The party, Mario [Kevin], Mezmer [Shane], Bernard [Jamie], Cooper [Ian], Wonton [Darryl], with the Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion) were licking their wounds after their victorious battle against the German LE impersonators. It was now about 4am.
The Sous-Lieutenant Mâchoire, commander of this group, was pleased.
The Germans had suffered 26 dead, and 13 were prisoners (8 of whom were wounded). These prisoners were all sat down and guarded by the Légion Étrangère. The LE had lost 15 men, and 10 were wounded. Bernard and Gazala were injured and unconscious too.
Miriam [Jeff] and Dr Jacob [Chris] woke up on the hand-cart. Dr Jacob sprang to action, and checked the bandaging of Bernard and Gazala. Gazala was right out of it, but she was marmalading, so the therapeutic effect of that would stave off any infection. Bernard would regain consciousness after an hour [on 1 hit point].
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| Private Schwarz |
The marquee tent was shot full of holes, and now empty of living men. So, it was searched. There were lots of Légion Étrangère papers in French, probably fake, plus a sheaf of papers in German. The LE had a soldier, Private Schwarz, who could speak and read German. There were papers here from SA (Sturmabteilung), and NSDAP (Nazi party) and was signed off by Martin Bormann. This was some archaeological extraction mission, looking for something "... von großer und mystischer Kraft" (of great and mystical power).
They cast their eyes on shaft in the floor.
"I bet there are German's down there," someone said.
From Mezmer's earlier reconnaissance, they knew that down the vertical shaft there was a single tunnel heading north for about 10m.
Cooper climbed down the ladder armed with a mirror (taken off the destroyed staff car). Down the passage, there were four armed Germans waiting.
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| F1 grenade |
An F1 grenade dropped two of them, and the other two stumbled out and surrendered.
However, down the end of the 10m passage, there was a new side passage off to the left. Mezmer did not see this when he was down here twelve hours earlier. It was probably covered by a stone slab there.
Cooper and some LE troops moved down to the side passage, and the mirror revealed a short passage, maybe five paces long, which then opened into a room. There were some more Germans in that room, hiding behind some slabs on the floor which looked like tombstones.
A grenade was tossed in. It exploded, but the targets were in cover. The Germans replied with a hail of bullets.
Suddenly, there was a hysterical screaming from that room. Two Germans came rushing out, faces white with terror, and surrendered meekly. From the room was a horrible wet tearing and ripping noise.
It then went quiet. Cooper waited five minutes and then snuck down, quiet as the grave. The walls here were spattered with blood and there were pieces of bodies scattered all about - enough to make up three men. There were two doors off this chamber.
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| sketched map |
One of the hysterical ones, when he had calmed down, was happy to draw a map.
In the short corridor, Mezmer did a Detect Mythos (under the guise pretending to be a priest and blessing the place) and it revealed Mythos was ... well ... everywhere.
They needed more information, and the German officers were not saying much, so Mezmer and two bully-boys took a bound German officer down to the blood room. The theory was that thy could to scare him into talking. When he arrived with the captive, there were two other LE soldiers already guarding here at this stage, plus Miriam and Mario.
Suddenly, the slab door on the southern wall fell down, and a creature, like a skinned man, thin and wiry, with long black talons for finger-nails, attacked. Everyone tried to flee, but they got stuck in the single-file narrow passage. In an attempt to buy some time, Mezmer rolled the bound guy towards the creature. It ripped him apart. He screamed and screamed until he stopped.
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| Chauchat-Ribeyrolles submachine gun |
While the thin creature was doing this, the log-jam began to clear, and the bully boys and LEs got out. Mezmer shot the creature with his Chauchat-Ribeyrolles (submachine gun). Miriam was there too with her own Chauchat and she helped. With both of them firing, it eventually collapsed.
Then they investigated the room more thoroughly. The three torn bodies were all missing hearts. The dead officer's chest had been ripped open, but the creature obviously did not have enough time to get his heat.
They beat a retreat, not feeling too safe in this room.
Wonton went down to do some research on the wall mythos hieroglyphs. The first of these slabs was by the base of the ladder, so it was a long way from the blood room, so was considered safe. Plus, two LE troops, Miriam and Mario were stationed up at the passage to the blood room in case any more of these nasty thin creatures appeared.
Suddenly, the power went out, and it was pitch black. Almost immediately, in the small chamber, there was the ominous sound of wet barefoot slapping noises. Everyone down there was completely disoriented, so fled in panic trying to work out which way to go, by touch. One LE soldier ran the wrong way, toward the blood room.
In the pitch black, panicking, Miriam fired her rifle to use the muzzle flash as a form of light. She happened to be pointing towards the ladder. But there was a hapless LE soldier right in front of her. He went down. She turned and fired behind her, before she remembered that the second LE soldier might be there. Too late, he was shot too, but he was already screaming hysterically. In the flash, she could see another creature, like the one earlier, tearing at his back. Wonton got to the ladder, then Mario then Miriam. The creature stayed to tear and render the two bodies.
When they got to ground-level, they checked the generator. It had run out of diesel. So they filled it up and restarted it.
With power restored, all the lights came on again. They snuck down the ladder, using mirrors, and eventually got back into the blood room. The creature had retreated, and the south door of the blood room had its slab back in. They begin to think it didn't like light. With this in mind, they stationed two LE men to stay next to the generator and ensure it did not stop.
_________________________
It was now dawn.
The Adjutant-Chef Garnier took the intact staff car and a squad of men, and headed for the main LE fort to get help. This round trip would take four hours.
So, Wonton had plenty of time to read the Mythos writings on the wall slabs. He got a straight five hours to do this (no more creature attacks, luckily) and got four of the panels analyzed. In a nutshell:
This place was "Tomb of the Dark One".Tanit - It allegedly contained "the Censer of Karnaim" which was a "wielder of undead".
- But to possess it would require "a great price".
- And "three words of power were needed to trigger it". One of the three was present here: Tanit.
After this time had passed, Capitain le Beau arrived, from the main LE fort (where the party did their fire-arms training), with trucks and two more platoons of LE troops, and Adjutant-Chef Garnier and the Mercedes staff car.
He brought some news: Sergent-Chef Branleur (the one who Mezmer had stolen the mythos Eskimo statue from - which they had yet to recover) had died. His health had deteriorated over the last two days, and he had died just this morning.
Le Beau declared that this archaeological site now belonged to the French Republic. He would take the German prisoners away. He also ordered all his men out, and loaded them in to his own trucks plus the German heavy truck. Since the party's tour of duty with Légion Étrangère was considered over, this would be a good place to leave them.
Considering the group had professed so-called archeological skills and much-vaunted journalistic skills, he was happy to let them keep exploring and researching. Any valuable items must be turned over, and they would be searched. The party wasn't particularly forth-coming about the creature or danger down in the tunnels, so he didn't know about that.
He would also send a truck with supplies each three days.
Among the German supplies, Bernard (now on 2 hp) found some photographic developing gear and an enlarger. This meant that Bernard could take pictures of the wall slabs below, print them, and that would mean that Wonton could safely work on the prints upstairs.
So Wonton, Mario, Bernard, Cooper, Miriam went below again to scout out the rooms.
Mezmer was upstairs, asleep on one of the bunks in the marquee.
In the blood room, Cooper threw a shoe (with foot still in it) at the south door. It teetered a bit, then fell down with a stony crunch.
Then, quick as a cut snake, another creature rushed out. Like the first, it was a thin, wiry, skinned man with long black talons.
They all fled, out of the room and down the passage to the ladder. Mario was at the back this time. The creature was supernaturally fast. It caught up to Mario and clawed at him. Bernard used the bright flash from the camera, and that slowed it for a bit.
Mario spun and tried to fight it. Miriam had her rifle too. And Cooper. Mario got a few hits into it, and Miriam fired. Firing into melee combat is not a good idea, so Mario took bullet damage too. It clawed again and he went down. Then it stayed with him, clawing and biting. Miriam shot at it, and eventually, after a lot of shooting, it was killed. But poor Mario was well-dead by now.
The slab door was closed again (!)
But they needed photos of these slabs, so Bernard had his camera and took a pic of the hieroglyphs on every slab in this room (six).
They then headed back to get Wonton who was still cowering up the ladder.
But as they approached the base of the ladder, something was amiss. Mario's horribly torn (and bullet-ridden) body had been left at the base of the ladder, awaiting removal. But, he was now sitting up. Oh dear.
His clawed head slowly turned to face them, dead eyes staring at them, then he slowly got to his feet, arms at his side. On his hands were ugly black talons. He suddenly sprang at them, half running, half crawling.
A few shots got into him, but then he was on Miriam. Clawing and biting. Cooper shot. Miriam fought, Bernard helped. But the combined force of talons and shooting into combat, Miriam was ripped apart and she died. Cooper and Bernard kept shooting, and eventually, Mario fell.
This time they decapitated him. Then they decapitated Miriam just to be sure.
An expensive campaign.
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