If you will recall, we left off stuck in a terrible temple of Nyaralthotep, having chased the god himself off with a molotov cocktail. After some exploration in the largely dark area, Caliope decides to try make nitroglycerin out of the dynamite Ared found in the back of the plane we stole (along with the chickens, but it was funnier to just mention the chickens previously). (Our backup plan is to try some occult stuff, but that’ll take longer so we figure we’ll try explosions first and magic second.)
In the meantime, Ared decides to try to lasso some of the floating rocks in the temple while Alice sits with poor devastated Saleem, who didn’t deserve any of this, and is dejected with him. She can’t feel her queen anymore, and Somerset has her girdle. It’s all so unfair.
After much debate, we all back way up from the nitro-ridden door and Somerset takes a shot at it.
Alice: Don’t worry, Somerset, I’ll take the girdle if you’re killed.
…it does not go well, but it’s not Somerset who’s killed. Our poor beloved Saleem is caught in the blast radius, and although Ared first-aids him into not being all the way dead.
Saleem: …at least it got us out of here…
Caliope: Tragically there is a large hole in the wall, revealing more stone. It did not get us out.
TWO DAYS LATER:
We’re all frazzled and exhausted. We’re trying to occult our way out at this point.
GM: You’re almost out of water and are all looking at a slow horrible death.
Somerset: Nonsense. I have a pistol and enough bullets for all of us. There will be no slow horrible deaths here!
Everyone: well THAT’S reassuring
Somerset: I find it VERY reassuring!
We’ve noticed that it feels as if we’ve gone to sleep and woken up immediately, so we’re horribly tired and grumpy and starting to hallucinate – we see Edward Gavigan and Dillon’s exploded corpse, Somerset sees poor dead Sam, Ared sees his dead iman – but we manage to not lose stability, which is wildly unlikely (“It’s all old hat at this point,” says Somerset).
My internet cut out completely at this point and I apparently missed some blood sacrifice which is how Caliope opens the portal out of this hellscape. I got back to Somerset having a smoke, drinking the whiskey he found at the bottom of his backpack, and being lightly flensed. Or not so lightly.
Eventually the portal opens into a textured black horror, which we all manage to survive the horror of opening – and Alice says, “Do you want to go touch the throne?” to Evelyn before we leave.
Evelyn: oh no no no YES
Alice and Evelyn make a mad dash to the throne, stop for a shot of some terrible alcohol Evelyn has, grab each other’s hands, and totally Thelma and Louise it
a n d t i m e s l o w s d o w n and we…feel…as if everything…is not…going…to be… all…right…
as horrible visions of darkness SLAM INTO OUR MINDS and
and oh, god, Alice critically fails her stability roll and
A BLACK FIRE emits out of Alice’s eyes as they are BURNED OUT and she COLLAPSES, a living but hollow husk
as Evelyn makes her save and drags Alice back to the portal
—and the surviving party members exit from the portal into what seems to be the early days of trench warfare in France, in No Man’s Land, where there is a hideous PRESENCE in the sky/on the horizon that they can’t look at, and on the ground, a priest of some kind leading a familiar yet oddly wrong funereal procession – there are people on fire, and the priest’s eyes bulge horribly—
Ared approaches him, gets a good look, and decides the correct thing to do is punch this dude.
The priest goes down, the horizon approaches, and the party (dragging Alice) runs for a church—and Evelyn rolls a critical fail, RUNS THE WRONG DIRECTION, WITH ALICE, until Ared rolls a critical success and hauls them in the right direction, but as they run the ground falls away beneath them and there’s a hideous vision of their bodies melting
which actually happens, oh god. We (well, THEY) disassemble into…parts. Ego. Physical parts. Just. Parts. There’s a check for stability. Evelyn and Ared do not fare well, and their realities collapse. Somerset and Caliope are okay, and their realities do not melt.
Me: I assume Alice doesn’t have to spend.
DM: No, that’s the advantage to what you are.
All of us: WHAT she is??? oh NO
They find themselves on a wall of red rock, climbing up toward the light, with the menacing horizon still following them. IT’S FINE. Ared has Alice over his shoulder like a sack. It’s FIIIIIINE.
…and we climb out into the red sacrifice room beneath the fucking sphinx, where Omar al Shakti, the guy upon whose death depends Caliope’s life, is chanting to a sacrificial altar, upon which poor Agatha Broadmoor and the mummified body of MY QUEEN are tied.
Ared makes a MAGNIFICENT LEAP to the altar and slashes at Omar, hitting and—a frickin’ cultist leaps in front of him to take the blow, dammit. Evelyn tries to make a molotov cocktail out of her space mead, which at least causes the bad guys to grab their heads. There are no flames, so we have no idea what’s actually going on. Somerset starts shooting with a Tommy gun, kills eight or nine cultists and wounds another – “You want to describe this to us?” the DM asks:
Somerset strolls forward, slams in a drum-fed magazine and just goes to town, firing and screaming “YOU WILL DIE TODAY!” at Omar, who is protected by another frickin’ cultist! As his round ends, the gun jams and he throws the gun down and draws his scimitar, raging at the dying of the light!
There’s magic swirling around Omar at this point. Caliope seizes the staves of power from Alice’s miserable husk and casts SHRIVELING toward Omar, hitting him and draining power which also BOOSTS her health!
Omar finally acts, causing everyone (including his own people) to take a stability check. Alice, oddly, is feeling slightly better? Because of all the energy flowing around? That cannot be good. A couple of Omar’s followers go mad. Somerset fails his roll, BUT IT’S FINE, IT’LL BE FINE
The cultists begin to close around Omar and attack Ared, who avoids injury. The higher-level cultists go after Somerset, grazing him and leaving him down several hit points. Another attacks Ared, but gets a crit failure, but Ared fails his attack of opportunity. More cultists go after Caliope, but one—just like earlier—has a crit fail, falls, and breaks his own neck.
Ared slashes with his scimitar, using his bonus, and lops off the head of a hippo-headed monster and nearly kills a second cultist! Evelyn shoots at the cultist attacking Caliope and nearly kills it! Below her in the pit of doom where, if you will recall from previous sessions, we got the sense of “the biggest thing we could possibly imagine,” which now you will begin to realized with dismay is the monster from the horizon of the terrible world we just traveled through, is now moving and feeling as if it’s drawing closer yet…
Somerset rolls a crit success and OBLITERATES the cultist he’s fighting, and moves through to finish killing the one Evelyn just shot!
Alice continues to lie like a gleaming golden husk of horror.
Caliope continues to shrivel Omar al Shakti and moves away from the horrid pit thing, eyeing the floating mystical magic in the air – “Can I pull that somewhere?”
Me: You could pull it into Alice!
Me, whispering: (that’s a terrible idea)
Everybody giggles agreeably: that’s a terrible idea.
Caliope: Should I put it into the body?
DM: into to the mummy?
Everybody: NO!
Ared’s player: put it into Omar. Two souls can’t exist in the same body!
Caliope: OOOH. :does that:
As Caliope draws power out of Omar, MORE power pours INTO him – he vomits, black red and PURPLE, and a crack appears upon his forehead as his face bulges horribly!
DM: Hm. Ok, I’m going to roll a d6 and if I roll high that’s it for him, if I roll low he has a chance to figure this out
DM: rolls a 2
all of us: AWWW
Omar tries to start the ritual to try to kill himself but it doesn’t work, so he leaps at Ared while slobbering bile and screaming, “You! You have done this, you fool!” as he attempts to channel a curse into Ared – who fortunately avoids it. Less fortunately, Omar hangs on to Ared and vomits purple and red disgustingness.
(DM: I know we’re running a little late, but I can assure you it’ll be worth it at the end.
Somerset: I doubt that.
DM: Okay, I can assure you it’ll be worth it FOR ME at the end!
Everybody laughs: oh well in THAT case)
The cultists have noticed the thing in the deep and RUN AWAY. Evelyn gets a glimpse of the head of this thing, which is maybe 50, 60 feet across…and which she slowly realizes is just a PAW of the whole creature. The monster-cultists also start to run, which is the first time we’ve ever seen them show any emotion at all.
AND THEN WILLIE S. PRESTON, ESQUIRE, AND TEDDY “THEODORE” LOGAN SHOW UP
All of us: oh no you beautiful idiots
Willie & Teddy have SHOTGUNS
All of us: oh we love you beautiful idiots
Alice is crawling along the ground!!
Ared’s player: she’s crawling away from the nasty coming out of the ground, she’s not THAT dead!
All of us: -howl laughing-
Ared attacks Omar as Agatha Broadmoor struggles! Omar EXPLODES in a HORRIBLE GOUT of BLOOD AND VISCERA!
Ared: …ew…
A beautiful, blood-soaked, naked woman appears and speaks in ancient Egyptian to Ared: MY DELIVERER
Evelyn runs for the door, which we at least know where it is and how to open it. Somerset grabs Alice, not knowing that she’s ALREADY DEAD, the last of the mystical energy sustaining her body being the connection with Netocris, whose manifestation has drained those last dregs, making her a final part of the sacrifice to raise her queen. Caliope, THROBBING with magical energy, also runs for the door.
Everything begins to move in slow motion – the mummy of Netocris dissolves, Ared saves Agatha and runs, HATING that he’s leaving Actual Netocris alive, while the cultists are mowed down by Teddy and Willie as they retreat while the Black Sphinx crawls into the room! The remaining cultists are crushed to death with each forward step the sphinx takes! The woman is surrounded by writhing smoke and DOOM –
- and we ESCAPE, and
-
Somerset awakens from a dream and finds Alice’s gold mask sitting on his nightside table and has a memory of putting the mask on, and having a vision of underwater with detritus and the bottoms of boats, and sees the lights shed upon the water, HIS water, and as he rises he sees others like him, moving swiftly through the water, human-shaped but not really, as he feels himself to be, and they slam, over and over again, into the poles that supports the buildings the partying is in – the building collapses!
-
the vision changes – the same harbor – on a boat with a number of crates & containers, and he’s someone getting out of one of those crates – he’s surrounded by a heavy woolen cloth that he might have worn during the war for warmth – as he moves he leaves a trail of black sand behind – as he moves away, parts of him disintegrate as he walks through the streets of Shanghai…
SO THAT SUCKED!!! The DM kept asking us if anybody had touched the throne, and I thought, IDK, maybe there’s a better way out of here, which is why I went back to touch it! BIG MISTAKE!!!!
And now I have to decide whether I’m going to go back to playing Teddy, maybe pick up playing Saleem, or make a whole new character…