These Strange Times

 

Present – Mesmer (Shane), Bernard (Jamie), Wonton (Darryl), Jacob (Chris), Gazala (Richard),

Jean (Jeff), Hubert aka Lard-arse (Kevin)

Marmalading – Fleur (Steven), Cooper (Ian)

Dearest mother. 

Father, has not yet replied to my recent correspondence. I fear he still is unforgiving in his heart for me not marrying Hussain and choosing to leave.

These are indeed strange times. I find myself craving the company of Fleur, my one and only
female travelling companion. Over recent times she has been struck down with marmalade
pouring from her mouth. I watch from a distance and see her ample breast swelling with each
breath and cannot help but feel troubled.

Such a feeling is not helped by it becoming clearer by the day that men – most men, are either cowards or violent fools. More on that later.

Perhaps the Chinese are different. I travel with an unusual and somewhat antagonistic and argumentative man called Wonton, who hails from a place called Peking. Whilst an unusual and little man, he is certainly not a fool and whilst he fails to engage in any form of physical labour, he appears to not be a coward; certainly, compared to the Frenchmen I travel with.

Some most unusual things are occurring. Cloves, caraway and harissa are appearing everywhere. In our clothes, our bags and our beds. This, we speculate, seems to be coming from the censer we recovered from Herschel. Wonton, whom I have some reluctant respect for, thinks that cloves and caraway should be burnt in the censer and that indeed Herschel was burning these to summon the strange creature I wrote to father about; or perhaps the ghouls.

Cloves, caraway and the censer

With Gunter's death, a new man has joined us. He is a sailor called Jean Martineau. He has done nothing to restore my faith in the French. I admit he is handy with a sub machine gun but he has the French flair for cowardice and as you will hear later, ran from a battle and left his German comrade to die.

I must say mother, the French cowardice and the German tendency for rash violence, does not bode well for those countries.

After much debate and also discussion on something called the golden rivet (which the fat German Hubert was fascinated by and the new man Jean looked uncomfortable with) we decided to firstly search Herschel's compound and then go to his mansion (which we had forgotten about for a time).

But first another night's sleep. Given these strange occurrences we set watches and during the second (Bernard, Jacob and Jean) Bernard and Jean were strangely affected with eyes rolling back and seeing ghoul like creatures attacking them. This occurred exactly at midnight. 

Wonton and Mesmer speculate that these dreams are being caused by the skeleton of a baby that we are carrying in an ammunition box. This skeleton apparently has something to do with Baal and we have been carrying it since we discovered it in the desert some months ago. I don’t know why we don’t just bury it and move on but that seems an unpopular suggestion. 

Rather it has now been decided that both the baby and the censer need to be encased in silver. Where we get that from is anyone's guess but Heroux, captain of the local constabulary, is going to look.

Mesmer is a strange man. He likes to take his clothes off and run around fully naked. If I were a man and had such a small member I would not choose to do so however he seems completely comfortable in all his inadequacies.

Morning dawns and we eventually get on our way with our Mercedes driven by Private Berenger. 

Mesmer, Bernard and I are in the back. This proves to be a mistake (we forgot the baby was in the boot) and Mesmer and I became "possessed" and with the whites of our eyes rolling back we tried to cut our way to the boot of the car. I awoke with blood in my hair but strangely no cut nor sore head.

"Qui m'a fait ça?" I asked but no one seemed to what to own up which in itself made me suspect it was one of the Frenchmen.

Arriving at the compound (with everyone careful not to be in the back seat again) we found it occupied with Légion étrangère soldiers. 

"We'd better search it anyway" piped up Bernard. 

"Especially where the fire was" squeaked Hubert through a mouthful of ham.

In the burnt-out building Wonton suddenly proclaims "Miffos – I mell it below. We must detwoy da pentagrams" 

We search, kicking away burnt debris and discover a large hole in the floor where the fire has clearly caused damage. 

"Lower me down" I ask Jean – "Bien sur madame" as he ties a rope around me. Gently lowering me into the darkness the rope must have hurt his delicate hands, and he dropped me. 

"It broke" he declared. 7 points of damage and a bruised ego I put that slight away for another time. The others come down on a tied rope

A pentagram is found in the centre of the room which Wonton takes to with his tools. Two hours later it is destroyed.

Hershel's mansion

Now to Herschel's mansion ….

We drive into the courtyard of the very respectable mansion. "We have been here before" says Bernard. 

"We have" says Mesmer – "after the auction for the mythos items" 

"He stole ours from the bank vault – I wonder of my boots and wedding gown are here" I comment.

"An don for ge' those sunken 'edds" Wonton chips in. 

"Oh yes I forgot about those" says Mesmer.

"We all did" Bernard reflects quietly.

"No Mythos here" chime in Mesmer, Wonton and Jacob at once. 

"Mes amis, je dois être en désaccord!" (I must disagree) says Bernard strangely contradicting the others [Bernard has a 1 Mythos skill and rolled a 1 – everyone else failed]

"We carn get it wong at times" says Wonton "what do you sense?"

"This place is not as it seems – its creepy and gloomy". 

"We can all see its gloomy" says Jacob "it is an overcast day"

Maid Maria

To the front door strides the German, Hubert, knocking loudly. 

"I guess we are going in the subtle way then" Mesmer mutters.

A lovely but demur French maid opens the door who we later find out is called Maria.

Hubert is rather taken and behaves disgustingly, suggesting various inappropriate acts to Maria. It is at that point that I wish the fat German dead.

I step in and using my considerable charm to convince Maria we are here to see Herschel's "wife" Fraulein Blucher. She lets us in but we must leave our weapons at the door. We strangely oblige however, mother, I secretly took my knife and revolver. 

Maria is strangely quiet and I would have to describe her as soulless – Herbert may as well have been making his lewd suggestions to a rubber dummy – if there were such things.

Fraulein Blucher

We are shown to a rather luxurious waiting room and shortly after a stern but significantly more attractive Fraulein Blucher arrives.

After idle chit chat we eventually convince her to show us Herschel's study (we used the Charm skill with her also plus a little luck). 

Wonton, Mesmer and I go upstairs and are shown the study. There are pentagrams all over the walls and Mesmer detects mythos from a locked drawer.

It would seem subtlety is over and Wonton starts to remove the pentagrams. When Fraulein Blucher protests loudly and calls for help I reluctantly knock her out with the hilt of my knife. 

"Did you have to?!" chimes Mezmer rolling his eyes; "qu'est-ce que tu veux que je fasse d'autre putain" (what else would you have me fucking do) I shout back.

The sound of running footsteps approach and we see two men. 

"I told you; we are in trouble now" smirks Mezmer nervously. 

"Stop or Fraulein dies!" I call out loudly whilst pointing a revolver at them. 

Wonton usefully continues to remove pentagrams whilst it takes some effort to convince Mezmer to stop trying to open the drawer and tie up Fraulein Blucher.

The men stop and shortly thereafter there is noise from below and Jean, who heard the commotion, yells to the two men to surrender. They turn and fire their pistols at Jean, one hitting for 12 damage (a major wound but fortunately Jean has 15 hit points). The others pistol jams (a fumble)

I shoot into their back with success doing 10 damage to one (a lucky shot as I only have a 4 skill
with a pistol)

Bernard arrives and calls for the men's surrender. They reluctantly drop their weapons and raise
their hands. Jean rushes up and kicks the pistols down the stairs and ties them up. They are
dragged to a room and knocked out. "That should buy us some time says" Jean. 

"Not enough" I say as I slit their throats – two less German's in this world. Or maybe they were French. Too late now.

We search the upper and lower floors. I see Maria is tied and each time Hubert walks past he grins and his tongue protrudes from his mouth. "Do not touch her" I say to Hubert, "or I will cut you where you least want to be cut"

"Where is Mezmer?" Jacob asks as he collapses with marmalade pouring out his mouth. 

"Good point where is he" asks Bernard. A triumphant yell from upstairs "ha got it" and Mezmer opens
the locked draw. A skeletal left hand and the three shrunken heads [ that Herschel won at the auction ]. Reeking of Mythos.

"I will take those" Mesmer says popping them into his rucksack.

In the kitchen we see a staircase down. The door outside is open with the other servants clearly
escaping. Boldly Hubert strides down he stairs. He goes through a wave of cold however has
plenty of installation to avoid any ill effect. The kitchen cellar is full of wine barrels and down the
far end another staircase down. 

"I'm going down" pronounces Hubert. 

"Slow down fat boy" says Bernard.

Mesmer, at this point, can hear muttering from his back pack. Cautiously opening it, he sees the three shrunken skulls chanting. As he picks them up they stop. 

"I'd keep an eye on those" states Wonton "

"Thanks" says Mesmer glumly "so helpful" .

So down we descend. I'm fourth and so only hear the hell that breaks out. Machine gun fire, screaming, Jean running like the french coward he is – up the stairs and through the kitchen and out the door. Bernard battling his way up the stairs hastily – "I'm not staying down there" he murmurs. 

"What was it?" I ask. 

"I don’t know proclaims" Bernard "but Hubert is down".

"So why didn’t you stay and help?" I ask – silence.

At this point, mother, I reflect back and ask myself - am I sad the fat German is dead? No. He
was a grubby, violent and foolish man and got what he deserved.

"Throw some grenades down" Wonton and Bernard say in unison. Mesmer and I look at each
other and shake our heads. We then proceed to drop several grenades. 

"What if Hubert is alive?" chimes in Bernard helpfully. 

"You told us he was dead" says Mezmer. 

"Too bad" I think.

"We should wait for Jean" muses Bernard while at the same time we hear Hubert's voice "help
me please" ringing from below. 

"You told us he was dead" says Mesmer. 

"Too bad" I think. 

"He is – or was!" defends Bernard.

We wait, guns trained on the stairs. Minutes pass and we are reminded of Hubert as his voice
rings out from the darkness below. Eventually Jean returns – "a new sailors suit required for him
by the smell of it" whispers Wonton.

"What are you waiting for?" Jean asks. 

"You or more accurately your sub machine gun" we all respond. "What's that smell?"

More grenades are tossed down and Jean descends followed by Mesmer and then the terrified
Bernard.

The sound of machine gun fire erupts and then silence. 

"Nous l'avons tué!" says Jean eventually. (We killed him)

We all descend into the gloom.

"What was it?" I ask. 

"One of those tentacled creatures like we saw at the Saint Croix church, but smaller.  Hubert's head was embedded in it, calling pathetically". 

"You told us he was dead" says Mesmer. 

"Too bad" I think. 

"He is now" proclaims Bernard……

Mother, I am not sad for the loss of Hubert and my faith in men is being rapidly eroded. They are
either cowards aka Bernard and Jean or violent and thoughtless aka Gunter and Hubert. Mesmer is french but not so much of a coward. He does however like to undress and roam naked – perverse. Strangely I can accept that better than these other traits.

I long for Fleur's company and the winds of the desert.

Your loyal daughter

Gazala