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)
Peru. New York. London. Cairo. Mombasa & Nairobi, Hong Kong & Shanghai. Across every inhabited continent save one you have followed the trail, finding darkness before you, leaving blood in your wake. The world that you once knew is seared away; a world of horrors now’s become your home. And yet. There is a light, alive in you—those who are jaded, and those just starting out on the path that only leads one way—and visible before you, a glimmer of a possibility that the Crawling Chaos can be stopped. That path, that light, that possibility—all leads now to Australia, and perhaps the final leg of your journey. But first, a boat.
We’re moving to what might be our final continent and final confrontation with the agents of the Crawling Chaos. We started the session recapping our last session (adding a flashback with Madam Lin where Catherine asked her to watch after Fergus Chin and to keep him safe) and what we knew about the Australian contingent of Nyarlathotep’s cults and sorcerers.
- Notes we received from Isoge from the Pale Viper starting June 13, 1921. Arrived in Cairo to fulfill the work of the Black Pharaoh…. Indicated that Penhew received plans from Robert Huston, who he grew to respect over time. Learned of a traitor in their midst, wondering if Roger Carlyle was still alive (no mention of Jack Brady, but he’s clearly who they were worried about). Mention of developing the warhead.
- Notes continue. January 15, 1922. First and simplest phase complete.
- Huston fought with M’weru and felt threatened by Carlyle. He was forced to go on the expedition by Penhew.
- Components we believe the need: propulsion, trigger, guidance, warhead/payload.
- Nora’s research: Five years ago Robert Mackenzie and John Carver (who we believe is an alias for Robert Huston) made a deal. After that Carver hired two dozen crew and move east for an excavation. After that the cult of the Sand Bat activity (abductions, murders) increased.
- Leads and Goals:
- Port Headland.
- Mining location in Cuncudgerie, where gold miners stake claims
- Lots of cultural practices around dreaming.
- Cult of the Sand Bat.
- Lost cities. The Great City of Pnakotus? The Blue Temple?
- From the Black Tome: Erongil. Land lost to myth and legend
Letters from the Pale Viper (to Ho Fang?)
On a boat
Our trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong to Darwin would be 19 days, then another four from there to Port Headland. With funds running low, they had to take a ship that would have never met Evangeline’s standards.
Colby, when he came to his senses, realized that in a moment of duress, he did a horribly foolish act, and in the effort to understand more clearly, realizes that now his senses are forever suspect. Everything he sees is through is projected through nonsense. It is especially alluring because the mechanism was designed to appeal to his desire for accuracy. He doesn’t blame Catherine (that makes one of them). It was a choice he made.
Catherine and Colby had been working together and she did everything she could to keep her face impassive, to hide the telltale signs of guilt that she felt over allowing him to do this to himself. In one of their working sessions, Colby asked what the Yith want and Catherine suggested that since they cannot interact directly with the world, or with time specifically, they may be using him as an Observer to understand our garden better. She asked, in a moment of self pitying if Colby, knowing what he knows now, would have made a different choice. Colby said, no, because then she would have died. And somewhere, somewhen the Hounds of Tindalos who had been paying close attention, receded back into the mist.
Catherine offered that she could provide tests for Colby to verify that the apparatus was giving him correct information, determining how many drops of die were placed into a solution, counting grains of sand. And when all tests yielded truth, and truly from her understanding of Yithinan technology, Catherine didn’t believe they were even capable of a deception, she asked that for a moment, he might take a break from trying to understand everything and to answer every question, and appreciate the moment he was in…with her…right now. Colby thought for a long moment and said that there is a time to think and there is a time to act. Then he pulled her close for a kiss! [So munch tension in that scene!]
Winnie and Nora talked about what it meant to join this group and what they individually intended to do. Nora noted that they were certainly more active in combating cultists than any others she had met. But Winnie was not so sure she wanted to be all that active. She liked the idea of investigating, not so much of shooting people. “Shooting people you say. If there’s one thing Nails Nelson know is how to shoot people.” Nails interrupted, and from his interruption, a shooting contests was held. Nails, Nora, Winnie, and Iris participated, with the newcomers performing admirably and gaining more appreciation from Nails. Iris missed the target (being on the ocean still affects her fiercely, even with the dream plant absorbing much of her fear), but we all know that’s because she saves her kill shots for sorcerers!
Nails, however, couldn’t stay around Winnie for too long. He quickly muttered about finding himself a drink and under his breath “out of my league.”
Li-Wen asked Amos what he thought about sharing information with the newcomers. The both agree to share what’s needed and not pull any punches. Li-Wen “Francois had an aid, a low priest to help him with rituals…” Amos agreed to help her, now that she was the high priest, but he still would not dedicate himself to Nodens.
He also asked about Noden’s disposition towards the Eye of Light and Darkness. “If it helps people and doesn’t harm Dream…I don’t think he would object to us using it. I’ll look into it though. Hopefully Nodens will continue to be our ally.
As a group we discussed the practical matters of the Lesser and Greater Eyes. Would old Lesser Eyes still be intact? Could our allies help us forge more in locations where they might have been broken (Mizr House, Cairo Pyramids, Peru, New York, Black Mountain, etc). We also still need to find the Greater Eye. Nora suggests we interview the one entity that would know the most…Nodens!
A toll comes due
Amos and Iris felt the burning in their minds of the Yellow Sign. A secret that wants to be shared. The island of Carcosa where black stars rise overhead. A place that others must know of. “How do we share this without being destroyed by the ones who hunt those who know it?”
Holding the sign in their minds slowly tears you apart [1 sanity lost per night]. Sharing with one person will abate the desire for a time [2d6 weeks] where as making a huge presentation of the sign would free you from it’s hold forever…
We had a group meeting to decide what to share and what to keep hidden. Only Amos and Iris knew that also meant sharing the Yellow Sign. As usual we all had different perspectives. Catherine wanted to shield them from the horrors we’ve seen. Others thought they needed to know. That night Amos and Iris shared the Yellow Sign with Nora.
Yith Technology
Colby and Catherine explored the bounds of what the Yith device could do. It was very unlikely to be able to affect the world (though we could build another device to do that) but it could be made so sensitive that it could perceive telltale signs of lies, maybe even thoughts, maybe even the future…
Downtime Ativities
Iris explored dreaming in search information that could help us on our quest. [Practicing dreaming]. Though the plant made it more difficult to enter, it did not block her from Dreaming, in fact this time she fell very easily into Dream, faster than she had before. Something about approaching Port Headland made it feel like we were also getting closer to Dream.
She talked to Nora who knew of some dreaming techniques that the aboriginal people of Australia practice. They believe in a “Dream Time” that overlays the real world and “Dream Song Trails” that help them navigate the outback.
Amos Dreamed his way to Old Bundari and asked about contacts in Australia that might help us. “You’re going to Australia? DO NOT DREAM THERE! There is a scar in Australia, and things seep into it. DO NOT DREAM THERE!” In a manner very uncommon for Bundari, he left the conversation and the Dream with Amos. Who did find it harder to get out that usual, climbing up those 777 steps took a toll it normally does not.
Amos turned to more conventional methods and started looking at our maps to determine where Lesser Eyes of Light and Darkness would be needed. Many places once held the Lesser Eyes, some of them probably still do. Burial mounds in North America, tall mountains, pyramids. Many networks created by many people throughout time. Though, so far as he could tell, there had never been one on the Mountain of Black Wind. We theorized about whether the destruction of the Greater Eye would also destroy the Lesser Eyes. Even if not, many have probably been destroyed over time by other causes. If it was repaired, would the existing Lesser Eyes work once again. A lot of questions we could probably only learn by trying.
Catherine and Iris were helping with research and began to wonder about how Bundari said many things were more than one thing. Could the many eyes be connected to the many masks? Nora suggested we ask someone who would know all about Dreaming and interview Nodens himself. Li-Wen liked the idea of that, but mentioned it would be easier if we had people we could sacrifice to him.
This started a discussion of our moral thresholds, and who we were comfortable with killing. Winnie did not want to kill anyone. Catherine realized she had somehow made her peace with killing cultists, it seemed the only thing to do to stop them.
We discussed warfare and fighting in trenches. The soldiers on both sides don’t know each other, but they wanted to go home alive, so they did all the could to kill the people in the other trench. We have to be comfortable doing the same. Catherine realized if this were true, if we were in one trench, and the cult of the crawling chaos was in another, then all of the rest of humanity was on the barren fields between, defenseless, being cutdown by our crossfire.
Iris the tactical botanist! Iris studied the geography of Australia and determined that there probably are volcanos here, but not anywhere in our path. The closes would be near Ayer’s Rock perhaps, and it was unlikely to be active.
Winnie, somewhat anxious in large group, and besides Li-Wen (who frightened her) preferred to be among the women in the group. She was humorless about all she heard, and trying to figure out what it all meant. She turned to the books we had, starting with the Book of Dzyan, which smelled of sulfer.
Alleged to be an account of the “wise and venerable words of those most exalted High Masters of Shamballah,” it describes generational transformations of consciousness beginning on a planet called Vallarros and ending on Earth. Enlightened beings of flame are said to have “raised” humanity when the lands of Hyperborea and Atlantis were young. This books related secret histories of what was and what shall be, with a significant portion of the work prophesying the rise and fall of different civilizations, especially based in North and South America.
Many names of cults and strange forces were mentioned, including the Void. Iris (who had been watching over Winnie as she read) suspected the were all pseudonyms for Nyarlathotep. As she read Winnie became increasingly pale and had difficulty swallowing. Eventually she sat down the book and ran to the head to throw up. Iris tended to her, this wasn’t as bad a reaction as others she had seen.
When Winnie was more cogent she asked “The book mentions contacting the Void. Is that something you’ve ever done?”
“Amos did it once and afterwards attempted…self mutilation. This is why we have book reading buddies.”
Winnie, despite, or perhaps because of her disturbing discoveries in the Book if Dzyan, also skimmed the pages of Life as a God. It was largely a history of the Black Pharoah.
The book triggered thoughts about the death of Evangeline. The book felt personal to her in a way that others had not. As though the author was talking to her directly. It talked of humans as vessels of power, as batteries, that can be drained to perform great magics. Winnie felt her own morality at risk as though it were a precious vase that could be dropped and shattered. She developed a tremor and when Iris saw the shaking she offered the dream plant to sooth her.
Catherine came to Iris that night as asked if she believed what the Cryptical Texts insinuated, that maybe we’ve already lost, we just don’t know it yet. Maybe the crawling chaos has already won and that is why so much of what we’ve found has already been corrupted by its influence.
“Catherine, I don’t think that could be true. If it had already won —”
“Do you think I’m betraying Reggie?” Catherine cut her off, revealing the real reason she wanted to talk.
The talked at length about Reggie and Edward and what each of them would have wanted for us. Finally Iris ended it saying “Things are so terrible in this world…we have to grasp every chance at happiness that we can.”
Nails, who had been snooping on their conversation (and he wasn’t the only one) stopped Catherine in the hallway, clearly drunk, “We have to remember to be human.” She wasn’t sure if he meant that for her or for himself. He went back to muttering about that new girl being out of his league.
Catherine found more reasons to be near Colby, under the auspices of practicing work with the Yith technology. [Practicing Mechanical Repair].
Iris asked Catherine to sweet talk the ship captain again to permit her to practice with her rifle, off the bow of the ship.
Interviewing the Abyss
Amos and Nora were talking about aboriginal beliefs and techniques when Li-Wen butted on. “I know how to do it!”
“How to do what?” Amos inuired.
“Contact Nodens.”
“Without killing people?” Nora inquired.
“Yes, I can give up part of my soul so you can talk to Nodens.”
The gathered on the stern of the ship at night under a full moon. Li-Wen chanted, dug her nails into her hands, and sweat profusely as she reached out to her god.
Nora asked Amos “Is she always this intense?”
Her responded “Yes, and you should be as well in the presence of a god.”
The ocean became transparent and the felt something deep below that was both like a person, and not like a person at all. Nodens presence was felt and Nora asked him about the scar in Dreaming.
The ocean reverberated and they heard in their minds “There was a war here long ago.” Nora thought of the Great War, but it could not compare to what Nodens filled her mind with. “This war used weapons you cannot comprehend with your mind as it is now. One of those weapons was my realm. Both sides of the conflict eradicated each other…but these things cannot every truly die. The lie dormant now, and my realm has influence here.”
Nora asked “can you aid us?”
The ocean shook, a storm came from nowhere and the winds howled. His voice pounded in her mind. “Can I aid you? I have fought a god to aid you! You as for my aid…what do you have to offer?”
Nodens turned his attention to Amos “If you want more from me, you know the path to walk.”
Nora took another tactic. “With all we’ve done to thwart them, do you believe your enemy still has other plans?”
The storm increase and the ship heaved in the strong waves beneath it. The rain pounded and the wind thrashed. The thoughts were like hammers in Nora’s mind. “My Enemy! The Crawling Chaos has plans withing plans within plans. You have great hubris if you think you’ve done anything but temporarily inconvenience them. As long as my enemy’s servants have access to the tools of the Great Race that they tried to use, and eventually had used against them, they will try to use the Realm of Dreaming as a weapon.
The waters calmed and resumed their opacity. The presence that felt like a migraine that would cause their temples to rupture ceded, and Nodens was gone.
More downtime
Amos asked Nora about aboriginal Australian languages, and eventually found someone onboard the ship that could help him learn a few phrases. [Studying aboriginal Australian languages]
Nora talked to Iris about botany and the natural world. She discovered a new side of Iris. A joyous side. Iris is such a plant nerd and loves talking about them. she was so happy!
Catherine, inspired by Amos, continued to study Arabic, in the hopes that she might be able to put it to use some day. [Studying Arabic]
From Darwin to Port Headland we had to board another vessel and during that time there was a new moon…which was uneventful (for us at least).
Port Headland
A town with a port, and not much else. An air strip (planes flying to Perth), a rail station (going to Cuncudgerie), a single boarding house that smelled of disappointed minors, a small miners camp outside of “town”, maybe 300 people, ocean to the west and the vast expanse of red Australia to the east. And not much else.
Nora knew a few people here who recognized her and inquired bout her wellbeing, but most people gave off a veneer of indifference.
Colby used his optical device to scan for the crossed keys symbol of the sand bat. There was one man at the train station who clearly noticed us as we came to get tickets, with the image tattooed on his chest. He seemed to be sitting around, doing nothing, as many others were doing at the station.
Amos and Nora asked about shipments going in and out. People love being interviewed and Nora knew how to make them feel important. The found that there was quite a bit of wealth passing through Port Headland, but the real money (gold mining) was in Cuncudgerie. A lot of people were profiting, but the Randolph Shipping Company (a front of the Pale Viper) and gone to shit (yay!). They were also referred to Robert Mackenzie, a local mining engineer who advises people on geological expeditions and gold mining endeavors…just the person we were hoping to talk to.
Catherine and Winnie got parasols, khaki clothes, iced teas, and good books to read and installed themselves at the train station where they could observe the man with the Sand Bat tattoo as well as passengers coming on and off the train. They had pleasant conversation but didn’t talk much. Their attention presumably on their books, but really on the comings and goings at the station.
They could tell the cultists was watching them as well, but no one took action. When the evening train arrived a passenger got off it, made a meaningful nod to the cultists and then proceeded to the boarding house, while the cultist himself walked off into the darkness.
—
Robert Mackenzie invited Iris, Colby, Amos, and Nora into his home. “Everyone calls me Bob. Come in, have a drink. We’re basically best friends now, so ask me anything you like. People come to me asking about mining, but at heart I’m an archeologist!” [Sean’s inner thoughts “No harm can come to this man.” Big heavy sigh]
The spotted a strange photo on the wall that looked like massive bee hives coming out of the ground. When asked about it, Bob shied away from the topic “There’s no gold there.” And he turned the photo around on the wall.
He didn’t want to talk about it, but when pressed he said “we went there and saw architecture that couldn’t be, that shouldn’t be. We all came back but of the original expedition, I’m the only one who has survived. Influenza claimed the rest. I wanted to go back…but never made it. There’s evidence that the towers go underground. I believe they are 50,000 years old or older, but of course that is impossible.”
He wanted to change the subject, wanted to know why we wanted to know about it. Colby tried to reassure him. “I’m an archeology professor.”
“Are you?”
“If I found something of this scale…it would be the finding of my career.”
Bob seemed reassured, but still uneasy. “There’s also the complication of the American Jack Carver, who took interest in mining there. Carver found the article my companion wrote before he died and found me. He told me he had been looking for a place like this for a long time. He told me he was after gold, but that was a lie. That was years ago and he never returned so I assume he’s dead by now, but maybe he found another port that was closer. I still don’t understand your angle. A reporter, two archeologists (Amos and Colby), and a botanist. What do you want with this place?”
Bob was trying to find a reason to stop telling us more information, but when persuasion didn’t seem to be enough, Iris papered over the problem with cash. A large enough “finders fee” paid and he gave us the location, 600 miles east in the outback. “To get there you’ll want to talk to Morimer Wycroft in Cuncudgerie. He’s the outfitter everyone uses.”
Our team of investigators thanked him for his time and made way to the boarding house. Meanwhile…
Catherine followed the man from the train station to the miners camp out of town. There was no cover to hide behind, so we waited to it to be dark enough she could move in the shadows unseen. While she was waiting Colby checked in and she gave him the update. She asked him to follow after Winnie to make sure she was safe (since the others were still at the Bob’s place). Colby headed to the boarding house while Catherine waited for her moment.
From the edge of town she watched the man enter a tent. He lit no light inside. She waited. Meanwhile….
Amos, Iris, and Nora realized that if they traced a line between Ayer’s Rock and the location of Bob’s find, it made a straight line to the coast, perhaps along a nautical grid. They asked Bob about coming with them to the dig but he didn’t like the idea. “I dreamed of bats when I was there. Huge bats. They terrified me. What scared me wasn’t so much my dream, that the feeling that the bats wanted to get inside. I still dream of those bats.” Meanwhile…
The night sky was full of stars that were alien to Catherine as she crept to the camp site. The tent was still dark, no sound within, but there were plenty of miners sitting around a fire, sharing drinks and stories. Eventually she joined them, immediately felt the air of danger being around these men but comported herself as a carefree traveler who wanted to hear tall tales of adventure. There she met “Mad” Muldood, an old miner that took a fatherly disposition to her. He told her the ma was a bad egg. He had been staying in this campsite for years but never talked to people, didn’t have any friends, and always kept to himself. A few years back one of the miners confronted him about it. The miner died soon after from mysterious circumstances. After that, nobody really talked to him. A bad egg. He must be sleeping now. To Catherine’s mind, sleeping, likely meant he was Dreaming, and dreaming, he was probably reporting our presence.
Catherine knew Colby was in the shadows outside the camp. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there. Knew that he could see her, and knew that we she said “someone should do something about that man.” she meant him.
Colby snuck into his tent, put his hand over the mans eyes (so if he woke he would not see Colby’s face) and thrust his dagger into the man’s carotid artery and cut across his windpipe, so that while he might take a moment to die, he wouldn’t be able to let our a scream. As he murdered the man, he thought of the mechanics of the operation. The angle and pressure needed to perform the maneuver swiftly and efficiently. In that moment he was both inside the tent cutting a man’s throat and also inside a throat, being cut out by dreams. Strange.
After the deed was done he found a spiked club, which he took before wiping off his blade and leaving the tent as quietly as he entered.
Catherine told Mad that it was getting late and she needed to head back to the boarding house, it wouldn’t be appropriate for her to stay out later. She hoped he didn’t have any more encounters with the impolite people and he told her with an odd confidence “I don’t think I will.” His smile revealed a checkerboard of missing teeth as she walked out of camp.
At the Boarding House
Winnie, who had followed the man from the train, watched as he took a room in the boarding house. She told the matron (after convincing her she wasn’t looking for a job) that the man scared her and asked if she could have a room as far away from him as possible. The matron didn’t seem concerned (the man had come and gone regularly and never caused trouble), but still wanted to appease Winnie and pointed out where the man was staying so she could avoid him. Or in our case, do something else.
Iris examined the club that Colby brought back and identified that the small spikes were actually bat teeth, that had once upon a time, been coated in poison made from mashing bats and other ingredients into a goop. So much for revering bats!
We decided that the man in his room, almost assuredly also Dreaming couldn’t wake up in the morning to follow us. We had some discussion about avoiding unnecessary murder for moral and pragmatic reasons, so Iris mixed up a sedative that would keep him asleep until after we got on the train in the morning. Catherine and Iris reflected on how bloody minded they had both become and decided that the tipping point for them was in England at Mizr house when they had Jimmy tied to the steele and were ready to brutally murder him to summon their god. After that cultists stopped being people in their eyes, and started be only foes. Jimmy spoke up “Please don’t kill anyone on my accord.” And they assured him that the man would just be sedated.
Catherine picked the lock to his room with unfound ease. “Colby, which tumbler am I at?” “The third.” “Got it.” She turned the knob as though she had a key to the room.
We found the man sleeping as expected. He also had a spiked bat and a tattoo on his chest. Iris inserted the needle and the ground shook for a moment. In the moment she did it, she had been thinking about her guilt over sharing the Yellow Sign with Nora and realized that somehow, she had also shared the Yellow Sign with this man. The pressure to share it eased but she also knew the danger of him knowing it. Without any of us noticing, she increased the dose to a lethal amount.
When the got back to the room Catherine reassured Jimmy that he was just knocked and besides oversleeping tomorrow, he’d be find. She was wrong and Iris knew it.
Heading to the train
In the morning Catherine got up first thing to meet Robert Mackenzie before they left. Colby described the picture of the find and she believed it had to be Pnakotus. She wanted to see the picture for herself. Also, she thought that she could convince him to come with them.
He didn’t answer when she knocked at the door. He didn’t answer when she knocked again. They waited a few more moments and let themselves in. Robert Mackenzie was dead in his bed, his throat slit. Murdered the exact same way as the cultist Colby killed the night before.
The took the picture (still turned backwards to face the wall) and left the house, reflecting on how everyone the meet becomes a target. Defenseless victims in the barren battlefield between their trenches.
We boarded the train and Catherine was able to talk to some miners and learned that Mad Muldoon was just fine this morning. She was so relieved.
Winnie reflected on a passage from Life as a God. “Its external angles were magnificent, and most strange; by their hideous beauty I was enraptured and enthralled, and I thought myself of the daylight fools who had judged the housing of this room as mistaken. I laughed for the glory they had missed.” There was a layer of the writing that was specific to Montgomery Compton writing in Egypt in the 1800s. But there also seemed to be a cosmic layer as well that made Winnie shutter as she realized that by reading it, she had joined the lineage of people who read his works, and by taking the notes she had, people who might pass it on.
Catherine studied the photo of the find and believed they were not living spaces, but a monument. Not a burial site, but some memorial of the war that happened or that would happen. It seemed conceivable that they could be entered not by finding a specific entrance, but by harvesting the right energies around them.
Iris, out of fear or curiosity, tested the Bundari’s whisk on Amos. It did not react. According to the whisk, Amos was not evil. Cheers to that.
As the train pulled out of the station, Colby noticed (where none of us would be able to) three large birds in the distance.
Winnie, meanwhile was staring in a catatonic state, drifting off as the train rumbled.
Li-Wen found Catherine and told her “I’m not mad that you traded away the Necronomicon, I’m just disappointed.”
Catherine furrowed her eyebrows “Do you want an artifact of your god, or a hack copy made by a shit sorcerer?”
“When you put it that way.” It seemed Li-Wen and Catherine were getting along again.
Cuncudgerie
A busy town full of trucks and miners. Many boarding houses and a lot of commotion to get lost in. It wasn’t at all like the sleepy Port Headland that would definitely notice a group of strangers passing through and then three people being found dead after they left.
We found a room and Colby began looking for people with the Sand Bat tattoo, but it was a big place and scanning through clothes for specific tattoos had limited range. He didn’t find anyone…for now.
The next morning was even busier and expeditions were preparing to head out. Trucks, camels, and anything else that could carry miners, tools, and gold.
Amos and Colby found mining maps and crafted a decoy story we could tell people about following the Canning Stock Route (which was designed to connect ranches through the middle of Australia) and excavating some of the wells that that might have archeological interest. It was at least a reason to give people besides “We’re looking for The Great City of Pnakotus!” In their research they also found many “ghost” stories in local news sheets about a nearby place Dingo Falls.
As we discussed the death of Robert Mackenzie, Nora speculated that killing the cultist released his angry ghost, who then killed Mackenzie. But Amos thinks that ghost might just be echoes of dreaming. And that angry ghosts killing people might be consistent with Nodens saying Dreaming was used as a weapon. A kind of Dream ricochet. If so we wondered about the connection between Mackenzie and the cultist. Maybe it was Mackenzie’s dream of the bats?
The rest of us set out for Mortimer Wycroft’s place and found he was a well supplied outfitter. “You don’t look like gold miners.” He said the moment he laid eyes on us.
“We’re academics.” Catharine replied.
“Academics money spends just as well.” Catherine smiled. Greedy people somehow put her at ease. Greed is such a human trait.
We described where we were going and he estimated four days out, four days back, and two weeks on site. To be on the safe side we needed two trucks and six weeks of food, fuel, and supplies. Upon request he also included a nominal amount of dynamite. It was not a small expense, and it used the last of the Jackson Elias estate funds. After this, we were on our own.
Winnie noticed that Mortimer was while handling sales and accounting, his three beautiful daughters Gertie, Janice, and Shula were the ones loading up the trucks and planning for what we needed. The noted that our destination was a strange one. Catherine was impressed by them. She was so accustomed to being overlooked and having to prove her worth, that she was relieved to see women who were just living their lives, getting respect without having to constantly fight for it.
Catherine asked Gertie about what it was like working as an outfitter, how she made her way in a man’s world. How she dealt with being second guessed or being the novelty. Gertie reevaluated Catherine in that moment and asked “You wanna grab a drink?” Catherine was delighted, sure she’d make a new friend here. “Yes I do!” [more sighs]
Nora asked about other expeditions in town. Everyone had a story. They all knew someone who struck gold, got rich, and moved out. Except one man, Vern Slattery, who made a fortune in Dingo Falls and stuck around. There was some scuttlebutt about the American Jack Carver who went way to far to fast. None have come back. Maybe they were dead or went to another port. Apparently we weren’t the first people interested in the Carver expedition. Vern Slattery also wanted to know. He and his boys went to find out and he came back without his boys. He was mean as piss before, but now Vern was a whole new kind of mean. His fortune lost, word is that he’s still squatting in Dingo Falls, mean as hell to anyone but what remains of his family.
Our trucked were loaded up with all manner of supplies.
Catherine dragged Winnie to the saloon to have drinks with the Wycroft sisters, but it turned out only Gertie was there. She had a table for them in the very back, away from the other patrons. They talked about improving their station in life.
Winne, still quite shy said “I’ve been reading books to improve myself.”
Gertie scoffed “In Austrilia we take action, we don’t read.”
Winnie demurred “Oh, action isn’t for me….” She changed the subject “Where are you from?”
At one point Catherine went to the bar to get another round of drinks and then two things happened. First Gertie put on the pitch to Winnie, trying to entice her to learn more about Gertie and her sisters, and their means of success. Second, Colby who had been hanging back watching things with his visor sent Catherine the signal of his fingers crossed in an an X over his chest like the crossed keys of the Sand Bat. So much for making a friend.
Catherine headed back, got the sales pitch as well, but when she declined as well, Gertie said she had to get back to home, still more work to do. After she left “Damn it. I was hoping to make a friend. Now we have to make sure she doesn’t sleep tonight.” Bloody minded indeed.
Amos sought out an aboriginal speaker to inquire about his language and culture, and particularly about dreaming. He learned the word for “lore” and the word for “law” were the same word. It’s how they live their lives. It’s also the same word for dream time.
The man told him there were no lore keepers in Cuncudgerie, but if he looked for smoke and he might find some in the outback. They use firesticks to tend the land.
When the man asked who Amos was, he replied “I am a Dreamer who has been told that to dream here is very dangerous, but I fear I might have to.”
“How can you live and not dream? Traveling the desert is a Dream. Living is Dream.” The man was perplexed “When you travel, lookin for smoke at dusk and dawn and you may find a lore keeper. I don’t understand, but they will.” Then the man sung a song with a rhythm like rolling hills, like salt and sand, like the wind. “If you get lost, this song may bring you to safety.”
More bloodshed
After the drinks we gathered together and agreed they Wycroft daughters couldn’t make it to sleep tonight. Colby went over to their business (and home) and could see through the walls that they were having a fight with their father, but he couldn’t quite tell what it was about.
Catherine talked to Iris about killing them all before they slept and though she agreed, Iris (who had been moved by Winnie’s words earlier) felt terrible about it. But they have to do it.
As Catherine, Iris, Amos, and Nails Nelson (if there’s one thing Nails Nelson knows how to do…it really is kill people efficiently) headed over, Colby spotted Mortimer, Gertie, and Shula loading up a truck and getting ready to drive out. Worried that he’d lose them, he hopped on the back of the truck and signed to Catherine just as she arrived at the house that there was still one person in the house and two daughters in the truck.
Catherine wasn’t going to let Colby get taken away from her. She told Iris and Nails to kill the daughter inside and she quickly hotwired a truck and went after them. Amos jumped in with her and they took off. Catherine’s skill at hotwiring trucks…pretty good. Her skill at driving them, not so much. As they drove into the outback her truck rumbled and heaved as they barreled over rough terrain.
Meanwhile Winne and Nora were back at the boarding house discussing what to do. Jimmy knocked on the door and when allowed in asked what was happening. After they told him we all went over to the Wycroft house he said, with so much resignation “There going to kill them.” They all gave each other hopeless looks and decided to pack up and get ready to move out. As they were doing that they heard first Mortimer’s truck, and then the one Catherine hotwired, rumble out of town.
As they made chase, Catherine saw Shula, the youngest sisters pull out a rifle to fire on her (or Amos). But Colby also saw Shula, and shot her in the neck before she could take the shot. She wasn’t dead, but she passed out in the cab. Gertie climbed out of the cab to club Colby. Catherine accelerated and Amos shot Gertie dead.
At the same time, Nails was prowling into the Wycroft home and attacked Janice Wycroft when he saw her. He missed, she grabbed a kitchen knife and swung it at him. Winnie, Jimmy, and Nora arrived just in time for Nora to say “What the hell?” as Nails turned the blow and forced Janice’s knife back into her chest, and then dropped her in the bed of their truck.
Mortimer was driving fast. He was full of fear and horror and grief. Colby got behind him with a gun and told him to stop the truck. Mortimer saw the Yith apparatus and cried out “They promised me!” Then he crashed the truck sending , flipping it over and crushing Colby’s leg beneath it.
Catherine yelled “Colby!” and slammed the breaks. Amos and Catherin ran to Colby to check on him and Amos administered first aid while Catherine looked in horror and wondered what she could have done to prevent this.
Jimmy, Winnie, Iris, Nora, and Nails arrived at the crash site and Iris rushed over to lend more aid to Colby and his broken leg.
Winnie and Nora asked Jimmy to drive them out after Mortimer, who had run away in to the dark. Winnie looked out in the darkness and somehow intuited where a scared and confused person under the southern hemisphere stars would go. And sure enough they found him staggering along, injured from the crash. Nora tended to his wounds and asked what he was going, but Mycroft was beside himself.
“They promised me, but never followed through. And they gave it to him? They told me I could talk to the Yith, but they were never going to allow it, were they?”
In that moment Winnie and Nora helped him calm down and get his baring, convinced him not to tell Huston of our presence…and then let him scamper off into the night…and away from us. It was a stark contracts from how the rest of us would have acted. Catherine would have surely offered him access to Yith technology to get more information from him. Nora and Winnie have good reason to fear allowing innocent people (Mortimer was the only Wycroft without a Sand Bat tattoo) to come into our company. They are better than we are.
Pics from the game.
Questions for next time:
Colby’s Heath. Can Iris apply medicine [to give him 1d3 more HP] and get him stable enough to heal on the road? Do we go to Dingo Falls and try to recover there? Do we drive back to Cuncudgerie, get on a train to Port Headland, and put him on plane to Perth to get him to a hospital, knowing we left three bodies behind in Port Headland?
Yith. Why did you leave your tools behind after the war? Where (or when) is the other half of the Greater Eye of Light and Darkness?
