Adventure #7: The House in the Marsh
Adventure #7: The House in the Marsh
The PC’s are initially arrested for assault, but to their advantage, the corpse of Ssathasaa dissolves into a puddle of unidentifiable goop. Even better, Miles Shipley proves himself to be absolutely insane, babbling so much B.S. that he can’t even press charges or agree that the PC’s are to blame. He’s thrown into an asylum and Bertha’s disappearance is eventually blamed on him.
The investigators claim it was self defense and that they were invited inside for a showing. And they still have receipts for the paintings they bought previously! Although heavily fined, [Arnold Silvermine soaking up the brunt with his family wealth and cashed stock bonds] and their weapons confiscated [bringing them down to nearly no offensive capabilities] they are released from jail after a week or so.
During the downtime, they make acquaintances with WESLEY THATCHER, a British detective who is interested in their case, and who turns out to possess knowledge of the Mythos. They convince him that their mission is a worthy one, even if flagrantly unlawful at times.
[GM Note: Thatcher was controlled by a brief player for about two or three sessions. His character was actually instrumental in getting the PC’s out of London because they were in so much legal trouble by then. And honestly, they probably got off easier than they should have].
Upon leaving jail, they check their hidden trunks. They have taken care to hide their residence and gear, and if anyone tracked them, they found nothing. Their trunks of Mythos items and ammunition (and silver axes) are intact, but now the PC’s are missing pistols and shotguns. Police detective Wesley Thatcher joins their team and tells them that they really need to lay low. Barrington is out for blood and desperate to solve the Egyptian Murders, but Thatcher steals a few items from impound anyway, including the serpent painting from Miles Shipley.
Their first business of priority, because bullets solve problems, not libraries, has Arnold Silvermine using his gangster skills to set up an illegal trade for artillery in the near future. He calls connections and arranges for a late night transaction later in the week.
In the meantime, Jonah Kensington is called, telegrammed, and mailed a few boxes of handwritten notes and copied letters detailing EVERYTHING that they have been through: the were-creatures, the attack in the hotel they burned down, the snake person in Miles Shipley’s House, the crazy painting, everything. Jonah Kensington even sends them a telegram in return, letting them know about some info he dug up in back in the states:
WORLDWIDE TELEGRAM
TO: PROSPERO PARTY
FROM: JK
NEW INFO!
R. CARLYLE SAVED JACK BRADY FROM MURDER CONVICTION 1918. UNLIKELY FRIENDSHIP. MORE: R. CARLYLE COVERED UP HUSTON’S LOVER’S SUICIDE. BLACKMAIL? UNKNOWN. MORE: HYAPATIA MASTER’S PURPOSE ON TRIP UNKNOWN. PHOTOGRAPHER?
PLEASE UPDATE
[STOP]
Jonah has been very helpful, and the PC’s are glad to have him coordinating things from his end.
However, a few nights later, when Arnold goes to meet his weapons contact, he nearly meets disaster.
The alley is dark and foggy, the streetlamps burned out, and Arnold carries just a single flashlight. The others are elsewhere, leaving Arnold to conduct his illicit business on his own. Arnold calls out the name of his contact, LaVue, a Frenchman, but there is no answer. The fog is unusually thick, even for London, and Arnold soon finds himself confused and lost in the twisting alleys.
“LaVue! LaVue! La— Oh.”
He stumbles across a corpse. It’s probably LaVue, and yes, there are pistols to buy in a leather satchel. Arnold snatches them up, but almost immediately feels tenebrous coils of mist pushing up his nostrils, down his throat, slamming him against the brick wall. He’s suffocating, choking, and stumbles to his knees, scanning with the flashlight for his assailant. The coils of mist recede, sighing, and Arnold staggers to freedom, heaving lungfuls of clean air, as the fog crawls away to hide…
[GM Note: The PC’s never learned that E. Gavigan had sent a Fog Spawn after them, although they later collected the necessary components for the spell]
Re-armed and refortified (and with a temporary 5th party member, Wesley Thatcher), the PC’s evaluate their clues:
1) The Blue Pyramid Club
2) E Gavigan and the Penhew Foundation
3) Tewfik al’Sayed and his spice shop
The Blue Pyramid is a new clue, so they put the others on the backburner. This is the place Inspector Barrington told them was a hotspot for the Egyptian Murders. Somewhere, there must be a link to Jackson Elias. He knew about the cult, and possibly even its hierarchy.
The Blue Pyramid is a hazy Soho nightclub featuring sensual belly dancers, greasy food, and strong drinks. It is very busy the night the PC’s arrive, so they settle down and watch for familiar faces or anything out of the ordinary. They drop a few questions to the dancers, such as “Does anyone know about the Egyptian Murders?” They don’t get many answers, although later one particularly attractive young woman slides up and down Huey, making him uncomfortable and aroused at the same time. Only after she has left does Huey notice a note in his lap!
“MEET ME AT MIDNIGHT AT THE CORNER. I HAVE INFORMATION. BURN THIS.”
Huey eats the note instead, and whispers to the others what it revealed. They stick around for a while and leave the club around midnight.
They’re very cautious, hands to their guns, but the girl is hiding in the shadows on the corner, alone, just as she said.
“My name is Yalesha,” she whispers, “and I must say this quickly. I know of the Brotherhood. They are a dark sect in this city, and they killed my brother! My sweet brother Jory…” She starts crying, and wipes away tears in anger. “Listen, all I know is that once a month a truck comes to the back of the club late at night. A few dozen club members sneak out the loading dock, led by a fat man named Tewfik. I don’t know where they go. That is all I know. Just…do something. Goodbye.”
She vanishes into the night, leaving the investigators a vital new clue:
Tewfik al-Sayed is involved with this after all!
Wesley Thatcher is aware that Barrington has had Tewfik tailed in the past, but it never turned up a lead. Wesley is strangely loyal to this group of vigilante Americans, and he agrees to help them track down the late night truck.
[GM Note: oddly enough, the investigators never return to Tewfik’s spice shop to ransack it, burn it down, or interrogate Tewfik. They never return to the Penhew Foundation either, and they never found the London warehouse or The Ivory Wind. So much burning potential wasted!]
They have no idea when it will arrive, so for five nights in a row they hire a taxi driver named Fred Mearls.
Fred is a talkative fellow who thinks that he has been hired as part of a secret international espionage mission. The PC’s let him keep thinking that, only that when the time is right, Fred will need to drive them as far as needed.
On a wet, blustery Friday night, the fog rolling in thick and cold, they finally get their chance.
A truck pulls up to the back and a handful of men exit the club. Tewfik al-Sayed is the driver.
“Alright, Fred,” Morty tells the cabbie. “Here’s where you earn your pay. Don’t lose them!”
“You got it, boss.”
The truck rolls slowly through the fog, and soon exits London and heads into the countryside, moving northward.
“Heading to the marshes, looks like,” says Fred authoritatively. “Ain’t nothing out there ‘cept muck and mud and islands. Old dykes keep water back from the mainland.”
For an hour and a half the taxi tries to follow the truck at a leisurely distance, not getting too close or too far, but the lights are finally lost. Cursing, the investigators keep driving for a while, and then turn back, and this time they spot a narrow rutted path diverging from the main road.
“Park over there,” they tell Fred. “Keep the engine running, lights off. Give us an hour—no, two hours—to come back. After that, get the hell out of here and contact the police. Tell them…there’s been a murder.”
“Right-o,” says Fred, saluting. “Ya know, we’re near the water’s edge. There’s some islands out there, used to be old farming grounds. Now, it’s all just thousands of acres of grass and scrub, although I do think there’s an old estate out here. Called the Misr House, or some such name.”
Morty, Arnold, Huey, Chang and the British cop Wesley thank their driver, and then walk down the steep path, keeping their flashlights covered as much as possible. They can smell the stink of rotting vegetation and fish, saltwater, and centuries of black mulch. After about half a mile, they see lights in the distance, and a six-foot wall with a guardhouse. The wall extends left and right as far as they can see.
They move off the path and creep along the wall for a few hundred yards, and then climb over. There are lights in the distance, and the shape of large building on an island. But the only apparent way to reach it is by bridge from the guardhouse. The investigators walk along the shoreline for a while, their feet sucking down into wet mud, and they finally reach the guardhouse. Chang carefully peeks in. There are several men playing cards within, rifles resting against the wall. The PC’s scurry onto the road, clambering hand over hand in pitch darkness across the bridge until they reach the far side, and then scamper into the wet reeds.
They’re safe.
But they heard strange noises from the island, low chanting, but can’t discern the location. They creep through the brambles and trees and finally reach the backside of the house. It is actually a large mansion, the foundation partially sunk down into the earth. A backdoor opens and torch-bearing men in robes walk out, heading toward a summit on the island.
The investigators scout around the house, peeking in windows, but don’t see anyone else inside. They break into a large furnished room that features a slightly open door on one end and a wall-sized fireplace on the other. This fireplace, oddly enough, is utterly clean. Chang feels a chill draft from it, and after poking around, he finds a moveable brick. Chang pushes it and a secret door opens; a narrow stairwell winding downward.
Clutching their guns, the investigators creep single file down the stairs, flashlights piercing the darkness. Huey closes the heavy panel behind them. At the bottom they find numerous empty cells with recent evidence that prisoners were held here. On one wall, scrawled in dried feces, are the words: “There is no God.” Great, they think. Lovely place here.
The corridor ends at a closed iron door. Listening, they hear nothing beyond it…and then a quick flutter, like a bird. Pushing open the unlocked door, the investigators flash illumination in all directions, pistols ready to fire at anything that squeaks. It appears to be a sorcerer’s workshop.
There are multiple tables and bookshelves and scientific equipment. Bags of incense, spell components and jars and beakers and bags of rare herbs and bottles of pickled body parts.
On a writing table, beside a lamp, Huey sees a short, unfinished handwritten letter dated yesterday:
“Dear Aubrey,
Elias has been dealt with in New York. You must stop Jack Brady. It is stupefying that he has evaded us for so long. This man may be an obstacle to the Great Work. If you wish, I will…”
Aha! This letter is vital evidence that Aubrey Penhew and Jack “Brass” Brady of the Penhew Foundation might very well be alive, and that Brady is some sort of an enemy to them now! Huey tucks the letter away after showing the others. They see scrolls and a fat ledger scribbled with shipping dates and locations around the world. There are small vials with what look like grubs, and…
…and there is something down there with them.
They hear the flutter of wings again, and movement brushes by Arnold’s face.
“Oh,
!” He fires off a round, piercing the wings of some strange small creature that they can barely see. It flutters in and out of sight, whipping a poisonous barbed stinger and then jetting away into invisibility.
The investigators retreat in full chaos, shooting madly, but the invisible imp
[GM Note: Gavigan’s familiar, and not part of the campaign book] hounds them, trying to thrust a poisonous stinger into someone’s jugular. They race back up the narrow stairwell to the secret fireplace entrance, and push onto the main floor. The imp does not follow, and they take time to search the rest of the house.
A decrepit stairwell leads to the second floor, where there is a rune-engraved door and many empty bedrooms. They briefly try to open the door, but it is magically sealed and they can’t even damage it. It retrospect, they think that something might be LOCKED in there that they shouldn’t let out, so they retreat downstairs and sneak in the general directions the cultists were heading earlier.
Up the hill.
There is a ritual being conducted. They see a dozen men in robes standing around a tall stone stele.
Several crying prisoners are chained to the stele. The moon is a cruel sliver behind the clouds. The investigators make sure their guns are loaded, and carefully approach the ritual, hiding behind large boulders. They’re not too far away when two men remove their hoods, and they clearly see Edward Gavigan and Tewfik al-Sayed.
These guys are leading the little gathering, and when they point, cultists begin beating the prisoners with clubs! Gavigan and Tewfik are chanting, their arms raised, and a strong wind begins to blow, carrying upon it unnatural whines and cries. Something unwholesome has been summoned.
The investigators can’t stand to see innocents tortured, so they rush from their hiding places and open fire!
Gunshots ring across the night, and a blast catches Gavigan in the shoulder, spinning him off his perch on a rock. Chaos fills the top of the hill, but as soon as the investigators think they have the upper hand, a horrible screech rends the air. A large winged creature circles down through the clouds, and the investigators turn tail and run for their lives. Prisoners be damned!
They keep shooting at the cultists, but a few cultists are armed too, and the investigator’s retreat turns into a staggered line of ducking, crawling and popping off shots. The winged thing scoops up a prisoner, blood and intestines raining down as it soars up and dismembers the poor man.
Chang is shot in the leg and tumbles down to the bottom of the hill. A cultist catches up to him with a knife in hand, but Chang kicks his leg out from under him, staggers up, and keeps running. Morty hangs back to cover Chang, but by this time Huey and Arnold and Wesley Thatcher have sprinted far ahead.
They run madly across the bridge, but blaring sirens and lights halt their retreat. It’s the London Police! A fully armed squad forces their way through the gate after exchanging gunfire with the guards. The team is led by Inspector Barrington who has had the investigators tailed. Their taxi driver Fred Mearls is already in cuffs, and he vigorously waves at the investigators, saluting and smiling, and makes the motion “My Lips Are Sealed My Espionage Friends!”
Everyone is arrested, and Gavigan and Tewfik are brought in on charges of possible murder and kidnapping. In the meantime, the creature summoned soars up into the clouds and vanishes, unseen by the authorities.
The PC’s are in trouble too. They carry illegal guns, and they might have something to do with the ritual on the hill, and possibly the murder of several attendees. Gavigan tries to pass it off as religious freedom and that the investigators trespassed and killed innocent members, but Gavigan lands in a load of trouble. Barrington isn’t buying any of this crap, and the ensuing investigation finds evidence of murder on the island, [including buried corpses later on].
Tewfik and the surviving cultists are arrested and everyone is thrown in jail.
Back at Scotland Yard, The PC’s are interrogated one at a time to learn what they know about the Egyptian Murders. They’re as honest as they can be, citing again that they’re a private team hired to learn about Roger Carlyle’s lost expedition. Barrington tries to corroborate this information with Jonah Kensington in New York.
Wealthy Arnold Silvermine gets them out on bail a few weeks later, and they take a rowboat back to the mansion and steal EVERYTHING they can find! The Misr House has been boarded and padlocked, but that doesn’t stop them from getting in. The pesky imp is shot and killed, and the investigators end up loading their rowboat full of occult items, everything they couldn’t steal during their first visit to the Misr House. This includes a fat ledger that implicates importers and exporters across the globe, such as Aja Singh in Mombasa, Ho Fong in Shanghai, Silas N’Kwane in New York, Randolph Shipping in Port Hedland, Australia, and many more.
It also includes a heavy black stone bust of an Egyptian ruler that Morty finds himself staring at, mesmerized by the man's intense soulless black eyes. He wonders who this dark pharaoh was...
Wesley Thatcher is fired but continues to help the PC’s. He gets them fake passports to leave the country, because they might be arrested again at any time, or deported to America and brought up on charges there. All of their guns were confiscated, but they managed to keep their spare trunks hidden at a tertiary hotel.
The session ends with the group falling into a fitful sleep, knowing that dawn will greet them as they are about to embark on a new journey to Cairo, following a trail of clues and confusion.
At this point, they know that dark magic is afoot in the world, and the Carlyle Expedition was somehow involved, and some of them possibly still alive. Jackson Elias found that out too, and was killed for his knowledge.
The investigators pray they’re not next on the list.
