In reply to Martin Winfield (msg # 113):

Johan fixes his mustache, straightens his coat and takes a noticeably deep breath, "Mr. Winfield, obviously the viewing the of your Queens rise is something not to be missed. Till then how would you like to proceed....and since we are staying perhaps my colleagues could attend to the lady?"

In reply to Johan Braun (msg # 115):

"Do tell, Winfield. I must admit I'm fierce curious about the whole thing. Why serve, who'd ye call em, the Old Gods?"

Dermot tucks away his handgun.

Dermot is tense at the thought of how a coupla fools could throw a cad like Winfield into a murderous rage. Well, not a rage, exactly. Stupid as he seems, Winfield must possess some nerve. Regardless, Gustav's chivalry and Johan's selflessness are both misguided and could easily get them killed along with their poor comrade Cedric. But Dermot knows how to avoid a scrape, and he'll keep his mind on whichever plan he'll have to put into action, depending. If an ill-fated gunfight does break out, he'll use try to use his outer garment with the brazier to try to set the corpse ablaze before receding into the darkness wherever he dares. But not in a calm moment like this.... There's too much at stake! Dermot's hardly altruistic, buy this world happens to be where he keeps all his things, and we can't have all that hard smugglin work go to waste, now can we?

"For an underground lair, it's awfully hot and stuffy down here." Dermot says. He casually removes his outermost layer of clothing and throws it over his shoulder.

Winfield relaxes his grip on the Thompson slightly and nods. “Very wise of you all,” he smiles. “We do indeed have suitable accommodation for you while you wait. If you will please lay down your weapons and come with me, we can get you settled in.”

With a short command, he sends one of his henchmen up to the altar where you stand. The man is armed with an old army revolver, which he keeps pointed at you as you disarm. [You can try Sleight of Hand to conceal any weapons or other items you don't want to lose]

Satisfied that you have divested yourself of weapons, the man gestures you down the stairs towards Winfield, who is waiting with the rest of the cultists, his weapon held casually by his side.

“It will be such a sight!” he says. “The beginning of the end for the teeming masses of humanity. Those who serve willingly will reap great rewards and be as gods themselves. Ah my friends, I have such wonders to show you!”

He produces a silver whistle from a chain around his neck and blows it twice. A moment later, two large winged things appear from above, flapping down next to Winfield. They are not altogether crows, nor moles, nor buzzards, nor ants, nor decomposed human beings, but something unholy and in between. They are both covered with a thin layer of ice. The cultists nervously step away from the shuffling and screeching horrors, while Winfield coos at them like pets.

“Look!” he says. “Such is the power I have been given. I can command these beings and make them do my bidding. Are they not beautiful?”

[SAN roll for seeing the creatures, please; 1/1D6]




This message was last edited by the player at 03:08, Sat 06 Apr 2019.

Winfield laughs as Johan collapses at the sight of the creatures. He speaks a sentence in an alien language and they flap their massive wings and take off. As they near the ceiling, they seem to wink out of existence.

“If you will follow me, chaps, I’ll show you to your rooms.”  With two cultists in front of you, and Winfield and the rest behind you, you are escorted through the dark and still tunnels. Eventually you pass through an arch into a wide chamber; Winfield's flashlight illuminating the ancient, damp stones of the ceiling and near wall, but the far wall, if indeed there is one, is lost in the absolute blackness. To judge by the echoes, the chamber is very large. You imagine you can hear faint but excited whispering from below.

"Mahmoud," says Winfield, and even he sounds a little uneasy, "the nearest vacant guest room. Hoist the lid. And hurry."

An old Egyptian cultist limps forward, carrying a flaming torch. Twenty feet away he stops and lifts a little metal plate away from a hole in the floor, and squats down, trying to get his head and the torch both next to the hole without setting his greasy beard on fire.

"Nobody home." He sets the torch upright in a hole between the stones, hooks the fingers of both hands around a recessed iron bar in the floor, carefully rearranges his feet, and then tugs upward. A whole stone slab lifts up, evidently on hinges, exposing a circular hole three feet across. The slab comes to rest at a bit more than a ninety-degree angle and Mahmoud steps back, wiping his brow.

"Your chamber awaits, dear guests," says Winfield. "If you hang by your hands and then drop, it's only six feet to the floor. You can either do that or be pushed in."
This message was last edited by the player at 17:03, Thu 11 Apr 2019.

"Nobody home indeed! Either somebody's down there whisperin' or ye've got the most verbose rats a sailor's ever heard! I'm content to cooperate, but I'll not be fed to some mystic talkin' beastie in a stinkin' rathole!" Dermot crosses his arms and feigns a nervous glance downward.

"You'll be fine," scoffs Winfield. "Mahmoud, give him a helping hand." Mahmoud approaches Dermot with an old army revolver in one hand, and gestures towards the hole in the ground.

Demot casually indicates his knife hand. "On that note, I've only got one to hang by... Gustav, me boyo, could ye lower me down?"

As Winfield and his lackeys lower their guard, Gustav takes the opportunity to close in on Winfield.  He grabs his ankle where his concealed weapon is and shoots at Winfield point blank. 'Geh zum Teufel' he yells as he lunges at the Englishman.

Two of the shots hit Winfield and he retaliates by firing a short burst from his Thompson at Gustav, mercifully missing his mark. The noise is deafening.

Three of the cultists have old handguns. Two of them shoots at Gustav, while the third man hesitates. One bullet slams into Gustav, staggering him.

Johan lunges at the cultist holding Rachel with his cane, but hits only empty air. Rachels stomps down hard on the cultist’s foot, causing him to lose his grip and swear in Arabic. Another cultist slashes his dagger at Johan, leaving him with a deep cut on his shoulder.

Cedric slams into one of the armed guards, bringing him crashing to the ground.

With a holler of “Down the hatch!", Dermot charges old man Mahmoud, trying to trip him up and push him into the hole. Unfortunately, he severely misjudges his abilities and falls into the pit instead. He lands hard on a stone floor, surrounded by total darkness.


This message was last edited by the GM at 14:30, Sat 13 Apr 2019.

Below, in the darkness, there is a low noise, only a tiny grating and a clink, but it is startlingly loud in that hitherto silent abyss.

After a moment, Dermot can hear breathing, and then sibilant but indistinct whispering.

As soon as he manages to stand up, Dermot draws his revolver. First, he looks upward in case Mahmoud plans to peer in. Then he attends to the whisperings....

"Friend or foe? Show yerselves, if ye dare!". He is standing just outside the square of light in case Mahmoud peers in, so he can't see him.

The whispering becomes quiet giggles. "Let us in, darling," comes the whisper clearly. "Let my sister and me in."

"We've got gifts for you, darling — gold and diamonds that people lost down the tunnels since the long ago times. They're all for you, in exchange for two things you won't ever need again, like yer toys after you grew up into a man."

"Your eyes!" comes a new, harsher whisper.

"Yes indeed," hisses the first speaker. "Just your eyes, so that my sister and I can each have one, and we'll climb up all the stairs there are and take a trip to the market and dance right under the sun."

"Soon," croaks the other.

"Oh yes, soon, my darling, for the darkness is hardening, like thick mud, and we want to be away when it turns as solid as the stones."

"Not in it," put in the harsh voice.

"No, not in it, we mustn't have my pretty sister and me caught forever in the stones that are hardened night!

"Ye haven't got eyes, ye say?” replies Dermot. “Why don't you come into the light? I'm a businessman and I prefer to do my bargaining face to face. I think we could arrange some eyes for ye, if ye're not overly selective."

There is a pause and then an eager hiss from the darkness. "How many eyes, my darling? You must open the door to our room so we can talk."

"Once my comrades come through, we'll have several pairs to spare from those cultists. Have they kept you down here?" Dermot carefully stashes his gun for a moment and lights a match after taking a few steps closer to the voices.

"A long time, my pretty. A long time indeed. Bonaparte was here where they took away our light. How many eyes do you have?"

"We will take the eyes, but my children also need blood," rasps the harsher voice.

Listening to the gunshots, Dermot says "Plenty of blood too by the sound of it. Your children, you say?"

Gustav fires again at Winfield, smiling grimly as the bullets hit their target and the man crumples to the ground, dropping his weapon next to him.

Two of the guards fire back at Gustav. One misses but one hits, leaving the policeman near death.

Johan swings his cane at the cultist holding Rachel. The blow connects with the side of his head and he drops to the ground, badly wounded.

Gustav grabs the ‘Chicago typewriter’ and hollers at everyone to drop down as he hoses the gun in the direction of Johan and Rachel. With his last ounce of strength, he does his best to hold on and squeeze the trigger, aiming at their general direction.

Johan and Rachel duck down, but the cultist who attacked Johan with a dagger is hit by a burst of bullets, falling like a rag-doll.

The two cultists still standing take one look at each other and then turn to run away, wailing in terror. Old man Mahmoud also nervously retreats into the darkness of the chamber. In the sudden silence, you can hear Dermot talking to someone in the pit below you…

In reply to GM (msg # 121):

Johan dusts himself off, "Dermot!  Are you ok?  They have fled for the moment, but we likely don't have long..."

In reply to Johan Braun (msg # 122):

Hearing Johan's voice, Dermot flashes a grim smile. "I'm all right, I think," he hollers up. "Find something to haul me up, quickly now!"

To the voices, Dermot says, "Sounds like yer bodies are ready. Now let's negotiate a price. I'm always keen on gold, but I wanna know if ye can help us thwart this cult that's kept ye."
He steps closer to the voices and lights a match to get a better look....
This message was last edited by the player at 02:01, Fri 19 Apr 2019.

Dermot strikes another match which faintly illuminates the room. There is a solid steel door in one wall, with two large deadbolts and a small peephole. The voices come from that direction.

“Are they alive or dead?” asks the first one. “We need living eyes. Dead eyes only show us things we’d rather not see again. If you open the door, and give us new eyes, you can have all the treasure in our home, and we will play with the little people we meet on the way to our dance.”

“Dancing with the handsome men…” sing-songs the other voice. “Such pretty faces for us to wear…”

In reply to GM (msg # 124):

Dermot hollers back over his shoulder, up out of the pit. "Oi, we got any prisoners up there? Don't let 'em die!"

He strides up to the door, undoing one of the two deadbolts. "As long as ye can discriminate between my friends and these awful cultists, I'd say enemy of my enemy and all that. Pray tell me though, what manner of creatures are ye? Oi've had more than enough shock for one week, if ye'll understand me."

In reply to GM (msg # 121):

Johan narrows his gaze toward Mahmoud and starts walking toward him, intent on holding his attention to intimidate him into surrender, holding his attention so that others can act, or coming with range of his cane.

(in Arabic) "So Mr. ...Mahmoud was it? It appears you've been abandoned by your remaining associates.  Weak faith perhaps?  I'm interested in taking my associates and leaving.  How about you, what your plans now?  Perhaps an accommodation could be reached?"

There is an eager scrabbling behind the steel door as Dermot undoes one deadbolt, and what sounds like metal being scraped on metal.

“You don’t have to be afraid of us, darling," says the first voice. “We might have been down here for a while, but we can still turn a young man’s head. Just open the door and let us out.”

“Yessss, let us out. So we can dance under the moonlight.” hisses the other voice.

Above, Johan approaches Mahmoud and speaks to him in Arabic. “I wish to leave here as well,” says the old man with a shaky voice. “I failed Mr. Clive before and if he finds me, he will feed me to the leeches!”

[Johan, try an Intimidate roll with a bonus die]

In reply to GM (msg # 127):

Dermot strikes another match and peeks into the cell via a peephole cut into the door. What he sees sends him into a cold sweat. The eyeless hags beyond the portal had heads like a sack of moldy potatoes, to put it lightly. They were certainly something otherworldly and dangerous. But if they can get him and his friends out of here or even stop this resurrection ceremony, the risk may be worth taking.

Swallowing back his bile, Dermot takes a deep breath before speaking to the monsters.

"Listen, I don't even need the riches so much. Just avoid my friends up there and we've got a deal. There's a dodgy woman, an obstinate fat Kraut (probably injured, knowing him), a guardsman, and an old guy with a great staff. They'll be sticking together. Everyone else is fair game. We understand each other?"

Presuming their nominal agreement, Dermot prepares to shoot back the lock. He calls up loudly to his friends:
"I've got some ugly friends comin up who wanna see old Mahmoud eye to eye! Keep clear of em as long as they leave you alone. If they don't... you know what to do!"
He considers glaring at the hags to carry the threat across, but thinks better of it.
This message was last edited by the player at 18:09, Fri 03 May 2019.

As Dermot opens the door, the darkness seems to grow deeper, and there is a sound like long, stiff-starched skirts sweeping across the floor toward him.

Suddenly something bony pokes at his eye….  “This one still has its eyes—I can feel the wind of them blinking," creaks a voice. “We can take them now.”

“No, dear sister” says another voice. “We made a deal. This one lets us out, and we have sport with someone else. Come, let us leave!”

Above, you hear the muffled conversation and then all of your lights go out! There are shrill, whispered giggles and then the dank air shakes with a buzzing like the vibrating wing-cases of some giant insect.

Mahmoud screams and screams and there is a hideous tearing sound and then more giggles.

As your torches slowly start to shine again, you see a sobbing Mahmoud in the corner, gaping holes where his eyes were – and catch a glimpse of the dwellers from below as they disappear into the darkness.

Johan quietly exclaims “Dermot, what did you do?”.

[SAN roll please – you can add +20 to your chance as it is dark. If you fail, you lose 1D6]


This message was last edited by the GM at 01:37, Fri 10 May 2019.

Dermot cautiously peeks into the now abandoned side chamber. It is very dark, and he can hear chittering and scuttling noises from within. He counts his matches... 23.

Dermot's a brave enough man, but he knows to quit while he's ahead. He shuts the door and locks the deadbolts again. Then he waits for his pals to help him up somehow.

Above, after some searching around the hatch, a short knotted rope is found on the ground.

Dermot is hauled unceremoniously up from the prison room below, and you take a brief moment to take stock of your situation. Several people are severely wounded, and you are all shaken from the recent events. Gustav tried to perform first aid on himself, but ended up making things worse. You will have to carry him between you as you navigate the tunnels.

Dermot announces that he wants to go back to the Great Hall and burn the mummy in the sarcophagus, which brings an anxious whine from Mahmoud.

“No, no!” he cries in Arabic. “Soon the hall and tunnels will fill with people, making preparations for the great ceremony. It would be death to go back. I know a secret way out.”

In reply to GM (msg # 131):

Gustav tried to patch his wounds with a white handkerchief but somehow made the process worst. As blood continues to flow out of him, he tried one last cry for help before finally succumbing to unconsciousness.

His whispers comes out as "Is Rachel all right?".

After some discussion, you agree to follow Mahmoud so you can escape the tunnels. Carrying Gustav between you, you slowly make your way along the dark tunnels, the old man shaking and mumbling to himself as he tries to guide you out. You often hear footsteps, laughter and screams from some of the side tunnels.

Finally, you arrive at a large chamber. The only thing in here is a large stele, covered in hieroglyphs. Mahmoud nods as you describe the room to him. “Yes, this is the way out. One moment.” He bows down in front of the stele and starts chanting.

“Mighty Is the God Whose Breath Brings Death and Whose Form Brings Madness. Nyarlathotep! Iä! Iä!”

Soon, the stele becomes intangible and translucent, though still visible. “We go through here and then we are out!” exclaims Mahmoud.

Dermot tries to discern what is on the other side. He can vaguely see what looks like the area near the pyramids, and the desert behind it. "Nice work, Mahmoud,” he says. “After you."

Mahmoud nods and steps through, disappearing from the room. You can't see him on the other side. The stele is still translucent.

“Once more unto the breach, Dermot?” says Johan, lifting Gustav up and assisting him as you all move towards the stele. “Only breeches for this Irishman, but into this one we go!” quips Dermot.

It is icy cold, totally dark, and strange sensations and smells assault your senses, but only for a split second. Then you emerge on the other side, finding yourself between the stony front paws of the mighty Sphinx looming behind you. Mahmoud is a few meters in front of you, walking unsteadily towards the city.

As you look behind you, the portal closes, leaving behind a stele similar to the one you entered below.


This message was last edited by the GM at 19:27, Sat 11 May 2019.

You make your way back to Cairo and find the best hospital to treat Gustav, Dermot and Johan. The hospital also grudgingly agrees to treat Mahmoud.

Cedric has some contacts with the Cairo police and you send an urgent message to Sir Thomas Wentworth Russell, also known as Russel Pasha, Chief of the British Cairo Police Chief and director of the Central Narcotics Intelligence Bureau (CNIB).

[You will have a 45% chance of a meaningful response, unless one of you has a better skill]

Sir Russel Pasha contacts you back and informs you that he is assembling a small task force to raid the tunnels and apprehend the ‘hashish smugglers’ you told him were hiding there. Cedric decides to leave you at the hospital and join them.

Later the next day, you are informed that Cedric and many other police officers were wounded while fighting smugglers in the sands outside the largest pyramid. A large number of smugglers and a handful of officers were killed.

When you visit the hospital where Cedric is recovering, he is pale and his hair has turned white as snow. With a shaking voice, he tells you that he managed to disguise himself as a cultist and attend the ceremony. This is what he describes;

Present at the ritual were 12 priests, including Omar al-Shakti and Dr. Henry Clive, and around 200 lesser cultists, including 20 children of the Sphinx. The rest of the Clive Expedition were also in attendance: as sacrifices. Nitocris’ body was removed from the sarcophagus and placed directly onto the sacrificial block in readiness for her resurrection. The sarcophagus itself rested to one side.

James Gardner and Agatha Broadmoor were dragged through the chamber to the altar and made to kneel behind the sacrificial block. The gathered throng began to chant and wail, led by al-Shakti. Agatha Broadmoor was forced to use her powers to contact the spirit of Nitocris, while the cultists hurled victims to the leeches in the pit, who animated the fresh corpses so they could join the celebrations. The various priests linked hands, while Clive and al-Shakti sliced open the throats of Gardner and Broadmoor. As their blood drained into the withered mummy on the sacrificial block, its dried flesh begins to rejuvenate, swelling and glowing with life until, at last, the Queen Nitocris rose in all her deadly beauty.

The braziers beside the throne were lit, and Nitocris stepped lightly over the corpses to take her place. A child of the Sphinx brought Nitocris a goblet of fresh blood to enjoy while she gave the command to bring forth the Black Sphinx. Omar al-Shakti, Clive, and the other priests summoned the creature, which emerged from the enormous hole and was unleashed upon the screaming cultists, children of the Sphinx, and remaining sacrificial victims.

Once the Black Sphinx was sated, Nitocris dismissed it, then cast a spell to summon Nyarlathotep in the form of the Black Pharaoh, who coalesced from the blood and gristle scattered by the Black Sphinx’s feeding. He ascended to the double throne and took a seat beside Nitocris, confirming her as his earthly consort. After the leech chorus finished singing Nyarlathotep’s praises, they dissolved back into the pit and the Black Pharaoh vanished. The remaining cultists staggered into the placid Egyptian night, where they were met with gunfire from the police task force.


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Wriggling flat on my stomach, I began the anxious journey toward the foot of the left-hand staircase, which seemed the more accessible of the two. I cannot describe the incidents and sensations of that crawl, but they may be guessed when one reflects on what I had to watch steadily in that malign, wind-blown torchlight in order to avoid detection. The bottom of the staircase was, as I have said, far away in shadow; as it had to be to rise without a bend to the dizzy parapeted landing above the titanic aperture. This placed the last stages of my crawl at some distance from the noisome herd, though the spectacle chilled me even when quite remote at my right.

At length I succeeded in reaching the steps and began to climb; keeping close to the wall, on which I observed decorations of the most hideous sort, and relying for safety on the absorbed, ecstatic interest with which the monstrosities watched the foul-breezed aperture and the impious objects of nourishment they had flung on the pavement before it. Though the staircase was huge and steep, fashioned of vast porphyry blocks as if for the feet of a giant, the ascent seemed virtually interminable. Dread of discovery and the pain which renewed exercise had brought to my wounds combined to make that upward crawl a thing of agonising memory. I had intended, on reaching the landing, to climb immediately onward along whatever upper staircase might mount from there; stopping for no last look at the carrion abominations that pawed and genuflected some seventy or eighty feet below—yet a sudden repetition of that thunderous corpse-gurgle and death-rattle chorus, coming as I had nearly gained the top of the flight and shewing by its ceremonial rhythm that it was not an alarm of my discovery, caused me to pause and peer cautiously over the parapet.

The monstrosities were hailing something which had poked itself out of the nauseous aperture to seize the hellish fare proffered it. It was something quite ponderous, even as seen from my height; something yellowish and hairy, and endowed with a sort of nervous motion. It was as large, perhaps, as a good-sized hippopotamus, but very curiously shaped. It seemed to have no neck, but five separate shaggy heads springing in a row from a roughly cylindrical trunk; the first very small, the second good-sized, the third and fourth equal and largest of all, and the fifth rather small, though not so small as the first. Out of these heads darted curious rigid tentacles which seized ravenously on the excessively great quantities of unmentionable food placed before the aperture. Once in a while the thing would leap up, and occasionally it would retreat into its den in a very odd manner. Its locomotion was so inexplicable that I stared in fascination, wishing it would emerge further from the cavernous lair beneath me.

Then it did emerge . . . it did emerge, and at the sight I turned and fled into the darkness up the higher staircase that rose behind me; fled unknowingly up incredible steps and ladders and inclined planes to which no human sight or logic guided me, and which I must ever relegate to the world of dreams for want of any confirmation. It must have been dream, or the dawn would never have found me breathing on the sands of Gizeh before the sardonic dawn-flushed face of the Great Sphinx.

The Great Sphinx! God!—that idle question I asked myself on that sun-blest morning before . . . what huge and loathsome abnormality was the Sphinx originally carven to represent? Accursed is the sight, be it in dream or not, that revealed to me the supreme horror—the Unknown God of the Dead, which licks its colossal chops in the unsuspected abyss, fed hideous morsels by soulless absurdities that should not exist. The five-headed monster that emerged . . . that five-headed monster as large as a hippopotamus . . . the five-headed monster—and that of which it is the merest fore paw. . . .




This message was last edited by the GM at 15:39, Sat 18 May 2019.

You will each gain 1D4 SAN for indirectly eliminating the cultists, and 1D8 for defeating Winfield. But you will lose 2D6 SAN for not stopping the ritual or preventing Agatha Broadmoor’s death. I can roll for you if you wish. On average you will neither gain nor lose SAN.

It will take about 3 weeks before you are all fully healed. You can check to see if you increase your skills. If you roll higher than the current skill number, or the result is over 95, then you improve in that skill: roll 1D10 and immediately add the result to the current skill points. Skills may rise above 100% by this method. Again, I can roll for you.

These are the skills I have noted for you, and your current SAN. Please let me know if you disagree on anything.

Dermot; Fast Talk 55, Firearms/Handgun 55, Library Use 20, Sleight of Hand 50, Spot Hidden 56. Current SAN 60.

Gustav; Firearms/Handgun 67, Firearms/Submachine Gun 15, Intimidate 38, Psychology 56, Spot Hidden 69. Current SAN 91

Johan; Fighting/Brawl 65, Intimidate 30, Language/Arabic 45, Persuade 45, Psychology 40, Spot Hidden 40. Current SAN 45.

Rachel; Fighting/Brawl 45, Occult 45. Current SAN 39.