Return of Cthulhu

Last weeks session was the last Rolemaster one for a while. We have now returned to a Call of Cthulhu d20 campaign that is being run by John. It is set in the late December 1929 and we are currently in Egypt at a dig South South West of Cairo.

I am playing a Catholic Priest call Father Alessandro Montalcini. He is a Missionary/Exorcist. Nige is playing a ‘batman’ called Wooster. Willy is playing an ex-RAF pilot called Captain Harry Cullen, and Neill is playing an archaeologist called Dr Ambrose Leicester.

We ended the last session in this campaign in an amphitheatre which is under Hamunaptra, the legendary City of the Dead. We had travelled there with our guide, Alish, whose family held a key to enter the temple. When we arrived we found only the top of a buried temple. The city had been surrounded by unnatural sand storms for years and had only recently stopped. In this amphitheatre stands a plinth with a closed book on it. Above us, the vaulted ceiling rises into impenetrable darkness.

We opened a book and a spirit was released. I failed to dodge it and it passed right through me. I can now read the first few pages of the book, but the rest is gibberish. It’s of no language that any of us recognises, and Dr Leicester is a specialist in language evolution and construction. After reading the first few pages I learned the spells of Banishment and Sanity Protection +3.

Under part of one of the stairways around the amphitheatre was a secret entrance to a set of stairs that led down to a chamber underneath the amphitheatre. To open the secret entrance, Harry had to pour about a half pint of his blood into a channel.

On the wall of the secret chamber is a painting of a bridge with nine circles over it. At the base of the bridge is an altar with text around it mentioning the requirements of the gatekeeper and the key to open the bridge and the gate to a new dawn.

There are also pictures of nine monsters on the walls. These are bald, with absolutely no body hair, big teeth, ridges down their backs, and they are stooped. They have big bulbous eyes, long thin scaly arms and hands with long fingers. They have no visible ears. Eight of them are unclothed and one wears a set of elegant robes.

We leave Hamunaptra and return to the dig site. As we fly over it seems very quiet. Most of the vehicles are missing. We land and start to gather up whatever we can. While walking through the site and make a successful spot roll, rolling a natural 20. I spot a person who is obviously trying not to be seen and is trying to blend into the background. It turns out to be not one, but three people – an archaeologist, a European guard, and another European. They are covered in dirt, haven’t shaved in days, and have a feral glint in their eyes. Captain Cullen passes me a scimitar shaped short sword so I can defend myself should I need to.

Wooster approaches them saying ‘you look a fright, sirs’. As he does, a stone is thrown at him by one of them. He responds by whipping his cane against his boot, pointing to his side and says, ‘Sirs, the bath is this way’. He walks toward them and the people back away. Wooster says ‘this will not do at all sirs!’ They keep backing away; one of the Europeans backs up against a rock and starts groping around behind him. Wooster backs away and is in the head by a small rock. I luckily manage to dodge a very inept throw, all though how I managed it I’ll never know. I try to convince Wooster to leave them as we don’t have time to waste on them but he just won’t listen. Wooster goes of and finds some food and laces it with a strong sedative. He returns to the men and leaves it for them to eat. They pass out and Wooster and I start carrying them to the plane.

While all this is happening, Captain Cullen and Dr Leicester go to the headquarters tent. The tent has been rummage through, but it looks like it wasn’t done by people who knew what the most important items in it were. Evidence points to the strongbox lock having been struck repeatedly by the butt of a Colt Peacemaker that is lying close by. A search of the scattered papers reveals that the most obviously important documents have been removed but the less obvious ones remain e.g. authorisation from the Egyptian consulate to excavate is missing, but a writ from the British Museum remains. The missing papers were all written in Arabic, while those that remain are in English. At least we can still get our money from the British Museum…

As Captain Cullen returns to his plane, he notices a pair of boots sticking out from underneath the tent that the leader of the dig had lived. Dr Leicester joins him and they open the tent flap. They are hit by a stench and a swarm of flies. Lying on the floor is the leader of the dig with a close range gunshot wound to his chest. On the floor behind him is a sceptre which had been found at the dig. Captain Cullen retrieves it and leaves the tent. Dr Leicester identifies it as the Pharaohs sceptre.

We all meet at Captain Cullen’s plane, bundle the three unconscious Europeans on board and return to Cairo.