The Runic Cthulhu Hour: Something wrong in a small town college.

[Rune]

Here begins the fictional tale of a real place--my small town college--and real people--my players and the people we know. I hope you will relax and enjoy the show.

Note: the names of NPCs have been changed to protect the innocent. Any similarity between these NPCs and real individuals is not really coincidental, but is certainly nothing but parody. Please move along, now. Nothing to see here…

Welcome to the town of Berea, located in the heart of Kentucky, on the fringes of the Appalachian Mountains. The town is built around a college that has stood here (despite being burned to the ground a few times) since 1855. It is a college rich in history, culture, and…intrigue? John G. Fee, a man of the cloth, founded the college as a haven for the impoverished to learn and thrive in. Berea College taught people of all races—and genders—and served as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Naturally, the community that sprang up around the institution would often rise up in opposition to the school’s unpopular political stance. But the school survived.

Today, it is famous the world over as a place of very high quality learning and is frequently ranked as the top small college in U.S. News and World Report. Its students often refer to the school as the “Harvard of the South” (despite the fact that Kentucky barely qualifies as a southern state), because of the professors' frequent (apparent) belief that they teach at that illustrious institution.

It is a dry town, because the college likes to keep it that way. The school keeps a paternal watch over its students, especially its lower-classmen. Nevertheless, students will rebel and alcohol, good times, and parties are not infrequent. Our tale begins at one such party.

 

[Rune]

12 April, 2002 Session. Part 1

It was January, on a Friday night.

In suite K, room 1 of Danforth residence hall, lives a man who goes by the name of “Rune.” Last night, he threw a party...a very good party, which quickly got out of hand, as parties in Danforth tend to do. With him were a few of his closest friends. His twin brother, Kelly was there. So, too, was his brother’s girlfriend, Jess. Also present were Anthony, Mike, and Dustin. The alcohol flowed freely and no one could really be sure when the party ended. Everyone had passed out.

Kelly, Jess, Anthony, Mike, and Dustin wake to find a feeble stream of light flowing from a narrow window above them into a room filled with old beer cans and dead flies…where the hell are they? And why is Rune sitting, nearly naked, in an old, rusty bathtub? Screaming.

The last answer is quickly answered, anyway. Dustin walks cautiously over to Rune and sees that the tub is filled with rapidly melting ice. All stained very red. It appears that some sick bastard has removed a few of Rune’s organs.

Dustin climbs up to the window to look out as the other students scurry frantically about, trying to bind Rune’s wounds. Finally, he realizes where the group is, although it makes little sense. He is looking out of the top of Draper tower—but the Draper building is being renovated. It’s almost finished. It should look nothing like this room does. This room is the Draper tower of two years ago. Not now.

Outside, he can see, on the rooftop of Hutchins Library, a man cloaked in a black cape, wearing a black cowboy hat, and what appears to be a Zorro mask, of all things. He is staring out over the campus, as if he thinks he is Batman, or something. Jess knows the man. All too intimately. She has a restraining order against him, as a matter of fact.

There is a ladder leading down into darkness in the center of the room. Anthony and Mike decide that they should seek help and climb down the ladder. Mike, thin and agile, goes first and makes it all the way to the bottom, where he stands in the absolute blackness, waiting for Anthony to join him. Anthony reaches the middle of the ladder, where the wild swaying of the structure causes him to lose his grip. He falls twenty feet to the floor, loosing his breath and possibly breaking a rib or two.

The folk with Rune realize that, with the ice in the tub quickly becoming water, the poor young man’s wounds will never stop flowing. They carefully remove the flailing man from the tub and place him on the floor. Rune immediately starts clawing his way toward the ladder. He is still not coherent, but clearly knows that his chances of survival depend upon the rapidity with which he is taken to the hospital. His pained ranting reveals as much.

His brother is thinking more clearly, if somewhat cynically. “We can’t take him to Berea Hospital! He’ll die for sure, there!”

Dustin tries to tackle Rune to keep him from falling down the hole in the floor, but he cannot hold onto Rune’s blood-and-water-slicked form. Within seconds, Rune has reached the ladder and slides down it, giving no thought to his own safety. There is a sickening, wet, thud as Rune’s tortured body crumbles into a pile at the base of the ladder, and Anthony and Mike rush to it, illuminating the immediate area with a feeble lighter’s flame. Rune seems no worse than could be expected, although two trails of blood reach up beyond visibility along the poles of the ladder. Rune’s palms—and the insides of his fingers—have been flayed of their skin.

Rune is already scuttling into the darkness on hands and knees.

Above, Jess keeps an eye out of the window at the dark figure on the rooftop. He now seems to be looking in her general direction. For a second, she thinks she catches a glimpse of him behind her shoulder in the room with her, but it must be her imagination.

In the meantime, Kelly has gone on to the lower floor to be with his brother. Dustin tries to climb down the ladder, but his fear of heights is magnified by its swaying. He looses his footing. Fortunately, the hand that shoots out is quick enough to catch a rung. He hangs in the darkness. He is less fortunate the next time he slips. This time, he is tangled up in one of the rungs and badly hurt. He hangs in the darkness.

 

[Rune]

12 April, 2002 Session. Part 2

Down below, a scraping can be heard from somewhere ahead of Rune. He is headed straight toward it. Mike and Anthony both run forward to catch their irrational friend. Mike’s foot slips in the trail of blood left by Rune’s hands, but his years of experience on a skateboard help him keep his balance. Anthony has no such experience and falls into the wet dust that blankets this portion the floor. Mike is scrawny, but he is enough. He manages to grab Rune’s ankle and Rune is held in stasis, for a moment.

On the wall in front of them, a door opens and closes. Whatever room is on the other side is brightly illuminated.

Slowly, Kelly, Anthony and Mike make their way toward that door, holding Rune in check as they progress. The shadows shrink away from the flickering lighter, but ultimately, close in again, behind the group as they pass by. They find the door and open it. There is no illumination on the other side; they are faced only with a staircase that winds its way to a lower destination.

It leads to the fourth floor of Draper. This floor, like the three below it was, before renovation, tiled in cold, green marble and looked dark, even when well lit. Today it is not lit at all, although it is curiously also not the Draper that has been under renovation. It is the old Draper.

Mike and Kelly make their way to an office door and open it. A middle-aged woman sitting at the desk turns to them and a cat jumps from her lap and bolts out the door. Something is not quite right about this woman. Most likely, it is the unnatural contortion that her neck displays. Her head is leaning on its side, staring at the ceiling, as she begs the two for help.

When they tell her that they need to call the police, she says, “The Police can’t help you. No one can help you.” That is when they forget all caution, collect Rune and Anthony, and bolt for the first floor.

Dustin is still hanging in the darkness. He hears a door open and close and then feels the ladder that he is precariously clinging to begin to shake violently. He slides down the ladder for the full distance, trusting in the entity at the bottom to break his fall. With a scream and a series of cracking sounds, the entity does just that. Jess climbs down soon after, her lithe form making the descent seem simple.

Dustin jumps up and down on whatever creature he landed on. He is determined not to be attacked by it. Jess hands him a lighter and they soon see that Dustin has killed a middle-aged woman. Her neck is broken and her back is very likely also snapped in a few places. Fear will make people do monstrous things.

They make their way to the other group, cautiously, but with great attention to their speed.

 

[Rune]

12 April, 2002 Session. Part 3

Downstairs, all of the doors are chained and padlocked. That is unusual. All of the windows are barred. That is very unusual! Mike, Anthony, and Kelly attempt various methods of breaking through the doors. One such attempt—when they try to lift a stone bench from the hallway and smash through a door—results in the shearing away of each of the three’s fingernails. That is when Rune gets away. Rune knows of a trap door in the front of the building, beneath the carpet. No one is sure where it leads. Urban legends suggest that there are catacombs underneath the campus that runaway slaves were once hidden in. Perhaps sinister meetings take place down there. More likely, it is merely the entrance to maintenance tunnels. Rune doesn’t care. He just wants—needs—to get out of this building. His friends detain him once again.

And a curious footstep pattern can be heard echoing down the hallway. It sounds like two steps…and a cane. A short, aging man with extraordinarily thick glasses walks into view. We shall call him Dr. Strangeman. Dr. Strangeman is usually a very jovial and good-natured, if somewhat eccentric, man. Today, he is ill tempered and undoubtedly insane. He barely seems to recognize Rune, at one time an appreciated student, only muttering something about how “there always must be someone.” He is clearly going to be no help, so Dr. Strangeman is asked to leave the group alone.

Dustin has always mistrusted the professor, so he follows him to his second floor office. Inside, he catches a glimpse of the scrawlings on a small blackboard. He nearly loses his mind and finds that he cannot remain in the room. Whatever was scribbled on that board was beyond mortal comprehension. That is not a good sign.

Dustin returns downstairs, where he can see that Rune is trying to gnaw through the cast-iron chain, losing his teeth in the process. To everyone’s amazement, Rune actually has gnawed through the chain! Quickly, they run outside…and someone is shooting at them!

The students run around the back of Draper building (dragging the body of Rune, one person per limb), dodging the bullets of a sniper, whom they cannot see, to get to Anthony’s car. Their progress is impeded by the emergence of tentacle-turned roots from the trees surrounding the area.

A lucky shot from the sniper severs Rune’s left arm as Kelly holds it. Now, at least, they can see where it is coming from. On the top of the Science building, a man takes aim with a rifle. He is prone and hard to see, but his ten-gallon hat can just barely be made out.

Heedless of the shots raining down around him, Kelly does his best to stop the fountain of blood that spurts from the severed stump of Rune’s shoulder.

The Media Services’ van (whom Anthony works for and for whom Rune once worked) is parked directly in front of the students, with the door open. That is too convenient for Anthony to trust at this point. The group runs to his car, but finds that all of the tires have been slashed and sugar has been poured into his gas tank. The group returns to the van, throws the unconscious body of Rune in the back, and brave Berea’s city streets to drive the block to Berea Hospital.

Inside the emergency room, they wait on an update on their friend’s condition.

“Don’t worry,” they are told. “He probably just needs antibiotics.”

 

[Rybaer]

I love this idea for a Cthuluian setting. Essentially playing yourselves in a world gone twisted. And a college campus should offer lots of good material - both settings and people.

 

[Rune]

I love this idea for a Cthuluian setting.
Essentially playing yourselves in a world gone twisted. And a college campus should offer lots of good material - both settings and people.

Thanks. It was particularly fun, because I discovered that I'm really a pretty masochistic guy. The "Rune" in the story is me, if you're wondering! I think that it got the players a little bit frightened just because they saw that I was willing to inflict horrible types of torture on my own persona. That definately helped the mood!

Anyway, I hope you've enjoyed yourself. I hope there aren't too many inside jokes.

 

[Horacio]

A Cthulhuid story by Rune!
Cool

 

[Rune]

A Cthulhuid story by Rune!
Cool

Thanks for reading! This one was fun. I'd been planning it for a loooooong time!

 

[Henry@home]

I see "Rune" is well on the way to becoming the game in-joke. He has had ongans removed, skin flayed off hands, lost teeth, and had his arm shot off.

Cheers!

So far, so creepy! Keep going!

 

[Angelsboi]

Printed it out. Now to read!