WELL.
In my absence 2 weeks ago, the crew went out to the Evil Overlord’s plantation, where things were going well until they very suddenly weren’t (apparently there was a massive Disguise failure, among other things), and they ended the session with the Evil Overlord ritually killing himself so he could rise again at a time of his own convienence, while also cursing Caliope (whose name, it turns out, is spelled that way, and not how I’ve been spelling it all along) to die within a month if we leave Egypt/don’t kill him permanently dead in that time.
Upon returning to Cairo, our Faithful Assistant, Saleem, whose wife had been asked to see if there was any streetside gossip about the Brotherhood of the Black Pharoah…goes home to find that said wife had been horribly, graphically, awfully murdered, along with his father and brother-in-law. He came to us shaking and sobbing, covered in their blood, and we decided it was time to Get The Fuck Out of Cairo for a while.
So naturally we stole a plane, and flew out to Dahshur. After a while, my husband looked it up to see From Whomst, in Egypt 1925, we might have stolen a plane big enough to carry all of us and our gear, and it turned out the answer was “the British Royal Airforce,” so that’s going to be an exciting thing to deal with later, but frankly, I’ve already skipped too much and must go back to the beginning.
We really began with Saleem‘s arrival. He went to Evelyn, who has spent several points of Reassurance on him and apparently make him feel like she’s the nicest of us all, and she, in turn, went to Somerset (whose name, it turns out, is spelled that way, and not how I’ve been spelling it all along). Somerset, have I mentioned, had to Make A Bad Choice at the end of the last session and his Bad Choice was to…PUT ON THE EVIL GODDESSQUEEN NYCROTIS’S GIRDLE. WHICH HE NOW CANNOT TAKE OFF.
Alice is very upset about this. That is HER girdle. And HER queen.
Gradually everyone was awakened, except Caliope who had stayed up all night trying to find a way to break the curse and discovering all kinds of alarming artifacts we’ve collected and thus didn’t need to be awakened.
Caliope: what’s this mask?
Alice: Is it my mask? No, my mask is beneath my skin.
Somerset: w h a t
Alice, earnestly: It sank into my skin and is part of my bones now. Do you want to see? -begins to claw at face-
Somerset: NO I DO NOT WANT TO SEE jesus where’s Teddy get Teddy to keep an eye on her
DM: You check Teddy’s room, but Teddy…is not there. If you check Dr Willie Preston’s room, you will find that he’s also gone. They’ve gone on an…excellent adventure.
Me: -shrieks gleefully-
Somerset, suspiciously: …I’d better check Freddy’s room. (Freddy, for those of us who aren’t keeping up on the various character names, is Evelyn’s gay fiance.)
Somerset opens the door to Freddy’s room to discover Freddy and two other people, neither of whom are Teddy or Willie, in bed.
Freddy: Do join us, darling!
Somerset: …perhaps later, Freddy, thank you…
Alice: -stares covetously at Somerset’s body until he covers the girdle with his dressing gown-
As it turns out, Evelyn’s father, now in possession, indeed, now in production, of the Alarmingly Advanced Mechanical Blueprints we found back in England, has also come to Egypt to talk to Evelyn about where she found those MARVELOUS toys. Afraid he, too, is going to get horribly murdered, Evelyn manages to get him packed off to England again, where he’s going to be a problem later, probably, but that’s Future Us’s problem, and at least now he’s not dead.
THEN we stole a plane from the RAF and flew toward Dahshur, EXCEPT
ON THE WAY
WE WERE ATTACKED
BY A GIANT SANDSTORM MAN who was apparently like the still-living soul of a dead sorcerer trying to recombobulate himself, there were very large sandy hands and a screaming face involved.
Somerset did some Damn Fancy Flying and kept us from being knocked out of the sky immediately. Alice, suspecting it wouldn’t help at all, shot at it. It did not help at all. Ared (whose name, it turns out, is spelled that way, and not how I’ve been spelling it all along) digs through the back of the plane in search of something that might actually be useful to fight a giant sand monster. He finds chickens.
Evelyn spends like SEVEN POINTS of preparedness, the most anybody has spent at once in this ENTIRE campaign, and has a couple of molotov cocktails that she lifted out of Dillon’s stuff before they shipped it all back to wherever it was he was gonna be buried. Okay, that’s hopeful. Caliope scrambles for the Staves Of Power she picked up somewhere along the way (I think I missed that bit) and attempts to cast a shriveling spell on the sand man, but rolls badly and doesn’t cause any meaningful damage.
The sand monster swings violently at us again, but Somerset‘s fancy flying once more saves the day! Me, now reminded that Alice also has magical ability, asks the DM if there are any other spells they might use besides ‘shrivel.’
DM: Nope, not unless you’ve prepared something
Me: Can I spend preparedness to HAVE prepared something?
DM: …you’re going to have to roll a 6 for that.
Me: yeah that’s fair. ok, I’m spending both my points of preparedness on this, so that’s 3 dice
lads
lads
i rolled
i rolled not one
not two
but THREE sixes!
DM: …OK, let me look, you get to have prepared something pretty cool, for that
DM: ok you’ve prepared DISSOLVE, what are you gonna roll?
Me: I’m going to roll all my magical ability and 2 of the staves’ (they’ve got 12 points each, or possibly per pair), so I’m rolling 7 dice on this
DM: damn you guys are really going for the money this session!
lads
lads
i rolled
i rolled not one
not two
not three
but FOUR…
ONES
and also, thank god, two sixes, so that was a critical success despite all those ones
DM, impressed: Okay, walk us through this
Alice leaps to her feet, surging to the bag of staves and seizes the final two! She slams them together in a X, activating their power, shouts the words of the spell…and the sand monster simply dissolves into gusts on the wind beneath us, allowing us to fly safely on to Darshur!
We arrive in the heat of the day, get poor Saleem cleaned up, and otherwise just collapse for the rest of the night. The next morning, we watch soldiers surround the northern entrance of the nearby Bent Pyramid, and ourselves slip around to the western entrance, which we may slightly break into because I mean who’s carrying around keys to ancient pyramids anyway.
Within the pyramid are two huge alabastar pillars, which Alice is immediately drawn to. Everybody’s poking around in general.
DM: now, who was it who spoke to Agatha Broadmoore (the vision-haver). Didn’t someone speak to Agatha Broadmoore? Who was it who sp–
Alice: Me, I spoke to Agatha OH ARE YOU TELLING ME TO LOOK AT MY NOTES?
DM: maybe
Alice suddenly recalls that Agatha’s vision told her something about the white way will lead to temptation, something something something, anyway clearly this is the white way and Alice recruits the others to help her open it. They then walk a very, very, very long way into the pyramid (with Evelyn deciding to stay well behind, in case of needing to run), and in the depths of the pyramid they find:
- a truly spectacularly huge throne
- a map embedded with rubies showing the path of an eclipse and three destinations they recognize from their plans/visions: Kenya, Shanghai, and somewhere in Australia
- a series of ancient carvings of various texts which inform us that a child will be born in November, in Kenya, who will herald/become the embodiement of the Dark Lord, and that there will be a total eclipse of the sun in January 1926 (it’s currently April 1925 in-game),
SO NOW WE HAVE A TIMELINE
and then…
…then Nyarlathotep himself appears on the throne, and beckons Evelyn to him.
Nyarlathotep, in a spooky dead voice-altered magic tone: Evelyn. I have waited so long to see you again (bc he saw her when she and Dillon were thrown back into the time before time with the snake people through the magically cursed painitng, which may have been before I really started doing writeups).
Evelyn: well, yes, of course, I’m your favorite
Nyarlathotep: no. but you amuse me.
Nyarlathotep: you all amuse me. so much more entertaining than the other ones.
Somerset, losing his damn mind: -gets cheeky at the eldritch god-
Nyarlathotep: you are less amusing now, James
Somerset: exCUSE me, it’s VICOUNT TO YOU
Even Alice is like “dude, wtf are you doing”
Nyarlathotep: little amusing ones, I now give you a choice. You may continue with your foolish adventures, or accept your heart’s desire from me
Everybody: NOPE, WE’RE OUT
Alice: wait let’s hear him out
Everybody: ALICE NO
Alice: ALICE YES
Evelyn, voice rising in panic: ALICE DO YOU REMEMBER THE VISION AND THE CRYPTIC PHRASE
Alice: what? OOOOH. You mean this is the TEMPTATION part? Right then I guess we should say no
Everybody: WHEW
Nyarlathotep: this will end badly for you, unamusing motes
Evelyn: OH YEAH WELL EAT THIS, ELDER GOD
Evelyn throws both the moltov cocktails on Nyarlathotep, who disappears – along with the doors.
So now we have a whole different problem…
