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| Shoggoth |
Mezmer [Shane], Gazala [Richard], Cooper [Ian], Jacob [Chris], Fleur [Steven], Mario [Kevin] were at the Tunis quarry, at the site of the large explosion (from the dynamite bunker) that had destroyed the creature tracking Mezmer's goluz medallion. Mezmer had been wearing the amulet long enough now that he suddenly knew the name of this creature. It was a
shoggoth [
this is a cursed word].
Bernard had been concussed by the blast and was consequently (and narratively) marmalading.
Back in their apartment, on the top floor of Calomnie de Tunis, the two marmaladers, Miriam [Jeff] and Wonton [Darryl], awoke with a start from their restless haunted sleeps. They sat up in their beds and looked around.
Back at the quarry, Inspector Heroux, eight gendarmes and a squad of twelve Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion) had arrived. He assessed the situation and then congratulated everyone with glowing praise. And then mentioned that the firearms training he had arranged for them would begin tomorrow.
"A truck will pick you up at your newspaper at 8am tomorrow morning," he said.
________________________
The next morning, they bundled into the truck, suitably attired for desert action. Gazala and Fleur, the pretty ones, rode shotgun next to Abdul the Arab driver. Everyone else got the uncomfortable benches in the back of the truck under a canvas tarpaulin. There was a little connecting hatch between the driver's compartment and the back, so they could all chat to each other.
Not wanting to leave the marmalading Bernard back at the paper, they placed him on a stretcher and it rode on the floor between their feet.
The day was sunny and clear, and they headed out of Tunis towards the west. It was rich farmland at first as they travelled west. Then they turned south. It got drier and drier, and after three hours, they were travelling in the desert. The roads became less and less trafficked, and they ended up on a dusty shingle road.
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| Sandstorm |
About noon, the driver pulled off the road and stopped the truck. There wasn't a breath of air, and it was completely quiet. He gestured forward. There was a ominous towering wave of brown roiling clouds which covered the whole horizon, creeping slowly towards them from the south, beautiful and dark.
"Sand storm," he said in Arabic. "We can not drive in this."
Everyone got busy tying down the canvas extra tight and trying to block every little hole. Then they all secured themselves inside, and watched out through the windscreen, fascinated but nervous.
The storm hit like a hammer. The whole truck jolted on its suspension, and everyone got violently shaken about. The wind outside was literally screaming. Small streams of sand and grit made its way inside.
The screaming and the shaking lasted for about half an hour, and then suddenly, as quick as it started, it was gone. And all was quiet and still outside. But the road was completely buried.
"We must be careful to drive else we get bogged" said the driver.
So, he sent out two on foot, Gazala and Cooper, with a pole each, so they could feel the road. He drove along slowly behind.
They didn't make much ground at this rate. Late afternoon, they passed a side road which headed to the right (west). Down this road, in the distance, there were a few white buildings and some trees.
They carried on until dark and then the truck pulled over, and they set a watch for the night.
About 1 am, they saw headlights down the road, from behind them. Three vehicles approached. Gazala was on watch with Miriam and Wonton. She snuck out into the darkness.
The convoy came close. It was a Mercedes car. Followed by two trucks. The commander of this convoy, flanked by some soldiers, came close. He spoke French but he had a strong German accent. He said the soldiers, a platoon (about 35), were Légion Étrangère but the party wasn't so sure. This convoy had used the tracks of the party's truck to navigate the sand-covered road.
Since the road ahead was not driveable, this convoy stopped just down the road from the party for the rest of the night.
________________________________________
There was a strong wind during the rest of the night, and in the morning it had conveniently cleared the road. While the party was having breakfast, the other group left and drove off.
Abdul tried to start the truck. The engine turned over a few times. Then he stopped trying and pointed to the dash. The fuel gauge was on "E". He got out and checked. There was a neat hole drilled in the tank and all the diesel had drained away.
"Surely you have spare jerry-can?" someone said.
"Uh yes," said Abdul, looking guilty. "We have two."
Sure enough, there were two 20L jerry-cans under the truck deck. They hauled them out and unscrewed them. Yes they were full. But not diesel; full of water.
They guessed that someone, possibly Abdul, had stolen the diesel; weeks ago, no doubt.
[Today is the day for the big drive. We must fill our jerry-cans. The sergeant says to fill them with diesel, but you can fill yours with water. And he will never know.]
They now had a big decision. They were a large group of nine plus Abdul. They had maybe four hours of water in this heat, which could be stretched to 8. (The 40L of water in the diesel cans was tainted with traces of poisonous diesel. Dr Jacob deliberately tipped them out to avoid temptation.) This road only had one or two cars a day tops. So:
- Pressing on to the fort on foot. Abdul guessed would take two days and nights of walking, so that option was right out.
- Heading back to the oasis on foot would take three hours.
- Alternatively they could risk waiting here (admittedly, in the shade of the truck) in the hope a vehicle would pass.
So, they left Abdul in the truck with half their water, and then all headed to the oasis, with Bernard (and his marmalade) on the stretcher. If Abdul got some help, he could head back and collect them.
They could see the oasis in the distance, and the ground wasn't too difficult, so they went direct, hoping it would shave some time off. In the end it did take three hours.
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| Date palm |
As they approached the oasis, they saw it in its grandeur. It was a beautiful walled compound, 30 paces by 50, with an arched gateway entrance, many fruit trees around a large central tiled pool, and a pretty rock feature with water running down. All the walls were bright and white-washed.
There were goats and chickens running around. The nearby desert had been irrigated and grew olives, date palms and grass.
"Welcome welcome to my humble home. I am Afar al-Hussain," said a bearded man in white robes.
They were welcomed inside by him, his wife Fatima, and three daughters (Safiya, Naseeba, and Karima), and served delicious drinks and food (no alcohol, of course). The family rarely got visitors, so they were treated royally.
Afar had petrol here, but, sadly, no diesel.
But he did have a son called Amer who had a car, a brand new Citroen Type A. He was in Tunis today, but he would be back this afternoon. So, they were all very welcome to stay here until then, and Amer could drive them anywhere they wished to go.
Sure enough, just before dark, a red Citroen arrived and the son got out. The father spoke to the boy who went off to refuel the car. It was noticed that Amer walked very jerkily, like suffering cerebral palsy. Gazala thought he moved like a marionette puppet on strings.
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| Citroen Type A |
The Citroen Type A only holds five. Amer drove. Mario, Mezmer, Miriam and Fleur sat inside. Bernard, on stretcher, was strapped long-ways to the roof. And Gazala, Wonton, Cooper and Jacob stood on the running boards. By the time this delicate loading had been completed, the sun had set.
With all this added weight, the poor 18hp car drove very low on its suspension. Amer drove slowly out the arched gate, careful not to shake off the outside passengers. It was a good thing he did.
Suddenly, Mario was dragged up out of his seat and pushed over into the back seat onto the surprised Mezmer, Miriam and Fleur's laps. They only had enough time to shriek before they, too, were all then pushed up the back seat and forcible squashed into the rear window compartment against the glass. They were all yelling and screaming, so Amer managed to slam on the car brakes at this point. Of those outside, Gazala and Cooper were at the front of the running board, they were pushed off backwards. Bernard, on the stretcher, was pushed off the back of the car.
Amer carefully reversed back through the gateway. Mario & Co untangled themselves, and climbed out of the car. They picked up Bernard and put him safely to one side.
It seemed that there was an invisible barrier across the gateway. The barrier didn't affect the car, so Mario was pushed into the back-seat because the car was moving through the barrier. And the three in the back were likewise affected. They dreaded to think what would have happened had Amer not stopped. The barrier didn't affect Amer.
"Welcome welcome to my humble home. I am Afar al-Hussain," said a bearded man in white robes.
Afar didn't recognize them. It was as if they never met.
"Oh! You are injured," he said. They were cut and bruised from their close shave. "Come come, we tend you."
Wonton frowned, and pushed against the invisible barrier. It felt like solid rubber
"Welcome welcome to my humble home. I am Afar al-Hussain," said a bearded man in white robes. "Oh! You are inj..."
Cooper pushed on it.
"Welcome welcome to my humble home. I am Afar al-Hussain," said a bearded man in white robes. "Oh! You are injured. Come come, we tend you."
It seemed every time they pushed the barrier, the place would "reset". No object or person or animal would actually change positions, just that the occupants' minds would reset, and they would forget everything that happened.
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| Bronze Goat Head |
The barrier extended above the compound wall and followed the wall its entire length. There was a similar barrier on the other three walls of the compound square. So, it seemed the party was trapped.
Further investigation revealed a bronze goat head on top of the archway facing inwards. Mezmer cast a Detect Mythos and they were surrounded in mythos. No surprises there.
The archway entrance was on the east wall. On the west wall, mid wall, was a bronze snake head. On the north wall was a stone jackal head, and on the south a stone ram's head. All the heads faced inwards.
Mezmer tried a Sanctify ceremony targeting the goat head. After the hour, this only caused the goat head to shine, like a beacon, but from the back of it. The bright light only shone outward.
Mezmer noticed that, during the Sanctify, he briefly saw the pool turn dark and foul and the building walls drab. Just a short flash; he blinked and it was gone.
Hearing this, Cooper went for a swim in the pool, fully immersed underwater. When he lifted his head out of the water he recoiled in horror. He was swimming in sewage, and the compound and buildings were no longer pristine white and clean, but were instead dull weathered grey and dilapidated. The fountains that the party had used to fill their canteens and water bottles were dribbling green slime. And this filth was in their containers too. The family looked okay, except for Amer, who looked rather pale, skeletal and he was missing a jaw ... and both his arms. No-one else in the group could see any of this. No-one else was brave enough to swim - or they didn't believe Cooper.
Cooper found that if he then bounced off the barrier, the "reset" would reset the pool and the buildings too, back to clean water and newly white-washed buildings.
The Afar and his family retired for the night.
The party stayed up and kept experimenting and trying various things with the wall barriers and the pool.
Mezmer performed a Sanctify on the central pool itself. Half way through the Sanctify's hour, the water started to bubble and then boil, and then became a rolling boil (yes, it was hot too). After the ceremony's hour, the boiling suddenly stopped and the whole thing turned to sludge (now, it was cool again). But the whole group could see the wasted effect now: the ruined buildings and dead trees and all.
Outside the arched gate, and down the road a short distance, Amer's car appeared. But it was old and rusted. It was on its side, and the back window was smashed out.
They rushed into Afar and his wife's bedroom. It was now a decrepit room with rotting furnishings and filled with decay and filth. The two were sleeping, in rags, on a pile of broken bricks under frayed sheets. They woke Afar up, and he looked around, eyes wide in terror, horror and despair.
"Who are you? What happened?" he cried, sobbing. "What have you done?! Was this you?"
Wailing, poor Afar stumbled outside. He got a few steps across the yard towards the gate when one of his legs just stopped. He tripped and collapsed, crawled a bit, then fell face forward, and died before their eyes. And then they watched in horror as his body wasted away, as if aging in rapid time, rotting quickly, down to a skeleton.
His wife Fatima arrived about then. She screamed a howl of anguish, and stumbled over to his body. But she, too, collapsed, and died before their eyes.
Next followed the two elder daughters, Safiya and Naseeba. They, too, suffered a similar fate, and died next to the parents. But Karima, the youngest daughter calmly walked over to the group. She was no longer seven years old, as before. She was now a woman, 18 or 19.
She seemed to take everything in with eyes too wise for her age. She calmly and sadly said in Arabic "Twelve years ago, the farm was failing and the oasis was drying up. A lady traveller visited one night who claimed she could do magic. Dad called her a jiniri. A bargain was agreed. In exchange for making the oasis fruitful, my father had to give me to the jiniri as payment after one year and one day. Dad naively accepted not believing it would happen. But, sure enough, the water came back, and the oasis flourished, rich and beautiful. Then we started to get worried as the time ran out."
"My father sought help from those in the know in Tunis, and they instructed him to placed the blessed animal heads on the four walls to ward the jiniri, but I do not think that it worked. On the very night that the deal expired, Amer was leaving in his brand new car. That barrier suddenly came up, and he died when he drove through it. He was crushed and minced because his body was forced back through the car's back window. The car crashed and burned down the road a bit."
"We are all trapped by the barriers. We live our lives in a short loop which begins each day, unless the barrier is touched. I am trapped in the young body, but now 11 years older. But I do not reset - I think because I was the payment."
Gazala bounced off the barrier. There was no reset this time.
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| Stone Ram Head |
"Your magic has stopped the loop, maybe?"
As Karima watched them, they tried to smash the stone ram head. There were a good set of tools at the oasis, even if a little rusty, so they got hammers and crowbars. But the stone was strong, and the tools made no impact even when wielded by the muscled Cooper. He did notice that the bangs sounded metallic (rather than metal on stone).
The group could unbolt the animal heads and prise them off, but they could not rotate them, nor move them outwards. They dug a hole in the ground at the base of the wall by the ram head. Then they put wood (from the ruined building frames) in the hole and ignited it with petrol to get a nice hot base of charcoal. They took the ram head off the wall, and dropped it in the pit, then got it glowing hot. Then Cooper tried shooting it. And banging it with the hammers. But even that didn't mark it.
