Masks of Nyarlathotep, Episode Five - The Mauretania
The neighbours of course have noticed the commotion, and come over to see if everyone is okay. Thankfully, not until after the creature has left, but nonetheless this IS the third time one of the buildings on Salstonall Street has disturbed the peace and quiet with sundry detonations. At least Abbagale comes up with an almost plausible story about a leaking water tank in the roof finally crashing through rotting timbers, and plummeting into the basement. Although this doesn't explain why the water tank somehow bypassed the upper floor, and then bounced out of the basement and through the front of the house. Eventually Professor Einstein can be persuaded to leave her hiding place under one of the guest beds.
Abbagale Stants: What was that?!
Prof. Einstein: I would have thought that was obvious.
Indeed, forty-foot-long black serpentine entities with a single wing are pretty distinctive. Difficult to name, true, but also difficult to confuse with anything else. Frontbottom and Johnson reluctantly abandon the pursuit when it becomes obvious the creature is going to head out to sea, and return to the wreckage of their residence. It's just as well that Mr McGinty is a respected businessman in Arkham, or there might be complaints to the Neighborhood Association about them as tenants. As it is, McGinty is quite annoyed when he finds out.
Paddy McGinty: I'm going to evict the ONI team. And this is what I'm going to say to them. You can **** off. And when you get there, **** off from there too. Then **** off some more. In fact, keep ****ing off until you get back here. Then **** off again.
Obviously it's OK when he trashes somebody else's property, but not OK when one of his properties gets trashed. Abbagale also does some background checking on Frontbottom, and is alarmed to learn that there was a Lord Frontbottom, and that he's been dead for some years. Brutally murdered, apparently. So who is the lunatic with the knife fixation and taste for goose flambe?
February 1st-5th - Off to London, retracing the footsteps of the Carlyle Expedition and Jackson Elias. Given that the former was probably wiped out by cultists, and the latter hunted down and killed despite a career of infiltrating death cults and writing about them afterwards, unbiased observers would not offer good odds on the party's long-term survival.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: Fantastic! I'll be able to visit all my old stomping grounds. Or stabbing grounds, as the case may be.
Agent Johnson seeks some advice from Governor McGinty about the best way to smuggle dynamite and firearms into the UK. Despite being unwilling to connect himself to anything disreputable, now that he’s allegedly respectable, McGinty does offer some dubious advice regarding the Mythos.
Paddy McGinty: I don't want to destroy the Mythos, I like to experiment on it.
Agent Johnson: I like to experiment on it with fire.
GM: And the one who wrote at length on the need to destroy it is the one that ended up dead. And the one that likes to play with it became Governor. Ironic, that.
Paddy McGinty: Who are you going to listen to, McGinty or a dead person?
GM: You'd probably get a more intelligent answer from the latter.
But at least they can enjoy a four-day cruise across the Atlantic aboard the Mauretania before they die. A record-holding floating palace, the Cunard liner’s few rivals include the equally luxurious sister ship Lusitania and White Star Line’s Titanic. The Mauretania will with any luck not come to an equally tragic end (although with the investigators on board, anything is possible). Hopefully the glass dome over the First Class Dining Room won’t turn out to be, as Johnson puts it, Cthulhu’s sneeze guard. Abbagale and Aldous meet for the first time.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: And this is Aldous, a modern day Hercules
GM: Oh? Did he go mad and kill his family too?
Aldous Quinn: Forgive me for asking, Miss Stants, but how did you get yourself involved with this lot?
Abbagale Stants: Too inquisitive for my own good.
Aldous Quinn: There's six people in this party, but I only like one of them.
Obviously that'll be the one to pick up and run with when the monsters attack. Abbagale bemoans the fact that her features are undistinguished.
GM: You could always go to the sabre classes and get a duelling scar.
Aldous already has an interesting assortment of scars, including some that indicate something tried to tear off his scalp.
GM: Perhaps you were attacked by a drop bear?
Aldous Quinn: I can do Tuvan Throat-singing.
Byron Timmons: It makes for great foreplay.
Prof. Deborah Einstein: I'm mortified, to the very depths of my soul.
Aldous Quinn: About as deep as a kiddy pool then.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: I'll have to remember that one.
At least they don't have McGinty with them - whilst the opportunity to sail across the Atlantic, spit (or worse) on an English port, then go back to the US has a certain appeal to the Irishman, his ongoing phobia about the ocean precludes long sea voyages.
Paddy McGinty: I don’t have a phobia about the ocean - it has a phobia about me! Every toime I go near it, it attacks me.
Perhaps, but the likelihood that he'll want to try out a spell to summon Rlim-Shaikorth, an iceberg-dwelling deity, is just begging for disaster.
Prof. Deborah Einstein: He’d only call it up so he chip off some ice for his drink, anyway.
That said, first-class accommodations on the Mauretania are sumptuous indeed, and just the sort of thing to relax investigators en route to an inevitable doom. There’s language classes (Arabic for Abbagale and Timmons), and skeet shooting of the stern is good practice lest that Jabberwock return, and a gymnasium where Frontbottom can terrify the sabre instructor and other passengers with his advice on how best to disembowel somebody in a narrow corridor.
Byron Timmons: So what’s Arabic for ‘Oh god, the tentacles have got me!’ and ‘kill it, kill it with fire!’?
Translator: يا الله، مخالب وقد حصل لي! and أنه قتل، وقتله بالنار!
Prof. Deborah Einstein’s player: Is there any forum on the ship where I can improve my racism?
Agent Johnson’s player: As in reduce it? Sure - the boxing ring. Aldous, beat it out of him.
Aldous is putting the spondulicks he outlaid on the trip to good use too - sitting in the first class lounge and playing chess against himself on that suspiciously eldritch chessboard he stole from the ruins of the Boucher House last year.
Byron Timmons: Playing with himself in the corner?
The game attracts some attention, from a heavily dressed gentleman accompanied by three suitably ape-like bodyguards. Aldous, when asked about the origin of the curious set - with its various Great Old Ones as main pieces, and assorted world leaders as pawns - claims he acquired it when settling a deceased estate. That is technically true - the building did slump a bit after he blew it up, which may indeed might count as settling an estate. Krosov asks if Aldous wants to play a game out anyway. The resulting match is a challenging one, and a few bribes to his steward later, Aldous learns that the mystery traveller is one Count Mikhail Andreyevich Krosov. Talking this over at dinner later, with his friends, he further learns that Krosov is a member of the White Army - the Office of Naval Intelligence having a natural interest in anti-communist forces - and can make an educated guess that he was in the States to drum up support for their ultimately doomed fight against the Bolsheviks.
This is confirmed at lunch the next day, when Krosov joins them and is introduced to the other investigators. Although his bodyguards’ ears do grow points when Abbagale is introduced as a reporter. Clearly they’re Russian security werewolves. The Count, however, is a perfect gentlemen, and even invites Abbagale to his cabin that evening for dinner. No doubt to gain favourable press coverage for his cause, but it is a very good meal. No beetroot soup and black bread for him!
On the other hand, there was one suspicious character earlier, during lunch. A priest, or at least somebody in a clerical collar, who was watching the investigator’s table with deep interest from the corner of his eye. Frontbottom circles around and sits himself down at the watcher’s table, but the priest refuses to explain himself and leaves, clearly annoyed by the interruption of his surveillance. Not only that, but none of the First Class stewards recognise him, so his presence in the First Class Dining Saloon takes some explanation...
Abbagale Stants: What was that?!
Prof. Einstein: I would have thought that was obvious.
Indeed, forty-foot-long black serpentine entities with a single wing are pretty distinctive. Difficult to name, true, but also difficult to confuse with anything else. Frontbottom and Johnson reluctantly abandon the pursuit when it becomes obvious the creature is going to head out to sea, and return to the wreckage of their residence. It's just as well that Mr McGinty is a respected businessman in Arkham, or there might be complaints to the Neighborhood Association about them as tenants. As it is, McGinty is quite annoyed when he finds out.
Paddy McGinty: I'm going to evict the ONI team. And this is what I'm going to say to them. You can **** off. And when you get there, **** off from there too. Then **** off some more. In fact, keep ****ing off until you get back here. Then **** off again.
Obviously it's OK when he trashes somebody else's property, but not OK when one of his properties gets trashed. Abbagale also does some background checking on Frontbottom, and is alarmed to learn that there was a Lord Frontbottom, and that he's been dead for some years. Brutally murdered, apparently. So who is the lunatic with the knife fixation and taste for goose flambe?
February 1st-5th - Off to London, retracing the footsteps of the Carlyle Expedition and Jackson Elias. Given that the former was probably wiped out by cultists, and the latter hunted down and killed despite a career of infiltrating death cults and writing about them afterwards, unbiased observers would not offer good odds on the party's long-term survival.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: Fantastic! I'll be able to visit all my old stomping grounds. Or stabbing grounds, as the case may be.
Agent Johnson seeks some advice from Governor McGinty about the best way to smuggle dynamite and firearms into the UK. Despite being unwilling to connect himself to anything disreputable, now that he’s allegedly respectable, McGinty does offer some dubious advice regarding the Mythos.
Paddy McGinty: I don't want to destroy the Mythos, I like to experiment on it.
Agent Johnson: I like to experiment on it with fire.
GM: And the one who wrote at length on the need to destroy it is the one that ended up dead. And the one that likes to play with it became Governor. Ironic, that.
Paddy McGinty: Who are you going to listen to, McGinty or a dead person?
GM: You'd probably get a more intelligent answer from the latter.
But at least they can enjoy a four-day cruise across the Atlantic aboard the Mauretania before they die. A record-holding floating palace, the Cunard liner’s few rivals include the equally luxurious sister ship Lusitania and White Star Line’s Titanic. The Mauretania will with any luck not come to an equally tragic end (although with the investigators on board, anything is possible). Hopefully the glass dome over the First Class Dining Room won’t turn out to be, as Johnson puts it, Cthulhu’s sneeze guard. Abbagale and Aldous meet for the first time.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: And this is Aldous, a modern day Hercules
GM: Oh? Did he go mad and kill his family too?
Aldous Quinn: Forgive me for asking, Miss Stants, but how did you get yourself involved with this lot?
Abbagale Stants: Too inquisitive for my own good.
Aldous Quinn: There's six people in this party, but I only like one of them.
Obviously that'll be the one to pick up and run with when the monsters attack. Abbagale bemoans the fact that her features are undistinguished.
GM: You could always go to the sabre classes and get a duelling scar.
Aldous already has an interesting assortment of scars, including some that indicate something tried to tear off his scalp.
GM: Perhaps you were attacked by a drop bear?
Aldous Quinn: I can do Tuvan Throat-singing.
Byron Timmons: It makes for great foreplay.
Prof. Deborah Einstein: I'm mortified, to the very depths of my soul.
Aldous Quinn: About as deep as a kiddy pool then.
Hon. Lord Frontbottom: I'll have to remember that one.
At least they don't have McGinty with them - whilst the opportunity to sail across the Atlantic, spit (or worse) on an English port, then go back to the US has a certain appeal to the Irishman, his ongoing phobia about the ocean precludes long sea voyages.
Paddy McGinty: I don’t have a phobia about the ocean - it has a phobia about me! Every toime I go near it, it attacks me.
Perhaps, but the likelihood that he'll want to try out a spell to summon Rlim-Shaikorth, an iceberg-dwelling deity, is just begging for disaster.
Prof. Deborah Einstein: He’d only call it up so he chip off some ice for his drink, anyway.
That said, first-class accommodations on the Mauretania are sumptuous indeed, and just the sort of thing to relax investigators en route to an inevitable doom. There’s language classes (Arabic for Abbagale and Timmons), and skeet shooting of the stern is good practice lest that Jabberwock return, and a gymnasium where Frontbottom can terrify the sabre instructor and other passengers with his advice on how best to disembowel somebody in a narrow corridor.
Byron Timmons: So what’s Arabic for ‘Oh god, the tentacles have got me!’ and ‘kill it, kill it with fire!’?
Translator: يا الله، مخالب وقد حصل لي! and أنه قتل، وقتله بالنار!
Prof. Deborah Einstein’s player: Is there any forum on the ship where I can improve my racism?
Agent Johnson’s player: As in reduce it? Sure - the boxing ring. Aldous, beat it out of him.
Aldous is putting the spondulicks he outlaid on the trip to good use too - sitting in the first class lounge and playing chess against himself on that suspiciously eldritch chessboard he stole from the ruins of the Boucher House last year.
Byron Timmons: Playing with himself in the corner?
The game attracts some attention, from a heavily dressed gentleman accompanied by three suitably ape-like bodyguards. Aldous, when asked about the origin of the curious set - with its various Great Old Ones as main pieces, and assorted world leaders as pawns - claims he acquired it when settling a deceased estate. That is technically true - the building did slump a bit after he blew it up, which may indeed might count as settling an estate. Krosov asks if Aldous wants to play a game out anyway. The resulting match is a challenging one, and a few bribes to his steward later, Aldous learns that the mystery traveller is one Count Mikhail Andreyevich Krosov. Talking this over at dinner later, with his friends, he further learns that Krosov is a member of the White Army - the Office of Naval Intelligence having a natural interest in anti-communist forces - and can make an educated guess that he was in the States to drum up support for their ultimately doomed fight against the Bolsheviks.
This is confirmed at lunch the next day, when Krosov joins them and is introduced to the other investigators. Although his bodyguards’ ears do grow points when Abbagale is introduced as a reporter. Clearly they’re Russian security werewolves. The Count, however, is a perfect gentlemen, and even invites Abbagale to his cabin that evening for dinner. No doubt to gain favourable press coverage for his cause, but it is a very good meal. No beetroot soup and black bread for him!
On the other hand, there was one suspicious character earlier, during lunch. A priest, or at least somebody in a clerical collar, who was watching the investigator’s table with deep interest from the corner of his eye. Frontbottom circles around and sits himself down at the watcher’s table, but the priest refuses to explain himself and leaves, clearly annoyed by the interruption of his surveillance. Not only that, but none of the First Class stewards recognise him, so his presence in the First Class Dining Saloon takes some explanation...