On the Hunt

Tuesday Afternoon, June 10

After visiting the mummy expert, Abu Bin Laden, they headed back to the Old Town of Philadelphia. Juan was feeling ill, so went back to the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill. Ebony and Vince went out to reconnoitre the ley-line intersections from Abu's map.

Sledge & Mort went to hire some diving gear plus a compressor. They planned to suck and bottle the mummy mist if they could get close enough to it. Abu was asked about this (over the phone), but he did not know if it would work. Sledge went over-board and spent $1000 on gear hire (for three days) including a high-pressure air-compressor, a full wet-suit, and full aqua-lung, and the works (spear gun, flippers, weight belt, dive watch, etc).

While they were walking back to Mort's hearse, Mort spotted a cop standing by the hearse, examining it. Mort hid, and Sledge engaged the officer with some cock-and-bull story about Mort being in Chicago and him lending the car to Sledge. The cop asked Sledge to accompany him to the station.

"Am I under arrest?"

"Well, I didn't want to arrest you, but if you won't come, then 'yes'."

"On what charge?"

The officer read from his patrol-car laptop screen: "'Discharging a firearm, multiple times, in the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital Radiology lab', 'Assault of a security officer at the Penn Museum', 'Robbery of a priceless Egyptian sarcophagus from the Penn Museum'... shall I go on?"

At the station,  a Lieutenant Prospero conducted the questioning. He seemed very reticent to actually lay charges on Sledge, and said he would waive the lot if Sledge brought the rest of his band in for questioning. All of the group: Mort, Ebony, Vince, Theo and Juan were identified quite accurately.

The Lieutenant tried phoning them all. Only Mort and Ebony turned up.

They all denied everything. So the Lieutenant showed the recordings from the security camera mounted in the Penn Museum's loading bay, which showed the group entering and leaving the Penn Museum several times, examining the downed security guard (already down), and carrying the two-ton sarcophagus with the forklift.

The group neglected to ask the obvious question as to why couldn't the police use the recordings to show how the security guard was murdered, so Lt Prospero never volunteered it.

The Lieutenant released them all, but said he still wanted to speak to Juan, Theo and especially Vince (who had also discharged his weapon in the radiology lab).

According to the Lieutenant, the frightened hospital staff had claimed the whole thing was some elaborate prank, with some joker dressed up as a flaming mummy; needless to say, a particularly violent and dangerous prank that involved high calibre pistol discharges in a crowded hospital, and setting of uncontrolled fires.

Evidently, Dr Imelda Hyde had changed her beliefs too, and she now thought the whole thing was some sick prank, or, more likely, an elaborate grift to steal the priceless ancient sarcophagus of Ahmenra. She had laid a complaint along these lines that the party, lead by Mort, had engineered to steal it.

Tuesday Night

Abu's Philadelphia city map had four likely spots where ley-lines crossed.

1. Eastern State Penitentiary in Fairmount
2. Elfrith's Alley in the Old Town
3. The Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Washington Square West
4. Fleischer Art Memorial in Queen Village

Not heeding the old adage "never split the party", they split up.

Ebony and Vince got to the Historical Society building at 11:30pm. Ebony was a dab hand at sneaking, and locks and alarms. She managed to bypass the security system of the building, and her and Vince broke in. Down beneath the cellar, carved into the living rock, was a chamber with an altar, manacles and a cell. It showed no signs of recent use. No-one was there.

Sledge and Mort went to the Fleisher Art Memorial. There was some grand ball in progress here, and the place was full of well-dressed folk. Sledge and Mort walked in, unchallenged, and Mort suddenly realized that the entire crowd was vampires. They beat a hasty retreat and weren't stopped.

They rejoined each other and got to the Old Town district at about 1am. Elfrith's alley itself didn't yield anything suspicious, neither below ground down in the subway station, nor on rooftop nearby. However, perceptive Theo did notice that the "bad vibes" were a little stronger here than they were the other day when he was at this same spot.

They checked some other buildings in the general area: Betsy Ross's cottage (broke in), the Arden theatre (was open) and the Penn View hotel (was open), revealed nothing of interest. The Old Fireman's hall was closed, and its alarm was beyond Ebony's skill, so they left that place planning to visit in the morning at 10am.

Dangerous Encounter

Monday Night, June 9

Having just destroyed and sank Ahmenra's sarcophagus in the Delaware river, the party were heading back to bed, when Sledge's police scanner reported yet another murder - number five.

They headed to the site, and it was near the other murders. It was in a blind alley, but there were so many cop cars and wandering police that they couldn't get close.

From a distance and using his telescopic sight, Vince could see into the alley and there was a mist on the ground, but it was fast dissipating.

So, they returned to the museum, and back to the loading bay. One of the security guards, from earlier that night, was dead on ground by the loading-bay roller-door. He had been drained.

Weapons out, Sledge, Ebony, Mort and Vince, snuck inside.

There was a skittering on the lino and another skeletal dog rounded the corner. Sledge and Vince opened up and blasted it to oblivion, then turned to see a lurching mummy attack Mort and Ebony. Mort was desperately using his spray-can flame to try to burn it as it punched into him. Sledge managed to hit it with bullets, but they didn't seem to have any affect. So he tried a head-shot; this had a bit more success. It eventually went down in a conflagration. Mort's ribs took a pounding; broken.

Another skeletal dog joined the fray, and it launched itself into the unlucky Ebony. It landed a few bites on her, before they managed to destroy it too.

Around the corner, towards where the store room was (where the sarcophagus was stored originally), the walls and floor were covered in ice. Ebony ventured into it, but the extreme cold forced her back.

Mort phoned Mina. She seemed to be very busy; no help there.

"Maybe I shouldn't have threatened Oberon," he mused laconically.

Suspecting they were in over their heads, or else were suffering from extreme cowardice [ everyone had spent almost all their Willpower points ], the party withdrew and headed home to bed.

One point of note: this mummy they fought and burned was slow and shambling; nothing like the lightning-fast thing they had awoken in the hospital.

Dr Abu bin Laden

Tuesday morning, June 10

Mort's Occult Usenet post had got a response from a Dr Abu bin Laden, who, serendipitously, lived in Philadelphia.

So Mort had a chat with him on the phone, and then he, Sledge, Vince and Ebony went around to Abu's place.

Abu lived in a run-down semi-detached house in the poorer suburbs of Philly. When they arrived, the perceptive hairs on the back of Mort's neck stood on end (Sixth Sense ability).  After some formal introductions and a bit of awkwardness when no-one wanted to admit that they knew about the Veil [ the forbidden knowledge of the supernatural that mundanes are not aware of ] , they got talking.

Abu had an extensive library on mummies, and it was these actual books that was giving Mort the hebegebes.

Abu answered some question about mummies:

• They are correctly called "The Risen".
• Fire is their nemesis. 
• Head-shots might work, but body shots do not.
• The newly risen "harvest" organs from the living when they first rise. These organs become part of them.
• Blood can also be harvested.
• The Risen have a repertoire of spells. Things like heal, turn into mist, cause extreme cold, raise zombies (which look like mummies), and make skeletal dogs (or other animals).
• The Risen rise as powerful, and during the cycle, get weaker and weaker. They then must "sleep" for a while and then can rise again. There seemed to be no defined time as to how long they need to "sleep" (in a special ensorcelled sarcophagus), nor how long they stay "awake". 

"The cycle is decades," said Abu. "And sometimes centuries."

"Nothing about ten years then?" commented Vince.

Abu could not think of any Risen cycle that was ten years, so he couldn't help there.

"What is the significance of the location of the murders?" asked Sledge. "They all seem to be in the same area"

Abu had a look on a map of Philadelphia, and pronounced that this was near the conjunction of two ley-lines.

"Also, if the creature's sarcophagus is destroyed, then it must make a new one. This ensorcellment must also be done at such a ley-line conjunction."

He marked on the map the few places where this could be done.


The party thanked Abu for his help, and left.

Mort, worried about Oberon, then bought an anti-vampire "gun" on the black veil market. For $1500, it was like a mortar, a meter long, and fired a large wooden stake-like bullet. The guy who sold it, Fat Freddy, warned Mort that if any vampire spots him with said gun, then "you are so dead".

Dr Imelda Hyde then rang.

"Who killed my guard?" she began.
"Uh..."
"Where's the sarcophagus?" she asked.
"Dunno" lied Mort.
"The guards said they helped load it onto a truck. Your truck"
"Umm"
"And the police want to speak with you. I told them you'd contact them"
"Uhmm"

X-raying a Mummy

Monday Morning, June 9

Mort, Ebony, Juan, and Sledge arrived at the Penn museum to meet the Curator Doctor Imelda Hyde.

Dr Imelda Hyde

She had been curator for five years. The previous curator was a Dr Joan Wilder, but she had died a few years ago.

Mort managed to impress Imelda, both with his faux charm and his faux qualifications on mummy wrapping techniques. He wanted to check out the mummies held by the museum to see how they were wrapped to compare them with other mummies of similar age. Dr Hyde agreed to let him have a close view of the exhibits. It turned out that they had six mummies, with only four on display.

Mort examined the four on display and managed to secrete a sample of each of their wrappings. Then Dr Hyde took the group to the museum storage rooms where the other two mummies were. Both these mummies were in their stone sarcophagi.

Again, Mort managed to take a little sample of the wrappings of the first one of them, but when they raised the lid of the second sarcophagus, a 3500 year-old mummy named Ahmenra, Dr Hyde gasped in surprise.

The inner casket, made of wood, had been disturbed, and was askew, and the mummy itself was in the foetal position (not lying in state, like they usual do)

"This is very strange," exclaimed the good doctor. "There's absolutely no way a three-thousand year old desiccated corpse can do that. If you tried to move the limbs, they'd just snap. I can't explain it!"

"We must check it out. I'll get it X-rayed to see if there is any bone damage."

Dr Hyde phoned the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and she managed to get a time slot for the CAT scan, that very afternoon.

Monday Afternoon, June 9

Dr Hyde, Mort, Vince, Ebony, Juan, and four museum assistants took the mummy (in wooden casket) to the university hospital. They wheeled Ahmenra into the radiography lab. Here, they ran into the first hurdle. It was still in the foetal position, so wouldn't fit into the CAT machine "body tunnel".

They did manage to scan the head itself. The radiographer scratched his head and reported that there was soft tissue within. Very strange.

Mummy Ahmenra

"Well, the skull cavity was empty, when we did this five years ago," said Dr Hyde.

She went off with the chief radiographer, to fetch another X-ray machine, so they could do the rest of the mummy.

Just after she had left, there was a loud CRACK, like the bang of a firearm. One of the legs of the mummy had suddenly straightened. It had moved so fast, no-one had seen it move.

Ebony rushed off to get Dr Hyde.

There was another CRACK. The other leg had straightened, again with lightning speed. Vince had watched the desiccated corpse the whole time. It had happened between blinks.

The party, the museum staff, and the radiographers backed away. Mort got out his spray can and lighter ready. Dr Hyde and Ebony arrived back. She was totally dumb-founded and kept muttering that a desiccated mummy just can't do that.

Juan observed wryly that they could fit it through the CAT scan now.

Just then, another CRACK, and an arm had straightened.
Then another CRACK. Everyone was looking at the mummy this time. No-one saw the arm move. It happened between blinks; or everyone blinked at the same instant.

Mort didn't wait a heartbeat. He squirted his spray can and ignited it, sending gouts of lighter-fluid flame onto the mummy's face and up its nostril, into the skull cavity.

There was a mighty roar which shook the entire Xray lab, and the creature sat up, head aflame, then stood up. The radiographers fled, with the museum staff too. Juan was too slow, and it punched him; a mighty blow which threw him across the room, and he crunched into the wall, all but unconscious.

Vince and Sledge whipped out their guns (glock 9mm and .357 magnum) and opened up. They both landed good shots. The mummy took off and bounded out of the room. Roaring.

Suspecting that the creature would head back to the Penn museum, the party took off, leaving behind the badly injured Juan to be fixed (after all, he was right inside the hospital). They took Mort's hearse.

They got back to the museum's storage room. Ahmenra's stone sarcophagus was still there, as left. They poured petrol into it.

Then the room started to fill with fog. They lit the petrol and left quickly, only to run into a skeletal dog out there. Sledge shot it to bits.

Hearing the noise of gunfire, one of the museum security guards arrived. A superstitious chap, it didn't take long to explain to him what was going on. He suggested to turn the aircon onto "full" to suck out the fog. So they did this, and it worked.

Monday Sunset 8:28 pm, June 9

It was now after dark, so Ebony contacted Mina, and asked if she could take the sarcophagus, and dispose of it. She gave instructions to take it to a warehouse

With the help from security guards, and forklifts, they took the two-ton stone sarcophagus to the loading bay.

While this was in progress, Juan stole a flat-bed truck and backed it into the loading bay. They loaded up the sarcophagus, and took it to Mina's warehouse.

Here, it was filled with dynamite, craned onto a boat, and floated it out into the Delaware river. Then detonated.

To the Museum

Friday Afternoon, June 6

Following up on the mummy lead (phoned through by Sledge from New Caledonia), Mort, Vince, Ebony and Juan headed off the the Penn Museum (The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology) and to the Egyptian section.

They spent a few hours checking out the displays. There were four mummies there. All were behind Plexiglas. Two were in closed sarcophagi, and two visible in their wrappings. All the Plexiglas cases had key-locks, and were openable from the inside. The whole area was surveilled by mounted security cameras. Plus a few security guards.
The curator of this section was a Doctor Imelda Hyde.

Mort made an appointment to see her on Monday.

Friday Night

Ebony and Vince went to the rendezvous spot to meet up with Mina at midnight, by the battleship. They had nothing to report. Neither did she.

Saturday Morning, June 7

Mort got a call from the coroner. There had been another murder that morning around 3am (third murder). A homeless guy this time. As before, the body had been drained again, but had no wounds (presumably healed) , and there was lots of spatter. It was within a few blocks of the previous ones.

Mort met with the coroner and, in his capacity as mortician, volunteered to help. Unfortunately, Mort was rather keen, and when he blew up the cadaver's lungs, as in *blew* them up with his mouth, they exploded with a meaty pop, like over-full balloons, and spattered all over the walls of the morgue.
He was asked to leave. Although, he did manage to steal the scrapings of some fibres from under one of the cadaver's finger-nails.

Sunday Morning, June 8

Mort got another call from the Coroner: There had been another murder; a prostitute. This was the fourth murder. She had been killed and her blood was missing, but no spatter.

Mort sent out feelers into his Occult network, asking for experts on mummies "The Risen", via email, Google+ and Facebook.

"Don't you know the Mages run the internet?" quipped Theo, dryly.

"Well I have a password for Occult Usenet," said Mort. "I'll use that."

Late Sunday afternoon, Sledge Hammer arrived back in Philly, after his expedition to New Caledonia.

Sunday Evening

Mort got Oberon's number off one of his girls (who's number he got off Juan Direction).
Mort phoned him, that day after dark, and the conversation went like this:
Oberon, the vampire: "Hello"
Mort: "We'd like your help"
"Who is this?"
"Mort Tetian. We work with Mina"
"Why did you phone me?!"
"We want your help"
"Why should I help you, you prick? I have nothing to do with Mina."
"Well, if you don't, there will be trouble."
"You threatening me?"
"No. But there will be trouble."
There was a pause, then Oberon said, his voice deathly cold
"Better you hope I don't see you again."
"Bring it on, fang boy"

Previous Murders

Tuesday Night (cont.)

Theo's Sixth Sense was going off, so the vampire must have been still around. So he separated from the party, and started to mutter under his breath "I really need to talk to you. Give me a sign".

A pebble whacked on his head. So he wandered off in a quiet alley. Sure enough, the creature

Vampire Mina Nerissimo

descended next to him. This was the svelte vampire girl from the bar. Theo and her got talking and she revealed her name, Mina Nerissimo, and that "we didn't kill these two corpses. Someone else is trying to blame us" and "We are not the only ones who can exsanguinate and seal the wounds" and "You find out who did, and we shall be eternally grateful. Eternal with a capital E. Meet me here tomorrow and midnight."

The party proceeded to the second site, closer to the Delaware river.

This place was also guarded by a cop, but he was a lot more bored and a lot easier to distract. So they managed to investigate the site. There was less blood here (or else the Police had cleaned it up).

Wednesday Morning, June 4

Theo and Mort did some supernatural research; besides vampires, there were four groups of creatures that can heal similarly: the Sidhe (fairy folk), the Arisen (mummies), the Mages, and the Sin-eaters (the possessed). However, the Sidhe, Arisen and Mages use blood in their rituals, but not the Sin-eaters.

Also, Sledge did some work through his police contacts. About ten years ago, there was a similar spate of drained bodies found. Five bodies, all drained, all healed. A Detective Eleanor Street was the head D on this, but she left the force soon after this. The case was never solved.

Wednesday Night

Vampire Oberon Sanchez

That night at the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill, where Juan worked, both Brother Theo and Mort's hackles rose; their sixth sense could detect a supernatural disturbance nearby. Sure enough, a vampire was at the bar chatting up a girl there. Ebony bravely confronted him, and he motioned her out the back to "have a word". When alone, he slammed her against the wall and lifted her up by her throat. He was named Oberon. He knew about Mina, but knew nothing about these murders. He was just pissed at the party for confronting him. There was no love lost between Mina and Oberon.

Midnight rolled around and Vince and Ebony went to the rendezvous to meet Mina. They had an altercation with three street punks; the leader of which was shot in the head by Vince. They hid his body in a skip.

Mina arrived and demanded an update. There wasn't much to report apart from Eleanor's case of ten years ago. Mina wasn't in Philly then, so had no recollection herself. She would meet them in two night's time, this time at the base of the gang-way onto the battleship New Jersey, now a floating museum in the Delaware river.

Thursday Morning, June 5

Sledge managed track down where Eleanor Street had ended up : New Caledonia. He phoned and eventually got through to her. The lead was promising, but Eleanor refused to say anything too damning over the phone. So Sledge decided to fly out there. The flight cost $5000 and would take twenty hours via Los Angeles.

Friday Morning, June 6

Det. Eleanor Street

Sledge arrived in Nouméa. Detective Eleanor Street now worked for the island police. She met
Sledge at the airport and they got chatting. Eleanor admitted that she was ridiculed by her police colleagues over her theories of the Supernatural being involved; so much so that she left them and shifted out. It took Sledge a while to reassure her, and that he, too, believed in the Veil.

When Sledge mentioned the mummy, mage and fae theory, Eleanor suddenly recalled that the Philadelphia Natural History museum had a collection of Egyptian artifacts, including some mummies, and that a night guard had been killed back in 2004.

The Philadelphia Experiment

New campaign. 

World of Darkness: Hunter, the Vigil

THE PARTY

Ebony Medoza [ Jeff ], 
an ex-Athelete
a rhythmic gymnast who didn't quite make the US 2012 Olympic team. 
Archetype: thief. 
Fighting forte: thrown. 
Hated: geist

Jacob Bradshaw [ Ian ], 
forensic scientist. 
Works for Philadelphia Police Department.
Archetype: scholar. Fighting forte: none. Hated: demon

Juan Direction [ Matt] , 
a street racer (ex gang). 
Defined by his car, a Skyline GT-R. Has had many brushes with the law over illegal street facing.
Archetype: petty crim. 
Fighting forte: pistol. 
Hated: vampire

Lucy Lang [ Steven ], 
scientist and occultist. 

Archetype: Lab technician. 
Fighting forte: none. 
Hated: created

Sledge Hammer [ Shane ], 
a P.I.
An ex-detective who left the Philly force over accusations of corruption and wrought. "They ain't proved nothin'," exclaimed Sledge indignantly when asked about them. 
Archetype: PI. 
Fighting forte: pistol. 
Hated: werewolf

Reginald Gates [ Darryl ], 
a soldier. 
An ex-marine and former Corporal.
Archetype: soldier 
Fighting forte: sub-machine gun (mp5). 
Hated: mage

Leon Livingstone [ David Campbell ], 
An ex-soldier. 
Archetype: Soldier. 
Fighting forte: shotgun. 
Hated: mage











DEAD OR RETIRED

Mort Gezkowski [ Darryl ], a mortician (ex doctor). Has worked with and for the Philly Senior coroner at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.
Archetype: scholar Fighting forte: pistol. Hated: vampire

Vince Stevens [ Ian ], an ex hit-man. Made his name in Central America working for the Chavez junta's secret police "los perros corriendo". When Chavez died in 2013, Vince quickly left the country and returned to the US. 
Archetype: fighter. Fighting forte: pistol. Hated: mage

Theo St George [ Steven ], 
an ex monk (ex religious leader). 
Formerly a Benedictine monk from St Gregory's Abbey (Three Rivers in Michigan), he fell out over accusations of "indecency and impropriety", and was summarily excommunicated.
Archetype: Warrior priest. 
Fighting forte: sword, katana. 

Hated: mage

BEGIN

Tuesday Night, June 3

Juan was a recent employee of the Khyber Pass Bar & Grill, a boutique bar in the Old Town district of Philadelphia.

He nodded to his mates as they pushed through the few people in the place, and took seats by the bar. There was Eva, Mort, Vince, Theo and Sledge. Something serious must be up, because they didn't normally meet with him while he was working.
  
"Two bodies," began Mort, without any intro, in his usual terse style. "Exsanguinated".

"Drained of blood too," added Theo helpfully.

Mort continued, in a hushed tone: "Vamps, I suspect. But I didn't see any puncture marks. No where on the body."

Mort was a mortician, who worked at the city morgue, under the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital.

"Vampires can seal up the wounds" added Juan quietly.

"The patho told me one was found at the Washington Square park, about half a mile from here, and the other one down by the river" continued Mort.

Sledge, ever watchful, noticed a svelte girl down the bar raise her head at the word "vampires". He thought this was odd for Juan had said it barely above a whisper. Sledge nodded to the others and gestured subtly towards her, then wandered off. Sledge was superb at hiding and tailing, so he slipped into a pool of shadows just outside in the street.

The others, sans Juan, then proceed to leave and walked down the street. Sure enough, the girl stood up and left too. Followed by Sledge. Then Juan.

The girl was following the group. Sledged texted Vince to update him of progress, then kept in hidden pursuit.

They headed down an alley; a blind alley. 

The girl paused at the entrance.

Back down the street, the hidden Sledge texted Mort. Mort inched his way to the mouth of the alley. The girl must have noticed, she suddenly scooted up the side of the building, barely touching the walls, so by the time Mort got to the mouth, she was well out of sight.

Keeping a weather-eye on her, the group proceeded down Walnut St to the first of the body locations in the park. It was still under police guard.

Vince managed to sneak past the cops and had his own look at the site of the killing. There was blood spattered about.

He rejoined the group and told them of this. With nothing else to do here, they started to move off to the site of the second killing.

The Return of Carnilla

Light Touch [ Jeff ] got the chitinous skin from one of the dead giant cockroaches and ordered it to be made into a set of greaves, vambraces and breast-plate. Unfortunately, when he was telling the dwarven smith to do this, he made groping breast motions, and thus ended up with boobs on his breast-plate. "Somewhere to store things," quipped Yeti [ Darryl ].

Having finished with Narnia, we said our goodbyes to the Good animals, and went back to the Lamp-post to return to the Shadowlands Keep world. Our main worry now was Carnilla (Recall that Carnilla was Carla's (me) evil extra-planar alter-ego clone from another copy of the Earth world, where New Zealand is a fascist state run by the Drow (ACT) ruling class. This was originally where Ah Hung [ Steven ] came from). We had assumed that the nine days quoted by the orcs would be when she would make a push into Narnia to defeat the White Witch herself, and gain power like I had from her death. Apparently, when you kill one of your extra-planar clones, you receive an augmentation of power. There was a four-to-one time dilation in Narnia compared to the Keep world, and we had spent about four days in Narnia, so this meant there was still eight days (32 Narnian days) before Carnilla would arrive. Nevertheless, we got Yeti to make Light Touch and Peg Groups [Ian] invisible. They then snuck back through the tunnel.

Sure enough, a band of twelve gnolls, very well concealed, were watching the spot where the tunnel emerged. So Light Touch & Peg waltzed invisible past them, then out into the swamp to the lizardmen's mound. It didn't take long to rustle up a platoon of lizardmen braves, and they descended upon the hapless gnolls like a wolves on the fold, and slaughtered every one.

We all came through the tunnel. Nailed to a tree near the tunnel was a strange plate with a rune on it. John Wayne [ Shane ] identified this rune as something to do with protection from extraplanar travellers. Straight away we suspected the hand of Carnilla, and thus smashed the plate into little bits. The instant we did this, Tarboy suddenly appeared (recall the totally black figure we spotted in the evil temple of the Caves of Chaos, one of the extra-planar creatures. His proper name was Nyarlathotep, but that was too much of a mouthful, so we stuck with "Tarboy"). In voice dripping with fulsome irony, he thanked us for destroying the plate and then said his aims were in line with our own. He said Carnilla had in her possession an artifact of immense power, and that she was affecting all the multi-verses with her meddling. He would help us, if we helped him - "my enemy's enemy is my friend", and all that. Wiz and I wanted nothing to do with a creature of such evil, but John Wayne, Peg Groups and Gwyffin [ guest star Richard Greenaway ] willingly accepted Tarboy's blessing. However, Tarboy still had a lasting affect, because from then on, each night I had horrendous dreams of being bound and sacrificed by Carnilla on an altar of blood. Yeti dreamed of kittens.

Back to the Keep. On the way there, it was nearing dark and we were making camp. We heard the noise of what sounded like a two-stroke engine, up in the sky. I suddenly got this strange feeling of dread and squeaked "Carnilla!" We all hunkered down, and tried to hide. The noise got louder, and then it flew overhead, then passed and faded away. It was headed roughly out over the swamp,

Back in the Lord Loofah's Keep we settled down to rest in the FAG inn. My beauty, pulchritude and macromasia had increased somewhat when the witch died. I used to attract many stares from solo males and hateful glances from women, but now the mild this irritant had turned into a deluge of attention from every man-jack in the inn. One fellow named Elric (yes, named after the fallen god) was particularly interested and hung around. So much so that he wanted to join us - he was a tea-leaf like Light Touch. So we had a vote: Carla, Peg Groups, Ah Hung, Wiz said yes. John Wayne, Yeti, and Gwyffin said no. So he could tag along.

John Wayne's Santa suit was beginning to give us worry. He had slaughtered some good creatures in cold blood, and now he was starting to radiate evil to both me and Wiz. So evil in fact, that it was only eclipsed by Tarboy. He could not take the suit off, and its fabric was physically merging with his spine and brain stem. He got himself a whip too, and started practicing using it.

We asked the Keep priest of Grism, Dogbert, to check John and the suit out. Dogbert pronounced the suit utter pure and incorruptible Good (!).  John then asked the Keep wizard to also check the suit because it was a power item - but when he touched it, all the flesh was stripped from his hand, literally degloved, leaving only the bloody bones and tendons. His hysterical screams of agony could be heard long into the night as Dogbert tried fitfully to patch him up - or at least keep him alive. We are pretty sure John Wayne would have been arrested and executed for such an act if Dogbert had not intervened with his declarations of the suit's unadulterated goodness.

The target for the next trip would be the portal located in Cliffies' land - a tribe of goblins. So we left and headed there. After two uneventful days, we left the road and started to head through the trees.

We came upon an ogre-mage and two orcs priests about to slaughter a naked elf maiden who was tied to a tree stump. We made short work of them; without even breaking a sweat. The girl identified herself as Nyssa and was logically upset, but she didn't wish to travel with us, and only wanted to head home. The ogre-mage had a book Revelations of Glaaki and was using drawings from the pages in his set-up of the sacrifice. Author Glaaki was obviously completely insane, probably evil too (though the book did not radiate evil), and just looking at a page made me feel ill. John Wayne had no such moral qualms, and he gleefully took the book. On the open page, he soon spotted the very sacrifice the ogre-mage was planning, and determined that the ogre had got it completely wrong any way: "In Elder-speak, the gerund is 'disembowelling' not 'disenfranchising', stupid ogre."

As we were moving deeper in, we heard the two-stroke engine again. Elric suddenly bolted. And then suddenly there were four loud bangs in quick succession.

There was a blur and we appeared in a library, filled with musty old books. Mentoz "the Fresh-Maker" (another one of the extraplanar beings) was here in smoking jacket and slippers, sucking on a pipe. He explained that we had been hit simultaneously by four portals, obviously launched from Carnilla herself (from her two-stroke-engine-powered gyrocopter). Mentoz had intervened at the exact moment that the portal spheres were in their expansionist stage. He had fashioned this Library pocket universe and brought us here, outside of time, for the few milliseconds before the portal spheres engulfed us. Although he was forbidden to intervene, apparent doing this act was allowed - and who are we to question the motives of beings of such power? We would still have to go back into the resultant worlds where the portal spheres would take us, but at least we could have a wee chat with Mentoz first, and perhaps a snifter of brandy.

Like Tarboy, Mentoz was worried about the phenomenal power that Carnilla was wielding, and he too wanted us to stop her before she destroyed all the multiverses with her "pesky meddling". He gave us some more items: two suppositories of Regeneration, eight suppositories of Cure, two of Heal, and one for me to use in the presence of Carnilla, apparently to weaken her by proxy. Gwyffin also pick-pocketed the Fresh-Maker and got a hens-egg-sized one made of the purest of white marble.