"Yeah, mate. Look at this. Two-legged deer." Professor Dodge passed over the note in disgust, hardly registering Johan's comment.

"Ready on that lightning gun, Braun. I can hear a whistlin'...."

In reply to Dermot Murphy (msg # 114):

Johan grips the "lightning gun" scanning the darkness, his fears very present in this place...a reminder of the war, the anticipation of the coming conflict.  Dreams of the past made real... Nods to Dermot, "I will be ready my friend..." Those looking would see him slip his hand down to his pocket where his flask is kept, the one that saved his life all those years ago.

"Gott, beschütze meine Freunde und mich, wenn wir in die Dunkelheit gehen" whispers Johan focusing on the coming sound...

As you struggle with the ponderous lid, you can hear faintly a whistling sound coming from the shaft… A Polyp is coming!

TJ starts chanting but quickly realizes that he won’t be able to finish in time. The rest of you strain and push to close the hatch but something is jamming it. From where he stands, Johan spots something on the side of the hatch – a blinking light, indicating a low capacitor.

Desperately, he aims the lightning gun at the hatch and fires! A great crackling noise emanates from the gun and a blinding bolt of lightning arcs into the capacitor. The metal lid swings down with a now smooth motion, and seconds later you hear hideous bashes and sucking noises emanating from under the scant few inches of metal.

The noises from below continue for a good while. Something heavy slamming itself against the hatch. But there must be powerful magic or technology in the device, and it doesn’t budge. Eventually the noise dies down.


What would have happened if the hatch had not been closed;

This message was last edited by the GM at 23:52, Sat 15 Aug 2020.

Johan motions to the group, “This way...I think, yes this way”. He moves forward, watching his step...and the walls. Dermot falls in beside Johan, his conventional earthly weapon in hand.

You all hurry away from the horrible noises emanating from beneath the hatch and continue on the path. Once you’re safely away, you pause. Professor Dodge drops back on his haunches for a few moments.

TJ asks "Guys, does anyone have a bandage there?" and shows everyone his bleeding thumb. Art quickly attends to the injury and TJ thanks him (TJ regains 1 HP, leaving him with 18).

The well-traveled path ahead is marked in the thick dust that covers every surface, and you sense the promise of untold mysteries hidden in the dark, cyclopean ruins that surrounds you.

After another hour or so of walking, you arrive at a large mound of rubble caused by a collapse of the ceiling. It blocks your way as far as your torches can shine, but there is a sort of crude rope stair leading up to the top.

You carefully climb down the other side of the mound of rubble and continue on, following the string of lights.

After some time, you enter a large open area, which you can sense rather than see. The string of lights leads into this area and encircles a huge dark pit, before leading on out of the chamber in two different directions.

There is no railing at the edge of the pit, but from the hole comes nauseating and mind-numbing smells and terrible moans, cries, and growls. One cry sounds just like that of a human baby.

Without using additional light, though, nothing but ripples and vague movements can be seen at the bottom of the hole.

Johan whispers, continuing to watch the walls, "My friends, I feel...that moving forward is the right way. It's almost a calling.....but I'm not sure which route to go down. Either could be correct or ruin..."

He looks towards the pit. “This pit...i remember it, it was a well.....”

Dermot suggests that none of you gaze deeply into the pit.

TJ, upon hearing those things, feels goosebumps up his body. After what Dermot suggests, he slowly backs away, though tempted to peek out of curiosity.

Dermot shuffles around to the left and shines his torch down the passageway, doing his best to ignore the pit. He thinks he sees a bobbing light further down the pathway to the left, like a flashlight or torch.

“We may have company that way,” he whispers.

Dermot sees nothing down the other passageway, just the string of lights.

“In here boyos! Step to it, and keep yer peepers away from that pit.” Dermot ducks down that second NE passageway.

You follow Dermot into the shadows of the passageway and wait. After a while, you see two men entering the circular room. The first is a small aboriginal man with a ‘camera’ slung over his shoulder, and the second is a huge Caucasian man, wearing a large backpack. He has a blank stare and moves slowly and hesitantly.

They both stay well away from the pit and the aboriginal casts fearful glances towards it. They stop near a light-bulb that has been burned out, and the big man easily reaches up to replace it with a new bulb from his backpack. He clumsily drops the old bulb and immediately there is a horrible screeching and chittering from the pit.

The small man swears and drags the big man away, back towards the passageway you came from originally.

“I'm wondering if it would be advisable to try and get those two, since they have a "lightning gun?" says David.

Johan nods, “if we encounter what was under that hatch...more of these lightning gun cameras couldn’t hurt.”

You discuss this for a while but then decide against it.

TJ tells the group, "Oh, those were the polyps folks."

Dermot deadpans. “Ye don’t say.”

"Well, I don't know how to describe them verbally," replies TJ. "At least we have an idea how they look like."

“Unfortunately, it’s not the worst thing I’ve seen with you lot,” says Dermot. “But it is nice to know what we’re up against for once!”

TJ looks towards Dermot with a grim expression, and said, "I don't think that they're what we're really up against..."

Dermot takes this in silence as he turns away with a grimace and begins to trudge forward.

He whistles a few notes, then stops himself.

"Do you think it's wise to whistle a tune? We might miss the polyps that will get us if ever," TJ warns Dermot.

You head down the right passageway. After walking for nearly a mile, you come to another mound of rubble, this one larger than the rest. There is another rope stairway leading up to the top, so you begin to climb.

As you are helping each other over the unsteady top of the mound, Gustav loses his footing and kicks over a pile of rubble. It cascades down the side with a loud clatter. There is a distant shriek from the ceiling above you and three dark winged shapes descend on you!

They are black in color, half-toad, half-bat, and equipped with loose, curiously rumpled wings and apparently eyeless, mouthless heads. Each are larger than a tall man.

Dermot lets out a classic horror movie scream, falls on his butt, turns and scrambles back down the mound like a jackrabbit on a hot summer day. And he doesn’t stop running til he gets halfway back down the tunnel. Rachel takes one look at the bat horrors and runs after Dermot.

TJ shouts "Dermot, wait..." and tries to pull him by the collar using his telekinetic powers, but he, for some odd reason, is unable to.


Can I get a SAN roll for everyone, please? Lose 1 for success, 1D6 for failure.
Those still sane have one round to react before they reach you.

Your SAN in descending order; Gustav 81. Dermot 62. Art 61 (he loses 1). TJ 58. David 55. Rachel 41. Johan 31.




This message was last edited by the GM at 22:26, Fri 28 Aug 2020.

Professor Dodge, seeing the things, first trembled, shook slightly. A moment later, he was irrationally calm. Acting as if nothing was the matter at all, as if this was only a minor inconvenience, he walked to the back of their group, removed a cigarette and a lighter and, hands still shaking a bit, started trying to light the cigarette in his mouth.

Gustav aims at the dark shapes and fires three times. One bullet strikes the lead Guardian and tears off a large chunk of wing. The awful thing screeches and seems to hesitate for a moment, but then continues towards you, along with the two other Guardians.

Gripping the lightning gun and sweating profusely, Johan lets loose with a blast from the lightning gun, as he retreats backward with his colleagues. The bolt of crackling energy arcs towards the monsters but fails to hit them as they quickly descend on you...

“Is this the end?” TJ thought as he saw gigantic bats flying towards them, the arrival of these monstrosities signals their demise. Not a good way to die, he thinks, underground devoured by a swarm of bats...

Wait, was he the one who said that? Or was it the Black Man again?

He heard that voice, sarcastic yet deep, unmistakably that of The Black Man. “Wield the powers. At least you and your companion will survive. What’s the value of mortality without a little risk?” The Black Man taunted him.

He refused, yet he involuntarily raised his hand, as if on command. He uttered deep, unfamiliar words that seemed naturally spoken to him.  And with that, TJ has summoned a red sigil in the air, a few yards behind the creatures. He felt his eyes bleeding, his health diminishing a bit, yet he continued to stay put.

“Fucking save us, Black Man! I have no choice but to trust you!” he thinks loudly, directly towards the Black Man, if ever he was listening. Just then, a wave of horror burst in the air, and TJ felt it, weakening him further.

The blaze of red light explodes among the bat monsters, killing one instantly and driving the other two away with shrieks of pain.
This message was last edited by the GM at 15:35, Mon 07 Sept 2020.

You regroup, and after a long rest continue over the rubble mound and further along the lighted path.

After an indeterminable time, you pass through an enormous octagonal hall, with featureless walls and ceilings, but with a floor that radiates a soft, glowing red light. The space is approximately half a mile across.

You continue on. It is as though you are wandering through a terrible dream, with no end in sight. The eventual sound of another diesel generator at least gives some relief from the never-ending silence and dust of your path.

You finally reach the noisy generator. The line of bulbs continues, but a side corridor leads off to the left. It is also lit.

Johan breathes steadier and stands a little straighter during the walk though this larger area. The walls no longer closing in. Noticing the side path, "My friends, I have a good feeling about this path...could be my memories of this place".

Through the hallway, the straggling string of electric lights beckons into a gray stone-lined room which is thoroughly lit. It is about 20 feet (6 m) square and decorated with a few indecipherable alien symbols.

Inside, you find a jumble of crates and parts. Much of the gear is either of very advanced earthly manufacture or of alien design and construction. Much is of no known commercial design and bears no manufacturer’s stamp. Some of the gear seems to have been scrounged from the buried city, while some parts were made in Germany or Britain. Here and there, parts can be recognized as transformers and power supplies, junctions and fuse boxes, and unorthodox vacuum tubes, but much more is inexplicable. The logic of the constructs would take weeks to work out.

The first room opens upon a second area 40 feet (12 m) across. Within stands an enormous and fashionably black control board covered with knobs, dials, handles, displays, and impressive sets of relays and junctions, flanked by a few monitor lights and gauges.

One portion of the control board is open: conduits and connections simply dangle from the open panel. Plainly, a portion of the device is not in place. At one point, the long control panel is interrupted by a comfortable leather daybed built into it (the sort of couch associated with Freudian analysts).

An elaborate chromium headset and a series of hand-held controls connected to the control board and resting on the couch suggest that the couch’s purpose is central to the device.

Nearby is an operating table equipped with hand, foot, and body restraints. A version of the same chromium headset rests there, and cables lead into the control board at a point close to that of the first headset.

An archway opens into a third room.

As soon as the group entered the room, TJ sat down on the floor, kind of panting, and sweating as though he ran a mile. He is also experiencing a bit of headache.

He looked around the room, and he thought that this place looks a bit like what radio stations have. Buttons, switches, and knobs - all advanced stuff he is not familiar with.

The Black Man spoke suddenly, his voice now clearer than before. “You might want to push some of them. Who knows, it might bring something fun?” he urged TJ.

“Should I? It might bring us trouble if I do anything,” TJ says. However, he still stood up, somewhat involuntarily, his hand now raising and about to press the nearest button in the control panel next to him.

With nobody to stop him, TJ presses a button. A light on the control board panel blinks five times and then stops. He presses a few more random buttons and moves some levers.

The chromium headset resting on the couch gives a soft click.

Dermot notices TJ pressing buttons. “Watch what yer handlin' there, boyo, we have no idea what all this could be.” Dermot glances around the room nervously, still shaken from his recent madness.

"My friend, are you...familiar with these devices?" asks Johan.

TJ, still pressing and clicking at the panel, looks at Johan and replies “No.”

Johan moves over to TJ and places a hand on his shoulder, “Mein Freund....I think you should stop touching this. I’ve got a bad feeling about touching these devices. Why don’t we keep moving forward?” Johan shakes his head, “Do you hear that ...?”

TJ stops, and obeys Johan. “Well, what do you think of this place? You think this is some sort of communication hub?” He points to the light that blinked. “It must be sending some sort of message or signal.”  He also apologizes for his action. He does seem quite dazed after pressing the buttons.

Art has been slowly approaching the archway to the next room during all the button-pressing. He calls softly to you all; ‘You should see this. Most extraordinary.’

Across the doorway to the next room is a shimmering electrical field. There is a metal box to the right of the doorway, with a keypad. In the shadows, just to the left of the doorway beyond the electric field rests a dark, motionless shape.

Suddenly you feel a presence in your minds. A voice speaks to you without the need to broadcast sound through the air. The voice speaks in English, except to Johan, who hears a German voice. It has a strange, alien quality to it and a sense of extreme age.

"FREE ME!"

"FREE ME. I CAN HELP YOU".

"REMOVE THE FIELD OF FORCE".
This message was last updated by the player at 18:28, Sat 19 Sept 2020.

"Help us do what, Mr. alien? I’m pretty sure we hardly know our own goals," says Dermot to the huge dark shadow in the next room.

"Help you close the Gate that will allow the Old Ones to reach this planet!" comes the reply in your heads.
This message was last edited by the player at 01:30, Sun 20 Sept 2020.

Professor Dodge, having just finished his fourth cigarette in a row, stared dumbfounded at the shape. He was pretty sure that was speaking to him in his head, anyways, but it didn't make a lot of sense to him at the moment.

He thought something like, Well mate, how do I turn off the...field of force?

"You must enter a five digit sequence on the keypad. Is 'keypad' a word in your language yet? This century is so confusing. I do not yet know the sequence so you should find it. Take care that you do not enter it incorrectly. Let the large bald male enter it. He looks sturdy."

There is a series of weird clicks coming from the shape. Looking at the outline of it, you estimate that the speaker is at least 10 feet tall. You imagine you can see tentacles and a cone-shaped body.
This message was last edited by the player at 17:42, Sun 20 Sept 2020.

In reply to Kakakatak (msg # 129):

Johan looks suddenly stunned...."Kakakatak...Wie kann es sein? ...You were there before. When I was a child.  No one believed me..."

Turning to the team, "Please mein friends we must help him.  There are things I must know about the time I was here...when they took me. "

TJ approaches the touchpad and enters the numbers that Grogan told you earlier in the desert. There is a soft click and the force-field disappears.

“Gratitude, young human,” says the voice in your heads. “Please enter my current domicile. Do not be afraid. I mean you no harm.”

You cautiously enter the last room; it is dimly lit, circular, and about 50 feet (15 m) across. It is mostly empty. A long, high bench holds many alien artifacts and instruments.

In the middle of the room you see a being resembling a large cone, with a muscular foot for locomotion and four extensible arms or tentacles projecting from the apex. Two of these arms ends in claws or pincers, the third terminates in four clustered trumpet-like organs, and the fourth is topped with a spherical yellow ‘head’ with three dark eyes, four stalked flower-like hearing organs on top, and a number of green tentacles dangling beneath. The being clacks its claws together rapidly as it sees you.

[Everyone please roll SAN; lose 1 if you make it. 1D6 if you fail]

“I am Kakakatak. I am of the Great Race of Yith. I was pulled forwards in time by the human Huston and imprisoned here, so that he might learn my secrets. Little does he know I have been reading his mind as easily as a book. Aid me in returning to my time, and I will assist you!”




[Size comparison between Kakakatak and a normal human]


This message was last edited by the player at 00:10, Tue 22 Sept 2020.

Dodge, still not quite capable of comprehending whatever really was happening here, at first merely took up another cigarette, another match. He lit the cigarette, took a few puffs.

"Didn't teach us Yithians at Uni, mate. Guess the anthros have some catching up to do." He looked up into the massive, horrific eyes of the creature, dumbly stretching a hand out to shake one of his tentacles--or claws, or whatever else he might shake.

The bizarre creature leans down and seems to stare deep into Dodge’s soul, before briefly touching the professor’s hand with a scaly claw.

“I am aware of this custom of yours. But you should cease the inhalation of smoke. It has been proven to be quite risky for the human body.”

Kakakatak grabs a few unidentified objects from the room and slowly and ponderously glides into the adjacent room with the couch and control console.

“This is where Huston has been experimenting for various purposes, including learning more about my race, contacting the god Nyarlathotep, and foretelling the future. He has also been… what is that word..? brain-rinsing? Reprogramming some of his followers to blindly follow orders. Very foolish.”

The Yithian turns to face you and waves one claw at Johan. “I see you have a Model B, young Johan. Ausgezeichnet! We will need more of those. Now, I will need to access a certain library to obtain specific books so that I may return home. Once I have those, I will answer any questions you may have. Shall we proceed?”

Gustav and Rachel both lose 6 SAN but can be considered to have failed their INT roll, so they are shaken but not really understanding what is happening.


This message had punctuation tweaked by the player at 23:39, Mon 28 Sept 2020.

Dermot lets a violent cold chill spasm through his body before suppressing it. He rubs the bridge of his nose and then rolls his shoulders and stretches his neck, each exercise working progressively to clear his body of its supreme tension. When the K man falls silent, he reflects on the situation.

“That’s mankind, I suppose. Always trying to harness other creatures and forces of nature and bend them to their whims. Boyo’s just taken it a step further, right? Why should alien forces of the universe be anything but tools for advancement? What a moron! The dumb ponce has got the brains of a sack of potatoes, and a face to match!” (Sighing) “Well then, Ka...ka...ka...tak? If ye’re willing to help us stop this madness and keep our skins intact, why shouldn’t we help ye out! Let’s set the universe right then!”

The universe, after all, is where Dermot keeps his boat and his Harley....

Johan keeps an eye on the stunned Rachel and addresses Kakakatak. “Suppose we believe you, what is this book you are referring to and where might we possibly get it? And is there a better way to communicate with you? I don’t fancy going in the middle of nowhere again when that task is complete.”

The Yithian waves one clawed appendage in a circular motion. “This mind-link should suffice for communication, I’m sure. Your race will have more efficient devices, but not for some time yet. Now, the book I require is in a library at 93457.48. It contains guidelines for adjusting certain alignments. I believe that particular library also holds the memory record of young Johan here.”

Kakakatak glides slowly across the laboratory floor, leaving a trail of slimy mucus behind her. “Unfortunately, Huston has his headquarters along that route, so we will need to kill him and his soldiers. Should not be too difficult for you. After all, you have made it here alive.”

Kakakatak leads you back towards the last diesel generator. But instead of following one of the strings of light bulbs, she leads you into the darkness, up several ramps, and inside one of the huge alien buildings.

Kakakatak presses several spots on one of the rune-inscribed walls and a hidden compartment slides open. She reaches her clawed appendages inside and withdraws three ‘lightning guns’, passing two along to you, and slinging the other across her conical frame. "We will need these to fight the living winds".

Dr. Dodge, feeling quite like some hero from the pulps, but also like some fool from Brisbane, reached down to pick up a lightning gun. He felt quite ridiculous, having just nearly had a nervous breakdown, and now arming himself with some science fiction weapon.

But, he supposed, there was nothing to do but go through with things now. "Living winds?"

'Living winds, yes. They first colonized your Earth about six hundred million years ago, predating the arrival of our race. They built vast cities of basalt, their defining architectural features being tall windowless pillars or towers. They were an aggressive and predatory species, and when we transferred our minds to the indigenous organisms that would harbor us for aeons to come, we came into conflict with the polyps. We prevailed at first due to our superior technology, forcing the polyps back to the subterranean catacombs that lay beneath their cities and sealing off the tunnels with reinforced trap-doors. But now they are starting to wake up again…”

At the mention of ‘living winds’, Johan feels a shiver down his spine. Something in the phrase terrifies him. He remembers visions of a huge trapdoor bound by heavy metal seals, and something fighting to escape, something that filled all of Kakakatak's race with utter dread, that they feared above everything else.

Kakakatak explains that the search for the library might take several days, as you will have to navigate around collapsed buildings and mounds of rubble once you are past Huston’s camp. The Yithian leads you back to the intersection and gestures with one claw down the pathway to the south.

“You will find Huston and his men at their camp that way. Deal with them one way or another. I need to stay here and make preparations.”

You set off once again, following the line of light bulbs through the oppressive darkness. After several hours walking, you begin to doubt what you have seen. You have not slept for what seemed like days, you are hungry, thirsty, and on the edge of madness. Surely the strange alien being had been nothing more than a hallucination brought on by your plight. Johan is the only one who knows that you have encountered is truly real, a thing from across the eons.

As you walk along, you experience a sense of unease, accompanied by a foul stench. As you cautiously continue, you can see a huge stone ring atop a gigantic organism, impressing the center of it into a very slight dome. The rest of the creature’s body must be under the city — it is impossible to tell its vast extent. Only the top of the creature’s hideous head is exposed, with throbbing veins and flaccid swellings. The creature is inert. You cannot dislodge it, nor does it react to you. Even a lightning gun would most likely have no effect.

Your walk comes to an end when you see a large, newly constructed, wood-frame building ahead, next to an intersection of several strings of light bulbs. It is three floors high, and all three floors are lit from inside. A ramp of metal bars runs up one side of the building, affording entrance to each of the floors.

You can see people moving about inside the ground floor building but from distance it’s hard to tell how many.