Glancing at the men, Rosalie pulled an electric torch from her bag and flicked it on, aiming the beam of light down the stairs.

"Hm." Leo looked at the newly exposed stairs as his niece shined a light into the depths of the house.

He looked down at the shotgun he still held, cracked it open, and checked to be sure he had loaded new ammunition. He then closed the weapon and started down the stairs, gun in hand.

Heading down the stairs, he found they curved around back towards the building, landing him at the foot of a corridor. He could see by Rosalie's flashlight the glinting of metal along the hallway, catching both an iron door at the end of the hallway and what looked like the entrances to a host of barred jail cells along the corridor.

Harry looked over at Dr. Elias and drew his sword and pistol. Whatever they had seen so far, Harry didn't want to run into more of them unprepared. Price, moving past Miss Elias, headed down the stairs as quietly as he could manage as he tried to catch up with resolute Dr. Elias.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:47, Sat 22 Sept 2018.

Leo turned his head to look up toward his niece. He spoke loud enough that both his companions could hear. "Looks like holding cells. Let's check 'em out."

Price having headed down the stairs and hearing the good doctor's suggestion glanced around for a light switch or some other way to illuminate the cells.

Price found a switch that granted some illumination to the hallway: that of a single lightbulb that flickered at irregular intervals, momentarily casting them into darkness for a moment but quickly back into light. The light cast shadows of bars into empty stone and iron cells, all of which presently seemed empty. Only four seemed to have been occupied recently, and in them could be found sets of discarded clothing. One of the sets of clothing appeared familiar, and indeed, was what Thomas Cotton had been wearing earlier in the day.

The light also revealed that the door at the end of the hallway was slightly ajar.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:41, Mon 24 Sept 2018.

Rosalie kept her torch on to supplement the unreliable lighting in the basement and continued down the hallway.  She took note of the clothing, intending to gather them up for the victims before they made their way upstairs.  Noting the partially open door, she moved cautiously to the frame and pushed it open with one hand, shining her light inside with the other.

Price followed after the stalwart Miss Elias prepared to defend her if something burst forth. Harry, all too aware of the dangers of the fog of war stayed off to the side with the hinges as Rosalie opened the door to avoid being shot in case Leo opened up with his shotgun on some dark monstrosity was hidden within.
This message was last edited by the player at 15:58, Tue 25 Sept 2018.

As Rosalie shined the light through the door opening, Leo pointed his shotgun in that direction in case anything dangerous was on the other side.

There was no eldritch horror leaping out of the door of the open room toward them. Instead, they were met with only silence. Rosalie's flashlight shone through the opening landing on a pile of glittering metal. Moving it across the room, it landed on statues and paintings and other miscellany that seemed to almost fill the tremendous room. There was a light switch to her immediate left as she entered.

To the back wall, she could see a desk with a small table immediately to its side. There was a bookshelf that looked to be full of books and scrolls, and another shelf built into the wall that seemed to be lined with jars and small sacks, with a small table in front of it, though much more was hard to discern in the darkness without venturing closer or providing more light.

---

OOC: The three of you give me Idea and Spot Hidden rolls.

Leo moved into the room and flipped the light switch on before moving to inspect the contents of what seemed like the mother lode.

OOC: Leo sees all the things.

And he might have a bright idea, too.

14:37, Today: Dr. Leonardo Elias rolled 4 using 1d100 with rolls of 4.  Spot Hidden (28).

14:37, Today: Dr. Leonardo Elias rolled 48 using 1d100 with rolls of 48.  Idea (80).

Seeing the contents of the room revealed, Price was relieved not to have to battle some otherworldy alien monstrosity.

Looking about quickly, Price spoke up, "I think I should return upstairs and play lookout and leave you to collecting what you can here."

"Perhaps I can locate some valises or bags of some kind to help get this lot out of here.  We can claim the contents are the property of your reporter friend to give the Inspector some plausible deniability."

Then something caught his eye, "Wait a moment what's that?"


17:04, Today: Harry Price rolled 1 using 1d100 with rolls of 1.  spot hidden 45%.
This message was last edited by the player at 00:17, Fri 28 Sept 2018.

As Leo took in the hoard of items in the room, the magnitude of the collection was what struck him most initially. It might have been easy to dismiss the small gathering at the Juju House in Harlem as a group of fringe lunatics, and the same might even have been said of Gavigan and those that were consorting with him here. The collection of items here, however, defied such notions. Ill formed statues of beings from beyond the limits of his imagination alongside impossibly black idols of Egyptian countenance seemed to litter the room. There were inscriptions on the various statues in various known languages, from all corners of the world.Much of the jewelry bore ankhs, and there were rings and pendants inscribed with other strange symbols, along with a set of scepters similar to the ones that Vincent had recovered from the spice merchant's shop. Throughout the paintings there seemed a similar theme that he started to connect as he surveyed the hoard - that the individual depicted in much of the work could only be the one referred to as the Black Pharaoh. Some items seemed to be tremendously aged, though only an expert might be able to verify them.

However this collection had come together here, the items were sourced globally, and from a body of adherents that could not possibly have been as small as they might have previously believed. If he had not known it before, it was clear then and there that no matter how outlandish the theories that Jackson seemed to hold about the prevalence of these cults, there was no doubt substance to them.

As Harry was about to leave, something caught his eye that drew his interest. Under the desk, quite nearly out of view, there was a ledger, and peeking out of it he could see that a leaf of paper had been wedged within the pages. Leaning down to pick it up, Harry could see that the ledger seemed to be filled with pages - some complete, some incomplete - in which Gavigan apparently recorded his shipments abroad, with addresses of recipients
and notes of what was shipped. Reading the past three years’ entries shows many shipments to Ho Fong in Shanghai, more to Randolph Shipping in Australia, and many more yet to Egypt, and New York, with much less frequent ones made as well to Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Odessa, Calcutta, and and Los Angeles.



The detail that had caught his eye from afar, however, had been another paper that was slipped in between the pages from the ledger, which came out when he opened it. The letter was written in a hand with excellent penmanship, one which Harry can be certain was trained in an upper class school, in black ink on a high quality cream-colored paper. The letter is dated with yesterday's date and is unfinished, looking as if the writer was interrupted while penning it.

---

Leo made his way from the art to near where the built in shelves were found. In them were jars, tubes, wooden boxes, tins, bags, sacks, and pouches that seemed to be filled wth herbs, roots, pickled organs, strips of what appear to be skin and hide, a powdered red substance, pressed flowers, various colored dusts, powders, sands, and other things. On one shelf ther eare two one-inch long metal vials. Each bears a strange symbol on its seal, and what appear to be a single, tiny, brittle looking larva in each one.

---

While Leo looked at the art and the strange substances, Harry at the fat ledger on the desk, Rosalie naturally gravitated towards the bookshelf, where she saw at least a hundred of what appeared to be old but very well cared for books in all manner of languages - Arabic, Hebrew, French, German, Frisian, and Spanish.

Curious as to what texts and tombs that Gavigan had been collecting, Rosalie first picked up a scroll that had been tucked way, carefully unrolling it to reveal Arabic text.  She read through it, lips moving silently as she translated.


23:02, Today: Rosalie Elias rolled 41 using 1d100 with rolls of 41.  Arabic (61).

As Price looked over the letter, "Aubrey, not an uncommon name, but also the first name of the namesake of the Penhew Foundation."

"But that Aubrey Penhew is supposed to be dead. Right?" Pirce asked with some doubt.

Having seen the creepy sounding reanimation scroll mentioned in the ledger, "Perhaps Gavigan found a way around that."

Refocusing on the letter, "We shall have to find a few samples of Gavigan's handwriting to see if he was the one writing this letter. If not then there is another well-educated madman running around England."

"Speaking of England, based on this ledger, whatever foul cabal is at work here seems to have adherents across the globe."

00:55, Today: Harry Price rolled 55 using 1d100 with rolls of 55.  Know 85. To know something about Sir Aubrey.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:19, Tue 02 Oct 2018.

Rosalie mouthed over the words, and as they started to crystalize in her mind, she realized that were she to have repeated them aloud in the right circumstances, they would be the workings of a spell.

Rosalie shuddered as she reached the end of the scroll.  With a look of distaste, she crumpled it into a wad of paper and stuffed it into her pocket, intending to burn it at the first opportunity.  Glancing back to the bookshelf, her nose wrinkled at the thought of there being other such spells among Gavigan's things -- spells that could be quite dangerous to those stupid enough to attempt them.

Her eyes fell on the small box at the other end of the shelf and she moved to inspect it, namely to see if the lock was fastened tight.

As he poked around the stuff he was inspecting, Leo shook his head at Price. "No, that's not what our most recent information suggests. Brady also seems to be alive - or at least was still alive more recently than the expedition's disappearance."

He did glance over at the comment about connections around the globe. Hadn't they been over that already?

Leo grabbed anything that looked like it might have to do with the dark magic that was being performed, as well as an interesting tome - titled The Power of the Mind: Interplanetary Examinations of the Power of the Human Psyche. It was likely to be something that Leo found quite interesting.

Rosalie tried to open the box, but found that it didn't budge, locked securely. She could feel that the box was light, and that the main weight of the box would be in the wood the box was made from.

Price remembers when the Carlyle expedition, "Brady, Penhew .. if they are both alive, what about the others? Was it just an elaborate hoax?" Harry asked as he tried to get his head around the madness.

Before anyone could answer he added, "I had better go find some bags. Barrington is giving us a break here. We had best take if you think all this can help us bring all this horror to an end."

Leo nodded at the suggestion. "Bags would be good."

There were quite a few things that would be nice to study further - more than Leo expected they'd find.

Rosalie tucked the box beneath her arm and moved to the desk.  "Did either of you see any keys that might fit this box?  I suppose I could just smash it, but I'd rather find a way to open it without damaging whatever is inside." 

Harry returned shortly with a couple of burlap sacks that he had been able to scrounge up without attracting too much attention, and they proved sufficient for the three of them to select a few choice items that would hopefully contribute to their purpose and building knowledge. Unfortunately, no keys turned up for the box, but it fit neatly within one of the bags for later examination.

When Barrington had been shown the contents, he asked to be allowed to take a few of the items - particularly the ledger and the letter - to be used to build a prosecution against Gavigan and investigate the possibility of a broader criminal conspiracy. He promised to return them to Dr. Elias and company, inviting them to visit him at Scotland Yard the next day or the day after as best fit their schedule.

"As to your involvement here on the official record, you were clearly here looking after your friend, and you found us here as the fight had already commenced. We will be taking him and the other victims to the Bethlem Royal Hospital to have their trauma looked into, but for the moment they haven't been very responsive to conversation. I can only imagine the horrors that Gavigan visited upon them during their captivity, and subsequently when they might have imagined he was feeding them to that creature outside."

Barrington outlined briefly his plan to have some experts from the University of London to come look at the creature they had left behind.

"When we arrived, we saw that Gavigan was dressed in a strange robe, and held two odd looking scepters. He lead a procession of about ten people from within his estate, in addition to the four nude prisoners. This was before he started chanting in a strange language, in a tongue that nearly curdled the blood of nearly every man in my unit. That was when that creature appeared. We officially attempted arrest, but were able to quickly put down most of his people, though Gavigan seemed to flee in the chaos, and we had to scatter - one swipe of that thing's claws did for one of my officers."

Barrington provided an escort back to their vehicle, and he personally accompanied them, letting his men walk out front while he lingered behind to talk with them. "We still have a lot to clear and catalogue here. There wasn't much more in the house, nor did we find Gavigan. He somehow slipped us...not sure how to explain that he called a creature and flew away upon it's back, but I'll figure something out I'm certain. We came in by ship, actually - the Ivory Wind, the one we confiscated at the docks in Limehouse the other night - where we found the evidence that began to make me suspect Gavigan's involvement. We have found weapons of the sort that were used in the various murders that have been taking place, so that should be very neatly wrapped."

He extended his hand to shake with each of them as they arrived at the car.

"Please come to the station during the day time, after you've taken rest. I will return a few items to you, and tell you anything else as I'm able. I'm terribly sorry for any losses you suffered tonight, and those that you've suffered before in your search for the truth. It may be cold comfort and little at that, but Gavigan is now a marked man. He will no longer be able to live a life of comfort in England."

With that, Barrington bid them a good night once again asking them to come see him the next day.

Price, grateful to the Inspector, listened and nodded. The man had risked a lot and had led his men in a masterful manner against an enemy that defied explanation. He had allowed them to take away evidence from the scene.

"Well based on that ledger, Gavigan has allies around the globe. He will no doubt flee the nation and end up amongst them somewhere."

"Let say, we are grateful for your intervention Inspector, and the heroic efforts of you and your men." Price said offering a handshake before Barrington departing.