultaneously found a way in the past to escape time and also didn’t find a way, and they did both infinite times, creating a different sort of paradox, where they simultaneously exist and don’t exist.”
Catherine paused, working towards her proposed course of action.
“Would you consider going with me into Dream to communicate with the Yith to determine if either of these models are correct, and on a more practical level, if energy transference through time can be done without alerting the Hounds? If so, a potential Mark III device could be configured to have more granular communication states than simply powered off and on. Perhaps it could become a temporal telegraph that could display messages sent from our future selves?”
Colby considered her request and told her that, he had tried to enter Dreaming once with Amos but was unable to, perhaps she would be a better teacher.
Delighted that he accepted, Catherine did her best to guide him into Dreaming with her. Moments later they were both asleep. It was only then that Colby realized he had not dreamed (at all) since donning the Yithian device.
Catherine’s surface dream was her first day at work in Room 40. Walking down a long hallway past doors guarded with soldiers, only the soldiers were all Georges. She open the door to Room 40 and walked into Dream…
Colby’s surface dream was a future when he kept playing rugby and made it to the Olympics. During a game one of his teammates took a bad fall and when he went to look on them, the teammate was Catherine. A door appeared beside him that led him to Dream…
It worked. Catherine, who was uninjured here, was delighted that Colby could be with her here. Not convalescing in a bed, but animated and full of life. Colby’s optical apparatus was still present though, which surprised her somewhat. It was more a part of him that she had realized.
We descended the 70 steps into dreaming and saw the guardians who always stand before the 700 steps, but unlike ever before they barred our entry. “You cannot proceed. To enter with those device would would harm Dreaming.”
Catherine had her Mark 2.0 device and Colby had his visor. One was certainly easier to set down than the other. But this didn’t track with her previous experience. “I don’t understand. All things exist in Dream. And I have entered before with Yithian devices.”
“All things exist in dream, but these devices would tear it apart. And while we might have allowed you to bring baubles in before, This (indicating Colby himself) cannot be allowed.”
Catherine asked Colby if he would consider dreaming of a time before he had the visor, but he could not do it, and she did not want to press him to being something he was not [But Colby did gain the Dreaming skill from this].
Catherine gave Colby the Mark 2 device to safeguard and she went down the 700 steps of dreaming alone… but not completely. From his liminal space Colby could still see her descend, and see the hospital room they were both in. He could see all.
Catherine entered the Blue Temple and found a device that allowed the Yith to communicate in time (the same devices that made the Georges) and cast the spell “Contact the Observer” to see if an Yithian emissary existed in dream. Not an emissary, but a true Yith appeared behind her.
An immense rugose cone ten feet high, with head and other organs attached to foot-thick, distensible limbs spreading from the apexes. They spoke by the clicking or scraping of huge paws or claws attached to the end of two of their four limbs. “The Catherine. What are you doing?”
“I’m following in your footsteps.”
“You would leave time?”
“If I can save those I love.”
“You are trapped by your limited view of time. You see it is tracks splitting off and leading in many directions. But it is not a path but many walled gardens. Some are tended to by the Yith, some left to grow wild. If we are the gardeners that tend to them, the Tindalos are the guardians of the paths between them.”
“Yes, but I believe there are ways to slip past their notice. I believe that the device I constructed can send signals between the gardens. I believe it already has, or that it already will.”
“Yes, energy can transfer between them. Your actions however, risk destroying everything we’ve made. All that we’ve accomplished. But I cannot stop. We have seen it.”
“But you could guide me to do it safely…”
The Yith did not have human means of expression, but if it did, it might have made a resigned sigh. “The Yith are not in a place to stop you.” With it’s many appendages it shaped a device over seconds, hours, or eons, Catherine could not say. The creature handed her the Mark 3 device, which she could not take back in the real world, but she now knew how to build herself.
She returned to Colby who was watching her this whole time, and watching the real world as well.
June 16, 1925
Charles and Nails set out first thing in the morning to meet Isoge and find what resource he had gathered.
“He’s an interesting man, your Jack Brady.” Nobody disagreed. “Japan can’t help you with a ground assault. But we want to work with you?”
“Can you help keep the water safe. Against mines? Torpedoes? Drowned men brought back from the dead?” Charles inquired.
“I have underwater technologies available. Harpoons, rebreathers, Ohgushi Peerless Resperators. I can train you to use them, but I want to be clear about intentions. We do not want to offer you this aid and then find that the island has been fleeced by the time we arrive.”
Nails butted in “You want weapons, yes? These folks (gesturing to our party) don’t want weapons.”
Li-Wen, at Mu Hsien’s house poured over the book True Magik, which despite being bound in fine red Chinese silks depicting various Mythos creatures and symbols, was written in English. It was a bestiary (and more) that included texts on drowned ones, creatures of the water, Dagon and Cthulhu’s servants of the deep. And to some relieve we found that these descriptions did not match what we had seen. Penhew has likely only risen the dead to serve him. Only.
Iris, watching over all of the readers, tended to her plant as she tended her friends.
Francois and Amos, meanwhile, finished (re-finished) the translation of the Seven Cryptical Texts, again to their own detriment.
Francois realizes that Hasan may have failed and that this may be the reality that resulted from Nyarlathotep touching our world. Maybe we are already doomed.
Amos fell asleep during his reading and visited Caracosa, a land beyond Dream. Iris, who had been watching over us, visited Dream to follow him. There they saw signs and sigils of this world and of others. They witnessed the elder sign, which was comforting, but they also saw the yellow sign, a virus that invaded their minds and inflicted a compulsion to share it. Amos was able to contain it, but for Iris the Yellow Sign was a beautiful dream, a flower that must bloom in the world. On the return to waking, Amos convinced her to to keep it to themselves. Iris woke to Li-Wen slapping her. “Are you okay?”
Li-Wen was delighted the work was done however, and with great difficulty (her face pinched like a cat about to vomit) she apologized to Amos for trying to strangle him the the day before.
With the works translated we finally understood how to craft the Sigil of Light and Darkness, or rather the lesser sigils that would be powered by the greater sigil…which we knew to be broken. But if it could be mended, and if the lesser sigils could be formed, perhaps the crawling chaos could once more be banned from our reality.
The book also contained many, many spells, including raising the dead.
And shortly after that work was done we received a telegram from Kalfour. Their efforts to find the 2nd half of the broken sigil had failed. Perhaps it had been lost to time. While most were discussing the telegram Li-Wen swapped the Seven Cryptical Tests with another scroll and stole them form herself.
Negotiations
Soon the investigators that could make the trip would move to Grey Dragon Island, and they would not have time to return before Madam Lin expected the Seven Cryptical Tests to be returned to her. Amos asked Catherine if she would negotiate with Madam Lin to gain the Nine Bronze Bells in her possession.
It was hard to imagine trusting these books in the hands of anyone, but if there was someone we believed could keep them safe and would not use them for their own nefarious ends, Madam Lin was in. A message was sent to her via her agents and the next day she visited Catherine and Colby in the hospital.
Catherine did all she could to look in control. With Colby’s help she was moved from her bed to chair and she had a blanket over to her conceal the IV drips she still needed to abate the pain.
“We have found the Seven Cryptical Texts and I want to return them to you, but now that we know what they are capable of, we need some assurances.” Madam Lin narrowed her eyes as she anticipated Catherine trying to change the deal. “They were taken from you once, and we need to know that you’re capable of keeping them safe. Also, we need to know that you have no intention of reading them, as they have and will shatter the minds of those who attempt to decipher them.”
Madam Lin reassured Catherine that she did not want to read them and that she had the ability to keep them safe. When Jack Brady stole them, it was while they were in transit and the man transporting them did not understand the value they possessed. Madam Lin herself would personally escort the texts from here to her domain.
Catherine then pushed for more. “You also have in your possession nine bronze bells that we would like to own. I wouldn’t presume to try and trade you the texts that already belong to you, but we have something else…a certain book that belongs in every complete collection.”
Madam Lin turned the question back on Catherine, how would she keep such an artifact safe. Catherine asked Colby to provide a demonstration of his capabilities, which further intrigued the madam of the House of Quiet Repose. We made an agreement and the next day, our dangerous possessions traded hands.
Journey to Grey Dragon Island
Meanwhile, the rest of the investigators set out on three ships with Jack Brady, Chu Min, and 24 New China Militia (NCM). Before going the mirror, yith artifacts, books, and unearthly fruit peel were given to Jimmy and Mu Hsien to put in their car and just drive all around Shanghai, to try and keep them safe.
The waters were rough on the way to Grey Dragon Island. Iris tried to dream to pass the time, but everytime she closed her eyes she felt herself being drawn to Caracosa and woke. She was miserable. The whole way.
Amos did enter dreaming and visited Old Bundari, who was concerned about much that we have done, however was relieved when we told him about the sigils and the spell we learned. He reminded Amos (with a slap) that the Six Lights prophesized are many things. They are he pyramids, and a door, and a beacon, and much more. Amos took this to heart and taught the spell to create lesser eyes to Bundari.
“I will teach this to others and we can spread these around the world. You and your companions have done good work Amos. Don’t lose hope.”
Li-Wen tried…and failed, to learn the spell Call Down Spirit.
Charles worked with a member of the NCM to try and read the Goddess of the Black Fan, but the man’s mind could not endure the warping effects the book had and began to shake uncontrollably. “The Lady behind the fan….the horrors!” Charles comforted him, but the man could not stop his hands from shaking.
Nails, with noting to do, did nothing. And so he noticed the storm first…it was coming from the direction they were heading and moving unnaturally against the wind toward them. It seemed someone was using magic against us.
Francois was sitting on the prow of the ship attempting to commune with the Lord of the Abyss, when he was alerted to the storm as well. First clouds and ran, then the water became rougher still. Within hours the waves would be strong enough to destroy our vessels.
Francois, Amos, and Li-Wen worked together to case the Barrier of Nak’Tith to envelop our ships with an incredible barrier that would protect against physical and magical threats. [282 Strength!]
When the spell was complete, Li-Wen felt compelled to join her lord [7 sanity lost]. “Nodens I come to you!” and she dove off the prow of the ship.
Iris yelled at Nails to go after her so he grabbed a live preserver and dove down into the choppy waters, now beginning to calm because of the shield.
As the descended, the saw the edge of the barrier and beyond it there were men, drowned and bloated, hammering their fists against it! GLORIUS WAS THE POWER OF NODENS!!! (thought Li-Wen).
Nails grabbed Li-Wen and pulled her towards the surface, revolted by the bloated and deformed creatures below.
Charles, while the spell was being cast, kept brady busy under deck by proposing they wrestle shirtless with each other. Oiled up, Charles managed to just best Brady, but while they gripped each other Brady told him that he did not take Li-Wen’s accusation lightly, but that he did indeed have feelings for Rodger Carlyle.
When he got back on deck though, and saw that there was a massive sphere containing the three ships he ran towards Francois with murderous intent. Charles tackled him but he still howled with anger “This is how it starts!” As we all stared at him and told him that we would otherwise be dead and drowned at the bottom of the sea he bellowed “No more!”
We arrived at the island and witnessed the volcano’s caldera, a small village in the mountains, and a lagoon where the Dark Mistress was moored.
Charles and Nails used the scuba gear to explore the waters and confirm there were no mines, but there were many sunken ships that would have damaged our our hull, if not sunk us completely, if not navigated around.
Amos, freshly a sorcerer, reached out to feel the presence of others and realized that Penhew was in the caldera, and that there was another sorcerer as well, aboard the Dark Mistress. Perhaps the Captain Jules Savoyad?
Disembarking
The New China Militia took the beach and were quickly fired on by the people in the village. The bullets bouncing off the barrier. Emboldened by the protection the charged forward. Brady grunted, grabbed his Tommy Gun and followed after them.
Soon, culturists in yellow robes came out of the huts and use sickles to chip away at the barrier itself, but they were cut down the fire from the NCM and Brady.
We briefly inspected the Dark Mistress but the sorcerer was below the decks and we did not have time to dither, so we quickly made our way towards the caldera itself. Charles found a trail that led up the mountainside and into a cave decorated by symbols of the Bloated Woman.
Twisting stairs led down into the crater below. Inside we saw a giant silver rocket that was under construction, a massive statue of the Bloated Woman, many ragged laborers in torn clothing wearing strange goopy hats, and a few cultists overseeing them.
While time was still on our side we charged down guns blazing and fired upon the cultists. The people in the ragged clothes did not respond, they continued their work, seeming controlled by the goopy hats they wore.
Li-Wen disturbed by the statue of the Bloated Woman [sanity loss] grabbed the grenade that was on Amos’ belt and tossed it toward the statue. Her aim was poor and though it did some damage to the statue, the explosion also shattered what remained of the Barrier of Nak Tith.
Advancing further in we found what looked to be a throne room with a trap door that could slam shut, trapping us out (or in). As soon as we noticed it, we had the sense that it was going to come slamming down. Charles and Li-Wen were inside, but the rest were in the main chamber. Nails Nelson began trying to pry the door open with a crowbar, when the witnessed the goopy black hats slide off the heads of the workers (who them collapsed in exhaustion and horror) and began slithering together to form something much larger. Amos, Iris, and Francois all fired (or speared) the creature as it began to form, but it was undeterred.
A shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us, slithering towards us all…a Shoggoth.
Inside Charles and Li-Wen heard Aubrey Penhew call them and ask why we had done violence against him when he just wanted to work together. “Why can’t we be friends?”
His voice was from another room, in fact from a sarcophagus in the room carved in his own visage. But keen eyed Charles noticed the voice was a distraction. The actual Penhew was on a mezzanine above. Charles and Li-Wen glanced at each other and a plan was formed.
The servitor of Nodens (which Li-Wen had summoned before they entered) flittered through the shadows and loomed over Penhew as Li-Wen called up to him. “Why the parlor tricks? If you want to work with us, why send a murderous wave to destroy us?”
Penehw’s faux hospitality dropped as he said “A pity your youth makes you think so highly of yourself. I shall cure you of this error.” Then many things happend.
Outside, the Shoggoth reached out its gelatinous form and grappled Nails, tearing his skin as if glue had been ripped away from it, nearly consuming him.
Inside, the servitor tried to strike, but it’s feel tickle went brushed harmlessly over the sorcerer.
Penhew cast a spell to rob Li-Wen of her youth, but miraculously she resisted [Hard power roll for the win!] She ripped the bandages off her cheeks (applied by Iris) and showed Penhew the markings of Nodens in defiance.
But all of this was to set up Charles for a shot with the dream bullet. He took aim and fired, but he one bullet we had that would penetrate Penhew’s armor went wide and shattered into the stone above…
What Rocked
What a cliffhanger ending. We are so incredibly fucked, but I can’t wait to see what we do next session.
We translated the text, it was so brutal but we did it. I love that Iris went in after Amos to keep him safe in Caracosa.
Colby learned Dreaming, despite not being able to make it past the guardians, maybe one day he can.
Negotiating from the hospital chair felt very much like the Dread Pirate Roberts bluffing my own stenght.
So cool when Colby saw both into dream and the real world.
I loved it when Iris tore into Amos, knew his “ends justify the means” argument was coming, but ultimately could not offer another solution.
It was fun playing Li-Wen and being really brash (more so than Catherine) and self interested. She’s a big character, with singular focus and loyalty. I did like resisting Penhew’s spell and showing her defiance. Finally an enemy who actually deserves her ire!
The meeting with Isoge and Brady was so tense, and Charles was all on his own to mitigate it. He was incredible.
Nails finding a decent bar with a hotel attached. Yay!
Catherine and Colby keep being so close but held apart. In waking she’s recovering in a hospital bed. In dreaming he could not follow her. They are trapped apart.
THE WALLED GARDENS. THE GREAT RACE OF YITH. THE HOUNDS OF TINDALOS. The Mark 3.0 device!
SCUBA GEAR!
An undead army we just evaded. Over and over I have no idea how anyone is supposed to get through this campaign.
Li-Wen and Charles’ strained but also tender relationship. I wonder if next session (just before she dies) if she’ll call him Charles instead of Old Man.
Our own descent into horror. We keep making the sacrifices of our morals, our power, our blood, and our souls. How long can we continue this fight before we become the monsters that we’re fighting.
FUCKING ROCKET SHIP!
The buddy cop adventure that Jimmy and Mu Hsien are going on (in my head at least).
