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by Moyashimaru » Mon Jul 04, 2011 3:33 pm
The Pale God
The story so far:
It’s March, 1924, and we find our investigators in Halifax, Nova Scotia, a common waypoint for transatlantic ocean liners of the day. Henry Somers, maritime researcher and part-time lecturer at Miskatonic University, is presenting a series of ill-attended lectures promoting his book on the absurd theory of plate tectonics. Mr. Newton, a PhD candidate also from Miskatonic, has been doing research out of Halifax’s Dalhousie University for some time now. Hilda, the noted German spiritualist, arrived in the city fairly recently, drawn to the area after reading in the New York Times about the ghost of Antigonish. All have encountered forces beyond the realm of human understanding, and it is these experiences that draw them together now.
It is the young Mr. Newton who receives word from Cabot-Jenkins, respected parapsychologist and writer, requesting a clandestine meeting in the city’s Public Gardens. Newton and Somers do so, an upon arriving witness the horrible death of Cabot Jenkins as a torrent of white, insect -like creatures pour forth from his sundered corpse. Before dying Cabot-Jenkins left the investigators with only these words of explanation: “Go to the house of the worm. Destroy it!”
A search of the deceased’s hotel room turn up a number of interesting items; an old-fashioned key, a notebook, a half-full bottle of whiskey, and an unfired revolver loaded with a single round. The key, notebook and firearm all fell into the investigator’s pockets. The remaining whiskey was left untouched.
The notebook details the recent investigations of Cabot-Jenkins, who of late has been debunking the works of sensationalist and shameless self-promoter Hiram Crewe, who’s career as a paranormal investigator was sneered at by the professional community of which he claimed membership. Recent entries concerned the Martensen house, a supposedly haunted property out past the Dutch (Deutsch) Village area west of the city. Locals believed the house to be haunted by the ghost of Mr. Martensen, a loner of German descent residents blamed for several disappearances in the latter half of the 19th century. After Martensen was lynched, his house remained unoccupied until the Ramsey family moved in. In 1912, Miriam Ramsey was taken into custody after the death of her husband and two sons. Police accused Miriam of hacking them to death in the cellar with a crowbar and had the raving woman institutionalized in the Nova Scotia Hospital, where she remains to this day. Cabot-Jenkins found the claim preposterous and was intrigued by the woman’s claim that a giant worm had killed her family.
Despite the history of the house, Crewe uncharacteristically declared that he had found nothing out of the ordinary following his investigation. Cabot-Jenkins came to Halifax to carry out his own investigation into both the house and Hiram Crewe’s sudden change in attitude.
This is what the investigators know. What will they do next? Will they be prepared for what they find? Or will it be too much for them?
Well, who knows, really?
The Pale God AP Report Part Deux
This session finds our investigators joined by none other than Laird Waverly McIvor, who along with Hilda Braunschtag survived a weird encounter in London some years back.
After some catching up, the investigators decide to look in on Marion Ramsey, the woman institutionalized for the murders of her husband and two teen-aged sons. McIvor took point, posing as a long-lost cousin of Marion. Unfortunately the attending physician Doctor Phillips didn’t buy it, and it was only in retrospect that Laird McIvor thought that using his noble influence would have yielded better results.
Still, our investigators persevered and through some clever subterfuge were able to finally speak with Marion. Although in a catatonic state, at the mention of the worm she stirred, and for the first time in over a decade she spoke of that day, the day the giant worm killed her family.
The investigators then decided it was time to go to the Martensen house, and after a quick trip to the hardware store did just that. A quick search of the grounds turned up a collapsed well, but nothing else of interest beyond that. Inside the house was a different story.
In the basement the investigators discovered a secret room, hidden behind a shelving unit that showed signs of being recently built, and in the floor of that room was a trap door, under which could be heard a faint, unsettling skittering that put the four on their guard.
Determined to continue with their investigation despite the perceived danger, the four investigators prepared a rudimentary firebomb to drop down the trapdoor and hopefully destroy whatever wait there. Once prepared, the trapdoor was flung open, and the weird was revealed.
The walls of the tunnel below teemed with thousands of the same white, squirming things which had poured forth from the body of Cabot-Jenkins three days earlier. After overcoming their initial shock, the investigators flung their makeshift firebomb into the tunnel before retreating outside, where they waited for for some for the fire to do its work.
Unfortunately, the fire did not burn as vigorously as some of the investigators had hoped. The house remains standing. The mystery remains. What will the investigators do next?
The Pale Godfather part 3
This week’s installment finds Henry Somers and Hilda Braunschtag on their own; Edward Newton had pressing business at Dalhousie University, whilst Laird Waverly McIvor had to take the cleaners to task for losing his kilt mere days before the family reunion*.
Feeling their lack of numbers, the two remaining investigators trod carefully. A careful search of the attic turned up mostly junk, although they found some photographs of the Ramsey family as well as an older illustration, wrapped in German newspaper, of an old man sporting spectacles and muttonchops that would be the envy of McIvors everywhere. One can only assume the man’s identity.
A further search of the main floor turned up nothing , although a second look at the footprints in the dust made it clear that only one set of footprints, that belonging to the late Cabot-Jenkins, originated outside the Martensen house. The other set came from somewhere within the house, and recently.
After considering a number of options (including summoning a Formless Spawn), the decision was made to go underground. Tunnels large enough to run a streetcar through, clearly burrowed through the earth rather than having been either excavated or eroded away by water, spread out in a number of directions, with large pools of brood clinging to the walls, squirming on the ground, dropping from the ceiling, landing on shoulders, sliding under the collar, in the hair...
And still they pressed on Into the pitch black with only the beams of their electric torches to see by. Tunnels branched off, then branched off again, and soon the pair were lost. They spied bones there, skeletons pressed into the walls of the tunnels, their bones mashed like water-sodden logs. Once the pair righted themselves they returned to the surface without much deliberation.
Once there they tried fire yet again to rouse the thing that shook the earth. They succeeded, and were thrown off their footing by the impact at the bottom of the ladderwell. But not before seeing the thing, the giant white worm Cabot-Jenkins had described.
Through good fortune Braunschtag and Somers were only slightly shaken, and so they continued their investigations. Their next plan saw Somers returning to the tunnels and lighting a fire at the point where the tunnel first branched off. As before the worm returned, smashing the fire out, saving the brood, but this time the sight was too much for Somers. In his derangement he somehow determined that the masses of brood around him would soon eat him. But not if her ate them first.
Somers somehow managed to return to the surface, his face smeared with the grease and slime of his prey. Gritting her teeth at the site, Hilda guided Somers to the surface, where they made perhaps their greatest discovery; an uneaten mature brood, stuffed into the pocket of Somers’ coat.
Having come to his senses, Somers vomited out the brood he had eaten before returning to the city with Hilda. There they tested the creature, feeding it mice (both live and dead), exposing it to water and fire, and so on. Ultimately, after consulting with Librarian Henry Armitage at Miskatonic, Edward Newton volunteered** to return to Miskatonic University with the creature to see what else could be learned.
What is next for our team of investigators? Will they return to the tunnels, or will Newton learn something that will guide them in a new direction? And what of the bootprints? Will the team follow where they lead, or will they decide discretion is the better path?
*A Clan Gathering might be a better description. Or then it might not be.
** Quite the gentleman, that Newton.
tHE pALE gOD 4: Citizens on Patrol
Because of unforseen difficulties, Henry Somers had to leave Halifax and return to Miskatonic to assist Edward Newton in his research of the Brood, leaving only Hilda Braunschtag and Laird Waverly McIvor to continue with the investigation of the Martensen house and the labyrinthine tunnels underneath.
It seemed a wise move, as Newton and Somers along with Professor Henry Armitage, after consulting the university’s copies of Unaussprechlichen Kulten and Revelations of Glaaki, were able to identify the brood as coming from Eihort. Referred to as “The God of the Labyrinth”, Eihort is classed as a Great Old One, appearing as “‘bloated blanched oval supported on myriad fleshless legs’ with eyes continuously forming in its gelatinous body.” Eihort cults were thought to have been active in parts of rural England, but there was some indication in the texts that worship in parts of Bavaria preceded these by centuries.
Armed with this new knowledge, Braunschtag and McIvor went back into the tunnels. After an hour the pair came across a dead end tunnel. The was of this tunnels was a a collections of swirls and curves that brought to mind the bleached exterior walls of Mediterranean villas, but instead of still walls of white, this wall was the color of brick, and the patterns themselves, if one cared to notice, moved slowly and deliberately along its pliable surface.
It was soon determined that this dead end was in reality some sort of gate, and when the investigators stepped through it, the two found themselves in a similar maze, although the walls were much, much older than those under the Halifax house.
Bones could be found here, too, in similar states to those found on the other side of the gate, but there was one fresh corpse, one with German marks in its pocket and clothing labels for a shop in Germany. There was crying, too, and thanks to the keen listening of the investigators they found the source to be a young girl of eight years of age named Ilsa (what else? -ed). Ilsa told Frau Braunschtag that her uncle brought her down here for reasons he did not adequately explain, then said he would return shortly once he retrieved something from above. That was hours ago.
With the little girl’s help the group was able to find their way to a ladder leading into the cottage of Ilsa’s uncle. A glance through the window at the small town in the distance was enough to tell Braunschtag that she was in Germany, most likely in Bavaria.
In his search of the cottage, McIvor found a locker underneath the bed. Forcing it open, the Scotsman found an ancient book, wrapped in heavy cloth. The book was too old and delicate for a casual perusal, and would need the attention of trained archivists to allow it to be read without causing irreparable damage to its pages. McIvor then made the easy decision to take the book, and along with Braunschtag and Ilsa made his way back to Halifax.
There they await the return of Newton and Somers, who they wish to consult with before taking their next step. One cannot help bu t wonder where will those steps will lead.
The Pale God Part V: A New Beginning
In our final installment, Henry Somers returns to aid Frau Braunschtag in their investigations. The young Elsa, whom Braunschtag and McIvor rescued days earlier, was placed temporarily with the Scotsman while he attended to family needs.
After much deliberating, it was decided to bring the ancient book found in the German cottage to Dalhousie university, where archivists managed to separate the pages and render the book readable.
Its contents, written in archaic German, described the Great Old One Eihort and spoke of the “bargain”, although further details beyond that were thin. Of greater interest were the spells. One spell allowed the caster to contact Eihort, while another allowed the caster to cast out the brood from one infected with them, albiet with the chance of killing the person infected. The final spell, if properly cast, would banish Eihort to the center of his Labyrinth for a year and a day, expunging the brood from any and all infected. This would save some, but it would also doom others. Despite this caveat, Frau Braunschtag decided she would study the spell, seeing it as the only way to thwart Eihort.
During the several days these efforts required, other events of interest occurred. The Martensen house, the site of the investigation, was destroyed by an explosion authorities blamed on some sort of underground gas pocket. A day later, the attorney acting as Executor for the Martensen property was found shot dead in Point Pleasant Park, the victim, so the police say, of a robbery. Our investigators, however, felt otherwise, and made sure to arm themselves.
Such preparations proved prudent. After a meeting between the investigators and university staff about placing the book on display, Somers and Braunschtag discovered that they were being shadowed. Somers watched as a lumbering man seemingly armed, in the night followed Braunschtag.
Somers fired first with his shotgun, the blast catching both Braunschtag and the figure by surprise. Braunschtag turned to face Hermann, Ilsa’s uncle, servant of Eihort.
“Do you wish to take the Bargain?” Hermann asked in his coarse German, his shotgun at the ready.
“No deal,” replied Frau Braunschtag in her stern-yet-refined tones, leveling her pistol.
Both parties fired their weapons, both found their targets. Unfortunately for Hermann, his 20-gauge shotgun only somewhat effective at that range and so managed only to wing Frau Braunschtag.
Braunschtag’s shots, however, landed true. In a handful of seconds it was over, and Hermann lay dying on a Halifax sidewalk while or heroes faded away into the night.
With Hermann dead, the investigators could focus on how to best thwart Eihort. Although the both of them struggled to learn the spell, they soon realized it would take the energy of many others to ensure success. Somers then hit upon a plan. They would invite members of the public, university students, to take part in a old Germanic ritual as part of a lecture on German folklore presented by Frau Braunschtag.
Braunschtag’s lecture was very persuasive, and the night of the ritual over 30 (!) students showed up at the Martensen ruins to take part. Such numbers guaranteed success, but several of the participants were disturbed by an image of a great worm, spinning, spiralling down into a stygian abyss, out of sight, but waiting. Waiting for its time to return.
With that the investigators earned their triumph, however shortlived it will be. They know that in a year and a day they must perform this ritual again, next year and every year after in order to keep Eihort from rising to offer is bargain again.
Frau Braunschtag took the young Ilsa under her wing, becoming the young girl’s guardian (with the help of Laird McIvor’s influence). Somers went on to finish his lectures on his book “the Deep Undived”, and returned to Miskatonic. As to when our investigators will meet again, and under what circumstances, that is a question waiting to be answered.
