The End?

Hubert collapsed, drooling marmalade. The others, Bernard [Jamie], Jacob [Chris], Cooper [Ian], Fleur [Steven], Gunter [Jeff], Wonton [Darryl], Gazala [Richard] and Mezmer [Shane] quietly rolled his limp body to the side.  

Ju 31

They had a long discussion about what to do with the granite slabs (with the power words filled with silver) in the crashed Junkers 31's fuselage. They wanted to dump them in deep water, but that would have to wait until the boat arrived tomorrow.

Cooper went off to repair the generator. That would allow the lighthouse lamp to at least shine again.

First, they picked up the Tanit granite slab. Weighing 200kg, everyone had to help (30kg each). They walked it 600m over rough terrain to the lighthouse, into the (bullet-ridden) kitchen, and propped it up against the bench.  Next, they shifted the Hammon slab to the kitchen too. This took two exhausting hours.

Finally they returned to shift the Baal slab. But when they lifted it, they could see beneath it, at the centre, there was a skeleton of a baby - with a long skull with three eyes. It was lying in a convenient indentation of the fuselage. Oh dear 1.

So, they carefully laid the slab down again without disturbing anything. And then had a long discussion about what to do.

There was a metal tool-box in the wrecked plane which would fit the skeleton. So, they had an idea to put the baby skeleton into it, and then to melt the remaining 500g of silver and use that to seal the box.

So, they re-melted the silver with the blow-torch in the iron pot. Gunter then held the pot with the thick oven gloves. Next, Bernard, Jacob, Wonton, Reinhold, Mezmer, and Gazala lifted the slab. Fleur, wearing aviator gloves found in the plane, quietly and carefully lifted the skeleton and placed it delicately into the tool box, and slammed it closed. Gunter quickly poured the molten silver to seal the lid-edge and the hinges.

Fleur said she felt all tingly and ALIVE, so Wonton and Mezmer both cast Detect Mythos on her. She showed up as mythos. Oh dear 2.

"Je peux panser tes blessures !" she exclaimed (I can cure your wounds). There were still party members (Cooper, Hubert, and Mezmer) with wounds from the ghouls and abstract bullet wounds. Still pretty fresh.

Mezmer refused to be touched. The badly-wounded Hubert was lying there marmalading, so he was enthusiastically volunteered and Fleur touched him. [ Our RP-ing Social Contract forbids the DM from harming or imperilling marmalading characters (unless there is a TPK - Total Party Kill). But there is no rule against player characters from killing or cursing marmaladers, or using them as guinea pigs. ] Fleur's touch was, indeed, some kind of magical healing. Her touch fixed a substantial bit of Hubert's damage. They summoned Cooper, he took a break from fixing the generator, and Fleur healed some of his wounds too. 

Mezmer still maintained that this can't be good.

Now that Cooper was here, they lugged the Baal slab to the kitchen too, and propped it up like the others. They placed the toolbox under it, about centre, and hoped that would be safe.

Cooper returned to the generator and spent the remaining hour of the day trying to fix it. But the ghoul had made a good job of breaking things and the generator would not start. So, there would be no E6416 light from this lighthouse tonight either. It was overcast and drizzly too. Oh dear 3.

They set watches all night. The night was particularly dark.

Nothing happened.

__________________

The fisherman was expected to return this day at noon. So, they got up bright and early and lugged the three slabs, in the same order, down to the jetty. The toolbox was tied to the Baal slab.

They wondered about the gem in skull, and whether it would point at anything. Dr Jacob put on the medallion and held the skull with the gem.  There was no response; the gem did not move.

Cooper had another go with the generator while they were waiting for the boat. And, as luck would have it, he got it fixed. He did a test run, and the lighthouse light shone clear and true. He checked the timing mechanism, and it was sound; E6416 would shine tonight. There was enough diesel to last eighteen days, but that was the Tunis Admiralty's responsibility; they would need to replace the staff too.

Fleur started to go strange, and churlish. And tried to block them moving the slabs. Oh dear 4.

They were expecting this, so she was quickly overpowered and tied up.

Mezmer took a big risk and cast the Sanctify ritual on Fleur herself. He knew that this was highly dangerous. This ritual was not designed to be done on people. It could kill her, and that could cause a mythos cascade which meant Mezmer could die too. After the hour and after his little dance, Fleur jerked about a bit and screamed, but there was no change.

At noon, right on time, Pedro arrived in his little boat. Seeing the strange slabs waiting on the jetty, he point-blank refused to take them on board. They offered him more money, but he said no way. So they got out their submachine guns. He was glad to help then.

The boat could only take one slab at a time. So, they took the Tanit slab first, motored out to sea for half an hour, and simply dropped it over the side. The water was 12 metres deep here.

Next they repeated this trick with the Hammon slab, out to a different area of deep water.

Finally, they took the Baal slab out to a third separate area. It had the tool-box still secured with rope, and they dropped it over the side too. 

But, it floated - the 200kg granite slab floated. Oh dear 5.

Gazala got out her long knife, reached out, and cut the rope. The mighty slab quickly sank, but the metal toolbox floated, strangely buoyant. So, they retrieved that and brought it back to the jetty.

Unsure what to do, they all boarded the boat and headed back to Njila. 

Here, they paid off Pedro, told him to tell the authorities to re-staff the lighthouse. Then, they climbed back in their Mercedes, placed the bound Fleur and toolbox in the boot, and headed back to Tunis.

As they approached the city (NW), they passed a lot of traffic, and there were three columns of dirty black smoke coming from the city. One from the far side (south east), one central, and one about a kilometre away.

Hotchkiss Mle 1914

A group of 16 Légion Étrangère (French Foreign Legion) soldiers had put a road-block across the main road and were turning vehicles around. They had a Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun set up and entrenched, but it was facing to the city.

The exhausted Sergent spoke to the party.

"Vous devez aller dans l'autre sens," he said. "Vous ne pouvez pas entrer dans la ville." (turn around, go back, you can't enter the city)

Just then four unnatural creatures emerged from behind a building down the road, and they started to amble and then sprint towards the soldiers. They were ghouls dressed in civilian attire. 

The soldiers on the heavy machine gun opened fire. It soon brought the ghouls down.

================  TO BE CONTINUED  =================

We are taking a break for a while.