Three to Get Ready

Umar al-Ghaffari

When we last left the party, Bernard [Jamie], Miriam [Jeff], Gazala [Richard], Jacob [Chris], Mezmer [Shane], and Cooper [Ian]), they were in the second floor kitchen of Umar al-Ghaffari's apartment. They were with Inspector Heroux and four Tunis gendarmes. Wonton [Darryl] was safe, still researching at the Bibliotheque Nationale de Tunisie.

It was almost midnight, and it was dark, because they dared not have any light. Across the courtyard from their three storey building, was an active shooter, with a rifle, taking the occasional shot at any movement.

Down stairs, at ground level in the lounge, was a revolting stench of sewage and excrement, and ominous sounds of movement; another faecal shambling horror. 

Miriam quickly asked the gendarmes to turn the kitchen bench on its side to try to block the stairs, in case it came up.

Then they all noisily argued what to do next:

• Stay and wait for the police reinforcements to arrive, but risk more faecal surprises? 
• Make a break for it out the front door, at the risk of faecal surprises and then being shot? 
• Make a break out of the roof door, and scurry away across the roofs, at the risk of being shot? 
• Sneak over the roof and engage the shooter, at the risk of being shot?

The last option was decided, and Cooper was volunteered to do the task. The plan was that he would be given a Lebel revolver, and then would sneak over the roof-tops to end up behind the gunman, and shoot him. 

So, brave Cooper snuck up the ladder into the bedroom above, quiet as the grave and invisible as a shadow, preparing to begin his journey of sneaking and skulking.

There was a loud CRACK and a breaking of glass, and Cooper tumbled down the ladder, unconscious, onto the floor, spurting blood, with a rifle bullet hole in his shoulder. Ow.

Dr Jacob was there in a flash, and he put a widdle sticking pwaster onto the widdle hole and kissed it all bwetter. This stopped the bleeding.

They changed tack and decided maybe running out the front door might be easier after all, and risk the faecal surprises.

Speaking of which, there was now something solid, bashing and pushing on the bench that was blocking the stairs. It wasn't strong enough to dislodge the four sturdy gendarmes, but the bench-top wood was starting to bend and splinter.

So, the party swapped places with the gendarmes; they held the bench. Then the gendarmes all drew their guns, stepped back. The bench was pulled back.

The shooter

Sure enough, it was another faecal surprise; a humanoid figure covered in excrement. All the gendarmes fired, and fired. And fired. The figure dropped. Two gendarmes kept firing and emptied their guns; click click.

Bernard, Mezmer, Jacob and Miriam carried the unconscious Cooper down the stairs, followed by Gazala, and lead by the four gendarmes and Inspector Heroux.

The gendarmes left the front door first, and they provided some covering fire towards the shooter while everyone bolted. Sadly, two gendarmes were dropped during this manoeuvre, but everyone else got clear.

Mario Berlusconi [Kevin] was conveniently waiting around the corner, and he had with him another French lady called Fleur Jardin [Steven Krijnen - it was lockdown, so we were playing by Discord and this Steven could join]. Fleur worked for the paper too, and she was a medic, so she checked Cooper over and declared him stable.

Now that they were clear, Heroux gave his strained goodbyes. He would return here with more police forces.

"C'est trop dangereux pour vous tous," he said. "Retournez chez vous. Dieu vitesse!" (Go home. It's too dangerous.)

They found their Citroen outside the Medina, still intact, and drove back to the newspaper and their  flat.

Wonton was there, so they updated him. Cooper was tended by the two medics.

Bernard was first to make ablutions for bed, but down in the basement toilet he made an alarming discovery. The male toilet end-cubicle was suspiciously messy. Fresh faeces spattered all over he floor, on the walls and some on the ceiling. This was ominous.

Mezmer was summoned, so he cleared a spot in the mess, knelt down and emptied his mind of all distractions. But he sensed no mythos disturbances. 

"Maybe someone just had an irritable bowel," he said.

Fleur tried to clean the horrid mess, with a bucket and mop, but it was so disgusting that her delicate constitution was overwhelmed, and she vomitted herself silly. 

After purging her stomach of all of her dinner, she used a fire hose to spray everything off. At least the water pressure down here was good.

They all retired for the night. The three women and the sickly Cooper claimed the bunk room tonight. The men slept in the living room and outside on the roof, next to the generator.

Cooper's wounds had been tended, so he was at least healing now. [D3 hp from the quacks, plus 1 hp per night of rest].

They kept guard in turns just in case. 

Everyone got a restless haunted sleep - not helped by the diesel generator (and its shot bearings, and rust holes in the muffler), starting and stopping periodically during the whole night.

_____________________________________

They were having breakfast when one of the Calomnie receptionists came up to the flat. There was a man looking for Gazala. So Gazala, Miriam and Bernard went down.

The man was the Arab gentleman in Ahmed's Coffee House whom Gazala had insulted and threatened with a knife [two session's ago]. He had come here to beat her, or to witness her husband beating her. For her insolence.

Bernard bare-faced lied and told him that Gazala's husband was currently in Albania*, after all he was an Albanian. But that story didn't hold much water, and they final had to relent and "admit" that it was Cooper who was in fact Gazala's husband. But he was sick (that, at least, was true - he was still wounded in bed from the gun shot).

The man went up to the flat with the three, and spoke to Cooper (still in bed). Much abuse and invective was hurled: كنت الديوث وجلد كس !! Cooper was called a cuck and a simp, and how could he live with himself with such a prostitute wife. But the Arab gentleman was forced to leave it at that- he was severely outnumbered by the whole party. So, he went away fuming.

[ * = Gazala was from Algiers. But Richard mistakenly mixed up "Albania" and "Algeria" as to where Gazala's fictitious husband was. So it stuck.]

They went down to their offices and the editor, JK Simmons, was looking forward to printing the exciting story of last night's action. It would run on the front page of Calomnie de Tunis tomorrow. 

"But why aren't there any photographs?" he shouted. "You fools!"

Miriam got out her sketch pad and did some drawings; drawings of the brave party, the brave police, the evil sniper. But she did not draw the faecal men. And she never saw the "gorilla".

They all went to the Commissariat de Police - the police station. The desk Sergeant told them that Heroux wasn't there, and that he was investigating a murder in Medina. Then he did a double-take:

"You are the Calomnie journalists!" he shouted. "Do not publish anything about last night."

The party sheepishly nodded, then left and returned to their paper. They would need to somehow convince the Editor not to run with the story.

Inspector Heroux

Some time later that day, Inspector Heroux telephoned them, and they went in to the station for his update:

• The gendarme that Heroux had sent for reinforcements last night never showed up. He is now officially missing.
• Earlier this morning, Heroux and a large group of gendarmes, with heavy weapons, went to Umar's apartment. The faecal mess was still all over the floors as they had left it when they fled last night.
• The cold room door was thrown open, but it was just an empty room. No cold. No blackness. Just empty. Though there was a chalk pentagram on the floor.
• They found the site of the sniper last night. No sign of anything except some cigarette butts and rifle casings. It was a .30 06. 
• The bodies of the gendarmes killed in the courtyard were recovered.

Gazala was impatient to do something about the Arab man who was harassing her. So, she got Miriam to draw a sketch, but it was crap. However, the gendarmes had a dedicated artist, and Gazala described her harasser to the artist as Miriam jealously looked on, and a perfect caricature resulted.

Heroux identified him as Subhi el-Asad. Mr el-Asad was on the police register because his wife went missing last year; he was suspected, but there was no evidence to arrest him.

The party asked if they could get a firearms carry permit. Heroux said certainly not. But he was impressed by their utility last night at Umar's, and could technically deputize them. They still could not carry, unless they went on a firearms training course. But that would take several weeks. And it would not be in Tunis. "Mais ..." but... "L'Arbitre dit que vous pouvez vous entraîner au maniement des armes pour le prochain module d'aventure." [The DM says maybe for the next adventure module]

Gazala protested that she needed protection. So, Heroux assigned two rookie gendarmes to the group: Armond and Maurice Seins.

Later on that day, the group got a call from the police. There had been a new occult murder on Rue Al Jazira, just off the SE corner of the Medina. So the group hopped in their Citroen and headed there.

Inspector Heroux and a gaggle of gendarmes were there poking around, and the party was let through. Heroux briefed them.

A body was found in deserted two-storey building by two homeless beggars who reported it when a passing gendarme saw them. These two were now sitting in the corner looking sheepish, and were chewing away nervously - probably the cheap chewing-tobacco. Or hashish.

This murder was different to others. And there wasn't a faceless corpse wandering around. The victim was found on the ground floor. He had been stabbed in back,

Medina & murder locations
Scale: "1" to "2" is about 300m

In common with the other two, a pentagram had been drawn with black chalk on second storey floor. And there were five black candles on each corner. But they had never been lit.

The group had their map of Tunis, so they drew on the three murder locations ("1", "2" and "3") and also Umar's apartment, and linked them up to see if there was any pattern.

Party medics Fleur and Jacob wanted to examine the body. So, they took the Citroen and headed off to the Hôpital Militaire hospital, and down to the morgue. They had a note from Heroux this time, so didn't need to bluff their way inside. The pathologist told them that the victim had not been IDed yet. He had been killed by a stab to the back, a few times. One stab had hit the heart. He came in dressed in beggar rags, but they were not the clothes he was killed in. And teeth, skin, hair, soles, and general health showed he was not a beggar.

Back at the scene, Mezmer did a purification ritual. Like last time, the whole floor jolted when the ritual was complete. It was a smaller shake than last time, but it was enough to dislodge some items off the top of a nearby shelf; some clothes fell out. They had blood on them, and they were high quality clothes - this must have been the victim's clothes

L'Appartement

The party, Gazala [Richard], Miriam [Jeff], Mezmer [Shane], Wonton [Darryl], Jacob [Chris], Mario [Kevin] were at the at the scene of the murder. 

Umar al-Ghaffari

Suddenly, Mario collapsed spluttering marmalade. At the same time, Bernard [Jamie], and Cooper [Ian] arrived.

They all decided to leave the gendarmes to tidy up at the second murder scene, and headed off to Umar's place. Gazala knew exactly where it was - about fifteen minute walk through the Medina alleys.

So Cooper, Miriam and Gazala, being the sneaky quiet ones, went up ahead. 

 

They arrived in the quiet courtyard in front of Umar's apartment. There was a bearded man, sitting in the sun, whittling. He was working on a piece of bone.

Cooper snuck around the side and climbed up a drain-pipe, and onto the flat roof of the three storey dwelling. There was a door up here, which was locked. But Cooper made short work of the lock and was soon inside. It was a clean tidy bedroom; the double bed was neatly made. And the room had a hole in the floor with a ladder going down.

Cooper could hear talking somewhere below - the room where the ladder went was empty.

So he snuck down. This level was a kitchen-dining room, and had a door off it. And there was a stair-way downwards. He could hear talking below. It was three men, and one of them was Umar al-Ghaffari himself.

Cooper investigated the side door. It was very thick and solid with reinforced iron hinges, and quiet to listen to. It wasn't locked, so he opened it. It was unnaturally dark inside, like it was filled with a cloud of darkness that absorbed all light. It was cold like a fridge, and smelt of off-meat and rancid fat. He felt a wave of cold seep over him, and it filled him with revulsion and horror. Even though he had been very quiet, the instant the door was opened, the talking in the room suddenly ceased, like a switch. And then, just as quickly, there were footfalls on the stairs.

He sprang for the ladder and clambered up it, as people entered the room. Soon followed by shouts and curses in Arabic.

Cooper rushed through the bedroom, out the door, and onto the roof, sprinting and jumping away.

The Medina as so closely packed with buildings cheek-by-jowl, that it was easy to traverse, building to building. And most of the alleyways were easily jumpable.

Miriam and Gazala, down below, heard the commotion and pursuit on the roof, so they quickly left too, staying clear of the whittler who was also looking upwards, and went to the pre-arranged rendezvous

Cooper's pursuers gave up the chase, and so Cooper joined the two girls, and they all headed back to the party to update them.

Upon hearing this tale about Cooper's fridge, Wonton decided to go to the library (Bibliotheque Nationale de Tunisie) to check on this information. So, he left them [which, in hindsight, proved to be a mistake, because only a few hours passed in the game world, which was barely enough time for Wonton just to travel to the library and start his research. So no Wonton for any of tonight's adventure.]

 

Miriam turned out to be quite the artist, so she did a sketch of the bearded whittler. It was a good enough caricature for Inspector Heroux to recognize him as Hassam Khan of mafia tunisoise ("Tunis Mafia").

About then, a suspicious character beckoned Mezmer over to a side alley, out of sight of the gendarmes.

Colt Sheriff .22

Mezmer had earlier used his (abstract/contrived) Connections skill to contact the black market. He wanted a gun. This guy, a "running boy", had one. It was a 1873 Colt Sheriff's Model .22 rim-fire revolver with a box of 20 bullets. He wanted 2000 francs (French francs was Tunisia's currency; in 1930, 2000F was two month's wages). The party did a whip-around, and that drained all their petty cash.

The Tunis police were very strict on firearms in the 20s and 30s. Illegally possessing one would get you the firing squad. Unless you were a French citizen (basically, "if white") - then you would be shipped back to Paris for the guillotine. Or the French Foreign Legion often got these condemned reprobates.

It was 4pm-ish. Heroux was about to leave with his men. They had neatly and literally wrapped up the whole crime scene in the police string.

Gazala took Heroux aside, and tried to get him to arrest Umar. Heroux kept insisting that they had no evidence, and what the party had seen was just circumstantial. And no-one of any import had anything on Umar. Gazala could not, of course, reveal any of Cooper's discoveries.

But Gazala insisted, and she batted her stunning big brown eyes, with their over-mascaraed lashes and the smoky eye-shadow (and threw a 12 on 2D6 plus 2 for APP), and he changed his mind.

So, Inspector Heroux, with six gendarmes in tow, plus the party, headed to Umar's.

Mister whittler was gone by now and there were no noises of talking within. It was getting late and the shadows were long. The whole apartment had a foreboding feel about it.

The police broke down the door and rushed inside. The lower level (which Cooper had not scouted earlier because it was occupied) had a dining room with two doors off it. Heroux told the party to stay outside, but Cooper ignored him deftly snuck inside with the gendarmes, hidden at the rear.

Two gendarmes went up the stairs, Cooper was about to follow when there was a horrible scream, hysterical with terror. It was abruptly cut short, then followed by a meaty rending tearing noise. Brave Cooper continued up, and nearly tripped on a bloody detached human arm (still in a police shirt) at the top of the stairs. One gendarme, (with both arms intact) was sitting on the floor rocking. The solid "fridge" door was wide open, and the strange darkness still filled that cold room. There was a meaty tearing noise coming from within that darkness. Cooper rushed across floor, slick with fresh blood, and grabbed at the door. He managed to get his hands on it when a fleshy tentacle, the thickness of an arm, with barbed bone hooks on it, snaked out of the dark pall, and ripped across his leg, tearing skin and fascia. He managed to keep his wits, and pushed the door closed, as the tentacle slipped back inside to avoid being crushed. He realized he was screaming himself.

Hearing the screams, the whole party barrelled on in. Everyone rushed upstairs. Dr Jacob tended Cooper's wounds. Heroux questioned the rocking gendarme and Cooper.

Cooper tried to say what it was; some kind of tentacle, like from a giant squid.

"Était-ce comme un tentacule de calmar géant?" asked a gendarme in disbelief. Then got abusive, accusing Cooper for lying: "Tu es un menteur. Va te faire foutre, espèce de branleur menteur."

The Inspector had it firmly in his head that it was a leopard. Only a leopard could rip an arm off. Only a leopard could kill his man like that. Mezmer and Bernard helpfully pointed out that a gorilla could this too, so the rattled Heroux settled upon that. 

No-one was brave enough to open the heavy door. So, Heroux sent one of his (now five) men back to the police station to get reinforcements. He should take an hour. They would shoot this gorilla down when he returned. 

Lebel revolver

The gendarmes and Heroux each had a Modele 1892 "Lebel" revolver (8mm), so the gendarme that departed left his gun with Jacob, who gave it to Gazala to hold. Each gun had 6 bullets with another six in the belt. Mezmer had his 22 Colt gun as well, but he was not going to reveal that to the gendarmes.

Cooper thought that the iron catch on the heavy door was sufficient to hold it.

Everyone thoroughly searched the apartment. There was plenty of food, oil, linen and candles, but the upstairs bedroom was completely unused; the dresser and wardrobe up there had nothing in them.

None of the windows had curtains. They did find another bone dagger - like the one used in the murder.

It was getting dark now. The apartment had no electricity (this was common in the Medina), so had candles and lanterns for light.

One of the doors off the ground floor lounge had a cupboard for food store. 

The other door went to a short passage to a second door behind which was a small toilet cum washroom. It was a "starting-block" toilet over an unusually large hole down to the sewer, and there was a single tap and a basin. But it was disgusting. There was faeces all over the floor, spattered up the walls, and even on the ceiling. Whoever had these bowel movements, had really gone to town; imagine a Mills bomb in a bucket of poo. Even the water tap itself was caked in it. It was a mix of dried excrement and fresh runny stuff - lumpy well-formed  and watery diarrhoea. The stench was eye-watering.

Holding back bile and retching, they slammed the door; both doors.

Bernard thought he'd go for a walk (pike off), but when he stepped out the door, there was a rifle shot from somewhere, and the bullet smashed into the architrave. He quickly withdrew. All the gendarmes drew their Lebel guns. Everyone crouched down and extinguished the candles.

Gazala and Miriam, with their keen eyes and compact mirrors, spotted a figure up on the roof. Gazala wondered if she could take a shot with her Lebel, but it would be exceedingly hard. And risky.

Then, they heard a splintering of wood from within the internal toilet door. Oh dear.

The four gendarmes, sans Heroux, moved in position in the lounge. The Outer toilet door started to creak and groan as if something was pushing it. Then the door splintered and broke in half.

Faecal surprise

Followed by a stench, that hit everyone like a wave; rotting sewerage, sweet and revolting.

The room was dark. There was a little bit of light outside coming through the windows. Enough to see a humanoid figure stagger in through the ruined door. All four gendarmes fired, and fired, and fired.

In the gun flashes, the horrid figure was illuminated; it looked like a misshapen man, completely covered in faeces, stumbling and lurching. But those lidless eyes were not human.

The bullets were working, however. The figure stumbled and reacted to being hit by the 8mm rounds. It collapsed in a big pile of poo, and then stopped moving. The gendarmes kept firing and firing until their guns just went click click.

The revolting stench was unbearable. Two of the gendarmes vomitted. Everyone rushed upstairs to the kitchen.

There were more noises of movement from the toilet. Another one?!!!

And another sacrifice

The group headed back to the Calomnie de Tunis newspaper's offices just as Bernard [Jamie] and Cooper [Ian] slumped down, drooling marmalade.

JK Simmons, the editor, summoned Wonton [Darryl], Jacob [Chris], and Miriam [Jeff] to his office. He had three new reporters, and demanded they joined the group: 

• Mezmer the Magnificent [Shane], a mystic from France
• Mario Berlusconi [Kevin], a journalist from Italy.
• Gazala Haddad [Richard], an explorer from Algiers. 

Introductions were made, but all eyes were on the 24-year-old Berber girl Gazala, for she was quite beautiful.

Umar al-Ghaffari

The new group headed back to Ahmed's Coffee House. Today's mission was to find Henri, a French gentleman and alleged friend of Safar, the murder victim. Safar's work colleague and friend Umar al-Ghaffari had told them about Henri.

Ahmed, the proprietor, didn't know of any specific Henri. And "well-dressed French man" did not narrow down his options.

Gazala was dressed in western apparel, similar to Miriam, but unlike Miriam, she wasn't white. So, the locals in the mostly-male coffee shop started making snide "slut", "whore" and "prostitute" comments. Gazala overheard this and she took umbrage, but that only inflamed things. She drew a knife and the other man did too. Ahmed, the proprietor, stepped in. The assailant yelled at her that he would tell her father about his reporter whore, ... or else he'd deal with her himself.

As this was cooling down, Umar, himself, entered the shop, saw the waiting party, and he promptly turned around and walked out. Gazala got up, and quickly followed him.

Gazala had a tracking-tailing skill, and she did it superbly. Umar wound his way into the heart of the Medina, and Gazala stayed on him like a bloodhound. And he never saw her. She spotted him enter an apartment, so she noted its location down, and headed back to the group at the coffee house.

While Gazala was away, Miriam used her underworld connections [skill] to find some "running boys" and sent them out for info on this elusive Henri.

A small boy returned took them all (including Gazala who had returned) to meet a guy who knew of a Henri. But that lead turned out futile.

It  was now dark, and the Medina was dangerous after dark, so they returned to the coffee house, clambered into the Citroen, and drove back to their flat (on the top floor of the paper's building).

This was the first night for the new staff, so they were awoken by the noisy generator as it spluttered to life for the one am power-cut

_______________________________________

The next day, they were in the editor's office and one of the receptionists came up. She had taken a telephone call from Inspector Heroux of the Tunis Gendarmes. (Like electricity, telephones were a recent arrival in Tunis, so every call was an event.) Heroux had an urgent message; a story for them.

The group took the Citroen down to the police station Commissariat de police de Tunis.

Inspector Heroux had some disturbing news: the bone dagger that was recovered from the scene of the crime the other day, was missing. It had disappeared from the evidence lock-up during the night. The door to this sealed room had been guarded all night. Two guards were assigned to it. The group interviewed them; they seemed trustworthy and competent. At no time was the guard post left empty.

Why had Heroux called reporters in for an obvious police procedural matter? Well, after the previous murder, Heroux knew the group had certain skills that he wanted to exploit. Plus they were ones who had found the dagger last time.

They were taken into the lock-up and shown the cabinet and shelf where the dagger was housed. Mezmer used his Mythos ability and sensed the presence of mythos - a mystical marker.

Tunis Police String

Unable to do any more here, they decided to revisit the scene of the murder. (But they didn't tell Heroux.)

The main door to the apartment was blocked by police string (it was 1930, and plastic tape had yet to be invented). They cut through the string, and went upstairs to the murder room on the top floor. The room was untouched.

Mezmer could still sense mythos traces here, so knelt down in the centre and began a sanctification of the area. This would take an hour.

Aleister Crowley

While waiting for Mezmer to work, Wonton went to the Library, Bibliotheque Nationale de Tunisie . This library had an excellent occult section. It was in a locked area and you needed a Restricted Access pass. Wonton did. Wonton found one of Aleister Crowley's books, the Book of the Dead in English and Latin. It talked about a ritual where the face was skinned. The raised corpse would do the bidding of the summoner.

Doctor Jacob and Gazala went to the hospital Hopital Militaire, which housed the morgue that the Tunis gendarmes used. Jacob posed as a doctor with his sexy nurse Gazala, and they got down to the morgue with no trouble. 

Safar's headless body (his head had been shot to pieces by Heroux) was in one of the body drawers. Jacob slid the drawer out, and checked the body thoroughly. The cause of death was a slot below the rib cage, and the entry hole matched the bone knife. The thrust was angled upwards to get the heart. Interestingly, it had been pushed in slowly and with a lot of force; in fact, so much force that it almost came out the back of the body.

Also, there was no sign of restraint cuts or bruises on the limbs of the body, so it did not look as if Safar was tied or chained down.

Mezmer finished his cleansing, when there was a loud bang in the room, and it felt like an earthquake. Miriam and Mario, on the floor below, saw the ceiling shake, and plaster dust rained down. They ran up.

Mezmer was there looking rather sheepish and covered in dust.

"I crossed the paths," he said.

Wonton, Jacob & Gazala returned then, and updated everyone on the findings.

Just then, a gendarme arrived; probably he'd heard the bang and felt the shake. He saw that the police string had been broken, and came up, gun drawn.

The group had to explain themselves, and he looked rather relieved.

"Heroux has been looking for you," he said. "There has been another murder. I take you there tout de suite."

He led them through the streets.

It was another three-storey apartment, like last time. The gendarmes were grouped outside the front door, with Inspector Heroux, and nervously watching. All had revolvers drawn.

"I called for renforts," he said. "I am worried there are problems like the last time."

The party didn't wait, they scurried up the stairs, led by Wonton, Mario and Miriam. 

On the top floor, Wonton could smell burning wax. He crept up the stairs when suddenly a figure lurched it him. Like last time, it was a naked bloodied body. The skin had been peeled off the face and as Wonton stared at the hideous and revolting visage, he collapsed on the floor as a bout of insanity overcame him. Such was the horror, he was struck blind.

The creature barrelled over Wonton, and ploughed into Mario, then both rolled down the stairs. Miriam deftly side-stepped the two. The figure was trying to claw at Mario and eat his face.

Miriam hurried upstairs, past the blind Wonton, and took the room in with a glance. There was another chalk pentagram drawn on the floor, with five black candles, one at each star point. Like last time, she moved them out of the star and blew them out.

Downstairs, at this moment, the creature collapsed onto Mario. Like last time, it was well and truly dead. Doctor Jacob took a closer look. Like last time, the cause of death was the stab under the ribs with the familiar bone dagger entry wound. They had a quick look through the apartment; there was no sign of the bone dagger.

Wonton's psychosomatic blindness lasted eight minutes. After that he was still shaken but physically okay.

When Heroux heard that the corpse was defeated, he and the other gendarmes rushed upstairs. When things had been secured, the brave Inspector was happy to pose next to it for the camera. Gazala took a series of heroic Heroux photographs.

The gendarmes were still finding out who owned this house. Locals nearby had said it was unoccupied. 

Also, no-one actually knew who the corpse was.

"Who reported this to the gendarmes?" asked Miriam

"Abdul Khan," came the reply. That was the Tunisian equivalent of "John Smith".

Welcome to Tunis 1930

 A new campaign began today. The genre is horror (Call of Cthulhu), and I am using the Powered by the Apocalypse system. The setting is 1930 Tunis, the capital of French Tunisia (as Tunisia was called then). 

The party :

• Cooper Chapman, Ian, Rogue from England.
• Miriam Little, Jeff, Journalist from France.
• Bernard Lapin, Jamie, Journalist from Tunis.
• Wonton Noodle, Darryl, Antiquarian from China.
• Jacob Palowski, Chris, Jewish Medic from Poland.

Kevin (Journalist), Richard (Explorer) and Shane (Mystic) were absent.

French Tunisia had a population of 2.1 million in 1930, and 400,000 lived in Tunis. 

Tunis has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate with hot dry prolonged summers and mild winters.  Winter is the wettest season of the year, when more than a third of the annual 470mm rainfall falls.  Winter temperatures vary 7 C to 16 C. Frosts are rare. In spring, rainfall declines by half. In summer, rain is almost completely absent and the sunlight is at a maximum, with temperatures in the high 20s and low 30s. June, July August temperatures have peaked at 47 C.

The population is mainly Berber Arab, but, in 1930, the French ruled it as the aristocracy and held all governmental, police and army positions. Languages are Arabic, Tunisian Arabic, Berber and French. 

The party worked for the newspaper Calomnie de Tunis ("Slander of Tunis"). The newspaper was based in a three storey building in the centre of Tunis on Avenue de Londres. (Bonus points if you can spot it on the map.)

The paper's staff numbered 22. 

On the ground floor were the heavy printing presses. On the first floor were the main offices. Down in the basement were the two bathroom facilities: Ladies' and Gents'. They had "starting-block" foot-rests next to a trench that is squatted over, and sluiced out with a bucket of water. This Chekov* trench ran down to the main sewer tunnel beneath Avenue de Londres.

The group rented the pokey flat on the top floor. This was very convenient, of course. Just a short walk downstairs and they were at work!

Cooper was a mechanic, from England, who worked in the printery and maintained the roof-top generator (mains power in Tunis in 1930 was not very reliable). 

Miriam and Bernard were reporters for the paper. Miriam from France and Bernard Tunis born. Doctor Palowski was the staff medic for the paper. Wonton Noodle was a researcher from China.

The Sacrifice

Citroen Type A

The Calomnie editor, JK Simmons, had heard about a murder that day in the Tunis Medina from his contact, Inspector Heroux of the Tunis Gendarmes. So, he sent the five down to get the story, in one of the paper's automobiles, a bright yellow 1921 Citroen Type A. The 10CV (18hp) car could only sit five, so Wonton stood on the running board.

When they arrived at the three storey narrow apartment, a shroud-covered body on a stretcher was being carried outside to a waiting ambulance cart. They introduced themselves to Inspector Heroux as Calomnie reporters, and then  managed to wheedle their way inside to get a closer look. The victim was an Arab gentleman named Safar el-Rahmani. When they pulled back the shroud, they saw that his face had been skinned; all that was left was fascia, muscle and tendons. But he'd been killed by a stab to the heart. The weapon had not been found.

Miriam flirted with one of the gendarmes and he admitted that there were candles and a pentagram involved. With this, the group were able to "sell their experience" in the mystic and arcane arts to Heroux and got invited to examine the scene of the crime "strictly unofficial of course - and no cameras."

Upstairs on the top storey, the murder room, the floor had been cleared and a pentagram had been drawn in black chalk on the floor. There were five fat black candles, one at each corner of the star.

Miriam's eagle eyes spotted what the gendarmes had missed: a bone knife in an niche in the wall. It had blood on it, and matched the corpse's chest hole. Heroux was impressed.

They found the mother of Safar (it was her apartment), and she, amid broken sobs, said that her son worked at docks for Abdul's Phosphate. His boss was Kameel al-Ayoub. Also, Safar's friend Umar al-Ghaffari visited him last night. She thought he was shifty.

While they were talking, they all heard a shout in the street. They looked out through the window. The corpse was now standing up, unaided, still covered by the shroud. Cooper rushed down the stairs closely followed by Heroux and a gendarme, then Bernard and Jacob. Miriam stayed at the window. Wonton ran upstairs. The room up there was already smoky, and the five candles on the floor had relit...

The two gendarmes and ambulance staff had backed away, in terror, from the standing corpse. Cooper approached it as the shroud slipped off. It moved and Cooper tried to grab it. It punched him and he fought back. Inspector Heroux had a revolver. He shot at the corpse's head and blew a hole in it, but it hardly reacted, and kept fighting Cooper, landing some good solid blows.

Upstairs, Wonton tried to put out the candles but the wicks kept relighting. But when he shifted a candle off the pentagram star point, it went out. He quickly did this to all five, and at that very moment, the corpse in the street just collapsed. Heroux emptied the rest of his revolver into its head.

Speed Graphics camera

Bernard had the one of the paper's camera with him, a 1925 Eastman Kodak Top-handle Speed Graphics, and he took a lot of photos during this altercation. Inspector Heroux noticed this and was worried about what narrative that the Calomnie de Tunis would try to present in tomorrow's news, and so threatened to smash the camera. But Bernard managed to assuage his fears and proposed a "Hero Cop" narrative: saving the Medina from a psycho madman (the "Heroux" surname helped too with catchy puns) - never mind that it was the murder victim that was the psycho madman.

"If you do not keep your word," Heroux threatened. "I will come visit you."

They went back to the Calomnie base and developed the photos. Bernard had some spectacular ones of the face-peeled corpse fighting Cooper. But he also had enough photographs to write a glowing "Hero Cop" story, as he had promised. Simmons, the shouty editor, was delighted: "We will run with this on the front page tomorrow."

It was late, so they retired to their flat. The noisy Chekov* generator ran during the night, but they were used to this, so hardly noticed. 

Cooper healed some of his injuries. [ You recover 1 hp per night. ]

________________________________________________

Jacob awoke with a headache and was spitting marmalade.

The group (sans Jacob) then headed to the docks to visit Abdul's Phosphate (Tunis is a major exporter of phosphate). Out in the harbour was moored the French navy battleship Bretagne and destroyer Le Terrible (Chekov* class). 

In Abdul's Phosphate, they located Kameel, Safar's boss. He was very helpful and was genuinely shocked to hear of the grisly murder. Safar's "shifty" friend Umar al-Ghaffari worked at the phosphate loading plant too, so they spoke to him. He said there was a suspicious French fellow called Henri who Safar recently became acquainted with.

Umar gave them the name of a coffee house where Safar frequented after work: Ahmed's Coffee House. The plan was to return there later in the day.

In the mean time, they explored the Medina, and its tight alleyways and little souks (shop or bazaar). Wonton's Antiquarian intuition found him an interesting candle souk. Inside, were the stumpy black candles like he had seen in Safar's room. This place was run by a French lady Marie-Pierre Pelletier. It had other occult paraphernalia and accoutrements

Miriam spotted a bone dagger, just like the murder weapon, on one of the shelves, but kept quiet about that. She discussed the candle business, and the occult with Mademoiselle Pelletier, and bought some nice scented candles as recommended.

Next stop was Ahmed's Coffee House.

______________________________________________________

* = Chekov's Gun is a dramatic principle that states that every element in a story must be necessary. "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."