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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nebulous" data-source="post: 4360754" data-attributes="member: 31465">Adventure #31: Out of TimeThe investigators (a.k.a. the homicidal arsonists) have rescued Kakakatak, intellectual member of the Yithian race, from the clutches of Dr. Robert Huston, priest of Nyarlathotep and former NY psychoanalyst for millionaire Roger Carlyle. Now, huddled together with the Aboriginal prisoners, they rest in the secret room that Kakakatak opened for them.  Huston's journal unveils many, many clues regarding his state of mind, and the purpose of the idols and altars in the City.  It most importantly reveals that a terrible machine is being built in China near Shanghai that will help usher in the doom of the world on January 14th, 1926.  Each of the holy sites in Kenya, Australia, and China will funnel energy into the ritual, although the investigators have inflicted massive damage upon the Purple Dome by dynamiting the Sand Bat altars.  They wonder, Has that been enough to disrupt the Great Work?  Can they stop the ritual at all from here?  Perhaps. They just don't know.Huston's trail has undoubtedly grown cold, so the investigators don't worry about trying to catch up with him.  Their food and water supplies are low, and the Aboriginal slaves need nourishment. In the meantime, Kakakatak wants to find a hidden library so he can hopefully reverse the Time Trap spell.  To assist him, two Abos are volunteered (much to their chagrin!), and the Yithian's claws gently clack around their trembling shoulders. Kakakatak wishes the investigators well with telepathic sympathy, and perhaps they will meet again in a different time and/or place.  When questioned directly by Hans Hazzenbaum about the future of Earth, the Yithian does not seem concerned, and the PC's ponder the pernicious unpredictability of time travel (and whatever Back to the Future II taught them;  "You should watch it Kak!  You might learn something useful!").With a particularly good idea, Hans asks if Kakakatak can imprint him with a mental image of how the city looked in the past.   The Yithian complies, placing those intimidating claws on Han's head, and tingling warmth buzzes through his brain.  An hour later the German anthropologist has acquired vivid memories of the Great City in its prime:  vaulting ceilings of incredible splendor; crystal halls and exquisite architecture on a scale larger than anything ever seen before.  The city resided mostly on the surface, but has long since fallen to disrepair.  Only the labyrinthine under-vaults exist now, but these have been subjected to massive damage from shifting tectonic plates and the cyclonic fury of the polyps.He has a rough idea of where the original gravity-lift pads were located, but Hans comes away with the impression that the Yithian, while benign enough, considers the humans an inferior species.  Kakakatak soon slithers out of the secret chamber on its large gastropod foot, the Abos with him flinging back fearful glimpses until the darkness swallows them all.The party decides to leave their safe little hole, bringing the prisoners along, and find the exit. And if there are as many Sand Bat cultists lurking around as they think there are, it won't be easy. An hour later they have reached the junction where they first rescued Kakakatak.  In the distance looms an indistinct red haze, the path and lightbulbs stretching that general direction.  Chad feels that he should conduct some nude reconnaissance, so he scampers ahead into the dark.  Several hundred feet away is a massive, flat circular dais raised a few inches off the floor.  The red light seems to come from the air itself, but is bright enough to negate any shadows.  Rubble litters the dais, but the figure sitting at the center is what bothers Chad:A hundred yards distant squats a black man with a dingo beside him.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/%7Esaasha/Masks/dingo.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Chad gets the others, and after conferring quietly, Chad, Ronnie and Hans advance into the stone circle, leaving behind Chang (note that David was absent this session, with some interesting side effects for his character), David Dodge, and the fifteen rescued prisoners.  There is a discernible "pop" in air pressure as they step up onto the massive round dais, a sensation in their skulls that doesn't quite dissipate. The red light suffuses everything, and looking up, the ceiling appears murky and insubstantial, almost like clouds or mist.   There is even a rumble of thunder, and the stone floor slightly vibrates.The man can clearly see them approaching.  There's no good place to hide, they're mostly out in the open, so they quickly ready actions to fire off a shot at either the dog or the man if anything "unpleasant" happens.    The dog in particular worries them.When a few hundred feet onto the dais, the group spots another dingo leap to a rocky pile, and then leap off -- and vanish!  It blinks out of sight, completely unnerving everyone.  The three investigators finally reach speaking distance with the Aboriginal, and Chad asks him: "What are you doing here?"The old man is in his forties or fifties with gnarled skin like bark and a mop of tangled black hair.  The dingo sits quietly between his legs, peering intently at Chad, Ronnie and Hans.  He answers in English, "Too scared to leave, but my friends keep me safe," the accent thick, his voice quiet and dry. "Huston does not come here anymore. Evil, evil man."  The group confirms that they hate Huston too, and he is about to answer more when far in the distance, Lester, David Dodge and the other rescued prisoners see several more dogs suddenly appear behind their companions!Hans catches sight of the dog from the corner of his eye, but his reaction is too slow.  The dog leaps forward before Hans can swivel...but the dog only begins licking his hand!  The other dogs seem equally affectionate, and the group slowly lower than rifles and shotguns. They motion for Lester to run up.  He crosses, his ears popping too, wading into the thick red light and the increasing gusts of wind. Swirling clouds are now concentrating counter-clockwise above them.  They continue questioning the old man, asking him why he sits here, and most importantly if he knows the way out of this horrible place. Chad Slambody suspects this is Johnny Bigbush from Huston's notes, and Johnny confirms this.  But Johnny looks a world of difference from their last contact a few weeks ago at the Randolph Shipping Company (JB was a dock worker who was fired in Recap # 17). The man sitting here is easily thirty years older than how Chad remembers him, but he can distinctly see the resemblance.Johnny goes on to say how he felt horrible for the crimes he had committed; murder and rape and other atrocities, all for the glory of Huston's dark god, the Sand Bat. Johnny even sacrificed some of his own cousins, bashing their brains in with bat teeth clubs. His sins were insurmountable, and Johnny had gone to Huston to tell him he could no longer be part of his organization.  Johnny suspected that he would die, and wanted to in many ways, and Huston indeed tried.   Johnny was rounded up with other prisoners and subjected to a spell here in the Red Plaza,  indeed,  the very place where Kakakatak was pulled through Time itself.   But Huston's manipulation of the fabric of time and space have caused grave fluctuations with unintended side effects. Time is warped in the Red Plaza, bending to the whim of storms that sweep across it.  Huston barely escaped with his life, and Johnny would have died too, rotted away to dust and bone (and the investigators now see piles of dust, skull fragments and dessicated ribs scattered about)...if not for the dogs.These strange dingoes appeared out of nowhere, surrounding him, yipping and yapping and licking him, their presence protecting him from the storm...and from the /others /that appeared.    Chad and Hans question him further about these "others",  but quickly, for the unnatural weather has begun to terrify them, and Lester regrets running out onto the dais in the first place!"The hounds of mist," Johnny whispers.  "They come from the corners.  The air itself.  They are Chasers.  Hunters.   Devourers.  And they are coming...now."The party gives Johnny a cursory invitation to leave with them, but he is too scared to leave.  He has no hunger here, no thirst, no wants or worries.  Perhaps he can forget his sins, and so long as his friends stay, he feels safe.  So leaving Johnny Bigbush to his fate, whatever that may be, the group rushes off, three yellow dingoes yipping and barking around them.  David Dodge and the prisoners are a hundred yards away outside the plaza, but the wind has kicked up red dust storms and they are soon completely obscured.  Pressure builds in everyone's heads, staggering them from the sudden onset, and even Chad Slambody is thrown to his knees.  A horrible sensation ripples over them and Chad looks at his hands, seeing them wrinkle and crease, age spots spattering his perfectly toned skin.  The muscles of his face and biceps sag, and to the shock of the others, Chad has physically aged nearly 10 years in a matter of seconds!   I'll need double the toning oil, no doubt about that, he muses.Lester, Hans and Ronnie also writhe under the magic, aging as well, but the dingoes stay close, trying to stay in physical contact with the humans.  But their problems are only worsening.  Even a minute later they still have not reached the edge of the plateau.  Red dust envelopes them on all sides, and the howl of places that stretch deep and dark and maliciously into unknown spaces between the stars.  Large shadows begin flitting in and out of sight, great hulking shapes much larger than a man, bestial and feral.  The blink-dingoes snarl and yap, scanning all directions.  Weapons are ready, even a lightning gun is unpacked, and none too soon for a black shape appears out of nowhere!<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/%7Esaasha/Masks/hound.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Shotgun pellets explode over the beast and then it launches at them, a creature of horrible canine jaws that distend like a snake's maw.  It flies toward them, literally, but a dingo intercepts and the duo tumble to the ground, snarling and biting. More shotgun blasts are leveled at the abomination, and soon it is splattered to oblivion and melts into a puddle of blue goo. More shadows encircle the party and within seconds they realize they've been surrounded by what Lester suspects are called Hounds of Tindalos, creatures that prey upon anyone traversing the Timeline.  Their concentration here must be testament to just how much chaos Huston has inflicted.Blinking spontaneously onto the backs of the Hounds, the dingoes tear into them with their teeth.  But the Hounds are larger and stronger, and their wounds begin to heal even as they are created.  The investigators linger for a moment to help the dingoes, but then decide that this might be the best opportunity to flee;  if the rampant aging process does not kill them soon, the Hounds will with overwhelming numbers.  Limping on muscles that are suddenly tight, joints that creak and grind, Lester, Chad, Hans and Ronnie keep trudging through the swirling red murk, hoping they're going the right direction and not just wandering deeper into some metaphysical hell.The sound of combat eventually fades behind them, the opaque redness thins, and the group finally stumbles off the shallow dais into the familiar, bleak underground halls.  They are uninjured, save for some ability point damage Chad sustained from his aging.  A single dingo remains with them, standing on the path that actually circumvents the red dais.  Behind, the crimson murk is still thick, and Johnny Bigbush cannot be seen. However, their friends Chang and David Dodge and the Aboriginal prisoners they had left outside the dais are GONE.  The group is dismayed by this turn of events, but Ronnie is unable to find their tracks in the confusing mishmash of prints.  It is almost like they vanished.  Hans takes an immediate liking to the dog, and is pleased to see that it remains with them, trotting ahead and occasionally vanishing and reappearing nearby in its peculiar fashion.  Lester surmises that it must be some sort of evolutionary offshoot of the hounds, and that they are bitter enemies.Using Kakakatak's mental imprint, Hans guesses the direction the exit might lead, and fortunately there is a trail of dim bulbs winking down into darkness that leads roughly the same direction.  An hour later they reach a junction where another gasoline generator sputters, and have two choices:  a dim blue glow to the left, or the possible exit from these deadly caves to the right.  There is still no sign of their lost companions, and after a brief delay, they decide that getting out should be their chief priority.  They are still wounded and in need of rest, food and water.A short while later they see more lights in the distance and the outline of several small bunkhouses. A few humanoid shapes mill about in the gloom, so Chad slithers ahead "nude incognito" (so covered in congealed dust and sweat that's he's barely recognizable as human) and scouts it out.  The walls of the cavern close in at this place to form a natural chokepoint, and there are several one-story structures erected. Beyond them, a wide stairway ascends.  Chad sees about four or five cultist sentries, but they don't seem particularly alert.  Regrouping with the others, they all move up and plan their course of action:  dynamite surprise, and mow down anyone who survives.  It is a tactic that has always worked well.The plan nearly fails off the bat when Chad fumbles the thrown dynamite, but he is able to miraculously PUNT the explosive back into the settlement.  The initial relief of not being blown up is undermined by the dynamite being poorly placed; it only kills one man, but then everyone with a shotgun or rifle unleashes immediately.  The noise dislodges THOUSANDS upon thousands of bats that swoop down out of the cave and up the stairwell, a great cacophony of shrill madness.  The cultists are unprepared for a sneak attack and the investigators drop them one at a time, blasting heads apart with bloody aplomb.  But twelve more enemies swarm out from the buildings and streak toward them, screaming and waving their clubs, but the investigators kill most before they can make contact. Hans even pounds a bullet through two foes at once!  Even as the last of them get within melee range, Lester takes down four with a well-placed lightning-gun burst.Within thirty seconds of the initial attack handfuls of dead cultists litter the ground, but the investigators are well aware of the danger noise brings:Flying polyps.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/%7Esaasha/Masks/polyp.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Already they hear the distant crooning and wailing of the incorporeal demons, so they tear through the bunkhouses for any clues or food, and do find cans of beans and tins of water.  They rush up the stairs, slipping on wet white bat guano, their breath heaving in their lungs as the blackness gradually shifts to lighter shades of gray.  Daylight lurks in the alcoves several hundred feet above, and just when they're at the top they see the outline of two more cultists, rifles aimed down at them."The wind is coming!" screams Hans.  "The wind is coming!"  This (true) threat is enough to convince the guards to flee, and moments later Hans, Lester, Chad and Ronnie burst up the steps into a canvas tent.  Sandbags, barrels of gasoline and a churning power generator are here too.  Just outside the large tent are two Dahmler diesel trucks.  Beyond that, four cultists are fleeing for the hills, and behind, down in those deep, black, black cyclopean depths, gusts of wind push up the stairs, followed by horrible gurgling and slavering.Fortunately, one truck has keys in the ignition, so they toss all of their stolen supplies in the back (including the blink dingo!), clamber aboard, and Chad mashes the pedal to the metal.  The truck trundles ahead into the fierce Australian afternoon while Lester and Hans peel back the canvas and watch the tent.  Sand is swirling around in violent eddies from the enclosed stairwell, but then the truck swerves around a bend and the entrance to the City of the Great Race is blissfully lost from sight.....................They travel for a short while, not sure of where to go or what to do.  David Dodge and their friend Chang are still missing, probably lost or captured (or dead!) down in that black pit.  But there's not much they can do, not yet.  They decide to rest in the shade for several hours, gain some strength back, and then return later and see what happened.  Time passes, and when ready, they return in the truck and find considerable damage done to the area.  They confer among themselves and decide, at the VERY LEAST, they can go down the steps again and search the bunkhouses.  They briefly consider returning to the blue glow they saw at the last junction, but the threat is just too great.  They are fortunate to be alive, and fortunate to have found so little resistance at the exit.  Nowhere did they encounter the fifty or sixty cultists that they originally expected. But the bunkhouses have been destroyed.  Utterly.  A flying polyp has swirled among them, smashed everything and consumed the corpses of everyone.  There is nothing left to do, and too much of the city to explore (approximately 24 square miles) to find their missing companions.  Robert Huston is still at large somewhere, and the Sanity and Stamina of everyone is dwindling.With heavy hearts and feet they clamber back into the truck, and using the original map from David Dodge, Ronnie Talltree navigates them back toward Cuncudgerie.  The weather is unseasonably hot, and the mysterious Singing Stone slides by in the afternoon haze two days later, where the Tall Man first approached them (and whom the investigators would still gladly riddle full of bullets!), followed by signs for Dingo Falls and the eerie abode of the Slatterly Clan, and two days after that, after suffering multiple popped tires and overheated radiator trouble, the group lumbers into Cuncudgerie just after dark.<img src="http://www.med.unc.edu/%7Esaasha/Masks/works.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />But fireworks greet them.  Nothing too flashy, but neither Hans or Ronnie know what the celebration is for, and they're both locals. The streets are filled with people tipping their mugs and bumbling about half-drunk, watching with feverish smiles the starburst of colored lights in the night sky above.  When asking what the event is, Hans is harshly answered:"Where ya been, living in a hole? It's New Years Eve, moron.  Tomorrower is January 1st, 1926!"And with awful dread, the investigators realize their predicament.  At least four months have lapsed in the caves, not just the few days they thought. Chang and Dodge did not vanish -- Lester, Hans, Chad and Ronnie did!  Their friends must have given up hope and wandered away, and this explains why the exit was so woefully unprotected--from the cultist's point of view, the party had been gone for many months and were probably assumed to be dead or have escaped.  Huston has had four months to mop up the damage, rebuild, refortify, and according to the clues, a ceremony takes place on Gray Dragon Island in just fourteen short days, a ceremony that will tear a rift in the cosmos and the world will meet a fate worse than death. Can they still strike at the beating heart of Nyarlathotep's organization? Do they go back?  Do they continue?Somewhere in Shangai the Order of the Bloated Woman is making final touches to the plan, and the ragged investigators don't know if they have time to stop it.</blockquote>

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