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--- game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:diary [2023/11/26 12:47] – [I am the Man You are Looking for] Bryan Stephens
+++ game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:diary [2024/04/02 11:58] (current) – [Epilogue] Bryan Stephens
@@ Line 935: / Line 935: @@
 |**Game Date**|**11/19/22**|
-{{ :game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:mrshin.jpg?400|}}
+{{ :game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:mrshin.jpg?250|}}
 After their report, John Silver says they cannot stay in the hotel. He orders everyone to take the things they cannot replace and prepare to leave. The group packs up and discussed where to go. They contemplate the warehouse Lee set up, heading into the wood to try to find Jack Brady. They even considered sneaking into the Tiger bar, but decided against it. The went to Mr. Lung, assuming as a wizard, he would be the most safe. Lee sneaks out and finds a pathway from the hotel. They assume they are not followed. Widing through the city on foot at night, it is not until 5am they arrive.
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 Iris remembers that Choi Mae Ling was kidnapped and asks Brady about her. He pales as he did not know she was taken. Brady immediately wants to charge off to get her, but Silver slows him. He knows they have to have Brady to stop the cultists on the island, or more specifically his forces. He offers their help. According to Brady’s information, the Compound only has 4-9 servants and a security patrol. Silver and Lee formulate a plan to sneak in, driving a truck to the wall and using blankets on the wire and glass. He sends Lee and Jack to get a truck. Jack is startled when Lee demands to drive. He is even more amazed as Lee’s driving skills. Once they return, the stage is set for a dangerous rescue. Is it already too late?
+=== We Have Become What We Fight ===
+|**Game Date**|**12/10/23**|
+In preparation for the rescue, Gloria offers to cast //Flesh Warp// to make one person more resilient. Everyone agrees it should be John Silver. Silver reluctantly agrees, but is unhappy with the feeling. He turns to Jack and asks for one of his men to drive the truck, so it does not sit by the wall. Iris is pouring over the crude map. She notes the location that Jack knows for the barracks and assumes Choi Mae Ling must be in the back corner. Going of this information they decide on their point of infiltration.
+Gloria wonders about summoning a Sand Bat. Lee notes that could easily get out of hand and that maybe it would be best on the way out of the compound. The group mostly ignores the conversation as they are getting ready for the drive.
+In the dark alley behind the compound, Lee scrambles up the wall and attaches a rope going down both sides. He is followed by his boss, also used to this sort of thing. Silver stands coving both sides of the wall. Gloria needs no help getting up and over. Jack almost falls and gets help from the strong arms of the Professor. Iris too, needs his help. The Professor pulls himself up and over and the whole team is on the other side of the wall.
+They are in a back courtyard, with a nice koi pond in the middle. However, looking at the pond, it is not with koi, but blue-ringed octopuses and surrounded by poison plants, like nightshade. The side where Iris has suggested is a pavilion with a Buddha statue. Lee makes sure it is secure and guides the party into it, out of line of sight of the courtyard. The Professor notices a seem in the statue and it leads to a secret door. There is an unlighted passage. Silver turns on the lights and Lee creeps in. He finds what appears to be a botany lab to experimenting with poisons and small armory. At the end is an iron grate that Iris is able to pick the lock on and open.
+{{:game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:deadly-female-ninja-assassins_0.jpg?400 |}}
+The next room is what they really expect from a cult. There is a statue of the horrid Bloated Woman aspect of Nyarlathotep at the far side of the room. Before them is a glass coffin holding Mae Ling, with rats suspended before her eyes. Jack goes to charge in and is tackled by Iris. Lee hears the sound of scraping on the ceiling.
+//”We’ve triggered something, I can hear the ceiling move! John, cover our backs!”//
+He dives for the coffin, calmly and quickly looking for a trap. Finding none, he begins to open the coffin to retrieve the frightened girl.
+Silve moves back to the entrance while Glora and the Professor look up. Panels are sliding to the side to reveal iridescent Chinese wrings of the Bloated Woman. It has a magic effect which entrances the Professor, but the strong willed Gloria averts her gaze. The Professor is drawn to keep staring as Lee gets the coffin open. Mae Ling goes to scream, but Lee covers her mouth and gets her into the arms of the now standing Jack Brady.
+At the entrance, Silver says he sees a walking guard. Iris quickly kills the lights and Silver sneaks up on the guard. The man has noticed the rope hanging down and just as he speaks, Silver pistol whips him from behind. The man is surprised and drops his cult weapon. Silver then knocks him out into the pond, where he is immediately attacked by the lethal creatures therein.
+The rush to the wall and Lee starts his climb after telling Gloria
+{{ :game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:a7a80af734c3a87951b245bbe8434a91.jpg?400|}}
+//”Now would be a good time!”// She smiles manically and prepares to cast. Iris secure the bottom of the rope under her arms so she can be hauled up when needed as Lee and Silver climb the wall. Lee drops to the other side to make sure the ally is secure as Silver, a gun in each hand, acts as high cover. The Professor takes a couple of tries to get up the wall, but then is able to haul up Mae Lin. Jack follows suit and they pull Iris up.
+In the alley, Lee has seen he is not alone. A woman in all black, with only green eyes exposed pulls a sword and charges the young man. Lee grins grimly and pulls out his night sticks. This woman is the first person in a long time to match Lee in skill. She is as fast as him, and the sword moves as a blur. Lee fights defensively, wanting to buy time. His own nightsticks twirl and spin and he blocks and ripostes. While the sword skids upon his leather coat, Lee is bruised. However, his two handed attacks get the better of her, and the mystery woman goes down.
+Lee kicks away her sword and bends to search her. Her eyes fly open and she headbutts Lee, knocking him back. The mystery woman with green eyes flees into the night, leaving the young man rubbing his jaw. By the time he returns to the rope, Iris is over and taking Jack and Mae Lin to find their truck, parked by Jack’s man a couple streets over and to bring it back. It is about this time, lights come on in the compound.
+The Professor and Silver are still on the wall. They are harder to see than the white woman chanting strange words in the middle of the compound. The air is drying around them as heat starts to pound down. Sand is starting to blow into the area and a dark cloud is forming above them. The summoning is working and despite not liking this use of magic, Silver knows it would be devastating to interrupt it. From a bedroom, and old man pokes his head out. Silver aims and fires a perfect (01) shot, exploding the head of Ho Fang. Seeing a curtain pulled back, Silver sends a rain of fire into that window, and whomever it was there, falls back. Alarms start ringing and Silver shoots the closest one but more go off.
+In her head, Gloria sense the request for orders, and she simply says “Destruction”. Done casting, the Professor hauls her up and lowers her down. Silver and the Professor both stumble as they climb down and land badly. The application of Flesh Warp stops Silver from being hurt, but the Professor limps away. It is at this time the truck shows up and Lee shoves the driver out of the way as they pile in. Chaos is behind them. Gloria looks at the column of black smoke and dust and the creature within and utters a whispered,
+//“You’re beautiful”//
+Lee floors it away as screams fill their ears. It is destruction behind them, not just of the compound, but damage around the block. Silver looks back and is appalled at not just the destruction but the unnatural horror of it. He tells Gloria to //”Turn it off”//, but she says, with a far away look //“Soon”// even as the malevolent storm starts to dissipate. As they drive off, Jack is comforting his lover, relieved she is safe. Gloria has a look of contentment on her face that worries the Professor considering what just happened. Jack’s man was afraid to even ask what was going on, and he sits mutely between Lee and Iris in the cab of the truck. Lee is totally focused on driving, while Iris contemplates this is much like the rough parts of the world she has seen.
+John Silver, Editor, Dilettante, inheritor of the role of “Hero” sits silently in the back of the escaping truck contemplating where he is and how he arrived here. Like in the Great War, to win, sometimes people have to do horrible things. He knows, like men he knew from the trenches, that he will forever have memories of horrible things he has done.
+=== The Eve of Assault ===
+|**Game Date**|**12/10/23**|
+The Truck roars away, the night lighted up behind them. In the back, Gloria hears the click of a pistol cocking and turns to see Jack Brady pointing it at her head.
+//”I already got away from these sorts of people once, and now you do this!”//
+The man is clearly shaken. Gloria, Silver and the Professor talk him down. Up front, Jack’s man, even more shaken, rather mutely leads Lee to a warehouse. Iris pulls a flask and offers it to the man who takes a long draught. At the warehouse, they are met by two men who guide the truck inside. It is a large place, set up with both dorms and training areas, including a dojo. When asked, Jack informs his crew that //”Ho Fang is not an issue anymore”//.
+A large Chinese man, Chu Min, is the head of this group of 50 or so men, part of the “New China” movement, calling themselves **Firm Action**. Most of the men are the typical young men drawn to revolution, and even Lee seems old to them. It has been a long night. The five members take cots in the warehouse and go to sleep.
+{{:game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:nodens.jpg?400 |}}
+Sleep is fitful, and each has some version of a dream. They are alone, yet aware of others standing by them. They scene is a longhouse, both familiar and someplace they have never been. They see an old man, his face covered by a beard, sitting with a dog with too many sharp angles, and a roaring fire. He speaks to them:
+//"This is your truth." //
+//"All things must prove their right to exist, the rest will die in terror. There is neither escape nor exemption." //
+//"You tested yourself against horrors. You have emerged changed, through this you became stronger, you became free." //
+//Take this power not out of desperation but desire. For your foes you wield their killers as a knife. They will know this truth over any logic- You are here and they are not." //
+Awaking in the morning, they are all disturbed, but the Professor is shaken. He chooses not tea for breakfast, but hard liquor. The //Dark Mistress// has gone to the island. It is clear, with the destruction of last night, the time table of the enemy has moved up. Silver talks with Jack about assaulting the island, something they both know will get many of these men killed. The tired (former?) newspaper editor says he will obtain transport. Gloria offers to stay with the Professor and get him to sleep this day while the other three head out to start lining up forces.
+Moving around the city is much harder, as a whole city block has gone up in flame and sand. Fortunately for our heroes, Captain Taro has the warehouse under surveillance, and thus they immediately run into the man they are seeking. They arrange for him to leave word with the old Wizard and he sees what he can do.
+At the naval base, they check on the plane and pilot. Things are ready to go, but spare parts will be hard to come by. Silver tries to get in to see the local American leaders, but they are not free due to their coordinating on the fire recovery. The group turns to the warehouse Lee set up to retrieve their equipment. Lee is disturbed to see the cult symbols he left on the boxes seems to now by wet and smells like blood. They leave the crates and load up their truck. Everything is still there. Clearly, the magical forces are gathering. Iris suggests killing anyone in the warehouse, and Silver is quick to note there is no one, but is nonetheless disturbed by Iris having such a fast move to murder.
+The group stops to debrief Gloria and the much more rested professor. The next day, the five head to meet with the wizard, Mr. Leung. They explain their plan and he offers them a blessing. They receive a message from Captain Taro on a time to meat in two days at the docks. The clock is running.
+Back at the warehouse, the group prepares. Lee and Iris spend time practicing brawling with the group. They hold Lee in a magical awe, and jump at the chance for physical contact with Iris. Gloria and the Professor teach each other spells, and they create several more bullets with Elder Signs upon them. Lee has each one put a sign on each nightstick. Silver prepares his boat piloting. Iris practices on the range. Lee has a strange dream the night before they leave. He is back on purple sands, and awakens with more knowledge about engineering. Today is the day!
+=== End Game ===
+|**Game Date**|**03/24/24**|
+The ship to take them is the //Okinoshian// an old Russian ship captured by the Japanese. The crew is unhappy about transporting any Chinese, so it takes all the charm and persuasion that Silver and Iris can muster. Gloria is coaxed and tended too by the Professor, as, yet again, she is on a ship, but at least it is easy to be deep inside. Silver has Willowby bring the plane along, landing to refuel from the ship and act as a scout. The whole trip takes three days.
+Their scout reports a storm over the island. It is most unusual, centered on the peak of the volcano. //Okinoshian// can get near the outside of the lagoon and put ships ashore near the small village. The group elects to do this, and Jack Brady leads his 50 men, following our heroes. Gloria is even less happy to discover she has to be in a rowboat, and the Professor keeps her calm. Once ashore, it is clear the village has a watchtower with a mostly asleep guard, and a bell to be rung at the center. They decide on stealth, and Silver takes a stance at the upper path, between the village and the climb up the mountain. Lee heads to the bell to block anyone aroused from ringing it. Both men as very stealthy //(06 and 07 rolls)// as are Brady’s forces //(08)//. Lee secures the bell as silent murder begins in the village. The Professor spies a clear “fishman”, a human on the way to transforming into a deep one. He sneaks up behind him with his sword, but fumbles his attack even though he was lucky enough to sneak up on him. The startled fishman in turn fumbles his perception roll. This allows Lee, who has seen the whole thing, to charge into the fishman and land a solid blow, knocking him back on top of the Professor. The Professor then uses his strength to roll over his foe and force the fishman’s face into the mud, killing him. Within seven minutes, the village is secured. The group secures robes that are no longer needed by the villagers and they file up the twisting path.
+At intervals there are dark statues with torches in sconces, spitting light in the rain. Each statue seems more horrible than the last. At the top, there is a cave entrance into the volcano. Great idols of foul beasts apt to warm the hearts of any insane cultists frame the entrance. Gloria notes she sort of likes them. From the entrance, stairs lead down into the cone. Lee leads the way, with the others behind, with Jack brining up the rear behind his people. What they see is a sight out of one of the penny pulps.
+{{:game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:24416655005_873bcd39f2_z.jpg?200 |}}
+There stands a tall gantry, suspended over a lava pit at the heart of the mountain. Four strong supports hold it over this molten furnace, with four white hot rods penetrating into the lava. The gantry itself has a silver shaped bullet, pointed skyward. Lee recognizes this as the rocket from the blueprints he found back in England. There are various openings and workers moving about. The metal is unknown to them, looking like silver but covered in slimy oil, like tainted water. Speaking of oil, on one side of the rocket is a clear pool, most likely to the outside, while on the other is a pool of a black substance. Workers are scooping it and dumping it into the magma chamber, increasing its intensity.
+Of the workers, some wear odd helmets. Gloria notes these look alive and seem to be directing the workers as puppets. There is a clear deep one foreman, with what appear to be mutated hands with no fingers. There are also other robed worshippers, moving around what is clearly an idol to the Bloated Woman. The group keeps cover and heads down, choosing to go by the pool of water. Sensing it is a deep one pool, Gloria dumps her nightshade into it as the pass. The Professor binds sticks of dynamite together, thinking to blow out the gantry supports.
+As the group passes a room, the foreman is talking to someone. They here the voice of Penhew! He is admonishing the foreman,
+//”We have to be ready! Thanks to Ho’s incompetence, we can expect an attack at any minute!”//
+Lee takes this opportunity to throw off his robe and says,
+//”You are right, Penhew! It is right this minute!”// and he shoots the deep one foreman with two shots, dropping the foul beast. Not to be out done by his friend and driver, Silver pulls out his guns and says coldly,
+//”Lady Carlyle sends her regards!”// and removes the top of Penhew’s skull. This is when all hell breaks loose.
+The strange growths on the foreman’s hands stir and eyes open up. They clench in anger. Cries go up around the caldera the puppet worker’s heads are crushed by the creatures upon them. The black pool stirs and rises up, eyes opening along its body, black whip like tentacles emerging. It immediately absorbs all the people around it. Yet another monster to face. Jack’s men start firing upon it, showing remarkable poise in the face of this thing, or maybe just insane fear. Lee, however, hears his friend laughing and celebrating.
+//”We’ve won, Lee. It’s over! We can go home!”// Silver says, a wild look in his eyes. Apparently, the horror of so many innocent men dying at once, and knowing they caused it, was too much at the end for Silver. Lee knows the signs. He tackles his friend into the room where Penhew’s body now lays and yells into his face that it is not yet over. He must get Silver back into the fight. This means he is not present of aware of what is about to happen in the room with the mostly fueled missile.
+{{ :game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:shoggothhelperspot.jpg?200|}}
+Seeing a monster, Iris, Gloria and the Professor pull out their lightening guns. Iris unleashed a blast into the center mass of the amorphous thing, causing what is clearly major damage. Now she has its attention. Gloria fired, but hits the gantry, causing it to lean over. The Professor changes his aim to drop the gantry and the fueled missile upon the creature. The Professor, like anyone in then 20’s has no modern idea of how much power is contained in a rocket. However, what amounts to a bomb is now on top of the monster. The Shogoth starts to tear the missile apart. Iris and Gloria have better shots now, and takes aim. Gloria hits this time, and wounds the creature. As luck would have it, Iris’s shot strikes perfectly into the rocket itself, starting an internal fire. The Professor might not know about rockets, but he is an expert on explosives. Seeing what is about to happen he yells for everyone to get out as each strong hand grabs one of the women. As the fire ruptures the rocket, Professor Hunter Jackson Oswald //(pushing a failed brawl roll into a hard success) //tosses them into the room on top of John and Silver and leaps in after them.
+The explosion sends shrapnel and heat into their room. Everyone is temporally deafened. When they stand, Silver is back to normal (mostly) and asks what happened. They look at the caldera and there is no more monster, rocket, or much of anything. Jack is leading his mean up the stairs out of the volcano. Looking into Penhew’s room, there are dozens of artifacts and items the Professor is willing to wage are worth over $1,000,000. Gloria takes several pictures as they collect them quickly, but the Professor was worried about his look into the volcano. Poking his head back out, his sharp mind and knowledge of geology tells him they need to leave. There is a control mechanism for the rocket that Lee grabs for future study. They leave the obvious warheads. The group exits the caves in time for the first explosion of lava to erupt behind them, sealing the entrance.
+The storm is breaking up overhead. The 22 survivors of Jack’s group follow Silver to the docks, where they seize a ship that Silver gets into operation. The storm is starting to break up over them as they motor out of the harbor. The volcano erupts further, sending clouds of smoke and ash into the sky while lava pours from its mouth. Silver radios for Willowby to pick then up. Lee tells Jack to get back to the //Okinoshian//. He gives Jack the gold sovereigns he carries and advises Jack to take his woman and get out China. Lee says it is saftest for Jack and company to be away from him and his friends.
+The flight back to Shanghai is easy, and to the surprise of the group, nothing else happens. A week later, they arrive in San Francisco. They are met by and agent of Naval Intelligence and an agent the Department of Treasury about Insmouth. Silver tells them to get an appointment as they are going to a hotel to rest after a long trip. It is a cold November day, and they are all tired. Finally, after a train ride, the group arrive in their respective homes in December 1925. The eclipse is next month.
+=== Epilogue ===
+January 14th, 1926 arrives to find our heroes at the hose of John Silver, Thrillseker, and Editor and Owner of a major metropolitan newspaper. The Scholar, Professor Oswald has spent much of the last month making deals for the artifacts recovered to be purchased by Miskatonic and other American universities. There is a tidy sum to repair the globe trotting Silver’s credit rating, and permanently boost the fortunes of the others. At John’s insistence, his old friend and employee, Lee Chan, might be the richest chauffeur in America. Iris McKlintock, widow, bartender, and Adventurer, has been knocking around her old haunts, with several men please to see her again, but disappointed in her lack of interest in any of them. Gloria O’Kasick has been writing, as it is what she does. A Seeker, she has found more truth that she every expected, even at the cost of understanding of reality.
+Over a nice meal and drinks, the group awaits with baited breath the hour of the eclipse. It comes and goes and
+Nothing happens. The world spins on. This time, the attempt of the forces of darkness failed. There will always be a next time. The group feels little more than some modest relief at this. They all have felt something missing in their lives since their return. Artifacts no long hold a meaning to the Professor. Silver and Lee, while even more formidable at crime fighting, find that thugs and organized crime don’t have the appeal they once did. Gloria feels the draw to seek out even more secrets, and to put an end to even more things. Iris notices this the least. She has always been restless and always wanted to see new horizons. Now she finds she is more interested in the hunt than just seeing new places. As the group discussed these feelings, Gloria suggests this might be their contact with the entity who helped them. She thinks it is Nodens, a god of hunting. It is possible that it now drives them, maybe even as a way to feed. This sobers the group, and yet, they still feel the tug of the need to hunt, especially as the lich Al-Shakti is still out there.
+The Professor breaks this mood by getting down on a knee and offering a very nice ring to Gloria asking her for her hand in marriage. She accepts and they embrace. Iris leans over to Lee. For once, she is giving into the drinks and nudges her friend.
+//”You and I need to do that.”//
+Lee is startled by that statement, but does think he cannot imagine being married to someone who does not at least know how to fight. He smiles and nods.
+The party breaks up and as Gloria, Iris and the Professor head out, a telegram arrives, addressed to all of them:
+{{ :game_systems:game_systems:call_of_cthulhu:masks_of_nyarlathotep:surprise_telegram.jpg?400 |}}
+The End?

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