Mike
Mike pulls into an empty student parking lot on the university campus. He hated spending so much time away from Shelly and their relationship had never had much room for secrets. But somehow he was sure that keeping her in the dark was the right choice. He couldn't wrap his own mind around what was happening let alone explain it to someone else. The pathetic whine of the engine worried Mike as he turned off the ignition. He felt almost as if he were mistreating a child. This truck has put in years of service only to be driven into the ground.

His fingers twitched toward the pocket where he kept his cigarettes. A seance? What am I a teenage girl on a Saturday night? But Mike was willing to try anything at this point. If recent events had proven anything it was that he desperately needed to rethink his worldview. He took no small about of solace in the fact that as he swung open the door and stepped on to the pavement that it was firm and unyielding beneath his feet. One step at a time.... Into the mud....

Clarke
While he couldn't see them at the moment, Clarke could feel their gazes. Zoe with her disapproval, Lara with her admiration. And a third, innocent and inquisitive. He could hear Zoe's voice in his head: Never leave money on the table and Lara's reprimand: Consider where it is coming from. Clarke could handle their bickering but it was the third presence, one he recognized as the child that had been appearing to him. So far he had resisted the temptation to reach out to it, he wasn't sure if he had the mental space for another fragment of his psyche. But he could feel from it an innocence he had felt was lost a long time ago, a lack of judgement. A sharp pain in his palm makes Clarke realize that his nails are digging into the palms of his hands, breaking the skin.

You've got a boo boo mister says a childlike voice. Clarke can feel the tremble of fear the grip Zoe and Lara...

Byron
Bryon was having difficulty reconciling the elation he felt at his very core with the dire circumstances of their situation. They had nearly been killed. Jack was still missing. And for the first time he realized... He had killed a man.... But a strange part of him felt as if he was uncovering something primal about himself, about the world. His mind wandered back to Freud's claim that "civilization is built up on the suppression of instincts." Perhaps for the first time in his life, Byron was entering this other world, a world in which he was all knowing... all powerful...

Shaken by the jolting of the truck as Mike presses on the break, Bryon seems to come back to reality. He can feel a sense of glee emanating for the box.

RELEASE ME....

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 1):

Mike stepped out of his truck, a lucky strike already in his lips waiting to be kindled. He stretched out, realizing that his back hurt and he still had a long way to go before he made it to a bed or any real sleep again.

He lit the cigarette, wondering if there was any moonshine in the truck. He could've used a drink about then.

"Byron, how do we do a seance?"

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 2):

Clarke held his worn briefcase in his hand as he heard Mike ask Byron about the seance. He felt as if they were street magicians taking their chances against a druid. Looking at the three of them, a wave of despair crashed against him - they were three tired old men playing a game meant for the foolhardy and the brave.

"A seance," Zoe said. She was in her forties, graceful wrinkles sprinkled across her face. "A parlour game for the easily amused."

He agreed.

"You can't fight the great dark with boards and candles, Clarke. You've already seen how vast the power is behind the veil."

He knew that too.

"You're going to need old magik, ancient hymnals tied to the long forgotten songs of the Earth. And if you can old their leash long enough, you might just prevail."

He also knew this. Yet, all he had was a seance.

Roll for seance knowledge: 78 - Fail

And even this simple trick, this game for the uninitiated, this tool for those who had never seen a man eaten by the gaping void - he knew so little about. He did not even know how to perform it.

He clutched his bag tighter and waited for Byron's answer.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 3):

The hustle and bustle of the campus is gone at this late hour as the party enters the school grounds. With little difficulty you are able to find your way to professor LaRae's office. Before you are able to knock the professor's door opens and you find her with a spirit board tucked under one arm.

"About time" she says despite the fact that you are right on schedule. " Come, come, my students have prepared a room."

Professor LaRae leads you to a spacious yet empty classroom. All the desks save for one have been pushed against the far wall. The lone piece of furniture is covered in a silken sheet and surrounded by chairs. The professor waves to the chairs as she busies herself lighting the candles strewn about the room.

With a beckoning gesture she takes a seat at the head of the table, illuminated by a series of candles behind  her. "So... What have the spirits brought to us?*

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 4):

Mike gestured towards Clarke and the box he was holding containing the stone. “Well it certainly wasn’t spirits that brought this to us,” he said with a tired and strained good natured chuckle.

Mike knee little about seances, aside from the fact that they were parlor tricks used to entertain and swindle desperately sad people out of their money with promises of contact with dead loved ones. But everything he’d seen over the past few days made him decide that this was probably the least crazy idea they had so far. And the chances of anyone getting shot appeared to be pretty slim. Hopefully.


22:36, Today: Jrodimus rolled 100 using 1d100 ((100)).


Mike tried to make use of his very limited occult knowledge to even guess where to begin, but he came up empty. To think he could out play the locals at a few hands of poker but couldn’t figure out how to contact the dead with a spirit board.

“So...where do we begin?”

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 5):

Professor LaRae bustles about the room, drawing the curtains on the windows and and lighting candles of various shapes and sizes that seem almost haphazardly strewn about. In the center of the room sits a wooden table surrounded by spindly chairs. Gesturing towards it the professor sets the board down next to a rather battered tape recorder. "First, we need to establish a barrier to contain the entity," she says slightly breathlessly. "But that can be done with some simple runes and sigils." She settles into her seat and takes  a deep breath. "The harder part will be establishing a connection."

For the first time the professor seems to pause for a second, her eyes taking in each of you in turn. "How dangerous is it?"

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 6):

Clarke felt the hollowness inside of his eyes, and the gauntness that had started to spread throughout his skin. It was as if he was being pulled apart minute by minute and second by second. Strangely, he did not feel his limbs were going to be ripped from their sockets at the end as he writhed in pain, but rather a void was eating the externalities of his body and working its way in. Pulling, and consuming, at the same time. After it was done with him, there would be nothing, except the voices - or demons - prancing around his head.

"Immensely," he told Professor LaRae.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 7):

Professor LaRae blanches slightly but you can see her quickly gather her resolve with a shake of her head. "Whatever it is, it must be of great importance to you," she says slightly breathless. From one of her pockets she takes out a piece of chalk and draws a set of intricate sigils on the tabletop. Strangely, each sigil seems to flow into another despite their separate locations, like pieces of a puzzle that have yet to be connected

"Place it in the circle and take a seat," she says holding out her hands.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 8):

Clarke took the box and moved it towards the area LaRae had indicated. He could feel a force, perhaps a hand or a tentacle, pressing against the walls of their makeshift barrier. It was distant, but also furtive, as if trying one last escape.

"Don't you want to be a dark lord?" Zoe asked. He saw her reflection in the polished table, her eyes black in the flickering light of the candles. "The power of the netherworld yours to command at last. The power of the dead. Me at your very beck and call willing to do anything you wished."

He opened the box and gently shook the stone onto the place marked. It seemed to pulse with its own type of blood - pumping furiously as it made contact with the air.

He walked back to his seat and sat down.

"What is the plan if one of us dies from exertion?" he asked the professor.

In reply to trahernwithglasses (msg # 9):

"What is the plan if one of us dies from exertion?"

Clarke's question hangs unanswered in the air as Professorr LaRae sits slumped slightly forward in her chair


"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn..." The professor's eyes flutter slightly.

The temperature of the room perceptibly drops...

"The most powerful minds cling to the fewest fixed principles. The only clear view is atop the mountain of your dead selves...."

With a deep sigh the professor's eyes open. Without missing a beat she jumps back into arranging the seance. "Once we begin, no one will be able to leave until we dismiss the entity." Reaching into her pocket she takes out a vial and places it on the table. "One of you will need to place this along the thresholds of all the doors and windows. Should the sigils fail to keep it contained, this will prevent its escape..."

When no ones moves to take it she looks around bewildered. "Is something wrong?"
This message was last edited by the GM at 04:38, Mon 13 May 2019.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 10):


"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn..."

Mike's mouth dropped as the timber of the professor's voice shifted unnaturally, uttering the words, like asphalt being scraped across a wet concrete floor. He gripped the table with one hand as his other twitched towards the inside of his jacket.

Then it was over, and the professor stared at them with a bewildered look on her face.

"Is something wrong?" She asked them.

Mike released his grip on the table and looked between the professor and Clarke and Byron with wide eyes.

"Uh, Professor, are you feeling alright?"

She's in over her head....we all are.

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 11):

The professor's face breaks into a a soft and genuinely warm smile. "That's sweet of you dear, but this isn't my first time communing with the other side." She gives the vial a small nudge. "But we must get started soon 'lest we miss the witching hour." She shifts the shawl on her shoulder as a gleam of determination that belies her age fills her eyes. "We can't afford to be distracted."

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 12):

Clarke felt the last of his hope break. Up to that point, he'd thought hope would have had an ethereal feel to it, something that withered up slowly once cut off from its main source. It had not. It had shattered as if it was a log being cracked open by Mjölnir. The remaining parts were in the wind now, floating beyond his reach. He was not surprised to feel a darkness ebbing into his soul, extinguishing his light. The journey to this point had been full of twisty path with sharp spears that took a piece each time one had to turn. Rather, it was the amount of hope he'd had left that caught him off his guard. Part of him wished to chase after it, grasping at the splinters as they frolicked in the gloomy skies and fluttered on the chilly breezes sweeping down his skin. Yet his mental avatar did not move. It stood dispassionately against the incoming storm.

"To contain it," he said, as he reached and took the vial. "That might be for the best." He set about applying the liquid on every surface and every place he thought it might escape. He did it knowing there was no stopping this force.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 10):

Byron took a deep breath of ionized air. The electrifying words the professor had uttered startled and paralyzed him.

If either the professor was a supreme adept or partly possessed, Byron wasn’t sure.

Either way, his skepticism concerning the authenticity of seances was rapidly fading.

Byron reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his tattered ancient copy of Hurlbert's Magic and Alchemy Almanac.

This yellowed pamphlet had been a niche publication in colonial times, concerning local supernatural occurrences, astrology and advice on the conduct of magic itself, catering to superstitious farmers and house wives.

The Professors strange ululating had reminded him of the outbursts of certain hysterical plaintiffs in various witch trials, of which he had just recently read.

He searched the index, in part or in whole, for the phrase “ Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn...  “

novissimo rolled 37 using 1d100.  Researching the Almanac.

Library Use: 60/ 30 / 12

In reply to novissimo (msg # 14):

Byron
Byron flips through the pages of the almanac as the rest of the party settles around the table. Unable to find the actual language, he turns to the index to see if he can find any similar words…

Ph’nglui…. Nothing

Mglw’nafh… Nothing

Cthulhu…. Chapter 13, Entry 4

Quickly turning the to right page Byron begins to read, breifling noticing the chapter heading which states Unknown Cults:

On November 1, 1907, New Orleans: A local Inspector by the name of Legrasse and a number of fellow policemen were conducting a search for several women and children who had disappeared from a squatter community in the nearby area. During his search Legrasse found a large mob of, as he describes, ‘very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant types’ who were ‘braying, bellowing, and writhing’ while repeatedly chanting the phrase: "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn".

A confrontation with the strange cult resulted in Legrasse and his men killing five of the participants and arresting 47 others. The victims' bodies would later be found marred in a ritualistic fashion.Looking for answers, Legrasse interrogated the men in order to learn the origins of their faith. According to Legrasse’s report the men “worshipped, so they said, the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men...and...formed a cult which had never died...hidden in distant wastes and dark places all over the world until the time when the great priest Cthulhu, from his dark house in the mighty city of R'lyeh under the waters, should rise and bring the earth again beneath his sway.” These men believed that some day he would call, when the stars were ready, and the secret cult would always be waiting to liberate him....

Before he can read anymore Professor LaRae’s voice cuts him off…

All
“Now in order for this to work, we each must place one thing of value on the table, the stronger our personal connection to it the better.” From under her shawl she pulls out a locket which she briefly presses first against her lips and then her forehead, whispering softly under her breath. She places the burnished locket on the table in front of her and looks at each of you expectantly…

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 15):

Mike reached into his coat pocket to pull out his grandfather's old revolver. He withdrew the piece and unlatched the cylinder and emptied the rounds onto the table ensuring it was completely empty. He picked them up and put them in the jacket pocket and carefully laid the gun on the table pointing away from all of them.

"Alright then." He muttered almost to himself.

In reply to Jrodimus (msg # 16):

Clarke reached into his bag and pulled out a tattered pack of cards. They were thin, almost paper rather than card. They sat well preserved in a metal box.

"So you did keep them," Zoe said.

He slid them on the table, exhaling slowly as he did so.

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 15):

The Almanac had been quit a find, and invaluable to his parapsychology research, both for its paranormal documentation as well as its social and historical contextualization.

As a poor student he had limited resources and had to make due in order to save enough to afford such a rare book for his collection. He placed it on the table.
This message was last edited by the player at 06:39, Mon 20 May 2019.

In reply to novissimo (msg # 18):
An eerie silence fills the room as Professor LaRae sets the spirit board on the table. From a small box pulls out a large multi-faceted planchette and places it on the board. Flicking her wrists to free her hands from the long sleeves of her shawl she holds her hands out towards you. “Join me,” she says. While her wrinkles feel frail in yours they emit friendly warmth.

Oh Gracious Goddess of Love and light,
Protect me now with all they Might.
Watch over me and mine with care,
Sot that we many avoid dangers snare.

Hail Fair Goddess,
Protector of the night.
Banish all evil from my sight.
Send it far and away fro me.
So it is an So mote it be!

At the end of the professor’s prayer you can feel you pulse begin to elevate slightly. You can sense the same from your companions as they grasp your hand. The sense of being watched begins to fill you as the professor takes a deep breath.

“We call out to you spirit. We seek to commune with you. I have travelers that seek answers. We beseech you. Oh spirit of the other side….”

Strangely, with each of the professor’s words you can feel you eyes grow heavy with and unexpected weariness. You try to rouse yourself but you only seem to sink deeper. As you feel your eyes close an insidious whisper fills the room…

“It is brave of you to reach out to me child… The last who did so betrayed me…”

In reply to The Keeper of Secrets (msg # 19):

Mike

As he squeezed one eye shut and took in one last gulp of air, Mike could hear the sounds of wildlife return around him.

“Ok Mikey boy, just line up the sight like a taught you… Now gently… pull… the trigger…!” A loud crack fills. The lone battleboro bottle perched on a rock remains in one piece.

A soft swat causes Mike’s head to bob forward. “Focus. A boy needs to know his way around a gun. Again!” Mike runs through all the steps his grandfather had taught him. Feet shoulder width apart, back straight, head up… Taking deep breath he gently pulls the trigger. This time the crack of the pistol is accompanies by the tinkle of breaking glass.

“Atta boy.” A large hand gently claps Mike on the shoulder. “This calls for a drink.” The large hand steers him around and back towards the cabin. Try as he might Mike is unable to catch a glimpse of his grandfather over his should. Soon he finds himself seated at a small wooden table as the sounds of clinking glasses and the bubbling of poured whiskey greets him. A glass with no more a thimbleful of the brown liquor is placed before him. As he cups his small hands around the glass he feels the hand return to his shoulder, this time the grasp is vice-like.

“Mikey boy… Where’s Jack?”